A Christmas Date

by Camilla Isley

  Bingo!

  Red takes longer than usual to apply. With natural shades, I can get away with sloppy technique, but with the red, I really have to be careful how I contour everything if I don’t want to end up looking like a clown.

  Once I’m done, I study the result in the mirror and almost don’t recognize myself. Between the short hair, lips that look ten times plusher than mine, and a healthy glow that probably comes from not having spent the last few days stuck in front of a monitor—but could as well be the consequence of a night of adolescent making out—I’m a different person. Confident, sexy, and edgy.

  That’s exactly how I feel as I walk down the stairs. I stop with one step to go when Diego comes out of the living room, splinters of wood clinging to the fabric of his sweater. He freezes mid-step and stares up at me, wide-eyed.

  I reach for the largest chip of bark on his chest and pull it off. “Be careful,” I say. “You’ll ruin your sweater.”

  “The only thing in ruins by the end of the day will be my sanity. Are you trying to kill me with those lips?”

  “I thought you liked the red?”

  “I like it too much.” He pulls me closer and brushes his nose against mine. “I want to kiss you.”

  “You can’t; it took forever to apply, and I don’t have time to re-do it.”

  “See?” He kisses my forehead instead. “You’re killing me.”

  “I’ll make up for it later,” I whisper.

  He throws me a burning stare, which promises he’ll hold me to my word.

  My knees go weak under the intensity of his gaze, and I smile wider and brighter than ever before… My transformation from Grinch to Santa Baby is complete.

  Seventeen

  Rocking Around the Christmas Tree

  The first, and least-welcome, guest arrives at noon: Aunt Betsy. As I hug her, I do my best not to wince at her usual smell of dust and mothballs.

  “Nicola.” She’s the only one of my relatives who in thirty years has stubbornly refused to let go of my full name. “You’re almost unrecognizable this year; what happened to you?” Then she delivers the first jab. “Have you finally decided it’s time to find a man?” And the second. “Has Julia’s engagement lit a fire under you?”

  I force my eyes not to roll. “Actually, this is my boyfriend.” I give Diego a slight push forward.

  Earlier, after a brief moment of shock at my merry and bright appearance, Mom decided that this year I looked Christmassy enough to be in charge, together with Diego, of answering the door and welcoming the guests in. Julia is still helping her in the kitchen—more supervising nothing contaminates her precious vegan food. And Paul and Dad are tending the fire.

  “Diego, this is my aunt Betsy,” I use the diminutive she hates on purpose. “Aunt Betsy, this is Diego.”

  “Elisabeth Appleton,” she corrects, throwing me a displeased look as she shakes Diego’s hand. “Nice to meet you, young man.”

  “Diego O’Donnell. The pleasure is all mine, ma’am.”

  They shake hands and, even at the ripe age of ninety, I can tell the woman in Aunt Betsy is not insensitive to Diego’s sex appeal.

  Unfortunately, she recovers quickly enough from her initial stupor. “So, Diego, what is it that you do?”

  “Acting is my calling.”

  “Oh.” An evil little smile plays on her lips. “And does that pay the bills?”

  “Not much. I work mostly as a server to make ends meet.”

  “I see.” Turning to me, she adds, “Your parents must be thrilled to have both their girls settled down.” The malicious glint in her eyes sends a completely different message. In two seconds sharp, she’s nailed the one thing my parents don’t approve of about Diego: his job.

  I plaster a fake smile on my lips. “They are.”

  “Well,” Evil Betsy continues. “I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time to talk later, Mr. O’Donnell. Now, I need to go sit down. My old limbs are not what they used to be.”

  Oh, she’s such a drama queen. She should’ve been an actress, too. Aunt Betsy is the most independent ninety-year-old I know. She drove here in her car, and she’s never needed to use a cane to help her walk in her life. I’m convinced she’s going to bury us all.

  “Dad’s in the living room with Paul,” I say. “We’ll join you later.”

  We watch her make her way down the hallway, spry as a bunny, and Diego waits for her to disappear around the corner before whispering in my ear, “Are all your relatives this charming?”

  “No.” I lean back into him. “You’ve met the worst; it’s all downhill from here.”

  As if on cue, the doorbell rings again.

  Diego goes to open the door, revealing my cousin Mandy struggling to keep a hold of two huge bags filled with wrapped gifts.

  “I don’t know you,” she says to Diego with a cheery smile.

  Diego is about to introduce himself when her three boys barrel into the house, screaming like crazed gremlins.

  “BOYS!” she yells after them. “How many times do I have to tell you not to ruuuun?”

  An ominous crashing noise is the only reply.

  “I’m sorry.” Mandy walks past us to run after them. “Nikki, love the new haircut, we’ll catch up later…” And she’s gone, too.

  “You were saying?” Diego grins.

  “At least she’s nice.”

  Mandy’s husband, Peter, comes in next, carrying as many bags as his wife. From then on, it’s a steady flow of people: my dad’s brother, Uncle Tom, with his wife Debra, their kids Michael and Sarah, who are about my age, their spouses and kids; and just as many relatives on my mother’s side. Aunt Betsy’s forty-five-year-old bachelor nephew is the last one to arrive at one o’clock.

  There are too many people to have a proper meal all seated at the table—thank goodness—so the Christmas feast is consumed more buffet style. The older crowd takes over the dining room, while us younger folk claim the living room, sitting on the couch, armchairs, or on the pillows Mom has scattered around the huge rug for exactly this purpose. The kids have their reserved dining area set up in the kitchen.

  There are about ten of us seated around the Christmas tree, ages ranging from twenty-eight to forty-five. Mom comes and goes, bringing new trays of food which quickly get emptied—except for Julia’s special trays. All the vegan platters are still half-full by the end of the meal, scattered atop the furniture surrounding her. I spot Cousin Michael take a bite of one of her brownish tarts, and discretely spit it into his paper napkin two seconds later. But otherwise, it seems everyone has quickly learned to steer clear of whatever platters Julia is grazing from.

  We make it all the way to the mini desserts stage before the questions about my new boyfriend start.

  “So,” Mandy asks, “how did you and Diego meet?”

  “Through work,” I say, keeping my answer vague, as planned.

  “Yeah, you said that,” Julia intervenes. “But how, exactly?”

  I launch into our fake narrative. “Diego was auditioning for a commercial I was producing, and when I called him in to tell him he got the part…”

  “I told her I’d rather have a date,” Diego ends the story for me.

  I love that we appear like one of those couples who can end each other’s sentences. It’s cheesy and soppy, but it’s making me feel all warm and fuzzy, as if what Diego and I are saying was actually true.

  Julia arches an eyebrow. “Really?”

  Diego casually twirls his finger around a lock of my hair and stares right into my eyes. “Couldn’t let the prettiest producer I’ve ever met slip through my fingers.”

  Okay, this is not the lengthy and super-detailed list of all the reasons he wanted to date me I’d asked him to come up with, but strangely, it’s more than enough. It’s the way he says it, and the way he looks at me as he speaks. I’m sold. And so, it seems, is everybody else.

  “What was the ad for?” Julia
asks.

  “Deodorant,” we say in unison, sharing a secret smile.

  “MOM!” One of Mandy’s boys—Jarred, Jake, Johnathan, I don’t know, they all have J-starting names—barrels into the room. “I want to open my presents.”

  Mandy’s sitting next to the tree. She wraps one arm around his legs and pulls him toward her to kiss him on the cheek. He can’t be older than four or five. “Go call your brothers and cousins and we can all open our presents together.”

  “Yaaayyyy,” he yells, running away.

  I can’t help but think, Tasmanian devil. How does she handle three of them?

  The kids flood into the room shortly after, followed by the old folks. Those of us who were perched on the sofa or armchair leave the more comfortable accommodations to them and find new spots on the rug, so that almost every inch of the living room’s floor is now occupied.

  Once everyone’s settled, the complicated gift-distribution operation starts. All the packages under the Christmas tree get passed around, along with the presents my relatives brought with them. We don’t each buy a gift for everybody else—Mom buys the presents for the extended family circle, with one gift per family plus a toy for each of the kids. Still, there are a lot of wrapped boxes passing hands, and delirious quantities of colored paper being torn and scattered around.

  I reach into the red-and-white-striped plastic bag where I stuffed my presents for everyone and start handing them out. Now I feel super silly for having spent so much time researching the perfect gift for Paul. Luckily, I didn’t go too overboard with it. He’s still getting a book like everyone else, only a bit more special.

  I collect my family’s gifts in return, and am surprised when Diego hands me not one, but two wrapped bundles. One I recognize as the ring box from the mall. The other is a mystery. I tear into that one first.

  I push the wrapping paper aside to reveal a hardback copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. I flip the cover open, and gasp at the tiny writing printed on the copyright page:

  Printed in the U.S.A.23

  First American edition, October 1998

  I stare up at Diego, astonished. “This must’ve cost you a fortune.”

  “Nah.” He shrugs. “Found it in a used bookstore in Brooklyn. I don’t think the owner realized it might have any value.”

  Still, I don’t know what to say. I keep looking into his eyes, speechless.

  He must read the unasked question in my gaze, because he leans in and whispers in my ear, “Everyone deserves a little surprise at Christmas.”

  Before I know what I’m doing, I turn my head to the side and kiss him. A deep, non-PG-rated kiss.

  “Ewww,” Sarah’s five-year-old daughter protests. “Mom, they’re kissing.”

  I pull back, smiling, and say, “Thank you.”

  “You might want to open your other present, too,” Diego says, in a voice so low only I can hear. “Would look a bit suspicious if you didn’t.” He grins at me.

  A minute later, I’m pulling on my cat ring when the inevitable happens. From the other side of the fireplace, Paul opens his present from me and exclaims, “Nikki, wow. Liam Grady’s new book.” And then he asks the deadly question. “How did you manage to get a signed copy? I thought those were super rare.”

  They are, damn me.

  “Oh, really?” I play dumb. “I just picked it up at the store from the new releases booth. Guess I got lucky.”

  Next to me, Diego tenses. He knows I’m lying; he was with me when I bought all the other books, and Paul’s book wasn’t among them. Let’s hope he won’t read too much into it.

  Eighteen

  All I Want For Christmas Is You

  My hopes are in vain. Diego is cold and detached with me for the rest of the day. He does nothing overtly hostile, but by now I can pick up on his moods as well as if I’d known him a lot longer than two weeks. And I can tell he’s pissed.

  It’s written all over his curt, monosyllabic answers. In the way he does his best to avoid meeting my eyes after we’ve been eye-flirting for days. And in the way he avoids even the slightest contact with me.

  I just know it has to do with Paul and his gift. Diego is no fool, and if I got to know him so well in such a short time, the same must be true for him. But even if I’m pretty sure why he’s upset, I say nothing. I’m too much of a chicken. So I let this new distance between us fester until we’re both in bed that night and there’s nowhere left to hide. Not even in the oppressive silence weighing down on us both.

  When I can’t stand it any longer, I burst out with, “Are you mad at me?”

  Diego doesn’t turn his head toward me. He just keeps staring at the wall, arms crossed over his chest. “I don’t know; should I be mad at you?”

  “No, why would you?”

  “I feel like I don’t have all the info here.”

  “What info?” I ask innocently.

  He finally meets my eyes. “Mmm, for example… Let’s see…” He scrunches his face in a mock-interrogative expression. “How long have you been in love with your soon-to-be brother-in-law?”

  I’m so busted. “Paul and I have been friends since college. That’s all.”

  Diego throws me such a seething, don’t-bullshit-me stare, that I’m compelled to admit, “I thought I had feelings for him for the longest time, but I’m past that now.”

  “Is that why you went to such trouble to get him the perfect Christmas present? I checked the author’s website. It’s almost impossible to get a signed copy of a Liam Grady book. The only way is to attend one of his book events and queue in line for hours, and his New York gigs are always the busiest.”

  True. True. And True.

  With no intelligent reply to offer, I get petty. “So what?”

  “You bought everybody else’s presents with barely a week to go before Christmas, not giving two cents about what you were getting, but for Paul, you just happened to stumble across the release event and… what? You decided waiting in line for hours to get a signed book for your sister’s fiancé was a good way to spend the afternoon? Do you go through all that trouble for all your ex-crushes?”

  “No, but—”

  “Is that why I’m really here?” Diego interrupts me. “To make Paul jealous?”

  “No, of course not.”

  Diego keeps staring at me, clearly unsatisfied with my answer. Taking a deep breath, I try to explain the big mess I’ve gotten myself into. “Okay, fine, I used to have a crush on him. That’s why I worked so hard on his gift.” I cringe at how easily I’m now downgrading my previous obsession with Paul to a silly crush, but that’s really all it feels like now. “And yes, he was a big part of the reason why it was so difficult for me to come home alone this year. Julia had just announced the engagement, and that she was bringing Paul home for the holidays, and I thought I still liked him, and that Julia had sort of stolen him from me, and it was too much to handle on my own as the spinster sister.”

  I watch Diego as he tries to digest all this new information.

  “But now you’re over him?” he asks.

  “Yes. One hundred percent.”

  “Is there anything else you haven’t told me?”

  “No,” I say.

  Diego keeps quiet next to me for the longest time, and I have no idea what’s passing through his mind as he stares down at the comforter. When he finally lifts his gaze again, his eyes are burning. “When did you stop liking him?”

  There’s only one honest answer I can give him. “The first time you kissed me, in the garden. It’s like you erased everything I ever felt for—”

  He doesn’t let me finish. His face contorts into an almost animal snarl, a primordial expression of male possessiveness, and he kisses me, imprisoning my face between his hands and pressing his lips to mine with such passion I might faint. Thank goodness I’m already in bed.

  We kiss for a long time, just like last night. But when he looks me in
the eyes and tenderly brushes the hair away from my forehead, I know tonight is not going to be kissing-only. I haven’t been with a man in forever, and I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want Diego right now. My body wants him, my mind wants him… I want to give myself to him, and I want all of him in return.

  Diego has been in my life only a short time, and we haven’t spoken about the future or where we stand with each other. But looking into the green of his eyes, I can’t help but trust him with all my heart, with all of my body, with everything that I am…

  Making love to Diego is a soul-wrenching experience. It shatters me to pieces, before bringing me back together in his embrace. We make love all night until we’re both too exhausted to keep going, and we fall asleep clinging to each other.

  When I wake up still wrapped in his arms, I experience a brief moment of pure ecstasy. Then a sheer terror engulfs me, making my chest clench under the pressure of its tendrils. I’m terrified that I’m flying so high I wouldn’t survive a fall. Terrified, because I realize I’ve fallen hard for a man I barely know. A man whose ideas on the future I ignore. Is he looking for a relationship? Does he want to get married? To have kids?

  Okay, maybe I’m jumping the gun a little here. But I can’t get rid of the cloud of doubts circling my head even if nothing about last night feels like a mistake.

  That’s why I sneak out of bed before he wakes up. I’m not sure he would’ve wanted to talk right away, but I’m too scared of learning the answers to all my questions. All I need now is to shower and clear my head first; we’ll have plenty of time to talk later. Now, I just want to be happy and cherish what happened.

  Nineteen

  Do You Hear What I Hear?

  There’s a long-standing Moore tradition I need to submit to on the day after Christmas. Since we were old enough to be safely left alone in the kitchen, Julia and I have been in charge of lunch. With us busy preparing the food, our parents can spend the morning visiting their neighbors to exchange late best wishes. The tradition originated mainly to give Mom a rest after the cooking marathon of the previous day, but also because, since we’re basically rearranging scraps, it’s impossible even for the two of us to screw up the meal.