“A what?”
“A tree farm,” he said. “You know, a place you go to cut down trees.”
“You actually went out in the woods with an axe to chop down your tree?” I asked him. “Are you sure you’re not confusing your life with a Laura Ingalls book?”
He pulled on my earlobe, an annoying habit he had picked up to get back at me when I teased him.
“We did not go into the woods,” he said with dignity. “We went to a tree farm.”
“Like that’s so much better,” I muttered. He just looked at me. “Sorry,” I said. “You were saying?”
“So we would all go out and find the perfect tree for each of our houses. And then we would take turns with the saw to cut them down. And after we got them all loaded up on top of the cars, we would go back to my aunt’s house for pizza. It was so great.”
“I guess you had to be there,” I said drily. Nothing that he had described sounded remotely like fun to me.
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe next year we can go out to Maryland to visit them and you can come along for the tree-picking day.”
I stared at him, aghast. He was not seriously making plans for us in a year—especially not for me to meet his entire family.
Before I could say anything, Nate started cracking up.
“Oh, you’re too easy,” he said. “God, it looked like your head was about to explode there, Annie.”
“Haha,” I replied, turning away. “You’re such a laugh riot.”
“Anyhow,” he said as he grabbed my hand, undeterred. “The next weekend my dad would spend all day Saturday putting lights up on the tree. And he would complain the whole time because the needles were so prickly. Then he and my mom would fight about the tree—he would say that next year we were getting a scotch pine, something with softer bristles. And she would yell at him and say that the blue spruce was prettier and she would be damned if she would get anything else. And then he would say, ‘Well you can put the lights up yourself then!’”
Nate’s face suddenly turned wistful, the way it did when he would get carried away in telling a story about his dad. It was almost like he would forget for a few minutes why he was sad…
I squeezed his hand. “Would they make up?” I asked softly.
He shook his head almost imperceptibly, as if he was clearing it, then smiled down at me. “Yeah. By that night they would be snuggling in front of the lights. And then they’d have the exact same fight the next year.”
“Who’s doing the lights this year?” I asked, feeling suddenly guilty for monopolizing so much of his time when his mother probably wanted him at home.
“She got a fake tree,” he said, his face clouding over a little. “The year after he died. One of those pre-lit ones. She can set it up all by herself.”
Something about the story made me feel incredibly sad. I squeezed his hand again, determined to change the subject. “I’m freezing my butt off out here, Hughes,” I said. “Let’s pick that tree and get it home.”
He smiled at me, a grateful smile, and started to lead me down the rows of trees. I squinted at the tags in the darkness, hoping I would find…
“Here,” I said, tugging on his hand so he would stop. “This one looks perfect.”
He looked at it for a long minute, his head cocked as if in serious consideration. “It does look pretty good.”
“I think it’s beautiful,” I told him.
He peered down to look at the tag. “Blue spruce,” he murmured.
“Your mom has good taste,” I said.
Nate looked up at me, a grin spreading across his face. Then he leaned forward and kissed me.
“So do you,” he said. “Come on, let’s get this home.”
***
We dragged the tree behind us on the sidewalk. My fingers were freezing around the trunk in spite of my warm mittens. “God, you owe me so big for this,” I muttered. “I’m so cold!”
“Oh, stop being such a baby,” he said, looking at me over his shoulder. “This is good for you. Fresh air, exercise…”
“Nate, it’s five below,” I said. “This isn’t fresh air, it’s torture.”
“Such a baby,” he said sadly.
We finally reached his apartment and dragged the tree up the stairs to the second floor. It wasn’t until he was unlocking his door that I remembered what was missing. “Hey!” I said loudly. “You were supposed to get me a hot chocolate!”
“Not to fear,” he said, opening the door and pulling the tree through. “I have hot chocolate right here in the house.”
“Seriously?” I asked, following him in and stamping my boots on the welcome mat to rid them of their cover of snow. “What twenty-eight-year-old man keeps cocoa in his house?”
“I’ve got marshmallows, too,” he said happily. He raised one eyebrow at me in a mock-seductive expression. “You know you think that’s sexy.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh yeah, baby,” I replied.
Nate pulled the tree into the living room.
“Don’t you need one of those stand things?” I asked him.
“Yes,” he replied. “And I have one.”
“Where?” I asked, surprised.
“In my Christmas decoration box,” he said.
“Oh my God,” I said, collapsing on the couch. “You have a decoration box? Who are you?”
“Let me rephrase that,” Nate said. “I have several decoration boxes.”
When I stared at him incredulously, he only smiled. “Annie, trust me,” he said. “Christmas is the best time of year. This is going to be fun.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “If you say so...”
Twenty minutes later, Nate had pulled several plastic tubs up from his storage cage in the basement and set the tree up in a red metal stand. Now he was pulling out string after string of lights.
“I have a feeling your dad had a point,” I said, gingerly touching one of the branches. “These needles are sharp as hell.”
“It builds character,” he said bracingly.
But a few minutes later he was asking me for my mittens in an effort to protect his hands.
“These don’t help,” he said grumpily. “The needles just poke right through.”
“Do you have any hockey gloves?” I asked.
“No,” he muttered, wincing again as he struggled to wrap the wire around one of the top branches. “Crap, that hurts!”
“I have an idea,” I said, pulling the lights from his hand. “Instead of wrapping, let’s go for a more artistic drape.” I started to lay the strand on top of the braches, pulling it around the tree as I went.
“Smart girl,” Nate said, taking the lights back and continuing to drape the strand. When he was finished I plugged the lights in and we both stood back to admire it.
“Well,” Nate said. “Maybe not quite as nice as my dad did it, but still not bad.”
“Okay,” I said, looking around at the boxes. “What now?”
“Now,” Nate said excitedly. “We put some music on and we start to decorate!”
Before I could respond, Nate had hurried off to the bedroom. A few minutes later he came back with his iPod, which he plugged into the docking stereo. The strains of Nat King Cole’s ‘Christmas Song’ soon filled the room.
“I’m not even going to say it,” I said, staring at him.
“What, you think it’s lame I have Christmas music on my iPod?”
I just shook my head at him. “Hide your true feelings all you want,” he said, bending down to rifle through one of the boxes. “But I know you think I’m adorable.”
I would never admit it, but the truth was, I kind of did.
“Get over here,” he said, putting his hands on his hips and looking at me sternly. “You’re helping, missy.”
I groaned, but got up and joined him. “Is there, like, some specific traditional order we need to follow here?” I asked.
“Nope,” he said. “Just grab one and get going.”
&nbs
p; Nate had a lot of ornaments. And most of them had a story, which he insisted on sharing with me. “I got that one in Frankenmuth,” he told me, pointing at the glass bulb in my hand. “The year after I moved here. My sister Emily came out to visit and we went to that Christmas store, you know, the one that’s open all year?”
I nodded. Frankenmuth was a touristy little town about two hours away. They got really into Christmas up there.
“We took Danny to see Santa there last year,” I told him.
Nate laughed. “My mom still writes ‘from Santa’ on half of our gifts.”
I snorted. “When I was seven I told my mom to give up the act.”
He stared at me, aghast. “You were only seven?”
I shrugged, feeling uncomfortable. That was the year I asked Santa to make my dad leave his newest girlfriend. When he didn’t come home for Christmas, I decided I’d had enough of the fat man in the red suit.
Nate must have noticed I was uncomfortable—he had gotten surprisingly adept at that—and he changed the subject.
“So, that ornament,” he said, pointing to the misshapen clay lump in my hand, “was a gift from my sister Janna. She made it when she was six.”
“What is it?” I asked, holding it up to the light.
“I think it was supposed to be a reindeer,” he said, squinting at it.
I felt a rush of affection for him, this man that would keep such a gift for all these years, a man who would cart it all the way from Maryland to Michigan and put it on his tree. I watched him as he hung a red glitter bulb on a tall branch. The lights from the tree reflected in his blond hair.
“Nate,” I said suddenly.
He looked at me, smiling slightly. “Yeah?”
I kissed him, holding onto his face for a long moment as I pressed my lips against his.
“What was that for?” he asked, when I finally pulled away. He had a slightly dazed look on his face, but he was smiling at me.
“Nothing,” I said, grinning back. “I just felt like kissing you.”
It took us about twenty minutes to finish the tree. Sometimes we talked, Nate telling me about ornaments or memories they invoked. Mostly we worked in comfortable silence, the soft strains of Christmas music the only sound in the room.
When we were done, Nate went to the kitchen to make us some cocoa. He joined me on the couch a few minutes later with a mug for each of us, and a plate of cookies. “Those look homemade,” I told him, already imagining him in a frilly apron whipping up a batch of cookies.
“You can stop that right now,” he said, as if reading my mind. “My mom sent these this morning.”
He turned all the lamps off in the apartment so the only light was coming from the tree. You could barely tell we had phoned it in with the strings of lights; with the ornaments on, the tree looked perfect.
“Come here,” Nate said, pulling me against him on the couch. I snuggled against his chest, subconsciously finding the now familiar place where I fit perfectly.
“Thank you for doing this with me,” he whispered, kissing the top of my head.
“Thank you for making me,” I told him.
“You had fun, didn’t you?” he asked. I couldn’t see his face, but I could tell that he was smiling.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “I had a lot of fun.”
We stayed like that for a long time, sitting in front of the tree with the music playing softly, Nate’s arms around me. I snuggled closer to him, feeling happy. Feeling so happy that it scared me.
Chapter Twenty-three
‘Are you the type of girl who always puts her girlfriends first? While those relationships should be precious to you, it is essential that you learn to put your man first. No self-respecting gentleman wants to play second fiddle to your female friends!’—The Single Girl’s Guide to Finding True Love
“Nate, it’s Annie,” I said after Nate’s voicemail had picked up. “Listen, I know we had talked about hanging out tonight, but I have to cancel. Jen and Ginny both have the morning off tomorrow, which never happens. So we’re going out tonight. Sorry, babe. I’ll make it up to you, okay? Call me.”
I hung up, feeling a slight twinge of regret. Since the show had started its run, I was pretty tied up most weekends. With Nate working late most weeknights, we weren’t seeing each as much as we would have liked.
But I hadn’t seen the girls in even longer, so it was really no contest.
Ginny came over to get ready with us, and it was almost like old times. Tina had already moved out, and it was feeling more like our house again. I was determined to enjoy it until Matt moved in.
I had agreed to Jen’s plan, feeling like I didn’t really have much choice. It didn’t seem ideal for me, but what could I do? Tell Jen no, we needed to find another roommate? What if she decided she wanted to live with Matt more than me? What would I do then?
Besides, if the show did end up going to Chicago, I wouldn’t be around for awhile. And I couldn’t leave Jen in the lurch like that. So Matt had begun the process of buying the house from our landlord, who was happy enough to get it off his hands in this market. They were closing in two weeks.
I tried to push all of that out of my mind, though. Tonight was girls’ night, and I was really excited.
“What do you think about this?” Ginny asked, coming out of the bathroom in a flowing, frumpy prairie dress.
“Where the hell did you get that thing?” I asked her.
“It was in your closet,” she responded.
I squinted at it, and in fact did remember buying it last summer. But I usually wore it with a scarf belted around the waist, to make it look less…voluminous. And I certainly never wore it with a cardigan, the way Ginny was now.
“It’s not really you, Gin,” I told her, struggling to be polite and wishing Jen would hurry up and get out here. She was much better at this type of thing. I was more likely to tell Ginny that she looked ridiculous.
“I just feel like all of my clothes are too immature,” she said, sighing. “I still dress like I’m in college. I mean, I’m a mom now. Shouldn’t I be dressing like it?”
“Okay, who the hell are you and what did you do with my best friend?” I asked, unable to play polite anymore. Ginny was the most fashion-conscious girl I knew. Her favorite pastime in the world was to troll through sample sales and resale stores to get her hands on designer stuff that fit her budget. She didn’t dress slutty, but she did like to show off her figure—and I couldn’t blame her there.
“Josh’s mom said something to me,” she said, walking into my room and flopping down on the bed.”
“Mrs. Stanley?” I asked, feeling angry at the very mention of her name. That woman had very nearly ruined Ginny’s life, not to mention Danny’s.
“She was over yesterday; they’d been on vacation and she wanted to drop off some presents for Josh and Danny. Anyhow, she gave me this frumpy old sweatshirt from Miami Beach. I mean, who goes to Miami and comes back with a sweatshirt?”
“Evil old hags,” I said, eager for her to get to the juicy part.
“Yeah, you’re telling me. So basically after she gives it to me she looks me over, totally judgmental, and says something about how she thought of me when she saw it because she figured I’d be grateful for something more appropriate.”
“God, what a bitch,” I said. “Where was Josh when this was going on?”
“Outside with his dad, looking at his car. He’s been having carburetor trouble.”
“Did you tell him what she said?”
Ginny just shrugged. “He would only get mad. Their relationship is bad enough as it is.”
Josh, to his credit, had not forgiven his parents for their meddling. They rarely saw them, and I knew Ginny felt guilty about this.
“Virgina McKensie, it is not your fault that his mother is a horrible witch,” I said firmly. “Don’t you go feeling guilty for what she did. And for God’s sake, don’t listen to a word she says. She’s just jealous that she’s a dried-up
old hag while you’re still hot, even after having a baby. So screw her, okay?”
“You’re right,” Ginny said, giving me a watery little smile. “I just don’t want to embarrass Danny when he gets bigger. I don’t want to be one of those middle-aged women who still think they’re teenagers.”
“When you start wearing tube tops to the playground I promise I’ll put a stop to it, okay?”
“Deal,” she said.
“Now please, take that dress off and throw it away. I can never look at it the same way again.”
In the end, Ginny picked a black tank top dotted with sequins. She paired it with a pair of tight boot-cut jeans and tall black heels. Needless to say, she was a total knockout—and not the least bit inappropriate.
“You look great,” she said, looking me over.
My tastes were a bit more eclectic than my friends, and I had settled on a vintage sixties-style dress that I had ordered online. It was very mod and I loved it.
“I feel dressed down next to the two of you,” Jen said once she’d joined us, looking down at her black pants and white button-up top.
“Add some jewelry,” Ginny advised, apparently over her fashion crisis and ready to be our guru again. “That will dress it up. And for God’s sake, unbutton a few of those buttons.”
We ended up at a Mexican restaurant that we all liked. They served huge margaritas (the basis of their appeal) and kept free refills coming on their homemade tortillas and salsa.
“So, only two more weeks of the run,” Jen said after she had sampled her margarita. “Are you sad or relieved?”
“I guess that depends on what happens next,” I said.
“Still no word on Chicago?”
“Only rumors,” I said. “Nothing will happen until after Christmas, so I’m trying not to think about it too much.”
“What does Nate think?” Ginny asked casually.
“We haven’t really talked about,” I said, shrugging.
“Don’t you think you should?” she pressed.
“Why?”
“Well, don’t you want to know where you stand?”
“Ginny,” I said, sighing. “Why do we have to keep having this conversation? I know where I stand. We have fun together and we like to spend time together. Nothing more, nothing less. Why is that so hard for you to understand?”
Three Girls and a Leading Man Page 14
