A Very Merry Christmas

by Cathy Lamb

  One of the fleshy face nervous friends said, “Uh . . . look around. We’re sorry about this. We’re not from here—”

  “Gee, now that’s a surprise!” Wise Woman Vicki said, exasperated. “You’re as out of place as a pink flamingo would be on my ranch.”

  “Logan, the only thing Meredith needs help with is her cowgirl hats.” Wise Woman Katie called out. “She’s got a definite cowgirl hat shopping problem.”

  I raised an impatient eyebrow at Logan’s expression. “All we ladies have a vice. I happen to like my cowgirl hats. Different colors, different styles . . . for different days, different moods.” I knew why I’d started my slight obsession with pretty cowgirl hats. It was to deflect attention away from something else about me that wasn’t pretty, not pretty at all. “Sometimes I’m in a bad mood so I wear black; better moods mean I pull on my pink hat with the brown ribbon. You know how it is.”

  He shook his head. “No, I don’t.”

  “Can you,” the sea urchin squeaked, “can you let me go? Please?”

  Logan dropped him. I stuck my cowboy boot out and caught him on the way down so he landed on his buttocks.

  “Now that you’re on your buttocks, listen up,” I said, leaning over. “I didn’t want you to hit on me. I didn’t ask for it. I told you to back off and you didn’t and I had to smell your drunken whiskey breath. That grossed me out. You touched the streak of hair my daddy says I got as a blessing from my ancestors. That triggered my temper. You flicked my cowgirl hat off my head. That pissed me off. Don’t treat a lady like a tramp, you got that, fleshy face? We’re not your toys, we’re not your playthings. We’re not for your amusement. We are people, with brains far brighter than yours. And for the record, I’m not impressed with your money or that you could buy all the fancy restaurants in town. We have no yachts in Montana, by the way. Braggarts annoy me. Braggarts are insecure. I can’t stand insecure men. If you can’t present yourself to a woman without bragging, you ain’t a man. Got that?”

  He nodded. “Yes, ma’am,” he whispered, stricken.

  “Leave now,” I said.

  “No,” Logan said.

  “What?” I straightened up.

  “I said no.”

  “No what?” I put my hands on my hips. I don’t like to hear the word “no.” I’d heard it way too much during a certain part of my life, and now I won’t tolerate it.

  “No, he’s not leaving until he apologizes.”

  “Good idea,” Barry Lynn said.

  “Splendid,” Howard said. “He needs to say he’s quite sorry. He was ungentlemanly. Came off like a bomb.”

  “I do believe that’s correct,” Norm said. “An apology is in order.”

  “And you three.” Logan glared at the sea urchin’s friends. “You’re going to apologize for allowing your friend to harass a lady without interfering and hauling his butt out of here before she got offended.”

  The three friends gaped at Logan. He did make an impressive figure. Towering. Strong. Not happy. Toughened face. Cowboy boots, of course, worn and scuffed. Jeans. My, he had a nice butt.

  “I told you I can handle this situation,” I said, indignant, though I did admire the butt.

  “I’m handling it now.”

  “No, you’re not. You can’t waltz into this bar and take over. I’m going to finish this up myself.”

  “You can finish this after me.”

  What? No. “No, I’m finishing it my own way.”

  “After me, lady with the cowgirl hat obsession. An apology is needed.”

  The sea urchin and his friends tried to slink out. Not a good idea. The Three Wise Women formed a line, as did a bunch of other Montana men and women, arms crossed on their chests.

  “Yeah, what do they think this is?” Wise Woman Katie said. “They come to Montana in their fishing costumes, guts spilling over, go to the local bar and hit up a woman without an apology? Sorry, I agree with Logan here.”

  “But I don’t want their apology. I want them to leave so I can drink my beer and do the Gracious Journal Vicki brought for us.”

  “It’s a Grateful Journal,” Vicki said, so helpful. “You write down what you’re grateful for.”

  I glared at Logan.

  He smiled down at me from his great height. “I’m grateful that I like your hat.”

  “I don’t care what you like,” I said, sulkily. “Don’t expect me to fall all over you with thanks, because I won’t.”

  “I didn’t ask for your thanks.”

  “You’re not going to get it.”

  “Okay, okay,” one of the friends said. “We’re going to leave. If you all move out of the way, this will end peacefully.”

  “Apologize,” Logan commanded.

  “I don’t have to apologize,” one of them stuttered. “I didn’t do anything wrong, Mervin was assaulted, and if you people don’t move, I’m going to call the police.”

  Laughter.

  He blushed.

  “Half the police force is right here, son,” Norm said. “Yun, would you care to get involved in this unfolding incident?”

  Lieutenant Yun shook his head. “Nope.”

  “And I’m going to call my lawyer!” another friend said.

  More laughter.

  “Call him! Tell him to bring his gun,” Katie the Wise Woman dared. “I’d like to see your lawyer’s tiny gun. I’d like to see your tiny guns, too. Your guns are teeny tiny, aren’t they?”

  “I think his guns are about as big as the guns on a rat I saw in my barn the other day,” Vicki said, pushing back her brown and gray ponytail. “My cat ate the rat.”

  “Statistically speaking you have no chance of winning this in court,” Hannah said, squinting her eyes behind her glasses. Hannah is a math professor at the college in town. She is obsessed with mathematics. On Friday night she goes online and does math problems with people around the country. “It was self-defense.”

  Logan Taylor looked at all four of the men. “This is the last time I’m going to tell you that Meredith here needs an apology. I’m counting to three. One, two . . .”

  “We’re sorry! We’re sorry! We’re really, really sorry. Oh, man!”

  “Lady, I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry I hit on you—”

  “Apology not accepted,” I said. “But can I show you my left hook?”

  They scurried out faster than you can say, “Merry Christmas.”

  I glowered at Logan.

  He grinned at me.

  “Could I have a moment of your time, please?” I asked.

  He was so hot.

  And I was so going to completely, utterly ignore that delicious fact. If I didn’t it would lead to nothing but more pain. I knew that.

  I knew that.

  “Come on, you testosterone-driven cowboy oaf. Get outside so I can give you a piece of my mind.” I stomped out.

  He followed.

  Chapter 2

  I live on the top floor of a three-story brick house built in 1889 that I bought about a year ago and transformed into my bed and breakfast/morning café business.

  When I’m in my bedroom with the peaked roof I can see all over Telena and to the Elk Horn mountains. I feel like I’m in a very tall, old tree house with a claw foot tub.

  My bedroom is a lovely place to temporarily lose my mind. I decorated my four-poster bed with a light yellow flowered comforter, and a mountain of white pillows, with white lacy material draped over the posts. I have a white dresser and desk and a pile of books to read by my nightstand. How would Logan look in my bed? I smashed that thought because then I would have to deal with his look of disgust when he knew what I know about myself.

  Also on the third floor are two other small bedrooms for Sarah and Jacob, my sister’s kids who have had too much heartbreak in their lives and now live with me, a living area with French doors to a small deck, and a bathroom.

  My home has a coal chute through which, obviously, coal used to be funneled. I have an old carriage house on the pr
operty that used to house, obviously, horses and a carriage. The home has a short stair rail because people were much shorter when this home was built, wide, ornate white trim, and eleven-foot tall ceilings on floors one and two. Downstairs there is one guest bedroom, a parlor with a piano and a fireplace, a sun-filled dining area with a fireplace, and a kitchen. On the second floor there are four bedrooms that I’ve decorated with four-poster beds, wooden chests, old-fashioned wallpaper, stacked hatboxes, and armoires.

  I have named my bed and breakfast, “Meredith’s Bed and Breakfast,” because at the time, in the midst of a stress tornado, I couldn’t think of anything more clever.

  I did some research, and my home has more history in it than a history book.

  It was built by a Jewish businessman. He had five daughters and a wife. One of his girls ended up marrying the boy who lived directly behind this house; another left town with a convict. Apparently he was a handsome convict.

  A railroad executive also lived here with three different wives, who all predeceased him. He had nine kids, a timepiece, and a top hat. I have framed that photo in my entry. A mine owner lived here, alone, and he apparently fancied the ladies. A millionaire lived here for two decades and never left the house. Three sisters bought it at one point. One owned a bar; one worked at a church; one was a doctor who provided birth control to Telena. They had many “gentlemen” callers. It was also once a popular house of “ill repute,” as confirmed by an old newspaper article. The madam in charge was named, no kidding, Hearty Tallfeather.

  I bought it from a woman who wanted to move outside of Telena and start a farm. I heard she had over two hundred chickens at one point and sold eggs and garlic to all the local stores. They called her the Egg Lady. I also heard she told people what was going to happen in their futures. She wasn’t a fortune teller, she was a “future predictor,” her words. Popular lady.

  Sometimes, I think, with these old houses, that the previous owners’ spirits all somehow stay in it. Their lives, their memories, their problems and tears, laughter and joy, their fears and their hopes are still here, somehow embedded in the walls, the chandeliers, the original wood floors.

  So when I hear a pitter patter of feet and no one is home, I shrug my shoulders. When I hear a horse whinny or the creak of carriage wheels, I don’t think anything of it. When a hint of twenties music tra la las for a second, I shrug it off. When I hear two women whispering and see nothing but a lace curtain floating in the wind, I know I’m not losing my mind.

  Maybe someone with a long, ruffled skirt, a pink parasol, and black button-up boots, had her heart broken by a fickle young man . . .

  Or maybe she’s running in, only to change clothes, grab her bonnet, and catch the first train out of town to start a whole new life in California....

  This is what I do know: My old, history-laden house will stand long after I’m gone.

  Maybe I’ll come back and haunt it.

  That night I dreamed of the accident.

  The pavement beneath my back was cool and wet from rain, the moonlight shining on the underside of my parents’ car, which was completely flipped over and in a ditch.

  My breath felt constricted, as if it was being cut off, pulled away from me, my body weakening, freezing.

  “Meredith! Where are youuuuuu?” my sister sang out, then giggled, still stumbling around near the car. “What a trip! How fast do you think we were going?”

  I heard a motorcycle engine, then a man was leaning over me, his white shirt a beacon in the darkness. His eyes were intense, but somehow calm, too. Through the razor-edged haze of unbelievable pain and shock, those eyes held me steady.

  “Stay with me, stay with me,” he yelled. He pulled off his white T-shirt and ripped it into pieces. I had no idea why he did that, nor did I understand what he was doing with my left leg which felt as if it was on fire. I didn’t understand why a half naked young man with a beard was leaning over me, the pain too excruciating to think through. “You’re going to be fine.”

  In the distance I could hear my sister giggling, laughing. “What a ride! Where are you, Meredith? Wasn’t that fun?”

  No, it had not been fun. Leia had picked me up from a friend’s where we’d been studying for a final. I was eighteen. She was twenty-one. I hadn’t known she was drunk when I got in the car and she sped off.

  I felt the edges of my eyes go dark. “It’s getting black,” I whispered. “Why is it black?”

  He swore, finished working on my leg, then held my face with both of his hands. “Don’t look at the black. What’s your name?”

  I tried to tell him my name, but the pain, which had been shooting up and down my body, like a speeding train stuck in forward then reverse, reached my head. I think I screamed, I think it was me, or maybe the scream was stuck so deep in my mind I didn’t open my mouth to let it out.

  “What’s your name?”

  I shook my head as I heard him swear again, although I knew he wasn’t swearing at me. He was huge I noticed, his shoulders blocking out the moon, as he propped me up with his arms.

  “There’s a light in my head,” I told him. It was white and gold and moving. It was so pretty. So safe. It reminded me of the star on top of our family’s Christmas tree.

  “No!” he yelled again. “Get back from the bright light. Look at me, look at me.”

  My sister, off in the distance giggled again, that giggle bouncing off the trees. “Whoa! Whoa! We flipped and flipped!”

  I looked at those eyes, inches from my face, as my breath seemed to swoosh out of me, leaving me alone, my whole body floating, the pain finally subsiding, a golden glow wrapping me up tight. My last memory was of him reaching for the bottom of my sweatshirt and ripping the whole thing in half. I was vaguely embarrassed about this young man seeing my boring beige bra, and then there was nothing but the stars and they faded quickly and everything else went completely black.

  The bad sort of black. The sort of black that says, “This is it. Welcome to heaven.”

  “I quit. I won’t tolerate this one second longer. I have tried to organize you people, tried to inject a sense of solemnity into the Telena Christmas Concert Series, to bring it to a righteous level, but I can no longer volunteer my precious time, unless you all agree to my vision of how the concert must go.” Ava Turner stuck her fierce bosom out under her prim sweater.

  I resisted the urge to roll my eyes to the back of my head and leave them there. I was sure the other ten people in the community room at the library did, too. I envisioned sour grapefruit surrounding Ava like a hula hoop.

  “I have been the director of the Telena Christmas Concert Series for two years,” Ava puffed. “And I can’t have my authority questioned.”

  I heard three people groan. One sniffed. One said, under her breath, “And I believe I have the authority to arrest you for being obnoxious.” (That was a police officer named Pauline.) Val Porter, eighty years old and as outspoken now as she’s been for the last seventy-eight years, according to those who know her, said, “Oh, my donkey’s butt. You aren’t a dictator, Ava. We’re a committee, we decide together.”

  “Together?” Ava said, her voice pitchy. “This is not a hippie movement. I am the director. You may make suggestions, but I am the ultimate authority and I will make the final decisions about the content of this concert.”

  “Yes, together,” Val croaked. “We gotta change things. Our numbers have been dwindling since Chit Holcomb quit running it three years ago, bless that handsome gentleman.”

  Chit, seventy years old, widowed for ten years, and a retired oil exec, had decided to move to Arizona during Montana’s winters because, he said, “I figure that if I’m in and out of two states I have a better chance of finding me a wife. I’m still sexy, don’t ya think, Meredith?” I assured him he was, and he ate the strawberry waffles I’d cut up and arranged in the shape of a sports car for him.

  “Bless Chit,” Pauline murmured. “And bless me, because I want to handcuff that Ava’s
mouth.”

  “Our numbers were lower last year but we had a better audience, a more educated, cultural group who knew how to appreciate a high class concert,” Ava sniffed.

  “It was boring,” Howard said, matter of fact. “Boring. All these solemn, sad Christmas songs, all classical music, no fun, no laughter, no skits. It was a defeated battlefield.”

  I thought Ava was going to pop. “I am bringing class to this sleepy town, class. Chit did not have the musical background that I have, the prowess for directing and choral training. We need hymns, not banging on drums. Melody, not rap. A serious choir, not a hard rock concert. No skits. Class!”

  “Unless we offer free beer, we are going to lose even more people if we don’t make radical changes to this infinitely boring concert series,” Barry Lynn said. “We can’t afford to lose the tourism. All of our businesses need people.”

  “Are you saying my concert won’t bring people in?”

  “I think I saw more drunken elves in my bar last year than you had people for our concert,” Barry Lynn said. “Word got out that it was a funereal affair; all that was missing was the pallbearers, dead body, and incense, and they didn’t buy tickets.”

  “Well, I never!” Ava huffed, fierce bosom out again.

  There was a tight, tense silence. “I think, Ava,” I said, trying to be gentle, which can be difficult for me, “that we need to, well, modernize things, appeal to a broader audience, make sure that the younger people are excited about coming, the families, the college-aged kids—”

  “This is not a family event—”

  “It should be!” Barry Lynn shot out. “It’s Christmas, remember, Ms. Scrooge?”

  The arguments went on and on until I was nauseous and Ava stuck that fierce bosom out under her prim sweater one last time and declared, “You’ve spoken then. I am walking right out that door and once I leave, that’s it. I will no longer be your director. I cannot possibly support this outrageous idea, this radical Christmas concert, this abomination. You’ll ruin my reputation!”