Any party Karen didn’t have to throw was a good one in her book.
She was so used to throwing parties, after all. As the mayor of a lively little town, there was always something to orchestrate and organize. That time of year, she got a small reprieve. No Pride. No Paradise Days. No Fourth of July. Instead, she kicked back and…
…Talked about the town Christmas Tree Lighting.
“I’m serious,” said Casper Quaid, one of Dahlia’s film industry besties who had come up from California to check out Paradise Valley before Christmas. He was, after all, helping a production company edit the documentary about the town. “Think about it. Real candles. Not on the tree, of course…”
“I should hope note,” Dahlia snorted. “Talk about a fire hazard.”
“…But offer a lit candle to every townsperson and tourist who comes by to check out the lighting. Great photo-op.”
“Still a fire hazard,” Karen said. Speaking of, was someone keeping an eye on that fire blazing only a few feet away? While Karen appreciated the heat, she would rather have no fire and no need to worry about Waterlily House going down in a blaze. “I don’t trust half the people in this town to not intentionally start something.”
Karen nearly chortled. “Really? Half?”
“Bless their hearts, but lots of people aren’t that bright.”
“Got anyone in mind when you say that?”
“You’re nuts if you think I’m naming names.” Let’s start with my own daughter. Oh, Christina was pretty book smart. She got good grades. She did not, however, make great life decisions.
“Ah, right.” Casper leaned back in his chair. “I almost forgot about those fires.”
“Yeah, so, none of those are going into the documentary, right?” Especially since minors were involved. Including Karen’s not-so-bright daughter, although Christina had been cleared of any wrong doings. Didn’t mean much if a certain editor sitting in front of Karen did his job a certain way. The evil edit of Christina Rath. No, thank you.
“Just a footnote,” Casper assured her.
“A footnote?” Dahlia growled.
Karen shoved her empty champagne glass between her girlfriend and the friend she insisted on bringing. “Don’t you two remind me of the Christmas Tree Lighting right now. I’m enjoying a party I didn’t have to plan. Unlike that event, where yours truly plays a pivotal role.”
“Thought you weren’t planning it, though?” Dahlia said. “Isn’t that some committee?”
“Yeah, a committee of two, and I have to hear everything out before signing off on it. That’s why it’s the same thing every year. Don’t rock the boat too much, and we don’t have to do a bunch of extra work.”
Dahlia couldn’t stop laughing. “Wow. Small town lazy bureaucracy.”
“You’ve had a front-row seat to most of the stuff I deal with. Surely, you understand where the occasional bouts of red tape laziness comes in.”
They had lost Casper, who noticed a piano in the corner of the living room and helped himself to the keys. Karen let out a mighty yawn as soon as “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas” banged from the piano and one man’s powerful pipes. Half the room clapped and sang along. Karen had a headache.
“Aw, what’s wrong?” Dahlia opened her arms as Karen leaned into her chest and pushed her ass back to the other side of the couch. “Finally pooping out after a long year of mayoring?”
“More like a long decade.”
“Come on, it’s only been seven years.”
“If you round up, that’s a decade.”
“So don’t run for reelection.” Dahlia shrugged, as if things were as simple as that. “Ever thought it might be time to move on? Both of your kids will be in college as of next year.”
Karen lifted her head. It was a good thing nobody else could hear them over Casper’s tickling of the ivories. I can only imagine the way the rumor mill would turn should it get out I’m thinking about not running for reelection or worse, moving away. That wasn’t done in Paradise Valley. Once a woman committed to moving there, she never left. They call it Paradise for a reason. There was no such thing as the perfect place – God, didn’t Karen know it after seeing the shitshow for seven years in a row – but women took their gay havens seriously. People went out of their way to move there so they could raise their kids in peace. Hadn’t Karen done something similar after her divorce a whole decade ago?
It took me a decade to find love again. The only reason I found it is because I moved here… That was a logistical fallacy, of course, since Karen could have found love in pretty much any major city had she stuck it out long enough. Yet the reason she and Dahlia met was because of Paradise Valley. What if Dahlia was the one? They had only been semi-seriously dating since July. Was that still too early to tell?
“Karen,” Dahlia said, pushing her girlfriend back up. “You okay? We’re losing you. You’re turning on your mayor brain again.”
Or maybe that was the Christmas music giving her a headache. Is it too early in a relationship to tell her that her friends suck? Not that Karen had much room to talk. She was here on Brandelyn’s invitation, and Karen was the first to admit what a pill the town doctor could be. “Actually, it’s my Everyday Woman brain. The one mulling over what you said.”
“I was only being facetious…”
“About me not running for reelection? Or moving away?”
“Either.”
“You mentioned it, so you must mean it on some level.”
“Dunno about that.” Dahlia shrugged. “I mean, would it be more convenient for me if you lived in a city? Yeah, but it would be more convenient if you moved back to California.”
Karen shuddered. “If there’s one thing I promised myself, it was never moving back to California. That’s where my old marriage was.”
“You know there are tons of different cities in California, right? They’re not all palm trees and desert.”
Karen ignored that. “Why don’t you move up here? There’s a burgeoning film community in Portland. Even living there would bring us so much closer.” Portland was only a couple hours away, and that accounted for traffic. They could meet every week instead of once or twice a month, depending on who had the spare airline miles. “I mean, after the documentary releases, I’ll be your only reason to come back to town.”
“You think that’s not a good enough reason for me?”
“I didn’t say that,” Karen quickly corrected, “but if you don’t have your work and its associated tax write-offs sending you here, why would you? Don’t you think you’ll start resenting it after a while?”
“Whoa, where is this coming from?” Dahlia had to raise her voice over the crowd singing Christmas carols. “I make a joke about you not running for reelection, and suddenly I’m getting bored with you?”
“Sorry.” Karen took a deep breath. Didn’t help that breath brought with it hot, stale air from the fire. Maybe I should go out for some fresh and cool air. She could sure use it right now. “I’ve got a lot on my mind lately, you know. The Christmas Tree Lighting is the last event of the year, and it’s one of the few things residents look forward to during this season. Well, event that I have to oversee. You know what I mean.”
Dahlia nodded.
“I’ve got to coordinate the children’s choir from school singing those blasted songs.” Some of them sounded an awful like the ones Casper now played on the piano. “I have to make sure the lights are working without spoiling the fun for everyone coming to see it later. If It rains, we’re really screwed. We have to reschedule, and we’re already doing it right before Christmas as it is.” People always gave city hall crap for not having their lighting right after Thanksgiving, but it came down to money, like everything else. It cost a little too much to run that kind of electricity for too many weeks. They made up for it by leaving the tree up until New Year’s. Then again, the people qualified to take it down are all out of town. Nobody thought what it was like being the mayor of a tiny town. Peop
le thought it must be easier because there was less to look over, but all it really meant was that Karen bit off more than she could chew. Just because she was used to it now didn’t mean it didn’t take its toll.
“What’s going on in here, huh?”
Sunny stumbled back into the living room with her wife right behind her. Karen was close enough to smell the pot right away.
“Whoa,” Dahlia muttered. “Are they high?”
Karen looked Sunny up and down, a tad jealous that the flighty hostess looked calmer than a stoner enjoying the depths of her comfortable bed. “Yes.” Karen snapped her fingers in front of Sunny’s face. It took more than a few attempts to get her attention. “Where’d you get that stuff?” she hissed, although she doubted Sunny heard her over the piano music. “And where can we get some?”
“Whoa, we?” Dahlia asked.
Brandy took a step back, hands bidding Karen and Dahlia to follow her through the kitchen. “I’ve got mooooore,” she mouthed.
God, Karen had the best friends. And the best girlfriend, since Dahlia was the first one off the couch and following Brandy. It was up to Karen to take Sunny by the arm and lead her back out to the porch, where they lit up and never felt more alive than in the chilly December night.
Their worries could wait until tomorrow. That’s how it usually worked, anyway.
Chapter 10
SKYLAR
The only thing more out of place than the Christmas music last Thanksgiving was the gospel music now dispensing into Paradise Pizza.
At first, Skylar thought it must have been a variation of Christmas music. Gospel? Holidays? Obviously, they go together. Upon closer listening, however, she quickly realized that it was good ol’ fashioned church music.
Well… perhaps it still fit the theme of Christmas in a small town. Yet the mystery over who controlled the satellite radio station continued to plague the part-timers who came in, took a hard listen, and rolled their eyes before putting on their aprons.
Skylar had never heard such a joyful rendition of “Wade in the Water” as when she sat at one of the tables by the window for her lunch break. Employees were allowed to eat at one of the limited tables outside of the lunch rush, since nobody, and that meant nobody, ate there after the sun went down. It was takeout only from that point.
I used to sing this song for choir class… She had completely forgotten about it until that moment, when she found herself humming along to words that had lurked in her long-time memory. Back when I was a soprano. She was a respectable alto now. Then again, Skylar never pursued a choir life after a falling out with the school instructor, who always had it out for Skylar’s mom.
Those kinds of events made her relate to the small town life. A world where parents fought with teachers and the student felt the repercussions for years. Her friends in SoCal and Portland never knew what that was like. “Oh, sure, my mom fought with my teacher but it was over once I graduated that year!” That didn’t happen in smaller schools, like the one Skylar went to as a young tween. When you saw the same teacher every day for going on five, eight, or twelve years, those old grudges followed you beyond graduation day.
So. “Wade in the Water.” Skylar somehow still knew it.
Maybe she needed some divine intervention as she opened the note app on her phone and spelled out everything bothering her – and what she might do to improve her situation. Because Skylar was a firm believer in the power of positive thinking. Or something. It always sounded good. Those self-help books she flipped through in Powell’s always said something like that.
“Things Driving Me Nuts,” she typed at the top of her app. “1. Working this dead-end job five days a week. I am so bored. The money isn’t enough to get ahead. I’m in purgatory.”
She sipped soda through a straw and read that back to herself.
“2. No friends beyond Mik. This town is really cliquey. I thought Portland was bad, but at least you get a constant influx of new people there. Every time I meet someone new here, it turns out they’re somebody’s online girlfriend who is dropping by for a visit. Or they have questionable bumper stickers on their rig… I thought Oregon City was bad…”
Her dinner of leftover curry and rice Mik made the night before was growing cold in her Tupperware. She should have cooked it in the microwave a little longer.
“3. Everyone here is coupled. For real. I have yet to meet a single lesbian who stays single for long.” Was Skylar a lesbian? Hell, no, but that didn’t mean she escaped the pressure to be coupled. Didn’t matter that the pressure now came from queer women. Society was built around the pressure to be in a couple, right? Granted, Skylar didn’t know everyone in Paradise Valley. Surely, there were single people, both gay and straight. At least the single women here had a chance at dating when the tourism population swelled multiple times a year.
That brought her to point four.
“4. I feel so unfulfilled”
The hardest lesson Skylar learned that year was that she couldn’t run away from her demons. It was the same lesson she saw thousands of people learning in Portland. One of the reasons it was so hard to make friends in Portland didn’t only have to do with the PNW freeze or the cliquish nature of the residents. It was hard making friends with people when they always left after a few months! The transient nature of the Pacific Northwest was one of the hardest things for Skylar to get used to when she moved up from SoCal. People came and went from California, of course, but that was an area built for it. Portland – and the greater PNW area – were supposed to be homey. Expressive. Safe. Whatever. I fell for that trap like so many other people. After all, Skylar had left as well. She had broken a few acquaintances’ hearts when she left a year ago.
“5. Mik doesn’t need me after all.”
Skylar hadn’t moved away for purely selfish reasons. She had seen the pain in Mik’s eyes when the need to move came up. Skylar had been one of her biggest supporters, too, going as far as telling Mik it was the perfect opportunity to move back now that she no longer had her marketing job. Mik had always planned to go into independent consulting, but moving into her grandmother’s house in the countryside took much off the financial pressure.
When Mik finally opened up about the real reason she was nervous, Skylar knew what she had to do. She needed to support her best friend. Mik needed her. Her friend was in need, and Skylar was in a position to offer it.
So much for that. Within one month of moving back to town, Mik was back with her ex-girlfriend and causing such a commotion that her time was constantly consumed. Meanwhile, Skylar spent so many weeks looking for a job, that by the time she finally landed this gig at the pizza place, she had burned through most of her savings paying off her student loans. It only made her feel guiltier about living in the Marcott house rent free, since the original plan had been to either financially contribute or find her own living situation.
So, what was she going to do about all of this?
“I have to either find something to keep me here, or get out. Somewhere.”
Skylar sipped her straw and realized she was out of soda. She crushed up some of the ice and finally gave in to the idea that her break was over. The moment she donned her apron and put her empty lunchbox back into her locker, John approached and announced they got a takeout order he needed her to start right away.
“Anchovies,” he said with near-awe. “Somebody actually ordered anchovies!”
While it wasn’t unheard of, someone in Paradise Valley opting for the anchovy topping was definitely at the bottom of the list. The pineapple wars remained in full force, though, and blood had been drawn…
“Oh, and they want pineapple! Anchovies and pineapple!”
Skylar turned around from the walk-in entrance. “Excuse me? Is this a joke order?”
“Nope. Recurring customers. When I asked her if that’s what she really wanted, I was told it made sense in their house.”
“You sure it’s not half and half? Like, one side anchovy, the oth
er side…”
“Nope. Whole medium pizza is anchovy and pineapple. See?”
Sure enough, Skylar saw the order for herself on the computer. “All right, I guess. Since they’ve already paid…”
Besides John, Skylar was the only employee on duty that otherwise slow Wednesday night and was on the front line to present the pizza to the customers coming in to pick it up. Loud voices drifted from the front counter to the kitchen, where Skylar finished boxing the pizza. She gagged from the smell.
“Oh, jeez, Lor.” Krys Madison stepped away from the counter, hands held out and head shaking. “You’ve gotta be kidding. What’s on that thing? Smells like ass.”
Lorri Abrams, the woman who must have called in the order, accepted the box. “It’s for Joanie! She’s the one who wanted both anchovies and pineapple!”
“That’s love right there.” Krys turned to Skylar, who was only mildly invested. “If my significant other asked me to bring anchovy and pineapple pizza into my house, I’d break up with her right there. There are boundaries in relationships.”
“You’d do it if she were pregnant. You don’t mess with a pregnant woman’s cravings.”
“God help me, I won’t know what that’s like. Ever.”
Lorri acknowledged Skylar on their way out the door. “Thanks! Wish us luck!”
John emerged from the kitchen as soon as they were gone. “Smells like hell back there.”
“It’s about to smell like hell in their house.”
Bouncing between both feet, John grabbed his car keys from his pocket and motioned to the door. “Will you be okay here if I run down to the store and get some new air fresheners? I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”
“Considering that was the only order we had in the past hour, I think I can manage. If you have your phone on you, I can text if we get a sudden influx.”
John glanced at the clock. “Cool. You’ll be fine before eight hits. Be right back.”
Skylar was rarely left alone in the pizzeria. She always had at least John there, or if not John, then Carrie or any of the other capable employees who could back her up in times of pizza crisis. Yet it was Wednesday. Outside of events going on in town, they rarely got orders that amounted to anything more than the odd large pie. Nothing Skylar couldn’t handle on her own.
December Wishes (A Year in Paradise Book 12) Page 6
