The Christmas Surprise

by R. R. Banks

  I was so fascinated by the exchange that I didn’t even care about the rain anymore. Fawn walked away from the man, but he stayed in place, the rain pouring down on him as he stood, now fully soaked, and stared out into the woods behind him. Finally, he turned and walked the same way that Fawn had around the side of the house. I started to follow him, then heard the sound of wet footsteps coming toward me. I ran back to my position on the side of the house and watched as the man reappeared, pulling Snow behind him. I straightened, leaning further to make sure that I didn’t miss anything.

  “What are you doing?” Snow asked.

  “Shhh,” the man said. “I don’t want Fawn to hear you.”

  “It’s raining. I need to get inside.”

  “It was raining when you were out here with that guy,” the man said.

  Even from my distance I could see Snow take a slight step back from the man and give him a look that bordered on disgust but held a hint of emotion.

  “I have to go inside,” she said, her voice low and controlled.

  She stepped around the man and jogged around the side of the cottage. The man watched her go, his hands lifting slightly as if reaching for her, then clawed back through his hair as he let out what sounded like a growl of frustration. He turned and as he did, his eyes locked on me. I ducked behind the house and ran into the woods, cutting across the front of the cottage and disappearing behind the trees. I ran until I was confident that he wasn’t following me anymore and slowed, contemplating what I had just seen.

  I continued on toward my car for a few moments before I stopped as if I had walked into a wall. A realization had hit me hard and I suddenly felt like the sky was clearing even though the rain was pouring down even harder now. Ducking my head into the rain, I ran back toward the gate, squeezed my way through, and got back to my car. In that moment, I was suddenly grateful for the absurdly in-depth reading into the policies and regulations of the Royal and Company Advertising Agency that Walter had insisted on before he would agree to put me in charge. He had wanted to make sure that I understood the company that he built and the corporate culture that he had intended from the beginning of his dream. What he had actually given me was the insight that I needed to destroy Snow in a way that I would never even be able to imagine.

  Enjoy your little fun now, Snow, I thought, it’s about to all be over for you.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Snow

  I could feel tears stinging in my eyes when I got into my room and I slammed the door behind me. The sound reverberated through the cottage, but I didn’t care. A torturous blend of emotions was coursing through me and I felt like I couldn’t breathe if I didn’t get it out somehow. I kicked out of my shoes and tore the leather clothing away from my body before stalking across the room and drawing a bath. It was to be my last bath in The Enchanted Woods and I ran the water as hot as I thought that my skin could handle it before pouring in shimmering iridescent bubble bath and a handful of oil beads. I felt suddenly chilled as if my body had just noticed the rain, and my muscles relaxed as I lowered myself into the deep tub. The water rose up to my chin and I leaned back against the side of the tub, wishing that I could disappear into the mounds of bubbles that were building up around me. I had just turned off the faucet when I heard the familiar sound of my room door opening. My body tensed as I waited for the bathroom door to open and to see Noah’s face again. Seconds passed and the door stayed closed. Then I heard the room door close and I realized that he was gone.

  When I felt that I had hidden in the bath for as long as I could, I stepped out, dried off, and slipped into the plush bathrobe that I had used every night that I had spent at the retreat. I knew that I would miss the feeling of the fabric against my skin and the warmth and relaxation it represented. I stepped out of the bathroom, expecting to see a tray with dinner on it sitting by the window. Instead, there was only an envelope in the middle of the bed. It had my name across the front, but no other identifying marks. I picked it up, suddenly experiencing a feeling as though I could sense Noah’s touch on it.

  I settled onto the bed and held the envelope in my hands for a few moments. These were his final words to me, sentiments that he sent after our clash in the lawn. I didn’t know what it could hold and the emotions that might be expressed through those words. As long as I didn’t open the envelope and read the note inside, I didn’t have to know. I could pretend that it said whatever I wanted it to say, though even as I sat there, crystallizing the moment around me so that I could hover in it, not allowing the potential pain of what the words might say to reach me, I didn’t really know what I might want them to say.

  Finally, I knew that I couldn’t put it off any longer. I opened the envelope and pulled out the note inside. Rather than being on the thick cardstock of the notes that accompanied my date boxes, the note was written on plain paper as if it had been hastily torn from a notebook.

  “ Snow – I wanted to tell you that no matter what I’ve said, I understand why you came here and that you made the decision that you think is right for you. You did what you had to do and I hope that you found what you were looking for. I only wish that things could be different.”

  The words were simple and there was nothing in them that expressed any form of anger or hurt, but I could feel it. I knew that Noah was struggling when he wrote the note, and that it was all that he could manage, all that he could do to express the last message that he could send to me. As soon as I got dressed, I would be leaving the retreat, and him, behind.

  It was late when I got back home from my last night at the Enchanted Woods and even though I had been there only a few days before, I felt like I was walking into a strange place. It was like something had changed in me in the last few days, as though I had achieved what Fawn had promised and found something within myself that I didn’t know, and that it had somehow changed how I saw everything else around me. Even as I stepped into my living room and dropped my bags to the carpet, however, I couldn’t identify what it was that I had discovered about myself. I had found far more about myself sexually than I would have ever imagined that I would have, and even some things that I wouldn’t have believed I would have done or enjoyed if someone had told me about them only a few weeks before. That, however, didn’t seem like enough. There had to be something else. There had to be more to justify everything that I had gone through and how different I felt. My home used to be the place where I was most comfortable. It wasn’t elaborate or big, but it was mine. It represented everything that I had worked so hard for and the time, energy, and effort I had put into my career. As I was standing there, though, it didn’t feel like that anymore. Suddenly it felt like it represented everything I had done for everyone else. It wasn’t that I didn’t love my house. It was still the same place that I had slid around in in just my socks when I had first closed on it and it was still empty. It was the same place where I had pored for hours over carpet samples only to settle on oatmeal. I loved this house, but it was something that had come from exactly what Robin told me I did…worked to please others.

  I walked over to the sliding glass door that led out onto the patio to the side of the house and pulled the curtains tighter, then glanced across the room to make sure that the blinds were closed. When I confirmed that they were, I kicked off my shoes and stripped down to my lingerie. This was one of the things about myself that was definitely different. Before visiting the Enchanted Woods, I would have been standing there in a pair of white panties and a matching boring bra. Maybe beige. Now I was wearing delicate confections of mint green lace that brushed my body and made me feel feminine and beautiful even standing alone in the living room. Taking a moment just to enjoy this feeling, I finally released the clasp on the back of my bra and released my breasts to the cool air of the living room and then peeled my panties down my hips and off.

  I stood in the middle of my living room completely naked. It was something that I had never done and something that I never would have thought that I
would have done. My nudity was generally restricted to my bedroom and the bathroom. Sometimes the short hallway in between. Now I was standing here in absolutely nothing, enjoying the sensation more than I probably should have. I took off running and did a few laps around the house, weaving in and out of the rooms. I didn’t bother to check the windows when I went into the guest room and temporarily flashed everything to the neighbor on that side of the house, but since it was so late and so dark, I felt fairly confident that I went unseen, and even if the 80-year-old woman who lived there had been peering out of her window at precisely that moment, she would have only seen a silhouette of me running through. With any luck, she would just assume a killer was after me and go for cover.

  When I finished my nude jog through the house, I stopped back in the living room to get my luggage. It had been liberating to do that, as silly as it had seemed. I might not know exactly what walls I had broken down, but they were definitely breaking. I climbed into bed that night without bothering to get into pajamas. I thought that it would be relaxing, but almost as soon as my body slipped in between the chilly sheets of the bed, I felt the emptiness of my house and of the bed. My mind went back to the cottage and the last time I had seen Noah. He had surprised me at the end of my final date, but now that I was back at my house, I regretted the way that I had left things between us. I knew about the contract that he had signed, and I had made a similar agreement with Fawn. It didn’t matter what we felt, or what we thought we felt. What we had done had been completely against those agreements and I felt incredibly guilty about it. I had gone into this with the agreement that this was not about emotions and that I wasn’t to think of anything with these men beyond the end of the dates that I shared with them. Even the brief conversations that we had when he brought me my meals had been bordering on breach of contract, but having sex with him on the night of my date with Damien had severely crossed the line. Even if I had acknowledged the feelings that I had for Noah, I never should have allowed myself to act on them. I was, above all else, a professional, and my contract and the objectives of the time at The Enchanted Woods should have surpassed them. I had absolutely no guilt about the dates that followed my impromptu encounter with Noah. For once, I was thinking about myself and my own needs.

  Perhaps if things had been different…

  I stopped that thought pattern as quickly as it had started and pushed it out of my mind. Things weren’t different. They were exactly what they were, and there was nothing that I could do to change that. I agreed to the retreat for my own specific reasons and I accomplished what I went there to do.

  I tried to convince myself that it was good that I even got to have these feelings. Before I agreed to the retreat at the Enchanted Woods I had convinced myself that I might never feel like this ever again. My breakup had nearly destroyed me and there were plenty of times when I felt like my heart had closed off completely. It was as though it was so afraid of being hurt again that it just refused to soften for anyone. Now, though, I knew that I was capable of having feelings for another person again. I wasn’t sure what those feelings were and it wasn’t as though I would ever be able to see Noah again, but just knowing that they were there, that there was a place of my heart that was willing to be vulnerable and to welcome someone else in. It was reassuring, though in that moment, no matter how hard I tried, it made me feel hollow and sad.

  The next morning, I was still thinking about Noah when I pulled into the office parking lot for the first time since Hunter had sent me on my leave of absence. My stomach felt oddly nervous and I paused for a moment after pulling into my usual parking space. The tiny sign that had my name was gone from the front of the spot and I felt a clench of anger in my chest.

  Lucille is a real piece of work.

  I climbed angrily out of the car and was striding toward the front door of the office, ready to confront her about my spot, when my phone rang. I stopped and dug through my shoulder bag to find my phone. It was on the last ring when I finally found it and answered without looking at the screen.

  “Hello?”

  “Snow?”

  The voice would have been a welcome surprise after so long, but Brandy sounded strained and upset, taking the happiness out of hearing from her for the first time since I left.

  “Brandy? What’s wrong?”

  “Am I seeing you in the parking lot right now?”

  I looked around, somewhat unnerved by the strange question. Finally, I looked up at the building and saw some of the blinds in one of the windows were being held apart. I could only imagine that Brandy was on the other side of the small gap, staring down at me. I waved and the blinds snapped shut.

  “Yeah,” I said. “What’s going on?”

  “You’re still coming in today?”

  “Yes,” I said, starting toward the door again. “Why wouldn’t I? I’ve been away for three and a half months. Don’t you think it’s about time I get to work again?”

  There was a long pause on the other end of the line that slowed my steps until I stopped on the small patio at the front of the building.

  “I guess that means that you haven’t seen this morning’s edition of The Apple?”

  The bi-monthly newsletter had been one of Mr. Royal’s efforts of love in the company. Written entirely by him, it usually contained a few announcements, acknowledgements of accomplishments or special events such as birthdays, anniversaries, years of service milestones, or births, and a pep talk in the form of a personal note from Mr. Royal. Though it was far more quaint than it was actually helpful, the newsletter was something that everyone in the office looked forward to each edition. It was heartwarming and offered a little bit of an emotional boost if any of them us was feeling down. I had actually found myself missing finding the letter on my desk during my time away from the office, but the way that Brandy had mentioned it didn’t sound as though it was something that I should be looking forward to.

  “I haven’t,” I said.

  “You probably should before you come in here. Wait just a second. I’ll bring it to you.”

  “Alright,” I said through the lump that had formed in my throat.

  I hung up without saying goodbye and dropped my phone back into my bag. It only took a few moments for Brandy to get to me, but I spent them pacing back and forth across the patio nervously. I really didn’t like the tone in her voice and the fact that she thought there was something in The Apple that I needed to read before going into the office.

  When Brandy arrived, I stepped up to her probably a bit more aggressively than I needed to. She was gripping her copy of the newsletter in her hand and looking at me with a veil of fear and devastation over her eyes. I reached for The Apple and she hesitated for a few seconds before handing it over to me. I noticed that the template was exactly the same as it had been when Mr. Royal wrote them, but the byline had been changed to read Lucille Royal. Just seeing that sent a chill through me. Anything that Lucille had written couldn’t mean good things. I scanned the first few chunks of text, quickly recognizing that it was just a regurgitation of the calendar reminder email that I knew Mr. Royal got every month to make sure that he remembered all of the events that he wanted to include in the next couple of newsletters. I was starting to feel that maybe Brandy had overreacted about the newsletter not mentioning my triumphant return to the office when I unfolded the page and my eyes fell on the bold headline that sliced across the newsletter.

  Snow Whitman Fired After Moral Indiscretions Flout Company Policy

  My heart started beating so hard it felt as though it were trying to keep time with the words of the text as I read them. The article outlined in scathing detail how Lucille had uncovered the “lewd and lascivious behavior” I had indulged in while out on leave, scorning me for my “lack of standards” and stating in no uncertain terms how humiliating it was to be associated with someone of such low moral fiber, particularly considering the closeness of my relationship with Mr. Royal. I felt my stomach turn at the implica
tion that I had done exactly what she had and as my hand clenched around the newsletter, crumbling it, I stomped past Brandy and through the front door to the office.

  I stalked past the security guard posted in the front, ignoring his pleas, albeit half-hearted, for me to stop, and moved directly to Lucille’s office. Too infuriated to care what anyone thought of me and fully embracing the idea that I wasn’t going to walk out of this office with my career intact, I planted a brutal kick into the middle of the door. The heel of my shoe splintered through the cheap wood that I wouldn’t be surprised to learn had been there since the day that the company opened. It was something that I had mentioned to Mr. Royal before, telling him that the appearance of his office was a major part of the impression that he made on prospective clients, and that that started with his door. It was one of the few suggestions of mine that he hadn’t heeded, but as I listened the satisfying sound of my foot cracking through the door and the gasp of surprise from inside, I was happy that he had ignored me.

  Lucille was on her feet when I pushed the door the rest of the way and stepped inside to face her.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.

  So, we have dispensed with the decorum all together.

  “Me?” I said, taking a step closer to her. “Me? What am I doing? What do you think you’re doing writing something like this about me?”

  I tossed the newsletter to her feet and saw a sickening smile come to her lips.