A Stockingful of Joy (37 page)

She searched for the right words, but could only say, "Thank you." She paused, then added, "For everything you did. The cabinet, the soup, the ice, and the bed. The shoulder to cry on. I'm not normally like that. I… well, I haven't been very—You and I are usually not—"

"I know. You don't have to say it, Nellibelle."

She wanted to tell him how very much she hated that name, but she just couldn't bring herself to destroy this moment.

"When we're around each other, it's almost like we're in the ring together. You come out punching."

She was quiet for a second, then had to admit, "I do, don't I?"

"Yeah, you do."

"But you don't make it easy on me." She sat up straighter and saw him break into a smile.

"No. I don't."

She laughed then, too. "I think that's the first thing you and I have agreed on since—" She cut off her words. It would be a mistake to mention that horrible dinner together and what happened afterward.

He knew exactly what she meant. She could see it on his face. She felt her own flood with color.

He didn't speak, thank God. Didn't tease or give her a knowing smile. He just nodded.

She stared at her hands, folded in her lap. Then she gave him a direct look. "Thank you, again. For all you did for me tonight."

"Sure. It was nothing." He turned and left the room.

She flopped back on the bed with a huge sigh. She stared up at the dark ceiling. He was a nice man. Under all that bluster and cockiness, he was a good person. Kind. He loved his grandmother. He had honor and scruples, even when he was ten. Who would have thought it?

The lamp went out, and she could hear him settle in on the sofa. She reached over and turned down the gas lamp. Then she lay there.

It was almost too quiet. She could hear nothing but her own heartbeat, which sped up. He was there, just around the corner. And she was here, sleeping in his bed. She turned on her side, then sat up and adjusted the ice and drew the covers over her.

Her head sank into his feather pillow. She turned her face into it and breathed in. Conn. It smelled masculine. She turned and grabbed the other pillow, hugging it to her chest, and she curled onto her side, then closed her eyes.

"Nellibelle?"

She resisted the urge to moo. She flopped over on her back. "Yes?"

"Don't think I'm some kind of hero or anything."

What was this all about? "Why not?"

He was quiet.

Of course he was somewhat of a hero in her eyes. He'd rescued her—a damsel in distress. She smiled.

"You still awake?" he called out.

"Yes."

"I have a confession to make."

"What?"

"I knew the roof leaked."

A moment later she heaved the pillows across the room.

«
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The next morning she went back to being herself. She was stiff and cold, which made him moody and brooding. They didn't speak, until the next day when he took it upon himself to repair her roof.

It took a week for Conn to fix it. While he worked on it, he discovered something about his landlady. Miss Eleanor Austen was so softhearted, she fed cream to all the stray cats in the neighborhood.

He had been right above her, working with some glass sealant when he heard her chattering away. He looked down and saw her puttering around the kitchen, gathering bowls and filling them with cream from the bottles he'd seen the milk wagon deliver.

Every day the cats came up the fire escape and sat there until she opened the window. Then they huddled near her feet, whining and crying until she placed the bowls on the floor.

Afterward she would tie red and green Christmas ribbons with little brass bells around their necks and open the window. Four cats stayed after that first morning, curled up on her sofa. Five others left, but from what he could see, they came back at the same time every day.

She began to talk to him the second day. By the third, she fed him sandwiches and coffee. They sat at her table and talked about the building, about her grandfather, and she explained about the lease and Andrew Austen's dream.

Conn had liked the old man and thought him fair. But Conn's first impression of his granddaughter had been that she was completely unpredictable and unreasonable. He never did understand her.

Until now when he knew her better.

While he worked on the roof he learned her routine. Kept watching her when he should have been working harder. She was tall and lean and had an efficient manner about her. But he'd seen her do the strangest things.

She was an odd mixture of logic and illogic. He supposed that wasn't her fault. She was a woman. But watching her try to put together one of her grandfather's telescopes had been something he wasn't likely to forget. She sat in the middle of the floor, with all the parts spread around her while she kept muttering that nothing fit. She stuck to it for three days.

In exchange for supper one night, he put the pieces together in an hour.

It was after that he had found himself thinking about her. At the strangest times. Every night he lay in his bed staring at the ceiling and wondering what Miss Eleanor Austen looked like naked.

He listened to the tap of her shoes across the wooden floors. But it was the soft padding of her bare feet late at night that made him sweat like he had before his first fight.

She was a night owl like he was, which surprised him. He'd have never thought it. Somehow he had imagined her rising at the same exact time every day, going to bed at the same time every night, eating the same breakfast, the same dinner, the same supper in polite little portions that for him would be one mouthful.

She ate like a horse. He had never seen a woman who could pack away food like she could. She ate it with perfect manners. She just ate almost as much as he did.

After the third night of sleeplessness, Conn was in a foul mood. It was late afternoon. He was working on the gymnasium's account books and making a mess of it. Nothing added up. He was just adding up a column again when a loud racket echoed up the stairwell.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

He ripped his door open and scowled at the third-floor landing. "What are you doing now?"

She held a Christmas tree by its top and dragged it up another three stairs.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

He didn't ask if she wanted his help. He simply took over. Muttering, he picked up the tree and walked upstairs.

She hadn't moved and was still on the stairs below.

He stood outside her flat for a minute, then leaned over and glared down at her. "You want to open this door, or do you want the tree out here?"

She grabbed her skirts and ran up the stairs. She fiddled with the key for a moment, then shoved open the door.

She blocked the doorway. "Thank you. This is far enough. I'll take it from here."

If she hadn't have moved, he would have walked right over her. "Where do you want it?"

For just a moment it looked as if she were trying not to smile.

"There." She pointed toward a bucket filled with sand.

He carried the tree over to it and stuck it in the wet sand. The tree was too big, too crooked, and it tipped over.

He picked it up again. "You need to buy trees with straight trunks."

"Do I? I have always felt a perfect Christmas tree was unimaginative. I think the bend in it gives it character."

"Trees don't have character."

"Well, I think this one does."

He struggled until he finally got the thing to stay put. He stepped back and eyed the tree. It was exactly right. Straight as possible.

"You know…" she said. "I think it needs to be tilted toward the right."

"I thought you wanted a crooked tree. What happened to its character?"

"Just because it's a little bent, doesn't mean I don't want it
standing
straight."

He turned around and stared at her. "Then, why didn't you buy a straight tree?"

She waved a hand in the air as if to dismiss him and began to drag a wooden trunk across the floor by its leather handle.

He walked over and picked up the trunk. "Where?"

"Just set it by the tree."

He put the trunk down and the tree slumped to the right again. Half an hour later she was finally satisfied. He thought it still looked lopsided. But she was happy.

He had tied the tree to a line of rope that he wrapped around the stem of a wall lamp. A hurricane wouldn't move that tree.

She began to pull out glass ornaments from the trunk and handed them to him, commenting on each one and how it held some memory for her. Some made her laugh. Some made her drift off toward some distant place. But with each one he saw a little bit more of her true self.

Lost in his own thoughts, he stood there, looking at the glass ornaments but not really seeing them. She was humming Christmas carols and hanging decorations on the fir tree.

She stopped humming "Jingle Bells" after a few minutes and glanced at him over a shoulder. "Don't you want to help?"

He looked down at the ornament, then shrugged, "Sure." The next thing he knew he was decorating the first Christmas tree he'd done since his grandmother died.

A few hours later they finished the tree. Together. It sparkled with strings of electric lights with colored bulbs shaped like fruit. Tin birds in gilded cages hung from the branches along with paper chains and popcorn balls. Fine blown-glass ornaments from Germany were scattered all over while golden angels with porcelain faces looked like they were flying from branch to branch. Paper St. Nicholas likenesses hung from satin ribbons, and clay animals from Noah's ark were everywhere.

It was the best tree he'd ever seen, even if it was crooked. And when he stood from it and really took it all in, he realized that they had accomplished more than simply creating a stately looking tree from a fir that at first reminded him of a hunchback.

The most valuable thing they had accomplished had nothing to do with Christmas trees, crooked or straight.

Conn felt as if they were old friends. Nellibelle and him. Who would have thought it possible? He could have never imagined them talking and laughing as they had.

Now she stepped back, sipping steaming coffee from a thick mug she held with two hands. "It looks lovely." She turned to him. "Now it feels like Christmas."

"You like Christmas?" He asked, thinking she was like him and didn't do much celebrating since they lived alone.

"Don't you?"

He shrugged. "I hadn't thought about it much. I did as a kid. But not in years."

"You should be ashamed. Everyone needs some bit of Christmas around them." Something caught her eye, and she looked past him. Her face lit up like the tree. "Oh, look!" She raced over to the window. "It's snowing!"

He joined her at the window, and for a few minutes they both stood silently watching the snow fall. As he stood behind her, the snow lost his attention.

He was looking down at her. At that shiny black hair he knew went clear to the backs of her thighs. Her straight nose, white skin, and bright pink cheeks. Her brows tilted upward at the ends and gave her normal expression a kind of exotic look.

There was an easiness about her—something he'd learned about her and liked. He'd had a good time tonight. He never even looked at his pocket watch, never looked at her clock. He wasn't bored, and it was almost two in the morning.

He watched her face, intrigued by what he saw. Her thoughts were there. Plain as day. She was completely lost in the pleasure of something as simple as falling snowflakes. She looked about sixteen.

She must have felt his stare because she turned and smiled up at him. He felt as if he'd taken a punch in the gut. Her smile was so powerful, he was certain it could knock him right out of the ring.

He thought about that moment a lot afterward. After he'd left and after he was in bed. And for years he would remember that smile, that wonderful joyous smile, as the one moment in his life when he saw how truly beautiful a woman could be.

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She found the hole in the floor the very next morning, when she was trying to find one of the cats. The hole was underneath her rag rug and was about the size of a dime—just big enough to see through.

She pushed the cat out of the way and pressed her face to the wooden floor. There it was—his apartment. She shifted a little to try to get a better view.

Someone pounded on her front door, and she shot up so fast the cat shrieked. She stared at the door.

"Nellie?" He knocked on the door again.

She swiped a strand of loose hair from her face, brushed off her dress, and walked to the front door. When she opened it, he was standing there all covered in flakes of fresh white snow. He looked like a human mountain.

"Have you been outside yet?"

She smiled. "No, but you have."

He laughed that same deep wonderful laugh. "How could you tell?"

She stepped back. "You want some coffee?"

"Sure." He stomped the snow from his shoes, then shook his head, sending snow from his shoulders like a dog. Then he came inside, pulling off a pair of great shaggy gloves that made his hands look like paws.

She poured him a mug of steaming coffee and turned to hand it to him.

He was looking at the Christmas tree. "It looks as good in daylight as it did last night."

"It does." She watched him take a long drink that should have burned his mouth, but it didn't seem to bother him. "What were you doing outside?"

"Shoveling the walk."

"Is there that much snow?"

He nodded, took a drink, then stared at her for a moment. "The streets are starting to fill with sleighs."

She had moved to the window and was peering out. It looked as if the world outside had been dipped in sugar.

He stood behind her. She could feel the heat from his body and smell the wet leather of his heavy coat.

"Are you doing anything today?"

"No."

"I thought you might like to see the city. There's a sleigh just below the window."