by Laura Briggs
“I guess we all have romantic problems in our own way,” said Ama. “I broke up with Tamir finally.”
Both of her partners sat upright. “You did?” repeated Natalie. “Finally! You go, girl.”
“Ama, good for you,” said Tessa. “No more being miserable at restaurants or movie theaters. You’re taking control of your romantic destiny.”
“Sort of,” said Ama. “It’s a beginning. Let’s stick with that for now. It felt like a disaster, but it will get better, I think. At least I’m not pretending to date someone I don’t like, or hiding the fact that I don’t feel the way my family wants me to about certain things. Right?”
Natalie lifted her water bottle. “Here’s to happy disasters in life,” she said.
Happy disasters. That’s what this wedding represented best, Tessa supposed. Messy things sometimes tumble into perfect order at the bottom of life’s staircase. Would other things in their lives fall into place eventually, like the winter wonderland ceremony? Working with Blake, thinking about him and Mac as a couple from now on—how good would she be at facing that situation? Clinging to their ‘strictly professional’ boundaries, pretending that she didn’t think about him at all, or feel anything out of the ordinary when they touched… that had been the biggest miscalculation she had made since beginning this venture.
I’ll have to go on working with him. I’ll have to pretend it doesn’t bother me, because that’s exactly what he thinks after everything I said. Besides, I want him to stay. I don’t want him to leave because he found out how I really feel. Having Blake quit would be worse, and she knew it, even feeling this mixed up inside.
“So, who is your unwanted admirer?” Ama asked Natalie.
“Nobody,” answered Natalie. She passed Tessa a cheesecake on the plate. “Try one of these, Tess. They really are amazing.” She took a bite out of her own serving, the crushed peppermint giving it a light crunch.
“No thanks,” said Tessa. She didn’t have an appetite for one, not after Mac’s compliments, delivered via Blake. His admiring tone for the interior designer had been a big red warning flag to her emotions from the beginning, which she had refused to recognize at the time.
She felt Ama’s hand on her shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Maybe Blake doesn’t really like her,” Ama suggested. “You are a little out of practice reading the signals, right?”
“Right.” Tessa tried to smile, but it didn’t go as planned, once again. As it wobbled into tears, she felt Natalie’s hand on her other shoulder with the same comforting squeeze as Ama’s, which made falling apart easier than at the restaurant. Maybe a few tears in sympathetic company was exactly what she needed.
Twenty-Six
“That’s the last of my holiday shopping.” Natalie let the door to Wedding Belles swing closed behind her on its own as she stomped the snow from her boots. “Nadia and Lyle must be on honeymoon somewhere warm, because I think they left behind their wedding’s snowstorm in the city.”
“It’s a white Christmas,” said Ama, who was peering through a hole in the picture window’s frost as she rearranged the display’s presents under its ‘wedding tree,’ decorated with invitations, cake ornaments, bunting garlands, and a cake topper to crown it. “That’s my favorite kind. I love to go for walks on Christmas Day when it snows. Me and Rasha walk past the big church with the manger scene, then go window shopping even though the stores are closed, then we go listen to the band and watch the lights in the park at dusk.”
“I thought your family didn’t celebrate Christmas,” said Natalie, depositing several shopping bags on the reception desk. She unwound her scarf and draped it over the shoulder of a half-dressed mannequin waiting for the spring display—one that she had promised to help put into place over the holidays, in order to escape endless leftovers and her relatives’ questions.
“We don’t. But we still have the day off,” said Ama. “Nobody comes to our place on Christmas Day—even the Indians in our neighborhood always go to the twenty-four-hour Chinese delivery place a couple of blocks away. Usually, me and my sister watch the parade on TV, and my brother Nikil hangs out with his friends. Jaidev and Deena come over for dinner because my father has to cook something if it’s a holiday.”
“Sounds like my mother.” Natalie rummaged around in one of her shopping bags. “At least you’ll eat casual style. I’ll have to dress nicely, eat a thousand of my uncle’s traditional Christmas ravioli, and be prepared to eat a ton of cream cake on top of that when we come back from Midnight Mass. Plus, there’s usually a big Italian seafood platter… my brother will make us all play touch football…”
“Still better than my mom’s idea of roasting a turkey with turmeric and nutmeg,” said Ama. “If she wants to roast one again, I hope she’ll let me and my siblings help. My mom and American cooking do not mix.”
“Ah, holidays with the family.” Natalie smirked. She scribbled a note to send thank you cards to Nadia’s wedding venue—and to the snooty new florist they had conquered, thanks to Tessa’s creative substitute. Her phone buzzed noisily from her handbag.
“Do you want to answer it?” Ama asked, as she pinned the latest business Christmas card to a string of them hanging across the foyer mirror, clipped in place with tiny clothespins.
“It’s probably my textiles class being canceled,” said Natalie. “I heard my instructor has the flu.” Ama dug the phone from the handbag and checked the screen.
A strange look crossed her face. “What?” said Natalie. “What does it say?”
“It’s from your cousin.” Ama hesitated, then took a breath and read aloud the text. “‘How serious is Chad?’”
Awkward—it was not the college administrator texting her class. Natalie had forgotten all about those texts exchanged with her mother, the half-serious pact she and Chad had made to silence her family’s meddling judgment. The look on Ama’s face was proof that her brain had calculated matters and leapt wildly ahead to the subtext of this text—that there was something between her and Chad that was worth taking note of, regardless of Natalie’s previous statements.
“You and Chad?” Ama echoed, before Natalie could speak. “The two of you are still dating?” Her eyes were alight. “I can’t believe it—is this text genuine? Is your family really asking this?”
Natalie balked. “Uh—er,” she began.
“He’s so handsome though, right?” said Ama. “All that rock climbing… Oh my gosh, Natalie, I can’t believe it. I can’t believe you’re seriously dating someone.”
“It’s… more the sort of ‘feeling it out’ stage,” ventured Natalie. Did Ama actually believe this was true? After all she had said aloud about commitment, serious romance, even falling in love? “I wouldn’t call us serious, in the strictest sense of the word. More like… exploring our potential as a couple.” That was a good definition for her and Chad in reality, after all.
“Why is your cousin asking, then?” persisted Ama.
“Because…” Natalie paused. “Because that’s what I told my mom the other night.” The moment for fessing up to the reasons why she had done something this surprising was at hand. “Of course, I—”
A playful smile appeared on Ama’s lips in reply. “You like him, don’t you?” she said coyly. “I knew you did. He was everything you always said you liked in a guy, I just didn’t think you were that serious about him yet. I wondered if there could be something, though.”
“I like him, yeah,” admitted Natalie, since this much could be stated honestly. “He’s a great guy. But… but it’s really new, this thing between us. You know me.” She shrugged her shoulders and tried to act mysterious in order to avoid saying too much that would make it seem true, or crushing her pact with Chad this early in the game.
After all, she needed some practice before she confronted her family with her fake serious boyfriend. If Ama could believe that Natalie the uncommitted and unromantic would plunge into the heat of love after a couple of short weeks, then surely
her desperate family would buy into the idea, too. Right?
After all, it’s just until after the New Year… and maybe Valentine’s Day. At least Ma won’t try to set me up with one of the bakery’s regular customers for this one.
“Oooh, this is exciting!” said Ama, clapping her hands.
“And a secret,” added Natalie hastily. “I mean, at least so long as we’re just starting out. Can’t tell everybody everything, can we?” Oh, the flippancy of her tone. Her true self could have a wickedly good time with the double meaning of these statements, smiling at her own private joke. Maybe Chad would have as much fun telling his rock-climbing buddies that he had a steady girlfriend for New Year’s Eve.
“We’ll be planning your wedding next spring,” predicted Ama with a grin. “You’ll be our June bride, I’ll just bet.”
“I think I’m more of a December bride,” said Natalie, balking nonetheless at the actual word ‘wedding’ in association with herself. “December of 2047,” she added. “Don’t get any ideas about putting me in a white dress yet, all right?” No way was she going to look at cakes or pretend to try on dresses just because her friends were romantics.
“Well, I for one can’t wait to meet the guy who can change Natalie Grenaldi’s mind about being single forever,” joked Ama. “He must be pretty special.” She held up three fingers. “Scout’s honor that I won’t tell Tessa. I’ll let you do it. Besides, she’ll totally flip when she hears this piece of news. I think you should wait and pop by with him, just to see what her reaction is.” The look in Ama’s eyes proved she was imagining Tessa’s jaw dropping at the occasion.
Natalie couldn’t resist laughing slightly as she pictured it, too—Ama’s chuckle joined in.
“Mark my words, you’re definitely a summer bride,” said Ama, shaking her head in response to Natalie’s look of denial. “If you’re serious about Chad, you should really bring him by to meet us, so we can put our stamp of approval on him. As your closest friends, I mean.”
“If I’m serious about a guy, he’ll meet you both before I take any romantic plunge,” said Natalie, artfully sidestepping the whole ‘meet Chad’ scenario. “You have my word. Scout’s honor.” She held up her fingers in pledge, unable to resist the return of her joking smile, one infectious enough that Ama caught it, too, although hers was for an entirely different scenario.
“Toss my phone back in my purse and let’s finish tidying up so we can get out of here for the holidays,” said Natalie, who sorted yesterday’s mail from one of the many odd hiding places Tessa jammed envelopes when she was in a hurry to tidy up for clients. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not working overtime today.”
“We still have to finish touching up the window display, though,” Ama reminded her. “You said you’d help me put up another white-lit Christmas tree in the corner.”
“Sure,” said Natalie.
In the back of her mind, be it ever so briefly, Natalie pondered what it would be like if a moment ago she had truly been talking about someone special who changed her mind about commitment and serious romances. Imagine if this were real, she mused. If she really cared about someone enough to share every family dinner with them for a lifetime, and had her friends’ stamp of approval on him…
It wouldn’t be Chad, she thought. Probably not, anyway. And it wasn’t likely to be anybody else whom she’d ever met, judging by the string of texts and emails from her exes, who amicably surrendered whenever the romance grew stagnant. Of course things can change overnight, a tiny part of her brain reflected. You’ll be pretending to be romantically serious for two whole months. That’s a lot of practice for the impossible, isn’t it? Just as quickly as this crept into her thoughts, Natalie’s mind dismissed it as utter nonsense. For one thing, she couldn’t eat any more Ecuadorian stew. And for another, rock climbing had left bruises in hard-to-treat places.
Putting aside thoughts of her holiday romance for now, Natalie held out a package to Ama, wrapped in candy cane paper and tied with a red ribbon. “Merry Christmas, by the way.”
“What’s this?”
“A Christmas gift. Go on, open it. It’s nothing much.” Natalie waved it away dismissively. “Just something that made me think of you when I was looking for a gift for Uncle Guido.”
“A cookie cutter shaped like a Christmas tree light bulb?” Ama lifted the shaped metal outline from the torn paper. “I love it. Thank you. But—I didn’t get you anything, or Tess. I didn’t have a chance to go shopping, and my head was full of romantic problems—I didn’t even think of you guys.” Apology crept into Ama’s voice.
“I have a hundred presents from relatives that I need to exchange,” said Natalie. “Trust me, I don’t need more. Besides… I think Tess would only be excited by one particular present that neither of us can deliver.” She glanced pointedly at the construction ladder sitting just outside the little room undergoing its paint job, where the handyman’s spare tool belt was looped around the paint can stand.
The front door opened and Tessa entered—Natalie and Ama both dropped the subject guiltily. She set her own shopping bags down in the foyer, glancing at both of her business partners. “Everything okay?” she asked.
“Fine,” they answered together—a little too brightly.
Tessa looked slightly suspicious, but didn’t choose to comment on this. “Any calls?’ she asked, as she tapped snow from the sides of her boots.
“Someone called to make an appointment for the New Year,” said Ama. “That brings us to a grand total of two for next spring, and potentially one more for next summer already, so our luck is definitely looking up.”
“Good,” said Tessa with a smile. “We have something to look forward to when we open after the holidays.” She unbuttoned her coat and laid it on the chair. “We can close early today if everybody has plans. I told my mom I’d be there by dinnertime, but that could be any time after five in my book.”
“Christmas at a Florida condo,” said Natalie. “I’m so envious I could pinch you. You’ll be watching the surf roll in, eating gourmet blueberry muffins while I’m listening to my family argue over whether Rob or I will be the first to tie the knot.”
“Does your mom still decorate, even at her time share?” asked Ama.
“Of course. For every box of ornaments she gave us, she kept one,” said Tessa. “She’ll have twinkle lights and greenery all over the place. Plus, she’s forever buying new ones at end-of-the-holidays sales.” She spun a gold ornament on the foyer tree, an old one that Tessa remembered from her childhood. The wear on its gilded paint was the work of her fingers over fifteen or twenty years, probably. “We won’t lack for Christmas at my mom’s place.”
“Will you have fun at the beach?” Ama asked gently. “Christmas in the sand instead of the snow?” Tessa stopped twirling the ornament and, looking lost in thought—while gazing off in the distance at Blake’s ladder—her features rearranged themselves into a cheerful holiday smile.
“Of course I will,” she said. “It’s Christmas. I’ll be with my mom, I’ll watch lots of Hallmark movies on television while I stuff my face with chocolate truffles and brownies… we’ll eat Chinese food and watch the parade. What’s not to love?”
“Nothing,” said Natalie, shaking her head.
“Chinese food,” said Ama to Natalie. “Told you. It’s the Christmas favorite, hands down.”
Tessa pulled two tiny shopping bags from within her bigger one. “Merry Christmas,” she announced to her partners. “Don’t open these until tomorrow, okay? It’s a rule in my house—no gifts early.”
“Promise,” said Ama.
“Scout’s honor,” said Natalie, holding up three fingers in salute.
Tessa glanced around. “I guess if nothing’s happening here, I’ll just go home and pack,” she said.
“Good idea,” said Natalie. “Beat the holiday traffic.”
“No sense in hanging around, is there?” said Tessa, who was still lingering in one spot. Ama and Na
talie exchanged glances.
Tessa sighed. “All right,” she said. “I know he’s not here today. He won’t be back until after the holidays, and I’ll be fine. Even if he’s… dating Mac… I’ll be fine. He’s my friend, and my business partner, and I know how to be mature about this. I am a reformed romantic, after all. I just kind of… had a misstep.”
“Come here.” Natalie opened her arms and motioned Tessa forward.
“I’m all right.”
“I know, but come here anyway,” said Natalie. “You too, Ama. Reel it in. This is the last time we’ll see each other this year.” She put her arms around Tessa’s shoulders and Ama’s, the sleeve of Tessa’s shirt sliding around the back of Natalie’s sweater in return. Ama squeezed them both closer in the group hug, until a giggle escaped Tessa.
“That’s enough,” said Tessa, breaking the circle a moment later. “I have to go, and you both have plans for today, too. So I’ll see you in a week, right?”
“A week,” said Ama.
“When we’re all living out our New Year’s resolution to give up chocolate and sugar,” said Natalie, who rummaged through her shopping bag, handing Tessa a box of truffles trimmed with a Christmas bow. “It’s insane how many calories are in a chocolate truffle. And when I think of my mom’s cream cake slices topped with those white chocolate ones—”
“Do you know how many cups of cocoa I drink during Christmas week?” asked Ama, echoing Natalie’s dismay. “It’s, like, a whole day’s calories when you add in the marshmallows.”
Tessa lifted her coat and scarf, and her shopping bags from the foyer. From the pocket of her coat, she slipped another package wrapped in holiday paper. She placed it near the back of the tree, hiding its tag from sight so the girls wouldn’t see the capital ‘B’ at the beginning of the recipient’s name. It was just a Christmas present to a friend, and there was a strong chance Blake would never notice it when he stopped by to collect his tools… but it wouldn’t do to have them thinking it was a desperate gesture on her part. It wasn’t as if a silly handyman-themed silk tie would make him see her differently.
