“Nice party,” Shawn says. “Anything I can do?”
I start to say no, on general principles, but then I realize that this is the first real event our singles’ group has had since Shawn came to town. Other than this annual party, we usually shut down over the holidays. Everyone from church brings a dish, but our group is responsible for entertainment and snacks before the meal. And any labor required setting things up. As a Christian, I need to include him, in spite of what I think about his job choice. “Thanks. Why don’t you help me grab some chips and dip from the counter and we’ll replenish the appetizer table?”
“Sure.”
We load up with chips and plastic containers of dip and head out the door with me leading the way. I immediately collide with someone and look up into familiar green eyes. Other than a glimpse across the auditorium at church, I haven’t seen Garrett since the mistletoe incident, which will be a week tomorrow, so I’m curious how he’ll act.
He looks from me to Shawn. “Hi.” He nods to the kitchen. “Everything under control in there?”
I nod. “I think so.”
“Good.” He turns and walks away. So that’s how he’s going to act. Totally uninterested.
Shawn and I continue to the table, where we dump the dips and bags of chips. I look around for Garrett and finally spot him in the corner with Mark and Ami.
Okay, this may be weirder than I thought.
Shawn leads me over to Mark and Ami’s table when we’re done. I slide in by Garrett and Shawn sits on my other side.
As soon as Brother Tom says the blessing for the food, people rush the potluck table, but in unspoken agreement we wait for the crowd to thin.
“Look,” Ami says, “Larry has his karaoke equipment all set up.”
Thankfully one of the guys in our group is a karaoke D.J. and he does our New Year’s Eve parties for free. “Good. I hope people will participate earlier than they did last year.” Even the older people eventually warmed up to it, but for a while there are no takers.
“Come on, let’s get it started while people fill their plates. Pick a song.“ Ami grabs the laminated song list on the table and starts calling out titles. “‘I’ll Always Love You’ by Celine Dion?”
“No way. You know I can’t hit the high notes on that. Let’s do something we can all do together. What do you guys want to sing?” If I’m going to do this, it will be with a group.
“How ‘bout ‘Achy Breaky Heart’?” I can hear the smile in Mark’s voice even though his face is in the shadows.
“Oh, yeah. Let’s do it!” Ami is too excited. I roll my eyes at Garrett. “Come on Garrett, you have to get up there with us.”
“Sure, just call me Billy Ray.” He swishes his non-existent pony tail with his hand.
“Shawn? Will you sing with us?” I ask.
He smiles and shakes his head. “Not my thing. I can’t wait to laugh at y’all though.”
“That’s the spirit,” Mark says. “This is the only song I’m doing. Let me say that right now.”
He knows Ami too well. Once she gets started on karaoke, it practically takes a power outage to stop her. She leads the way to the front, pulling Mark by the hand. Garrett and I lag behind, but eventually we’re all under the lights. I think everyone from church is here to ring in the new year and it looks like they brought a few friends. We giggle and sing our way through the old country music hit that we sang a million times during our teens. The applause is deafening. I think everyone’s just glad to see us in the spotlight instead of being up here themselves.
We graciously refuse the shouts of “encore” from Dottie and talk her into taking the stage herself.
“We have to eat,” Garrett calls and pats his stomach.
Mark calls to Shawn who meets us in the buffet line, and I hear the opening chords of “Crazy.” Dottie sings that every year. Which could be pitiful, but to be honest, she does a mean Patsy Cline. I hope she never quits.
“Lila, I’m glad you came.” Ami’s voice pulls my attention to the other side of the table a little farther back in the line where Mark’s redheaded co-worker has a piece of celery and three wheat crackers on her plate. I look down at my overflowing platter. That’s why she wears a size two. We all make our choices. And on New Year’s Eve, I choose to sample as much as I can from the great cooks in our congregation. I nod at Lila, but she ignores me.
“Hi, Garrett.”
He waves with his free hand.
When we’re settled back at our table in the corner, Lila appears almost immediately. “Can I pull up a chair?” As she asks, she plops her plate down between Garrett and me and snags a chair from the empty table next to us.
Sure. Be my guest.
When she sits, she turns her chair slightly toward Garrett, leaving me to look mostly at her back. A woman on a mission. And in spite of how irritated I am by her choice of target, I do admire her take-action attitude. I’m over here flopping around like a flounder on a butcher’s block while she swims right to the fish she has her eye on.
We’re almost done eating when Ami picks up the song title list again. “Let’s do another one. Oh, look, here’s ‘A Friend Like Me’ from Aladdin.” She looks at Garrett and me. “Remember when we used to sing that when we were kids?” She grabs Mark’s hand. “Come on, y’all.”
“Like I said, one’s my limit. I’m going to have to pass.” Mark puts a potato chip in his mouth.
Ami faux pouts then smiles. “Lila, Shawn, how about it? Want to sing with us?”
“No thanks. Karaoke singing isn’t really my thing.” Lila has that same look she had when she saw me bowl. Bemused, I guess you’d call it.
Shawn shakes his head. “I’d still rather be the audience.”
Garrett clears his throat. “I need to check the food and make sure everything is okay.”
Aren’t we Mr. Conscientious?
Ami shrugs. “Let’s go, Kristianna.” She grabs my arm and pulls just as I hear Lila say, “Garrett, sweetie, will you get me another glass of punch?”
I grit my teeth and follow Ami into the limelight to sing about friends who stand by each other through thick and thin. Sometimes that’s tougher than it sounds.
Two hours later, we’ve given up karaoke finally. Several lively games of Trivial Pursuit and charades are going on around the room and as the hosts, we’re circulating among the tables making sure everyone is having fun.
Dottie and Elva and Ermyl Campbell are trying to show me how to play Mexican Train dominoes when the D.J. taps the mike. “Okay, folks, just a few minutes till midnight. Time to gather close to your nearest and dearest so you can ring in the New Year together.” The older ladies excuse themselves to go to the restroom so they “won’t miss the countdown.” And I’m alone in a crowd. I make my way back over to my table.
“Ready for a brand new year?” I swing around to see Shawn smiling at me.
“Might as well be.”
“Am I keeping you from someone?” he asks, and if I’m not mistaken that’s a tad more than casual curiosity in his voice.
I involuntarily glance over to where Garrett is doing a bad job of acting out something in charades. Lila is stationed just a few feet away. Guarding her newfound territory. “No. I was just going to find Mark and Ami.”
“Me, too. Okay with you if we find them together?”
“Sure.”
Regardless of what Larry the D.J. would like for us to believe, this isn’t Time Square so they’re not hard to find. They’ve gravitated back to our original table. “Mind if we ring in the New Year with you?” Shawn asks.
“Be our guests.” Ami beams. I’m sure she thinks her matchmaking is paying off.
We slide into chairs, just as Larry begins the countdown. I can’t keep from checking to see if Lila kisses Garrett. Instead, I see her standing alone near the other charade players, looking puzzled. I automatically scan the room but Garrett’s nowhere to be found.
“Happy New Year!” Larry yells over the mi
crophone and everyone cheers.
Shawn reaches out to hug me. “Happy New Year, Kristianna.”
I echo his words and give him a hug, but turn my head, so his kiss lands on my hair. A nice Christian guy wants to ring in the New Year with me and I’m wondering about where Garrett is. Maybe my New Year’s resolution should be not to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Chapter Fifteen
“Welcome to the first meeting of the Committee to Save Jingle Bells.” I smile at the crowd. “Dottie, thank you for keeping the library open late for us.” She’d been really uncertain about doing it. But I’d begged and she said yes.
Dottie nods. “Any time, Kristianna.”
Oh, good. Maybe I won’t have to beg next time we get together.
Ruby Lemmons waves her hand in the air.
“Ruby?”
“I was thinking we could call ourselves CARE—C-A-R-E.” She pronounces each letter very carefully.
“What does that stand for?” I’ve tried for days to think of an acronym, but haven’t been able to find anything that works.
“Committee Against Renaming Everything.” She smiles proudly.
A few people snort.
I glare at them. At least she’s thinking about why we’re here. I’m pretty sure a few people came for the free refreshments. “That’s original, but it may be a little broad for us. What if we focus on Jingle Bells? Even without a cute name, we can be a strong force in our community.”
Ruby leans toward the woman beside her. “Maybe so, but I think we’d be a lot stronger with a cute name.”
Great. Our first meeting and mutiny’s already brewing. I ignore her. “Did everyone get refreshments?” I point to the back of the room and everyone turns. Ami waves from her post beside the hot chocolate and cookies. I had asked Garrett to come, but he made a flimsy excuse. “Feel free to get some while we talk. This is going to be informal. Anyone have ideas about how we can save Jingle Bells?”
No one speaks.
I perch on the edge of the desk. “Does anyone know who else was planning on coming?”
“Where’s David from Mistletoe Music?” Sarah asks quietly.
Scott shakes his head and pushes his glasses up on his nose. “Didn’t you hear? David locked up.”
We just stare at the bookstore owner. Sometimes he forgets to fill in the narrative.
He shrugs. “He quit. Out of business.”
“I was hoping that wasn’t true,” I say under my breath. I heard it from Elva Campbell at lunch today, but sometimes she gets things mixed up. Apparently not this time.
In unspoken agreement, we observe a moment of silence for David’s fate. Each of us shopkeepers can feel the same doom breathing down our necks. This just brings it one door closer.
“My nephew would have been here tonight, but his wife’s uncle offered him a job and he had to move the family down there,” Ruby says.
The woman beside her nods. “They’re dropping like flies.”
This isn’t how I envisioned the meeting. Whose side are we on anyway? We sound more like we’re giving reasons for the name change.
I clear my throat. “Dottie? Where are the flyers you made?”
She weaves in and out of the rows passing out the papers. “Look this over,” she says. “And if you like it, I’ll have plenty after the meeting you can pick up to post around town.”
She hands me one, even though I saw it earlier. She’s done them on paper with a candy cane border. Underneath the heading “Vote Against Summer Valley” the words “Keep Jingle Bells Forever” are in bold black print. Then in smaller letters, “Where the Spirit of Christmas Lives In Our Hearts All Year Long.” In very large black letters across the bottom, it proclaims, “Don’t Sell Out!” The flyer won’t win any awards for artistic creativity, but it gets the point across.
“This looks good,” Scott says and several people nod.
I look at the flyer again. “Yes it does. We don’t want to give the idea that we’re against progress, though.”
Ruby’s friend sniffs. “Like we could afford to be.”
“Kristianna has a point,” Sarah speaks up timidly. “Do you think there’s any way we can have Summer Valley Outdoors in town and still keep Jingle Bells like it is?” She gives a rueful grin. “Only thriving, of course.”
“Wonder if we could split the town? Change the name of the part out there by the lake?” Ami says from beside the refreshment table.
I’ve wondered that too. It sounds so simple, though. Surely Uncle Gus would have thought of it.
Woody Feezor stands. “Sounds good, but it won’t work. If you split into two towns, we won’t get any of the tax revenue from Summer Valley Outdoors. They’d have better everything. In just a short while, Jingle Bells would die anyway.” The insurance salesman shakes his head. “Sorry to be a killjoy.” He sits down.
The outside door opens and Jack Feeney walks in. “Is this the meeting of citizens against renaming Jingle Bells?”
“Hi, Jack. That’s us. Come on in and join us.” It’ll be great to have the newspaper on our side.
“Just for the record,” he says as he takes a cup of cocoa and a cookie from Ami. “I’ll be reporting this meeting, but naturally, a reporter has to remain unbiased.” He balances the cookie and drink with his notebook and pencil as he settles awkwardly into a back row chair.
Naturally.
We talk for a while longer tossing around ideas. “What about door knocking?” Ami says from the back.
“That actually sounds like a good idea,” Scott says, smiling.
Ruby claps her hands together. “It does. They’ve got their lawyer going door to door. Why shouldn’t we?”
Why indeed? “We could split into teams of two and meet every Saturday morning,” I add. “It shouldn’t take us but about four Saturdays to knock on every door. Or at least close.” And maybe some more people will join our efforts by then. Especially if I buy bakery cookies for the next meeting instead of generic brand from the grocery store.
“What would we say?” Dottie asks.
I hold up a flyer. “You can memorize your own little spiel encouraging people to protect our heritage, or if you’re shy, you can just hand out a flyer.” I turn to the group. “What do you think?”
Several people nod.
“At least we’d be doing something, right, hon?” Mr. Stewart says to his wife.
“Absolutely,” she says. They kiss to celebrate their agreement.
“So everyone willing to knock on doors next Saturday, raise your hand.”
Most people raise their hands. About twenty in all.
I’m encouraged. Everyone isn’t swept away by the promise of prosperity with Summer Valley.
“Does anyone know how many signatures that man has on his petition?” Mrs. Stewart asks.
No one says anything and Jack clears his throat. “Well, now. I don’t see what it will hurt for me to pass on this information. After all, passing on information is my job, isn’t it?” He chortles and his Adam’s apple bobs. “Half. He has half of what he needs. And it’s just the first week in January.”
He sounds entirely too excited for an unbiased reporter, but I just nod. “Thank you, Jack, for sharing that information.” I turn back to the group. “Now we know how hard we have to work, but remember, the signatures on this petition are just to get this issue on the ballot.” Garrett reminded me of that the other day and I’m holding on tightly to the thought. “So even a full petition isn’t a victory. We’ll beat this.” I punch my fist in the air, but everyone just stares at me.
“I hope she’s right,” Ruby whispers loudly to the lady beside her. “I still think we’d do better with a name like C.A.R.E.”
Meeting adjourned.
~~~~~
“Jingle Bells Water Company.”
“Hi, Wilburta. It’s Kristianna.” I speak into the mike on the dash as I cruise down the interstate. “I’m going to be a little late with the water bill so I was just calling t
o let you know.”
“Oh, that’s okay sweetie, you just get it to us when you can.”
I sigh inwardly. The joys of a small town. Of course, it would be awfully joyous if I could pay the bill on time, too. “Thanks. Your Mama doing okay?”
“She sure is. She thinks assisted living is something God invented just so she could socialize.”
I laugh. “Ah, that’s so good. I know you were worried about her last time we talked.” Which has been. . .let’s see, three months ago. Last time I couldn’t pay my bill.
“Thanks for asking, sweetie.”
“Thanks for giving me some extra time.” I always pay my bills. It’s just a struggle to make my income flow match the deadlines.
“Don’t you worry about it. What are you doing these days?”
I take a deep breath. Got to think like a politician and take every opportunity to spread the word. “Fighting the town name change. We’d love to have you come to one of our meetings.”
“I got your flyer when I was over at the market. Looked interesting. I might just show up next time.”
“You do that.”
“I guess you’re lonely since your gran passed on?”
I swallow the lump in my throat. People are right. Time helps. But even after six months, I miss her. “Yes, ma’am. But tonight, I’m going to dinner at my parents’.”
“Do they live in town?”
Hardly. “No, they’re in Sherwood.” I glance up at the exit sign. And so am I. I ease off the Interstate on to the ramp.
“Well, you have fun and give them a hug for me.”
Yeah, right. I won’t even do that for me, more than likely. “Thanks again, Wilburta.” We say bye and I push END.
Now that the friendly hometown call is over with, time to reach out and touch the corporate world. I press the 9 on my phone and hold it down. Pretty bad when you have the electric company on speed dial. I listen to the menu and speak the choices as commanded. Finally a voice says, “If you need an automatic short-term extension on your bill, press or say one.”
Um, that would be me. “One.”
“Thank you. Your automatic short term extension has been approved. Your confirmation number. . .” I end the call. I draw the line at writing down numbers while I’m driving. My electricity not getting shut off will be all the confirmation I need.
Forever Christmas Page 11
