A Merry Little Christmas

by Melanie Schuster

  In no time most of the people at the table were chatting away like old friends. The one exception was Donnie, who was uncharacteristically quiet. He would speak when spoken to, but for the most part, he was watching Angelique as though he expected her to levitate out of her seat or something. It had been a most trying evening altogether for Donnie, starting with the gallery. He’d managed to get there before Warren and Angelique and from his position could see Warren helping her take her long black topcoat off. She also removed a brilliant paisley stole and handed it to Warren, a move that caused Donnie pain. He’d never seen her with her hair up, nor was he expecting what seemed to him to be a plunging neckline. There was no denying it: she looked wonderful. Beautiful, sexy, and happy. How one evil little woman could look so delicious and be so mean was beyond him.

  He loitered around and watched with great interest as the couple encountered A.J., who was there with a date. To his astonishment, Angelique not only didn’t seem upset, but she and A.J. had exchanged pecks on the cheek like siblings and introduced their dates to each other. Okay, so maybe she’s not really dating the guy. That didn’t change the fact that she had played him on New Year’s Eve, however. The auction turned out to be a complete waste of his time, although it gave him an additional opportunity to check the couple out. Warren was being the perfect gentleman, it seemed; whatever he was doing had Angelique smiling for all she was worth and looking even more radiant

  Just to be on the safe side, he decided to trail along to the afterglow, not caring a bit that he was probably making a jackass out of himself. He managed to maintain a modicum of dignity by being at least sociable enough to speak to people he knew, to look like his normal affable and charming self to everyone except Warren and Angelique. But when he wasn’t exchanging greetings and smiling at old friends and business acquaintances, his eyes were glued to them. In his entire life he’d never lost control like this and he had no idea why he’d done it tonight. Other than the fact that his little Evilene was the most captivating woman in the room, he had no reason to behave like this, none whatsoever.

  Get a grip, get a grip! What’s wrong with you, man, you act like you’ve never seen her before in your life! Donnie berated himself and tried to regain some ground in the maturity department, but it seemed to be impossible. Being seated across from her and Warren was driving him crazy. The whole idea behind him coming was to make sure she didn’t make a fool out of Warren, but every time her amazing lips turned up in a smile, he was the one who made a fool out of himself. He was about to cut his losses and leave when a pretty woman who looked vaguely familiar stopped at their table. After he and Warren both stood up to acknowledge the lady and Warren had made the introductions, Donnie was about to bid everyone good evening when Angelique invited the woman to sit with them, something he would never have expected from her, never in a million years. Yet the two of them were chattering away like old friends. This evening was getting stranger and stranger.... He was jolted from his deep thoughts when the women decided to visit the ladies’ room, causing the two men to rise from their seats.

  As the ladies left on their pilgrimage of sisterhood, Warren signaled the server for another round of drinks. Then he turned to Donnie with his thick brows knit together in total puzzlement. “Do you care to tell me why in the world you’re acting like her bodyguard? Why are you hanging around here with your cheeks full of wind? If you want her so bad, why don’t you ask her out, man, instead of trying to block my play?”

  Donnie took a deep breath and looked Warren full in the face. “You’re the doctor, Warren, isn’t it obvious that I’ve lost my freakin’ mind? I told you that woman was dangerous. Now do you believe me?”

  Warren looked at the despair on his friend’s face and burst out laughing. “Oh, man, Cochran, you have to know that I’m gonna be dogging you about this for years to come. You know this, right? I’m coming over this weekend, so knock the dust off the pool table and get some Coronas in the house. I’m going to enjoy this, man, I really am,” he said with an evil grin.

  Donnie tried to change the subject because he knew Warren could keep up this kind of trash talk all night if necessary. “So Warren, who’s the lady who just had to say hello to you? She’s kinda fine, where’ve you been keeping her?”

  Warren got quiet for a moment “Lisette’s family owns Le Coeur de la Maison, the place that was decorating the house when Tracy and I were getting married. As a matter of fact Lisette was there when the engagement was called off, sort of.”

  Donnie regretted bringing it up because he knew how devastated Warren had been over the breakup of his engagement. Surprisingly, though, Warren’s overcast expression cleared rapidly. “It was nice running into Lisette, though. She’s a sweet lady and very, very talented. You should see some of her work; she’s an amazing designer. I wish I’d had her finish the house, maybe it wouldn’t look like such a barn,” he said reflectively.

  “That’s something you should think about. Look, I’ve exceeded my limit for idiotic behavior for one night. I’m going to leave now. Thanks for not punching my lights out,” he said ruefully.

  “Hey, you may as well wait until the ladies come back. You know how they are when they make that trip. What in the world do you suppose they do in the so-called powder room anyway?”

  Donnie gave a short, harsh laugh. “They talk about us, what do you think they do?”

  Angelique and Lisette both washed their hands slowly, looking at each other’s reflections in the ornate mirrors over the sinks. That they liked what they saw was obvious, as they both smiled at the same time. Angelique was drying her hands on a paper towel when she asked the question that would make her and Lisette friends for life.

  “You really care about Warren, don’t you?” she asked quietly.

  Not even the faintest hint of blush touched Lisette’s almond-toned cheeks. She nodded her head slowly and admitted it was true. “I’m in love with him. I’ve been in love with him since the first time I laid eyes on him and he has no idea. Just none.”

  It was Angelique’s turn to nod. “I saw you watching him at the gallery. I just met him a few days ago. He’s a friend of that gloomy man who’s sitting at the table with us.”

  Lisette smiled gently. “The one that you have feelings for?” Seeing Angelique’s face turn red she grabbed her hand. “Ahh, don’t tell me you don’t care for him! As he does you, I wasn’t the only one staring tonight,” she said with a smile.

  “Oh, no, you’re wrong about this. We can’t stand each other, really we can’t!” Angelique protested.

  Lisette raised an eyebrow and tilted her head slightly. Angelique took a deep breath and blew it out in a sigh. “Oh, it’s complicated. Really complicated,” she said glumly. “Listen, I’ve only lived here about six months and I don’t know that many people other than my cousin Paris. Would you like to go out for lunch or brunch this weekend? You’ll like Paris too, she’s a lot of fun.”

  Lisette’s eyes grew warm with appreciation. “I would love to! And maybe between the two of us we can make some things less complicated with these men, hmmm?”

  Chapter Seven

  The next couple of weeks brought a lot of changes into several lives, especially Angelique’s. She and Paris and Lisette all hit it off beautifully, and spent time together eating out, going to movies and just talking. Angelique was convinced that Lisette and Warren belonged together and was taking a page from Paris’s book of matchmaking hints to make it happen. Lisette wasn’t as easily convinced.

  One frigid Saturday afternoon found the three women at Angelique and Paris’s house doing one of their favorite things. A huge bowl of popcorn was in the middle of the table, flanked by a box of tissues and a pitcher of Crystal Light peach tea, all the needed accompaniments for a chick-flick marathon. After watching a classic black and white in which the heroine sacrificed her love to save the hero pain, Angelique turned to Lisette and told her she had to do something about Warren.

  “Okay, Lisette, enoug
h is enough. You’ve got to let Warren know how you feel. You’ve just got to. Look at that woman, how miserable she was! And he was miserable, too. All she had to do was speak up and let him know she loved him and she could have saved them both a lot of grief,” she said sternly.

  Lisette laughed bitterly. “If only it were that easy.” She sighed. “I can’t ever tell Warren how I feel about him because ...” Her voice trailed off and she lowered her head and pinched the bridge of her nose. When she looked up, Angelique was alarmed to see tears gathering in her long eyelashes. Lisette wiped them away with her forefinger and rallied on. “Because I was the one who caused his engagement to be called off,” she said quietly.

  Paris almost dropped her glass of tea. With huge, rounded eyes, she stared at Lisette, who nodded unhappily. “It’s true, I did it.” She sighed again. As always when she was emotional, a slight French intonation crept into her speech. She was bilingual and it showed in moments of stress or turmoil; she was Afro-French, her mother from Senegal and her father from France.

  Angelique immediately turned off the DVD and faced Lisette. She and Lisette were on opposite ends of the couch and Paris was on the floor by the coffee table. Paris poured her another glass of tea and Angelique handed her the box of tissues. “Okay, Lisette, this is obviously a story you need to get off your chest. Tell us what happened. And you have to know that we don’t think you could have done anything evil, it’s just not possible,” Angelique said comfortingly.

  “Well, as you know, my family owns Le Coeur de la Maison and we do interior design for any and everybody. I don’t like to use the word ‘celebrity’ but we have a lot of prominent people who use our services. That’s how I met Warren,” she said, a soft look coming into her eyes. “He came into Maison one day and said he was meeting his fiancée there. He said that he had bought a new house and it needed everything done to it. He was so captivating, I didn’t tell him he had to have an appointment. We’re so busy, you know, we have to schedule our clientele. But he was so... mmm,” Lisette sighed and looked lost in thought for a moment until Paris reached over and jiggled her foot.

  “Okay, we got that, he was fine as wine and you were smitten. What about the fiancée?” she demanded.

  At once, Lisette’s pretty face became tight and drawn. “Zut alors, what a cow! She was a dreadful, dreadful woman! Just awful! She was beautiful, yes, but a horrible personality. She was a beauty queen.” Lisette spat in the same tone she would have used to say the woman did animal testing or something equally cruel.

  Angelique nodded knowingly. “One of those women who thought she was all that because she was cute? I know the type.”

  Lisette shook her head earnestly. “No, she really was a beauty queen. Miss Tracy Lovejoy.” She sniffed. “She was a runner-up in the Miss America contest. Or Miss Universe or Miss World or Miss Stuck-Up Hateful Cow, I don’t remember which one. But she did everything but wear a tiara and a cape into the salon, believe me. She wanted everyone to know that she was the queen of the universe and the rest of us were her slaves.

  “She tried to be sweet when she was with Warren, of course, but when he wasn’t around, mon dieu, what a horror.” Lisette shuddered. “You probably don’t know this, but Warren is quite wealthy. His family has boatloads of money and he has money of his own from his income and investments. How do I know this? Oh, little miss runner-up, of course. She and her coven of friends and her greedy sisters, they made sure that everyone with whom they came in contact knew that Warren Alexander was filthy rich, and believe me, they were determined to spend every penny. And those friends of hers, they were horrible.” She gave another exaggerated shudder. “They traveled together like a pack of lady dogs, if you know what I mean.”

  Lisette stopped and drank deeply from the glass of iced tea, then held out the glass for more. “All she wanted was money, money, money. He bought her a ring that made the Hope Diamond look like a pinkie ring,” she said indignantly. She was so fired up by now, the word “hope ’’ sounded like “ope."

  “So what did you do, exactly? I mean, you knew she was just out to get her mitts on Warren’s money and I can see how angry that made you, but what did you do?” Paris scooted closer to the sofa in her eagerness to hear more.

  Lisette gave a short laugh. “You can tell I’m angry because I start to sound like Pepe Le Pew, I know. It is a family curse. We all sound like cartoons when we get wound up,” she said on a hiccup. “Well, this is what really made me furious. She always acted like I wasn’t there, you know? She talked over my head or behind my back, but she never gave me any respect as a trained professional. I got used to that in a way, but I was always amazed at what she would say; it was like she didn’t care who heard her, she was so sure of Warren that she could just... ooh!” The fire returned to Lisette’s voice and her eyes snapped with fury.

  “When I was showing her these exquisite dining room chairs, she started laughing like a hyena and said Warren was so fat, he would break the chairs.” Lisette’s face got red with indignation as she recalled the scene. “A big, handsome, kind man like Warren and she called him fat. Fat! Warren is a prince, a king, he is a beautiful, big man, and this wench, this hoochie calls him fat! And her little coven, all the ugly witches were laughing with her. Merde! I couldn’t take it anymore. I wanted him to know what he was in for with that witch and I fixed it so that he would find out.

  “How did I do it? I told her there was a very special bedroom at DuMouchelle Gallery, the most expensive set ever made. Of course she said she must have it, so I arranged to personally pick up her and her fellow witches and take her there to see it. I didn’t want her car to be anywhere near the premises, you see. Then I called Warren and told him I had found an exquisite set of bedroom furniture I knew his darling fiancée would love, and wouldn’t he like to surprise her with it, and of course he agreed and I set a time for him to meet me at DuMouchelle.”

  Paris and Angelique looked at each other and then at Lisette, who was sitting back on the sofa with a satisfied look on her face. “Oh, yes, you guessed it. I took those women to look at the bedroom set, which was magnificent, by the way, and I got them talking about it because I knew that the matter of his weight would come up. I left them there and went to meet him at the door and took him back to where all the vicious talk was going on, and sure enough, all you could hear was the fiancée going on about how much it cost and how much money he had and how he’d better buy it for her because that’s all the fat boy was good for.” Lisette’s face fell and she dropped her head into her hands. “She said the only reason she ever gave him the time of day was because he was so rich she’d never have to work again and that’s all she wanted from him. She said she had plenty of men on the side to take care of her sex needs. She really said that!

  “Oh, it was horrible, it was worse than horrible. The look on Warren’s face ... I’ll never forget it, never. It was terribly painful to see him so hurt. But I couldn’t let him marry that woman; she would have destroyed him. She would have eaten him alive; I know it in my heart. But not a day has gone by that I don’t feel terribly ashamed for what I did,” she said sadly.

  There was an awkward moment of silence that ended when Angelique spoke up. “Well, you need to get over it, toots. I’d have done something much worse if I saw someone I cared for about to walk into a scorpion’s nest. He should be down on his knees kissing your feet to thank you for getting him out of that mess,” she said succinctly.

  Paris had to agree. “I know you feel terrible about witnessing his pain, but what else could you have done, Lisette? Knowing what you knew, how could you have let him marry that woman?”

  Lisette availed herself of the tissues Angelique had thoughtfully provided. “I could have written him an anonymous note, or told his parents or something.” She sniffed. “His parents are wonderful, I met them a couple of times and they are so sweet, just lovely.” She noisily blew her nose.

  Angelique groaned. “Girl, have you learned nothing from thes
e movies?” she asked indignantly, pointing to the pile of DVDs on the coffee table. “Men don’t listen when they’re in love, or think they’re in love. You can’t tell them anything. He wouldn’t have paid any attention to a note, especially one with no name on it. And if he’s really far gone in the infatuation department, he’s for sure not going to listen to Mama and Daddy. He would’ve eloped with her before he broke up with her.”

  Angelique leaned over and grabbed the hand that hadn’t been involved in the nose-blowing and squeezed it. “You did the best you could. And it worked. He might have had some moments of heartache, but it’s better than having years and years of real pain from being married to someone who doesn’t love you and only wants to take advantage of you. You did the right thing, Lisette. Now, go wash your face and let’s figure out how we’re gonna rope this big bronco for you,” she said.

  Despite her tears, Lisette had to laugh.

  ***

  The basement of Donnie’s house had been cleverly converted into a game room, complete with pool table, arcade games, a wet bar and a huge plasma TV mounted on the wall. Warren carefully chalked his cue as he surveyed the pool table. Donnie was dividing his time between watching the basketball game on TV and watching what Warren was doing at the pool table. He wasn’t particularly worried about Warren beating him; his friend could have had a fine career as a pool hustler if medicine hadn’t appealed to him more. He knew Warren would beat him, the way he almost always did. There was something on Donnie’s mind however, but he didn’t want to bring it up. Luckily, Warren brought it up for him.

  “So, Cochran, what do you think about Lisette?” he asked in an overly casual tone.

  Donnie turned his fall attention to the pool table then, preparing to take his shot. He wasn’t surprised by the question at all, since the two men had seen Lisette and Angelique a few times since the art auction. Apparently, Lisette had made quite an impression on the doctor. After making several successful shots in a row, Donnie finally gave Warren an answer. “What do I think about her? She seems to be talented, successful, smart and personable. And she’s very, very pretty. She may be half French, but the booty came directly from the homeland,” he said with admiration.