by Meg Muldoon
“Well, what’d you do after that?” I said.
“The next day, I told my mother I was going into town, but I went to the lake instead,” he said. “And you know what I did then? I cut up to the front of the line, got on that damn tire swing and swung as far as I could. Then, at the top of my lungs I yelled one big ‘Geronimo!’ like it was the last word I’d ever say on this sweet earth. And I threw myself into that lake.”
He shook his head.
“You see, I was scared the whole time. Shaking like a newborn calf.”
“You could’ve broken both your legs,” I said.
“Sure. I could have,” he said. “But I didn’t. And even if I had, better be hurt than go through life knowing you didn’t do it because it got the better of you.”
“Did Great Grandma Etta find out?” I asked.
He smiled.
“She wasn’t an easy woman to fool,” he said. “She grounded me for the rest of the summer when she found out I’d gone and done exactly what she told me not to.”
“I bet she was mad as hell,” I said.
He nodded.
“Maybe the angriest I ever saw her,” he said. “But you know what? I didn’t really care. Because I wasn’t afraid of that tire swing anymore.”
I nodded, suddenly feeling irritated.
I knew Warren was just trying to help, but I now realized what he was trying to say with his story, and I wasn’t sure if I liked it.
“Is that what you think? That I’m being—”
“I think you know what’s best for you,” he said. “And you don’t have to explain it to anybody. I told you that story to give you something to think about, in case you needed something to think about. But maybe it has absolutely no relevance to this situation at all.”
Warren knew me better than I knew myself sometimes. He knew it was beginning to irritate me, and he extinguished the match before anything caught fire.
“Don’t worry, Cinny Bee,” he said, calling me a nickname he had for me when I was a kid. “Everything’s going to be okay because your grandpa loves you.”
He stood up and kissed me on top of the head.
“Now, it’s time for an old man to get his beauty sleep,” he said, collecting the plastic bag of broken glass that he’d swept up.
“Sounds like a good idea,” I said.
I got to my feet and hobbled inside. Then I kissed him goodnight and finished doing a load of dishes before going upstairs to my room. I climbed in bed and found myself staring up at the ceiling.
I was suddenly wide awake.
I grabbed my phone off the nightstand, and found myself writing out the words I miss you.
I hit send.
But he never responded.
It was a long, sleepless night.
Chapter 15
The first thing I did when I woke up the next morning after a bad night of sleep was run over to Kara’s house.
Chrissy was opening the shop that morning, giving me some time to do as I pleased. It was nice having free time like this. Back in the day when the entire business was resting on my shoulders, I about ran myself into the ground trying to keep up with everything. Doing laundry was a luxury back then. But these days with Chrissy and Carson’s help, I could even make time to work out.
I really should have stayed off my foot, given the cut I’d sustained from being a fool the night before. But something about Warren’s treatment had already made it feel a lot better. And as much as I had wanted to milk it and use it as an excuse to stay in bed all day, it hadn’t really been that bad of a cut to begin with.
And I could have really used a run.
I applied a couple of fresh Band-Aids, a blister pad, and then I pulled on my running shoes.
The sky was a steamy white when I stepped outside my door, dressed in a Racerback tank and spandex running capris. It was early, but already, it felt like it was going to be another scorcher of a day.
I warmed up and ran across the sidewalk until it emptied out into rough-edged asphalt. Despite it already being warm, the air felt fresh. The trees cast long shadows and created pockets of cooler air that almost had the same effect as running through sprinklers.
I’d been running consistently for four months now. I’d never been the athletic type, but I was beginning to believe that I could be if I kept this up. Sometimes, Daniel and I ran together during our lunch breaks.
I picked up the pace, feeling my calves burn and plead for mercy.
I didn’t want to think about him. I didn’t want those thoughts to ruin my run.
By the time I arrived at Kara’s house, I was sucking in wind like it was going out of style. Each time I’d think about Daniel, I forced myself to sprint. Which meant I sprinted for a full two miles across town to Kara’s doorstep. That, on top of the very healthy dinner of wine and ice cream I’d had the night before, gave me a side ache the size of Canada.
I stopped outside her home, trying to catch my breath for a few minutes before knocking on the door.
John’s car was parked next to hers in the driveway, and I wondered if I should come back.
But then I saw her peeking out the front window, staring at the sweaty, hyperventilating woman keeled over on her front lawn, and I knew that I couldn’t leave. Not after making this kind of spectacle.
I waved at her and then gave her a thumbs-up, like everything was A-Okay. She left the window, and a moment later, she was standing in an open doorway.
“Are you going to upchuck all over my front yard, or are you gonna come in?”
I winced as I straightened up from my leaning, close-to-barfing stance.
“I’ll come in,” I said.
She left the door open, and I staggered inside, still trying to catch my breath. The meaty aroma of bacon and eggs, which would have smelled amazing at any other time, made my stomach turn as it wafted through the living room.
I closed the door behind me and entered the dark, shuttered room. It felt like it could have been the resident of a full-time recluse, even though Kara could have only been here since yesterday afternoon after the fire. Or maybe it was just the pilled purple bathrobe she was wearing that gave that impression.
She was lying listlessly on a recliner in front of the TV.
I glanced around the dark room. I’d seen a lot of this tastefully decorated living room lately in my efforts to cheer her up over her troubles with John.
That seemed like small potatoes now after the turmoil her life had just been thrown into.
She had the TV tuned to the local morning news. The weather man, who looked no older than 12, was dancing around the screen trying to explain why he’d been wrong about the heat wave breaking.
“How’re you doing?” I asked.
She didn’t look over at me, her eyes stuck to the screen.
It was a stupid question, but any question I’d ask her at a moment like this would’ve sounded stupid.
Asking was really the important thing.
“I’m trying to think of a reason to get out of this bathrobe, but one hasn’t come to me.”
Poor Kara. This was really hitting her hard, and I didn’t blame her. I couldn’t imagine what I’d do if I lost the pie shop.
“Have they said what caused the fire?” I asked.
“I’ve had my phone off,” she said, changing the channel to the national news. “I’m too scared to find out. I mean, what if it was me, Cin? Maybe I left the coffee pot on or a glue gun plugged in.”
I sat down on one of the armrests of the love seat.
“You don’t know that yet,” I said.
“Or what’s worse is if Joann did something that caused it,” she said, biting down on her lip. “I’m afraid of what I might do to her if…”
She let out a bedraggled, exhausted sigh.
She’d probably spent the night going through every possible scenario.
“How bad is it, Kara?” I asked. “I mean, what was your insurance like?”
She probably
didn’t want to talk about any of that right now. But I wanted to know what her situation was, if there was anything I could do to help.
“I was covered,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean anything yet. They said they have to investigate the fire and find out what caused it. Then, who knows when the check will come through. I’ll be lucky if I’m selling ornaments this Christmas season.”
She paused, lost in thought.
“I’m so sorry this happened,” I said, getting tired of saying things that didn’t help any. “Is there anything I can do? Anything I can help with, Kara?”
John suddenly came out of the kitchen carrying a plate of steaming scrambled eggs and bacon along with a glass of orange juice.
He stopped awkwardly in the middle of the room when he saw me sitting there.
“Oh, hi Cinnamon,” he said, forcing a nervous grin.
“Hey, John,” I said.
I looked like a hot mess, but he was dressed in a bathrobe, so I guess it made us even.
He handed the plate to her along with a fork and then went back into the kitchen. She pushed the food around the plate before setting it down on the coffee table uneaten.
“Listen, Cin,” she said, staring back at the TV. “I’m glad you came by. There is something… something I wanted to ask you.”
“Of course,” I said. “That’s why I’m here. Anything. Just name it.”
She rubbed her face.
“Well, you say that now…” she trailed off.
She looked up at me. Her eyes were puffy and swollen, and her nose was raw and red-looking.
“It’s this stupid play. I just don’t think I have it in me to be Mrs. Claus anymore after what’s happened,” she finally said.
She glanced over at me and then looked away shamefully.
And I suddenly understood with crystal-clear clarity what she was asking.
And once I did, I knew I was going to regret her shop burning down more than she did.
She had to be joking.
“But you see, somebody has to be Mrs. Claus, Cin,” she said. “She’s a key part of the play. A key part of the whole day in general. And not just anybody can play her.”
“I—”
“This is Christmas River, after all,” she said. “And we have our traditions. If nothing else.”
Her eyes filled up with water and started to redden.
And then I knew for sure that there was no way out.
There was no way I could leave Kara hanging like that.
Sometimes, being there for a person wasn’t always easy. Especially when it meant wearing red velvet and hose in the dead of summer.
Still, there had to be a better answer, right?
“Well, don’t they have an understudy or something?” I asked. “I mean, just about anybody else in the play would be a better Mrs. Claus than me.”
“Nobody wants it,” she said. “I already tried to get someone to take it over, but it’s… well, I’m not going to sugarcoat it. It’s hell being Mrs. Claus in summer, Cin. And it was my fault for being duped by Moira into it. But not even Vivian Leigh would have the ego to go after this role. It’s too many lines and it’s just too damn hot for this time of year.”
“Well if Vivian Leigh wouldn’t stand for it, why should I?”
She sat forward in her recliner.
“Because you’re my friend,” she said. “And you’ve got a really good memory. And you’re more of a drama geek than you let on. Don’t think I’ve forgotten the way you recited those poems back in high school.”
I felt my cheeks suddenly go red with embarrassment.
I was closed up tighter than a tomb through much of high school, but something escaped during English class my sophomore year. I’d discovered what it was like to really feel a poem, and I became obsessed with poetry.
Sometimes we had to read the poems out loud in class. Everybody hated being called on. Everyone but me.
“I don’t see what Mr. Randle’s English class has anything to with—”
“I just think that my current situation aside, you’d make a good Mrs. Claus.”
She grabbed my hand and squeezed it.
“You’ve always been a lot stronger than me anyway,” she said.
She looked out the window. The bright light streaming through the cracks in the drapes settled on the lines and creases of her face.
“That’s not true,” I said.
“Yes, yes it is.”
We sat in silence for a minute while I tried desperately to find a way out of all of this.
But in the end, there was no exit to be found in this maze.
“Well, aren’t you going to compliment my cheekbones, too?” I asked.
She glanced back over at me, her face brightening a little bit.
“Is that a yes? You’ll take my place?”
“I’ll do my best,” I said.
“This means a lot to me, Cin,” she said. “A little peace and quiet away from Sarah Reinhart is going to do me wonders.”
“Just don’t expect me to wear those heels you’ve got. Mrs. Claus is going to end up in the North Pole mass general if she has to go further than ten feet in those death traps.”
The edges of Kara’s mouth turned up a little at that.
“No,” she said. “Those aren’t mandatory. But I’m afraid the wig is.”
I let out a long sigh.
“Oh, Jesus,” I said.
“You really do have nice cheekbones too, you know,” she said.
Chapter 16
I knew that it just couldn’t go on the way that it had been.
It was torture. I couldn’t think about anything else. Even with my best friend’s store burning to the ground, I couldn’t focus on her loss.
I was wholly consumed with my own feelings about him.
And worse than that.
I’d been consumed with what it would all mean for us.
I knew I had to make him understand. That was the only way for us to get through this.
I needed to make him see why I felt the way I did. Before it was too late to do anything more.
Most women would probably have gone home, taken a shower, dressed up and put some make-up on before a talk as big as this one.
But when I left Kara’s house, I was gripped by a kind of wild desperation that didn’t allow for that kind of narcissism.
I needed to see him, and I needed to see him now.
I ran, taking a trail that cut through the woods. The air already felt prickly with the heat of the day. I ran, as if it were possible to outrun my own doubts, my own shortcomings.
As if I could outrun these past few days.
But when I showed up at the station, all of it caught up with me again.
Sweat was pouring down my face, and I felt my cheeks burn.
I must have been as red as a cherry tomato.
Real attractive.
But I didn’t care. And I just hoped Daniel wouldn’t care either.
After I caught my breath, I opened the heavy wooden doors and hobbled into the station, my legs feeling like jelly.
“Is Daniel in?” I asked Norma, the receptionist who had a steely attitude to everybody but the cops at the station, who she liked to call my boys.
No matter how many times I came into the station, she treated me like I was just another one of the floozy girls some of the younger deputies took out on the weekends.
“Deputy Brightman’s here, but he’s in a meeting right now,” she said. “When he’s finished, I’ll let him know you’re here.”
I sat down in one of the uncomfortable wooden chairs.
But that wasn’t going to do.
After a few minutes of rocking back and forth nervously, I realized that this couldn’t wait.
I stood up, and hoping she wouldn’t notice, brushed past the front desk and through the station to the back where Daniel’s office was.
“He’s in a meeting, Cindy!” she yelled after me, getting my name wrong like
she always did.
I didn’t respond to her attempts to stop me.
I had an answer for him. A real answer. And he needed to know, right away.
It was an answer that scared me, that made my insides tremble. An answer that made my stomach twist into a web of knots.
It was an answer that had come to me in the past few seconds of sitting there waiting for him.
A definitive answer with definitive consequences.
Norma was going to have to get used to calling me something else soon.
The office door was closed. I thought about knocking, but that crazy desperation didn’t allow for such timidity.
I grabbed the door knob, twisted it, and opened the door.
I walked in.
“Daniel, I…”
I trailed off, my words giving out.
Daniel was standing there in the middle of the room, his arms around someone.
He looked at me.
His eyes widened with surprise.
All I could see was the long red hair and the high heels.
She turned around, and looked at me.
And I was speechless as my heart stopped dead inside my chest.
Chapter 17
“Cin,” Daniel said, dropping his arms. “This is… what are you doing here? Is everything all right?”
I nodded slowly. I couldn’t pull my eyes away from her.
I didn’t recognize the woman he’d had his arms around. She wasn’t anybody that I knew, which meant she probably didn’t live here.
She was pretty. Very, very pretty. With a kind of style that just wasn’t native to Christmas River.
I mean, she was wearing high heels for chrissake. And she wasn’t even in any Christmas play.
Even though I hadn’t had anything for breakfast, something was trying to crawl its way up my esophagus.
“Well, I’m glad you’re here,” Daniel said, clearing his throat. “Cin, This is Stephanie Calder, an old friend from my days back in California. Steph, this is Cinnamon Peters. My girlfriend.”
Maybe that should have made me feel better, but it didn’t.
She smiled, revealing a pair of bright, white, perfect teeth to go with her tan, perfectly proportioned face and fiery red tresses.
What kind of old friend?
