First Christmas

by Trevor McCall

  Greta sat down on the love seat she often shared with Scott. “Is something wrong, Aubrey.”

  “Job stress, that’s all.” Aubrey replied.

  “Anything I can help with?” Greta wanted to know.

  “You can not be mad at me when I tell you I’m going to have to work a few hours tomorrow.” Aubrey waited for her mom to be mad. It didn’t surprise her when her mom saw through to the bright side of this new situation.

  “Well, that just means we decorate today, and I’ll bake all day tomorrow while you’re working.” Greta smiled as if the opportunity to bake settled everything.

  Aubrey smiled at her mom. She had been the luckiest girl in the world when it came to getting parents. “Thanks, mom. I said it earlier, but I can’t say it enough, you are simply the best.”

  “Oh lord,” Greta began, “See if you still want to call me the best after you do all that shoveling. Something tells me the ten inches of snow we got yesterday combined with the hundred and fifty yards to the shed in the backyard is going to sour your opinion of me.”

  “Don’t be silly, mom. You know how much I love being out in the snow. I might have to borrow some warm clothes from you, though. I don’t know what I was thinking, only packing the one suitcase.”

  “No problem. I’ll set some things by the back door. You choose what works for you.”

  Chapter Five

  Aubrey shoveled snow from the path that led to the family shed where all the Christmas decorations were stored. Contrary to her mom’s dire prediction, she still thought her mom was the best mom ever despite the shoveling. She had been working diligently in the heavy winter clothes her mom lent her for more than an hour and was nearly done. She was also getting really hot even though the air temperature was well below freezing.

  After scooping up a heavy shovelful of snow, Aubrey took a break to unbutton a few snaps on her mom’s winter coat. It was then that she heard a loud scraping sound coming from the front of the house. She planted her shovel in a snow bank and walked toward the noise.

  As she rounded the corner of her house, she saw Kyle in his truck ploughing her mother’s driveway. She noticed he had his window down. She studied him for several more seconds before deciding on an ambush of her own to repay him for the one he participated in the day before. She packed a big thick snowball and let it fly while he was backing up her driveway.

  The snowball hit him dead in the chin. Aubrey covered her face and let out a small gasp. That wasn’t what she intended. Snowball splinters dropped from Kyle’s beard as he turned his gaze on his winter assailant.

  Aubrey ran toward his truck. “Kyle, I’m so sorry. I swear I was trying to hit the door.”

  “Wow, really.” Kyle wiped snow from his face as Aubrey pulled up next to him. “You used to have much better aim.”

  Aubrey smiled. “Too many years in the city.”

  “All those years turned you into an accidental snowball assassin,” Kyle joked.

  Aubrey reached up and knocked a small piece of snowball ice from Kyle’s cheek. She did it without thinking. It was a result of the natural ease that comes from touching someone who makes you feel completely comfortable. If she didn’t keep reminding herself she was engaged to be married, she could see herself falling into a familiar groove with Kyle. They had always gotten along so effortlessly, like they were meant for each other. Star-crossed lovers and all those other romantic clichés. “So, what are you doing here, anyway.”

  “My mama said we could not accept the dinner invitation from your mama unless we did something else nice for you.” Kyle pointed at the ploughed driveway, indicating this was the nice thing he was doing in return for the promised dinner. “I’m still not sure how ‘we’ can take credit for this, but here I am.”

  Aubrey wanted to know if that countrified way of speaking was an act or not. “Do you still do that ‘mama’ thing on purpose?”

  “What mama thing?” Kyle wondered.

  “Never mind. What about picking me up at the airport? Doesn’t that throw your mama’s calculus off. Technically, wouldn’t that make the dinner a settling of accounts.” Aubrey made quote signs in the air when she said the word mama, indicating she was, in fact, making a tiny bit of fun of Kyle while also indicating she was, in fact, enjoying doing it.

  “That’s what I said. To which my mama replied, and I quote: ‘that’s why I said something else’. It was a fair point, so I hung up the phone, hopped in my truck and, like I said a moment ago, here I am.” Kyle imitated Aubrey by making quotes in the air when he said the word mama, indicating he enjoyed her making fun of him. “Honestly, I’d almost swear those two were up to something.”

  “Which two,” Aubrey asked.

  “Our mamas.” Kyle deployed the air quotes around mamas again.

  Aubrey playfully hit Kyle in the arm for making fun of her, making fun of him, “Like what?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, but it seems like maybe they are trying to see if they could get you and me together for Christmas.” Kyle said it because it was the truth about how he interpreted the mamas’ intentions. As soon as it was out, however, he regretted engaging his mouth before his brain had time to analyze the consequences of the words he was saying.

  Aubrey looked stunned. “You don’t really think that, do you?”

  “Now, hold on, I’m not saying I’m in favor of it, I just said it felt like they were scheming.” Kyle’s attempt to walk back the statement absolved him of any wrongdoing, but he could tell it didn’t make Aubrey feel any better.

  “Well, that’s not going to happen. I have a fiancé!” Aubrey looked as though she wanted to continue with the reasons she and Kyle could never be together, but Aubrey’s mom appeared on the porch and interrupted her.

  “Kyle, my dear,” Greta called out.

  “Yes ma’am.” Kyle answered.

  “Thank you so much for clearing my driveway.”

  “You’re welcome, ma’am.”

  “I now require you come in here and have some breakfast. And don’t tell me you already ate. I read an article on the internet yesterday that said seventy-five percent of young people don’t eat anything significant for breakfast.” Greta stated her case for feeding Kyle in a way he couldn’t refuse.

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll be right in.” Kyle shut his truck off and shifted it into park. He looked deeply into Aubrey’s beautiful brown eyes. “Maybe we can ask her directly if she’s aiming to fix us up for Christmas.”

  Aubrey opened the door for him and then stepped back so he could get out of his truck. “That’s a wonderful idea.” It was exactly what she planned to do.

  Kyle followed Aubrey into her parents’ house wondering what had gone wrong in his brain to make him say that ridiculous thing about their mamas trying to set them up. He believed what he had said was true, of course, but why did he have to let her in on that secret if he wouldn’t let her in on his other secret. All he could do was hope he hadn’t blown it so badly Greta couldn’t recover it for him.

  Aubrey walked beside Kyle also thinking about what Kyle had just said. Was it true? Was her mom trying to set her up with Kyle? Was Kyle’s mom in on it too? And if so, why? Her mom had only met Walter one time when she and her dad made that surprise trip up to New York to see her for her birthday two years ago. At the time, Aubrey assumed they both genuinely liked him. Walter carved time out of his busy schedule to take them to one of the nicest French restaurants in Manhattan.

  What was there not to like?

  It was so strange to Aubrey how everything she said, or thought, about Walter made him sound like a terrible fiancé when she said them, or thought them, about him here in Virginia. Now that she was thinking about that trip to the restaurant in Manhattan, Aubrey remembered Walter never asked any of them what they wanted for dinner, or if they were even hungry. In retrospect, he made all the choices as though Aubrey’s family were too uncultured to know what they wanted to eat.

  She had told this same story to friends in New
York, and when she did, the point of the story was that she had no doubt Walter was the one she should be marrying in three short months. Could changing the scenery and the people around you really change whether a person was right for another person?

  Aubrey hadn’t believed in true love and fairy tale endings since at least her senior year in high school. Yes, given that she walked beside Kyle, high school was an awkward time to point to as the death knell of her belief in fairy tales, but it was true, so there. Aubrey knew Walter wasn’t going to win the most romantic fiancé award, but she also knew she could count on him to achieve his goals. Oh lord, that sounded terrible to her now too. She tried to make herself say she could count on him to help her achieve her goals, but the words possessed no conviction when she said them to herself.

  Aubrey sat down at the kitchen table with Kyle while her mom made a fresh breakfast for him. She wondered if she were, like Mr. Clarke when it came to the selling of his company, developing a case of cold feet. She decided to end these thoughts before they got out of hand. “So, mom?”

  Greta cracked an egg and dropped it into the skillet. Her back was turned to Aubrey and Kyle. “Yes, dear?”

  “Kyle has an interesting theory.” Aubrey looked at Kyle. He shook his head no, pleading with her not to put him on the spot like this. She thought he might even be blushing.

  “Okay, let’s hear it.” Greta dropped another egg into the skillet.

  Aubrey was at a crossroads. If she asked her mom the question she intended to ask when she walked into the house, it was likely she wouldn’t see Kyle again before she packed up to head back to New York. The thing about being manipulated is that once you know it’s happening it isn’t manipulation anymore, it’s a conscious choice. If she asked her mom if she were conspiring to get her and Kyle back together and her mom said yes, then Aubrey would be complicit in the plan if she chose to keep seeing Kyle. She searched herself to see if she was okay with that. Her self would not tell her she was. “Kyle thinks,” Aubrey decided to hedge her bets, “old Christmas movies are much easier to watch when they’ve been colorized.” It was the first thing she thought of and she had no idea if it were true. Kyle would have to play along if it wasn’t.

  “That’s it.” Greta ramped up her mock disgust. She really got into character. “Get Out! No one sits at my kitchen table and advocates for the colorization of my classic Christmas movies. It drains my spirit to see those iconic characters running around in splashy colors that look like they’re going to run right out of their suits and dresses and puddle up on the floor in front of my television set.”

  Kyle looked at Aubrey. He was so grateful she had not asked her mom that question about whether she was conspiring to get them back together. He didn’t want to make more out of it than it was, but it felt to him like she was giving them the possibility of a second chance. “I surrender,” he said while looking at Aubrey. He couldn’t have meant those words more.

  “Aubrey mark it down,” she pointed at Kyle, “there sits a reasonable man.”

  “Duly noted, mom.” Aubrey replied.

  “Kyle?” Greta wanted to steer the conversation in a new direction.

  “Yes, ma’am?” Kyle was amenable to being steered. The farther they got from the question Aubrey wanted to ask when they were outside, the better.

  “Thank you so much for clearing our driveway. Can I please pay you for those efforts?” Greta knew Kyle too well to believe she would get anywhere with this request, but her sense of propriety required she ask.

  Kyle did not disappoint her prediction. “No, ma’am.”

  “Do you think I could ask you for one last Christmas favor?”

  Hoping the favor would force him to spend more time with Aubrey, Kyle agreed, “of course.”

  “Would you be a dear and run Aubrey over to Old Man Peterson’s Christmas tree farm. We haven’t gotten one yet, and everyone knows he grows the best trees in the valley.”

  Greta asked this as innocently as possible, but Aubrey still gave her a sideways glance. Since Aubrey decided to let her mom’s intentions pass by without investigation, she had to let this go as well. Another day with Kyle couldn’t hurt anything, right?

  “I wouldn’t mind one bit.” As with his previous comment about surrendering, Kyle couldn’t have meant it more.

  Aubrey thought it best to offer a hint of protest. She wanted to make sure her mom knew she was wise to what was going on. She wanted to make sure she would be involved in setting the rules for how this game would be played. After all, she was the one with the fiancé. “I thought we were going to decorate all day today.”

  “Well, we will be hard pressed to finish decorating if we don’t have a tree, won’t we? Besides, now that you’ve gotten the walkway cleared from here to the shed, it will take me no time at all to empty it out. When you two get back this evening, I’ll have everything laid out and organized and we’ll be done by nine o’clock.”

  Aubrey couldn’t argue with the logic. “I suppose it’s settled, then. Kyle and I are going to pick out a tree.”

  After taking a few minutes to change out of the winter clothes her mom lent her for shoveling snow, Aubrey met Kyle in his truck. He’d gone out to start it for her so it would be warm by the time they left. This was another thing Aubrey was sure Walter would never do. Whenever they rode into the city together, he sent her to the curb to flag down the cab driver. As Aubrey closed her door, she saw Greta waving to them from the living room window. She waved back, “You really think ‘the mamas’ are conspiring.”

  “I do.” Kyle replied.

  “And you’re okay with it?” Aubrey asked.

  “I’m okay with the idea of it.” Kyle answered as circumspectly as he could. He didn’t know how Aubrey would react if he told her how he truly felt.

  “As long as you know it’s not going to work.”

  “Thanks for not asking her. I would have been embarrassed.” Sincerity dripped from his words.

  He’d always been like that. Never able to keep her from seeing what he felt. Until that one time, when he pulled the rug out from under her entire world with no warning whatsoever. She wasn’t ready to uncork that bottle yet, but she was getting closer. “Why would you have been embarrassed? It should be more embarrassing for my mom, since she’d be the one doing the scheming. That is, if there is any scheming going on. Innocent until proven guilty.”

  “I don’t know Aubrey.” Except the truth was he did know. He would be embarrassed because he was such a willing participant in the scheming. How hard had Greta twisted his arm to get him to go to the airport and pick up Aubrey? He resisted the plan a grand total of one time before accepting. In fact, he couldn’t thank the mamas enough for what they were doing. Maybe the mamas just had their sights set on closure for him and Aubrey. He wasn’t going to ask. But, what he wanted, was to win Aubrey back.

  Admitting it made Kyle feel confident and strong. He had spent the last twelve years without her walking around in a fog. Yes, he built a successful business and helped a lot of people in his community who were less fortunate than he was. In other words, he didn’t regret the last twelve years of his life because he spent those years constructively, but he knew he made a mistake when he let her be the one that got away. If there were some way for him to correct that mistake, he would follow that path as far as it led.

  As he rode toward Old Man Peterson’s Christmas tree farm, with Aubrey Wilson sitting in his passenger seat, Kyle had the distinct feeling this was how his life was supposed to be. Aubrey was still the one for him. He just had to find a way to show her what he knew to be true. So, yes, it embarrassed him the mamas were conspiring to get them back together. Why? Because, he never wanted anything as much as he wanted to get back together with Aubrey.

  He couldn’t come out and say that to her, though. She might jump out of the moving truck. Still, if he didn’t say something along those lines, then this snowball was never going to get rolling. “I guess it embarrasses me because I ca
n’t find a reason to mind.”

  Aubrey looked at Kyle. He pretended focusing on the road was so important, he couldn’t make eye contact with her. “Kyle Immanuel Morgan, are you getting fresh with me?”

  Kyle developed his second low-grade blush of the morning. Now that he signaled to her he was interested in seeing her again, how could he reel this back in before it ended with him jumping out of his moving truck? He decided to laugh at Aubrey’s use of the word fresh. He hoped the laughter would make the conversation less serious, and therefore less dangerous to him. “I wouldn’t go that far?”

  Aubrey was intrigued, “How far would you go?”

  “I guess I’d leave it at the fact that I’ve missed you. Last night and this morning have been wonderful to me. You know the best part about you and I was always our friendship.” Maybe that saved it? He didn’t want to put himself too far into the friend zone, but he also hadn’t said anything that wasn’t true either. Aubrey had been his best friend even when she was his girlfriend. And yes, she was strikingly beautiful. And yes, he would trade his truck for one kiss from her. None of that changed the fact he missed having his best friend in his life.

  Aubrey considered Kyle from across the bench seat of his enormous pickup. How had they ended up spending time together this Christmas? The mamas may have been responsible for ensuring their wandering barks collided, but Aubrey hadn’t put up much of a fight since she first rented that muscle car. That was another thing, the mamas didn’t have the power to make it snow ten inches in one fast-moving evening storm. The storm was the valid reason her mom gave for being afraid to cross that mountain on Route 33 to pick her up at the Charlottesville airport. The mamas also didn’t have the power to ensure all the car rental agencies were sold out of everything except rear wheel drive muscle cars. And, that was the reason she finally accepted the ride from Kyle. Nothing from last night and this morning would have happened if those two things hadn’t happened first, and the mamas could not be responsible for those two things. It all led Aubrey to an overwhelming point. “Well, I think you’re reading too much into the scheming of our mamas.”