Blessings of the Season (7 page)

S
ince she was already in costume and ever eager to grab her share of the spotlight, Bivvy stepped up and took on the role of Goodwin's salesclerk in the webisodes they filmed not long after Addie finished Nate's haircut.

“He looks pretty cute all done up like a 1959-type guy, don't you think, Mom?” she asked as Nate and Jesse mugged their way through the last of the two-minute spots that the foursome had improvised all over the store. Though they had only made ten of them, it had taken nearly two hours, and Addie was so tired she was looking forward to the tedium of puttering around her kitchen set.

“Well, he's a pretty cute fella,” Bivvy said, plunking her elbow down on the glass countertop across the aisle from the electronic-toy display. “Which one are we talking about?”

Addie laughed lightly. She was going to say “Nate, of course,” but when she turned and saw the two guys
standing there, with Nate pretending to need Jesse to explain the basics of computer gaming and Jesse eating it up, she shook her head. “Both of them, I guess.”

“Have you given any thought about what you're going to give them for Christmas?”

“Yes, and I'm not telling you.” Addie made a slashing motion, the sign of zipping her lips. “You'll blab.”

“I will not.” Bivvy, who had her glasses, that pencil and for all Addie knew a partridge in a pear tree in her hair now, folded her arms. “But just for saying that I've half a mind to not tell you what they're getting you.”

Addie laughed. Bivvy pouted a bit, then gave up and broke into a chuckle, too.

“Okay, so I am no good at keeping a secret.” She walked around from the back of the counter to stand beside Addie, whom she nailed with a steely-eyed glare. “Like mother, like daughter.”

“Me?” Addie scoffed. “I didn't tell you anything.”

“You don't have to tell me a thing, sweetie. It's written all over you.” She pointed her finger, now with a fire engine-red nail, at Addie and made tiny circles. “You're in love with Nate Browder.”

As if he had heard his name spoken, the man turned, smiled right at her and then started walking in her direction.

Addie's heart leaped. Love? She'd known him less than a month. He was California-bound, and she was a Star City citizen through and through. He was a standout in everything he did, and she was…

She brushed her trembling fingers over the snowflake clasped to her headband. Suddenly she couldn't stand
to think another second about who she was and what might have been. So, in order to change the subject, and preferably to something that would make her mother hush, she blurted out, “I got Jesse one of the snow-globes with the silver snowflakes inside of it that they sell in the gift department here in the store. You won't tell, will you?”

“Addie, honey, I know you think I'd do anything to draw attention to myself, but I would never give away your most precious secrets.”

Addie exhaled, but it didn't really ease the pressure in her chest. “Thank you, Mom.”

“Even if I think you are foolish not to own up to those secrets when they are right there for anyone who has ever been in love or who just has eyes in their head to see.”

Nate strode up, with Jesse tagging along behind. “Eyes to see what?”

“How cute you two are, darlin'.” Bivvy crinkled her nose at Nate and then Jesse.

“Yeah.” Addie smiled, weakly, ducked her head and then made her getaway. “I have to go now. I have to demonstrate how to make manger animals out of common household items.”

 

After the changes, the time seemed to fly the following Monday. Bivvy was a big hit, and as a result of her appearances on the Goodwin's site, her votes in the Web contest had skyrocketed. That got her house on the local news all the way over in Knoxville.

The Goodwins, though tight-lipped about business, seemed happy with the results. Doc, getting a lot of
interest in the vintage goods used in the promotion, was even looking into going through all the junk he had warehoused in the now-vacant part of the Goodwin's building. Addie didn't know if that was a good sign or a bad one. Maybe he had finally resigned himself to the fact that the place was going to close, and his son, whose investment time-wise in Jesse could have been measured in minutes rather than days or hours this week, didn't care what happened to his family or his family's business. That broke Addie's heart for the Goodwins and for Jesse.

That feeling grew each day when, at shortly after five o'clock, Nate pretended to come home from the office and she and Jesse greeted him with open arms. That part was not pretend, they were actually glad to see him and know the three of them would be spending the next few hours as a family. It was the kind of thing that Addie hadn't known since before her father died. But at least she
had
known that kind of love and shelter. For Jesse and Nate it was a completely new, and obviously welcome, experience.

With that in mind—and not at all because of what her mother had said about her being in love with Nate—Addie decided to make their last regular day together special. Before the chaos of the Open House all day on Saturday and their parting on Christmas Eve morning, she thought these two special guys in her life deserved an evening as a family. So she had asked Doc to allow them to stay behind in the store for an extra hour or so after closing, with the cameras off, so that they could have a quiet “family” evening.

“Don't tell Maimie,” he said, dropping his keys into her cupped palm. “You take as long as you want, but stay in the front area so you won't show up on the alarm system's surveillance cameras.”

It didn't take any great persuasion to get Nate to linger. He was babysitting Jesse anyway while the Goodwins—Doc and Maimie, Darin and his new wife—went out to dinner to discuss the subject of the child of Darin's first wife, whom he had legally adopted but did not want.

“I know we're not supposed to trim the tree until tomorrow,” Addie said as she kicked off her heels and undid the wide black patent-leather belt she had worn all day.

“I can't wait to do the tree!” Jesse went up to the spot they had picked out to put the large fir they were going to bring into the store to decorate throughout the day. “I wish we had one now.”

“Me, too, Jesse,” Addie said, truly sad that they didn't have one.

“Ask and you shall receive!” Nate came into the living-room set with a two-foot-long rectangular box tucked under his arm. “One Christmas tree, fresh from the forest of junk in the warehouse.”

“My provider!” She clasped her hands together, went up on tiptoe and, raising one foot, planted a kiss on his cheek.

“Nate's the best!” Jesse slid the box out from under his arm and plunked it and himself down in the middle of the oval carpet.

“I went over and found it on my—” Nate turned his head unexpectedly “—lunch break.”

Addie found herself staring right into those earnest brown eyes, and she knew. Her mother was right. She did love this man. She looked away quickly before he knew it, too.

“Hey, this isn't a Christmas tree.” Jesse dragged the contents out of the box, littering the rug with a silver stick with predrilled holes and a pile of tinsel-covered branches wrapped in brown paper. He tugged one of them free, and the gleaming fringe sprang out in a shiny whale-tail pattern. “It's pink!”

“It might not be the right era.” Nate shrugged. “I just went for the oldest-looking box I could find.”

“It's all right. We'll make do.”

“Yeah, but it's not perfect,” Nate said quietly. “This is the first Christmas I've actually tried to celebrate in a long time. I kinda wanted it to be perfect.”

“A perfect Christmas?” Addie rolled her eyes and laughed. “Why would you want anything that boring? The only really perfect Christmases are the ones that turn out nothing like you planned. That catch you by surprise. That remind us that we're messy, imperfect humans, and for a time, because He loved us so much, God became one of us. Isn't that the coolest thing ever?”

“The absolute coolest,” he murmured, brushing a wayward strand of pink tinsel from her hair.

They set up the tree, but since it couldn't have lights they had to make do with directing a large flashlight, the kind that made a sort of spotlight, at it. And since the ornaments were already in boxes waiting to be brought out in a big production tomorrow, they had to make do with what they could find.

“Wait, I know what we can use.” Addie went to the kitchen and gathered up red plastic cookie cutters and some stylized copper cooking utensils. “I won't need these anymore, since we're not doing demos tomorrow.”

They laughed and joked and hung them all around. Nate sacrificed the skinny green tie he'd been wearing to the “office” and Addie contributed her patent-leather belt for makeshift garlands. Still, when they stood back Jesse looked glum. “It needs something for the top.”

“I have just the thing!” Addie undid the snowflake from her headband. “It's not very big, but it's very special. Just like you, Jesse.”

She clipped the pin to the top of the small tree that was barely as tall as she was, then they all stood back and admired their work. Addie couldn't help thinking of all the lights and decorations at her mother's house right now. And how she wouldn't trade a tenth of them for this corny, cluttered mess of a pink Christmas tree shared with two people who had come to mean so much to her. “You know, I think this is the nicest Christmas tree I've ever helped decorate.”

“Me, too,” Nate murmured, coming to her side.

For just that one moment the world was calm and peaceful and…wonderful. Nothing existed beyond the three of them and their improvised celebration. No jobs. No job interviews. No Goodwin's. No tomorrows. Just now and each other.

“This actually
is
kind of perfect, isn't it?” Nate asked in a whisper.

“Yes.” Addie nodded, her hair rasping against his
shirt. “But the thing about this kind of perfection, the
imperfect
kind of perfection, is—”

“Now what?” Jesse's tennis shoe squeaked on the floor as he spun around and started looking around for something more to do.

“It never lasts,” Addie concluded with a laugh. She moved away from Nate reluctantly and plunked her hand on Jesse's head to get him to settle down and listen to her. “You know, in my family we didn't just put up the tree.” Addie took a deep breath, then exhaled to remind herself that the moment had passed and she had it in her to move on. “We also made a big deal of setting up our big outdoor plastic lighted crèche.”

Nate held his hands out to his side. “I didn't think to look for one of those.”

“Good thing that in the Goodlife family, the man is not the only provider around.” She gave Jesse a wink. “The box with all the things we made this week is in the cabinet under the fake sink.”

In a matter of minutes, Nate was sitting cozily on the couch while Jesse and Addie knelt on the rug to better set up the homemade Nativity scene on the coffee table before them.

“It's not as showy as the one my mom has, but I like it.” For the past week, Addie had been methodically assembling the pom-pom sheep, thread-spool cows and pinecone angels dipped in glitter with net wings adorned in sequins. There were felt shepherds with yarn hair and beards and that star with the spray-painted macaroni, too.

One by one they set each piece where Jesse thought they looked best in the Popsicle manger.

“Before my dad died we used to make a big deal out of the holy family's spot in the Nativity. We'd read the story out of Luke, then my mom would set Mary in place, my dad Joseph and I'd get to put in baby Jesus.” Addie looked at the last three delicate figures. Made of chenille and sparkling metallic pipe cleaners, they had faces cut from vintage-style Christmas cards. “I still look at our crèche, even in the middle of all the craziness my mom has set up on our front lawn, and I remember that salvation didn't come to us in a big showy display, but simply and humbly.”

She carefully placed Joseph and Mary, but when it came time for baby Jesus, she looked at Nate and then offered the small bundle to the little redheaded boy at her elbow. “I think you should do the honors.”

Jesse took the last figure in the palm of his hand and held it.

Nate gave the boy a nudge. “Put the baby in the manger, pal.”

He looked up at Nate and made a sour face. “I get the shepherds because there are sheep and angels because it's Christmas, but why did they put a baby in a box of hay?”

Addie and Nate exchanged glances. Then she put her hand on the boy's back. “Don't you know the story, Jesse?”

He looked up, so somber. “I know it's Jesus's birthday, but I don't know why they put him in hay.”

“Because there was no room for them in the inn,” Nate explained patiently.

Addie thought about trying to recite the story from the Gospel according to Luke, but Jesse seemed more interested in talking about the baby and His situation.