Unwrap these Presents

by Astrid Ohletz

  “It’s my job.”

  “Was. You’re retired.”

  “Right. There’s no such animal as a retired PI.” I got up and put another log on the fire. My dear niece had been raised in the rarified atmosphere of the Gold Coast. She’d been indulged by her father and ignored by her mother to the point of hearing “no” so rarely she’d lost its meaning. How she remained a basically good kid amazed me. “So you’re going to do the whole June bride bit?”

  Brit expelled a long breath. “That’s so straight. We’re getting married in upstate New York at a lodge.” She dug through her backpack. “Airline tickets for you and Robbi and we made reservations at the lodge. Transport to the lodge, too.”

  She handed me a packet with a smile that didn’t leave room for much else on her face.

  “When?”

  “Christmas Eve, but we made the reservations for the whole week.”

  I just stared at her. “This Christmas?”

  Brit grinned at me, kissed my forehead and ran out the door with the wave of a bon vivant.

  “You have as much sense as your father,” I yelled at the closing door. “This is so wrong.”

  Robbi poked her head around the doorframe that led to the kitchen. “So we’re going to New York for Christmas?”

  “Shit, I don’t know. She’s way too young for a step like this. Married? She’s rich and probably easy pickings for some low-roller.”

  “She’s well off, but not loaded like one of those robber baron families,” Robbi said as she took the chair Brit had vacated. “And DJ, she’s a Riordan. Headstrong, stubborn as you are. The perfect way to push her into something is to tell her not to do it.”

  I opened the packet and examined the tickets. Brit had included a brochure from the picture-perfect lodge. “I wonder how many of the family she’s invited.”

  Robbi leaned her head back. “She looks so much like you, she could be your twin.”

  “You need your glasses, lady. Or you’re remembering back a lot of years,” I said.

  “Do you? Remember when we were young? Remember the night we met?”

  “If I ever forget that, shoot me.”

  Robbi pursed her lips and threw me one of those looks.

  “At No Exit.” I hadn’t thought about that night for years, maybe because our life together had gotten better every year, except for a hiccup here and there.

  “You walked in so cocky, big grin on your face. On top of the world.”

  “I’d just wrapped up the Cotswold case. Cashed the check and it didn’t bounce. It meant I had enough money in the bank to keep the agency afloat for another year.”

  “Your first year, wasn’t it? A rough year?”

  “Nobody wanted a female PI anymore than City Hall wanted female cops. Closing that case changed my luck, all the way around. Saw you sitting up at a chess table totally engrossed in the game.”

  “Not totally. I saw you come in covered in snow and watched you shake it off. Take off that old ratty watch cap. You still run your hand through your hair the same way.”

  I remembered what a bitter cold gale had swept off the lake that November. How ice had formed early on Lake Michigan and began to hump the beach across the street from my apartment. How the windows of No Exit had been steamed up from the espresso machine that took up the whole back wall. How the ever-present coffee aroma warmed my soul. And how the classic blonde on the little raised dais stirred my interest. And more. “My lucky night.”

  “And how long did it take you to bed me, DJ?”

  “Bed you? Shit, it may have been years ago, but it wasn’t an historical novel.” I lifted the footrest on my section. “We didn’t sleep together for a whole month, if that’s what you mean. Nor did we get married a month after that.”

  Robbi cleared her throat. “We’re still not married.”

  I had no answer for that. Marriage to me had always meant the trap straight women fell into, and got screwed getting out of.

  “To quote the song, ‘put a ring on it,’ DJ.” Robbi wiggled her ring finger.

  “Really?”

  “We’re getting older,” Robbi said. “In case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “Our lawyer drew up all the papers, POA and all that stuff.”

  “How well did that work for Nancy and Tracy?” She rose. “Times are changing and I think we’ve waited long enough to file a joint tax return.”

  “So that was the purpose of our trip down memory lane?”

  “No. Just remember what I said.” She took my hand and turned to me. “I want you to remember how we felt when we were so new to each other. That’s how Brit feels now.” She kissed my hand and rose

  “Check out her bride-to-be if you have to, but don’t destroy her happiness with your own cynicism.”

  I watched her go into the bedroom and pull down the comforter. Robbi was the only comforter I needed. I’d been so sure of it when we first got together, if it’d been possible, I would’ve put a ring on it that night.

  * * *

  The next morning, as I walked into a nondescript building at 809 Clark Street, I was swept by a tide of nostalgia. My first office had been a cubbyhole at the back of a finance office storefront on Glenwood, a few doors down from No Exit. I paid my rent by running record checks on their loan applicants. Lotta shoe leather back then. Now my agency had twelve employees and offices on one whole floor of this building. Another niece, Kate, had taken over the day-to-day operations and I only poked my head in when I got bored—or stumbled onto something.

  I waived to the receptionist and tapped on Kate’s open door. “You have a minute?”

  “Of course, DJ,” Kate said, motioning me to a conversational grouping by the window.

  “This is a matter of some…delicacy,” I said as I sank into the leather chair.

  She sat opposite me and waited for me to start talking.

  I smiled and nodded. “You can’t go blabbing to the family. Did you know Brit’s getting married? At Christmas?”

  “She’s what? Oh, shit.” She sat back in her chair, shook her head. “That kid has absolutely no sense.”

  “So you didn’t know. How about the rest of the family?”

  “Haven’t heard a peep and you know it’d be all over even if it was a rumor. Who’s the lucky gal? Or guy? She isn’t marrying some guy. Please tell me she hasn’t lost all her Mother wit.”

  “Gal. Georgina Salazar.”

  “The one she met at my Halloween party? You’ve got to be kidding.”

  I handed Kate a paper with all of Salazar’s basic data. “Do a deep background check. Brit is really head over heels. I don’t want to spoil it for her but that woman could be a con for all we know.”

  Kate scanned the sheet, then laid it down. “I gather Robbi’s taking her side?”

  “Always the romantic. She reminded me of when we met.” I smiled. “That did make me think about the situation. But if anything turns up hinky about Salazar, well, that’s a different story. I know I can’t prevent Brit from getting hurt, but I don’t want to see her financially screwed.”

  “I’ll get on this right away.” She rose. “I won’t say anything to the family because they’d kidnap her and put her in a nunnery.”

  * * *

  As I rode the L back to the north side, I flashed back on that first night at No Exit when I’d met Robbi. When her game was finished, I’d sat across from her and opened with some lame line like, “What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?”

  She’d taken my measure with an assured gaze from brown eyes so dark they almost appeared black. “Playing chess and getting ready to hear some poetry. Are you a chess player? Or a poet?”

  I’d grinned. “Both, and world-class.” Oh, the lies had tripped away so easily those days. I never worried about the consequences.

  She’d raised an eyebrow. “Really.”

  I studied her hands, long-fingered and slim and paint-stained. “You’re a painter?”

  “Not ha
rd to tell that, is it?”

  She’d had me with the raised eyebrow. It took years of practice in front of the mirror before I could raise my right one and I never did get the left one to cooperate. I bought her a double shot, settled next to her for the poetry reading and offered to walk her home. It turned out she lived down Eastlake Terrace about two blocks from where I lived. When we stepped into the tiny lobby of her building, her face was rosy from the cold and her eyes sparkled. I wanted to kiss her, but I had no idea how she’d react.

  “You ever go to Women and Children First, you know that bookstore on—”

  “If you’re asking if I’m gay, the answer is yes. And yes, I’d like to see you again.” She handed me a slip of paper. “Call me, DJ.” Then she gave me a kiss on my cheek and went through the inner door before I could pull myself together. Nobody ever declared their perversion to a stranger. To anybody, unless it was in a gay bar.

  I’d been hooked and all she had to do was reel me in. I didn’t want to deprive Brit of a love like Robbi’s, my lifelong rock and soul, but I didn’t want to see her crushed either. As I switched trains at Howard Street, I tried to weigh the benefits of watching her make her own mistake or poking around in her sweetie’s life. No question about it. Robbi had had to run the gauntlet of my dad and my brothers. All cops, all used to grilling a suspect until they gave it up. Robbi had charmed them as much as she had me. I rode the rest of the way to my Evanston stop smiling like a fool.

  * * *

  When data began to come in from Kate the next day, I called Brit and asked her to join me for lunch.

  “I wondered how long it’d take you to call. I’ll be in the loop tomorrow. How about Billy Goat?”

  “New or old?”

  “Let’s try the new one on Lake Street. Okay?”

  She was, of course, late. I’d about finished by the time she took her seat across from me. “Doesn’t have the same atmosphere, does it?” she asked as she looked around.

  “No smoke-stained walls, no smell of grease and the furniture’s still in one piece. Very different.”

  “You’re going to be difficult about this, aren’t you?”

  One of my eyebrows went up in the controlled lift. “About what?”

  She glared at me. “I suppose you’ve done your background check on Georgi.”

  “Not a deep one, just skimmed the surface. Why don’t you tell me about her?”

  She took a bite of her burger and chewed a long time. “She makes me laugh, Auntie Dee.”

  “Why don’t you cut the cute stuff? You haven’t called me ‘Auntie Dee’ since you were eight. Level with me, are you just in lust—or do you love her?”

  She leveled a stare at me. “How would you have described what you felt for Robbi two months after you met?”

  I shook my head. “We’re talking about you. Period. I want a real answer, Brit.”

  “Why? I’m not eight anymore.”

  I pushed my plate away and examined the young woman, who at this moment looked like her pouty eight year-old self. “Robbi ran the gauntlet of the family for me. All your uncles. My dad. She let the family get to know her before we moved in together almost a year after we started dating. What’s the rush?”

  “Times have changed,” she said, finishing her beer. “We don’t have to hide or pretend to be ‘roommates’ anymore.” The air quotes were sharp gestures. “Either you and Robbi come or you don’t. I’m beginning not to give a fuck.”

  “Not true. I know that and so do you. Now stop dancing around the question and answer me. What’s the rush?”

  “Look, DJ, if you think Georgi’s after my money, forget it. She’s loaded and it’s not in a trust fund. Money’s just not an issue.”

  “Then what is?” I braced myself for the explosion, but it didn’t come. She looked down at her hands that were clenched. I thought I saw tears before she blinked rapidly. “I want to be supportive, kiddo. Robbi already is. But something just feels…wrong to me. You love your studies, you’ve had plans to become the next Indiana Jones for years. Why abandon them now?”

  “I can’t talk about this anymore, I’ve got class in twenty minutes.” She rose in one fluid motion, as the young are wont to do. “Don’t badger me. Please.”

  I watched her as she turned and rapidly threaded her way through the tables to the door. She didn’t look back. As apt a description of Brit as I could come up with. I called Kate with a few more questions that had just occurred to me.

  * * *

  Robbi nearly killed me when I got home and told her what had gone down. “Jesus, you want to alienate her from what’s left of her family?”

  “I love the kid and I don’t want to see her hurt,” I said. Sounded thin to me once the words were spoken. “She’s not telling us the truth about the whole situation.”

  Robbi sat at the kitchen table, folded her hands together. “One enchanted evening, that describes us. Our eyes met across a crowded room and we’ve been together ever since. We were damn lucky. What if I hadn’t wanted to hear the poet who read that night? Or you hadn’t closed your case yet? So many damn ‘ifs,’ DJ. A lifetime of tiny links that if the first one hadn’t appeared, we wouldn’t be bound together now. Why should you deny Brit that chain?”

  I grabbed a beer from the fridge, sat down too. The table was battered, had been with us since those days on Eastlake Terrace. Top was tiger oak, someone had told me, its tight grain not impervious to movers, but a hell of a lot more durable than the table’s pine legs. Durability, that’s what I wanted for Brit. She had so much more living to do, so many places to see, so many people to enter her life. I didn’t want to see her like these old table legs, scarred and barely functional.

  “Where are you, DJ?”

  I looked up and into Robbi’s dark eyes. “Thinking about this table.”

  “It’s history with us? How it stands like a metaphor for our life together?”

  “How I don’t want Brit’s heart to look like these legs in a couple of years.”

  She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You can’t protect her heart and you know that. Dig away on the Salazar girl, but don’t ever forget that Brit has to live her own life. And follow her own heart. You cannot fend off life for her, even if you knew how.” She pushed herself up. “Call her and apologize for thinking you’re a superhero. Even if I think you are.”

  * * *

  I did call, but I didn’t apologize. I asked her to bring Georgi to Thanksgiving dinner.

  “Love to, but we’re already scheduled. Going to her family’s place.”

  “Next year, then.” Let her think about the future, more than the next time in bed.

  Brit was quiet for a few moments. “Yeah, sure. Putting it on my calendar right now,” she said in a super-chipper voice. “Gotta go.”

  Oh, man. Had I screwed up everything with her? Brit had always trusted me, though I’d been open about questioning some of her decisions. This was the biggest decision she’d ever make and she was closing me out.

  Robbi called me from the kitchen for help. While I loved having people over for turkey day, I truly hated all the fuss it caused and Robbi’s lists. She took such joy in crossing off an item that I’d done.

  “I have an item to add to your list,” I said as I walked into the kitchen. “We’ll have to get word out that we’re not going to be home for Christmas dinner.”

  She stopped chopping. “We’re going? You’re not going to boycott?”

  “You know I’m a Riordan to my DNA. I’ll do everything I can to discover what’s up with Georgi girl, but I can’t say no to something so important in Brit’s life.”

  “Crusty on the outside, mushy on the inside—just the way these are going to be if you don’t give me a hand.” She handed me the chef’s knife and directed me to a pile of veggies. Our dinner would be half-Italian, half-Irish celebration of an American tradition with friends. Crazy and fun. As soon as Thanksgiving dinner was cleaned up, dispersed to participants and
the new day dawned, Robbi would have another list for me.

  Outwardly, I was a bit of a Scrooge when it came to the Christmas season, but inside I loved every minute of the preparations we did together. Taking the day to go all the way out to an Aurora tree farm to cut down our tree, with a stop for a late lunch at a pub with a welcoming fireplace. Leaving our fresh-cut tree on the back porch until the seventeenth, when Italians started celebrating Christmas and didn’t stop until the Epiphany. Unwrapping each ornament to trim the tree, each with its memories and story. I wondered how many more years we could keep the tradition we’d built up over our time together. The hip that had stopped a bullet bothered me in cold weather and Robbi wasn’t so spry anymore either.

  Lousy way to think, but getting older did that to me. Wondering if we could celebrate the same way? With the same people? How many more years did we have?

  Robbi looked up at my heavy sigh. “Just be grateful for all the Christmases we’ve had together and don’t go all moody. Chop, DJ.”

  “Are you serious about getting married?” I asked.

  “Damn serious. It’s legal and who knows how many good years we have left. I don’t want to be rolled down the aisle in a wheelchair. Unless you’re still having commitment issues?”

  I snorted. I’d gotten over whatever commitment issues I’d had that night at No Exit, and Robbi knew it. From the time I’d sat down, I knew this was the woman I wanted to share my life with. So why couldn’t I accept Brit’s engagement?

  “Then let’s go down and get the license tomorrow and get hitched next week,” I said.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Well, first you’d better propose—I don’t expect a rock like Brit’s. Then get the rings. And we’ll have to decide where we’ll have a little reception for family and friends. I’m not cooking for something like that.”