Chistmas Ever After (3 page)

Then, suddenly, the screen went black and silent. Jennifer slowly uncovered her face, eyes squinting. She heard bells, the same bells she’d heard in the shop earlier in the evening. They sounded like tiny wind chimes.

She studied the dark monitor, mystified. And then, as if emerging from a smoky fog, a face slowly began to materialize. Jennifer watched in wonder as the face gradually solidified: first the vague outline of a chin, then a nose, then a full mouth. Finally, cheeks, eyes, a forehead, and hair. When it was fully drawn, Jennifer gazed at a kindly-looking elderly woman with white hair done up in a bun, a bright smile and blinking, spirited eyes. Intrigued, Jennifer nosed forward. When the woman smiled, Jennifer retreated a little. The mouth opened and spoke in a digitized voice. “Hi, Jennifer!”

Jennifer pushed back from the desk. The woman began to sing.

“
We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year
!”

Jennifer uttered a nervous laugh. “Who sent this silly electronic Christmas card?”

The woman kept singing. Jennifer slapped at the keyboard, struggling to shut the thing off—to shut it down—but with no success. Frustrated, she punched the ON/OFF button, but that didn’t work either. By the time she reached down to flip off the power strip, the song finished. The woman smiled and waved. “Merry Christmas, Jennifer!”

The face faded and slowly dissolved.

Jennifer stood and began to pace, staring nervously at the glowing blue monitor. Finally, cautiously, she returned to the computer, wrote in her e-mail address, and waited to see what would happen. Everything seemed normal, so she answered some e-mails, bcc’ing herself to see if they went through. When they did, she started studying her suppliers’ websites, ordering Valentine’s Day and Easter merchandise.

Finally exhausted, she scrunched down into her favorite recliner and tried to sleep. It was impossible. Memories filled her mind with useless agitation.

Fighting anger, she pushed out of her chair, reached for her blue ski jacket and stepped outside onto the front deck. The air was cold and still; a light snow was still falling across the hushed countryside. Her eyes wandered the shadows made by evergreen trees, which dotted the rolling white hills. It was peaceful and beautiful, but she felt neither.

How would she survive the next month? Christmas Eve would be the biggest challenge. She’d work until 10 o’clock. There’d be plenty of late shoppers. She’d let Angela go at 6, but she’d stay. Christmas Eve night, she’d work on her website. If she made it through the night, then she’d stay in bed and read on Christmas Day.

She brushed snow off the deck railing. December 24
^th
. How cruel life had been to her. Two years ago, her father had a heart attack on December 24
^th
. Because her mother had died of cancer six years earlier, it was her next-door neighbor who’d called to tell her. He’d died quickly.

A year ago, on December 24
^th
, Lance had been killed in a car accident on his way to meet her for their wedding rehearsal.

Jennifer closed her eyes, struggling not to relive the pain. “Lance!” she whispered. Lance, her childhood sweetheart; her high school sweetheart. Lance, whom she’d loved since she was 10 years old. They’d planned their wedding even then, and they’d never stopped loving each other. Everyone had said that their relationship was a gift from God, and she’d believed it, because her love for Lance was what kept her breathing, working and believing that she could somehow survive this life. Whenever he kissed her or told her how beautiful she was, she felt stronger. And she liked the fact that she didn’t hear bells or see birds flying overhead or feel obsessed and out-of-control. It was a real love—grounded in the real world. Not head-over-heels in love, not rash or sappy. It was simple: he was there for her.

Lance was her best friend, the one person she could always trust, talk to and lean on. He was unassuming, unaware of his delectable good looks, even when attractive women eyed him desirably as they passed. Lance, who had so many friends, because he was such a good friend. Lance, who was going to be a pediatrician.

When she heard the news that he was dead, it seemed impossible to her. Death simply didn’t exist for Lance. It wasn’t an option. Lance could never just disappear into death. His life, his spirit, his breath were a part of her and always would be. How could anyone that vital, essential and indispensable just vanish into nothingness, where people spoke about him in the past; where memory failed to remember the entire truth of him, or the essential facts of a phrase he’d once uttered, or the movement of his arm, or the way he slept so soundly, even with the TV blaring.

His death had seemed unnatural, as if someone had told her that the sun had stopped giving heat or that flowers had lost their color and scent. She couldn’t and wouldn’t accept it. Until the funeral. Then, the unnatural became reality. Nothingness became emptiness. She fell into sickness, a debilitating illness that sent her to bed for days in rage and tears, into her own kind of death. She didn’t know how to let him go.

Days later, her therapist chattered and stared at her like a dead fish. It all sounded like static to her—like so much babble.

Then on a drowning day, she’d managed to come up for air, abruptly deciding to leave town. To start over. Somewhere. Anywhere. She couldn’t be in the same town where they had grown up together, gone to elementary school, junior high and high school together. The restaurants, shops and movie theaters all seemed painfully somber and empty, as if some great disaster had happened and only she realized it.

The sad faces of her friends disgusted her—the minister’s comforting words angered her and she wanted no part of anyone’s philosophy on why such things happen. Intellectually, she knew that this kind of thing had happened to others—many worse things had happened to others—but none of that mattered. Her world had been shattered beyond repair, and she knew that in order to survive, she would have to leave her hometown, forever, to try to find a new home.

That new home turned out to be Willowbury. She had first discovered it on the Internet. The shop was for sale. She had inherited some money when her father died and she’d received a small business loan.

Chilled to the bone, she slipped back inside, lit a fire in the fireplace and crouched down next to it, staring vacantly. She could feel herself contract a little more inside. She was retreating back into her little cave, crawling toward the center of it, where she could protect herself from the outside world, filled with its slow dull pain and awful, fickle realities.

She gazed into the jagged flames, watching the logs shift, hearing the crackle and hiss of the wood. Slowly, she eased down next to the fire, feeling the heat of it, beginning another battle with the unseen enemies of her thoughts. She closed her eyes, and it was almost as if she could see the accusing red eyes of her thoughts looking back at her, sensing her vulnerability. They were awful, guilty thoughts, with the sharp teeth of rodents, waiting for her to relax enough for them to pounce and tear her to pieces.

She shut her eyes and, again, offered a silent plea for help.

CHAPTER 3

It was December 22nd, and it was snowing again; a steady, quiet snowfall, devoid of the sharp chill that usually sailed down from Canada. A heavy accumulation was forecasted.

Frances Wintergreen, a white-haired woman with playful blue eyes that sparkled with wonder, sat perched behind the wheel of her candy-apple-red 1957 Ford Fairlane, peering through the windshield at the slapping windshield wipers. She took in the scenery as she drove along Collier’s Road toward Willowbury. She had a date with Jennifer Taylor and, snowfall or not, she’d have to keep it.

Frances thought the scenes before her were reminiscent of Courier and Ives Christmas cards, complete with tall pines air-brushed by snow; horse-drawn sleighs galloping across the elegant countryside; and fat snowmen poised on the rolling white hills, with stove pipe hats, stick arms and shiny black eyes.

A white church steeple appeared, as she drove slowly through a red covered bridge that spanned Cutter’s narrow bubbling stream. The road then unraveled past quaint Victorian homes and a few clumps of modern townhouses and condominiums, all nestled comfortably behind majestic firs and pines.

The road arched around Harvey’s Pond, and Frances smiled when she saw ice skaters glide and twirl, some with precision and grace, others with reaching arms and scattering, falling bodies. It was all unfolding to the music of Christmas, because Harvey Trudeau taught music at the local high school and, many Christmases ago, he’d wired the speakers from his home.

Just beyond the Pond, on Morris Pike’s Hill, kids struggled to the top, hauling sleds and snow tubes. They skidded down the slopes, squealing with delight as they skimmed across the glistening white carpet of newly fallen snow under a porcelain blue-gray sky.

As she approached Main Street, she smiled at the decorations. Hanging along side the stoplights were long, elegant icicles, swinging in an easy breeze. In the Village Green stood bold-eyed drummer boys with red and black uniforms, drum sticks raised and red hats poised. They seemed alive. A manger scene adorned the Methodist churchyard lawn, along with tall Victorian plastic carolers making silent music, their mouths formed in dramatic Os.

In the square, 5-foot-high candy canes blinked erratically to the tinny sound of
Jingle Bells
. Three angelic trumpeters surrounded the 20-foot evergreen tree that blazed with colored lights. It leaned precariously left, because of the thickening snow.

Mrs. Wintergreen continued on, watching children build a snowman, some pausing to sling snowballs and play catch.

Above her, a red and green plastic banner, stretched from one side of the street to the other, announced the yearly Christmas Festival and Parade on December 24
^th
.

Shoppers hurried across the streets into shops and markets, shopping bags and children in tow. Mrs. Wintergreen smiled and waved as she drove by on her way to Cards N’ Stuff.

She found a parking spot nearby, parallel parked expertly and stepped out. The car drew curious eyes. Even partially covered with a layer of snow, one could see that it was a beauty—one you didn’t see every day—kind of like Mrs. Wintergreen.

A man approached, looking it over, hands behind his back. “You’ve really got something there… What’s the engine?”

Mrs. Wintergreen smiled proudly. “292 V8, automatic transmission. But it doesn’t have power steering.”

“Your husband restore it?”

Mrs. Wintergreen scolded him with her eyes. “No… I did! I did it completely by myself! And, I’ve done others as well.”

He nodded, dubiously, looking first at the car and then back at Mrs. Wintergreen. “Remarkable.”

“I’m glad you approve.”

She was dressed in a full-length bright red coat, with a white collar and trim, heavy black snow boots and red mittens. Her apple-cheeks added a wholesome look.

The admiring man strolled away, but glanced back one last time, as if trying to remember something.

There was a comfortable familiarity about Mrs. Wintergreen that one couldn’t easily understand, and when people passed, they often turned and smiled before moving on, as if they had known her for years. But then almost immediately, they hesitated, glanced back, and tried to remember where they’d last seen her. Surely she was someone’s grandmother, who hadn’t been to town in a while or, perhaps, she was a volunteer who had come to town to help bake cookies, candies and fudge for the Christmas Festival. Her expression was kind and wise, like someone who knew the world well and loved it passionately—unconditionally—in all of its mystery, adventure and pain.

Mrs. Wintergreen waved to everyone as she approached Cards N’ Stuff and paused to stroke the arched back of Tippy Toe, the tan and white cat who lived at the firehouse up the street.

As usual, the shop was boiling with energy and excitement. Mrs. Wintergreen entered and stamped the snow off her boots onto the black plastic welcome mat. She could barely nudge her way in. The ringing doorbell brought a smile as she closed it quietly, allowing two sturdy women to muscle by. Reaching for one of the three-inch tall Santa Claus dolls, the first woman exclaimed, “They are so adorable!”

“Absolutely fabulous!” the second woman answered.

“And so reasonably priced. I just love Jennifer Taylor’s taste,” the first woman said.

Mrs. Wintergreen spotted Jennifer on a footstool, reaching for a jewelry box. Standing below her was an impatient, heavy-set woman, who couldn’t seem to make up her mind.

“No, not that one! What is the matter with you?! I want the one next to the gold one!”

This was Agnes Stanton. She was a slow, somber woman in her middle ‘60s, who often carried several chips on her narrow shoulders and an impatient glare in her silvery eyes. She was the wealthiest person in town and famous for letting everyone know it. Her sharp tongue was legendary, and everyone feared it. No one, including Reverend Talbot, was exempt from its sting.

Agnes Stanton’s bulky, black woolen coat was designed to hide girth, and it was largely successful. She wore a white, wide-brimmed hat for dramatic flair, and to ensure that she’d be noticed, catered to and, in her own words, “indulged.”

Jennifer was doing her best to notice, cater to and indulge. On a foot stool, she struggled to grasp a golden jewelry box located on a top shelf.
 
She reached, stretched, teetered and grabbed. Successful, she stepped down and presented it to Mrs. Stanton, who hastily opened the lid. It played
Jingle Bells
. Mrs. Stanton made an ugly face and slammed the lid closed. Shoppers turned toward the sound to see Mrs. Stanton give Jennifer a withering glare.