Montana Mistletoe

by R. L. Syme

  When Gillian finally made it to the girl’s dressing room, a similar level of activity greeted her, although there were the occasional pair sitting around still working on braiding or curling or pinning hair. But at least they were working.

  Gillian checked the clock and reminded the girls. Only thirty minutes to curtain.

  They should start receiving ticketed guests any moment.

  Gillian made certain of the last details. The programs, the wassail—which they’d managed to run electricity from the theater to power so they wouldn’t blow any more circuits. The ushers were dressed and in place, if a bit rowdy.

  Everything appeared to be ready to go.

  Only Gillian still couldn’t focus on the task at hand. No matter where she was or what she was doing, she couldn’t stop herself from being constantly aware of Mason. Where he was, what he was doing, what he was thinking, whether he was thinking of her…

  She mentally slapped herself.

  This wasn’t happening. She couldn’t let herself get sucked in to Mason’s vortex. She remembered what that was like. She’d never come out again of her own volition.

  Willa and Rich had managed to clear the snow from the sidewalks, so while it was still coming down in what felt like torrents, it was much easier to keep clear once the guests began to arrive. Rich would sneak out from the ticket counter and run a shovel along the walkways.

  Arthur and Bianca were standing behind the swag table, keeping an eye on the wassail and trying to sell MFDA t-shirts and special Christmas mugs they’d had made in sets with “The Mistletoe Madrigal” stenciled on them.

  Arthur loved to play the big man at these events and try to woo the crowd. But the real test would be the theater.

  This was the first play Gillian had written and it was slightly different than the medieval-themed Madrigal they normally did. As the guests arrived, she realized just how many of the old guard were going to be there. They’d braved the snow. They wore their Christmas best. They brought their families.

  She’d expected a small, unpacked house, but this was Montana. Snow didn’t keep people at home any more. Not after the advent of the four-wheel drive. Now, snow was just a decoration.

  It certainly made the December evening look serene and inviting. Magical. Full of holiday cheer. Sort of like the snow at the end of White Christmas. It felt like it was really Christmas.

  Gillian greeted as many people as she could while she checked on the seating charts and the lighting charts and the sound board. She checked in on the actors one last time.

  Ten minute curtain call.

  All she had to do now was check on the food.

  Yet the thought of seeing Mason again made her absolutely sick to her stomach. She paused outside the kitchen door and just focused on breathing in and out.

  She finally willed herself through the kitchen doors. All three men had spread themselves around the room, stirring or cutting different things.

  The youngest was in the corner, slicing something in the roaster. The oldest was at the stove, pouring cream into a pot and stirring with some resistance. He paused, dipped a spoon into the pot and tasted it, then threw the spoon aside. He pulled something from beside him and loosed a shower of salt from high above into the pot, then began to stir again.

  Mason was at the refrigerator, having just closed it, and he waited with an expectant look on his face while she made many false conversation starts.

  “You… well, I mean, we… or really… I… but no, I think…”

  His gaze softened. “What can we do for you, Gillian?”

  “Ten minutes to curtain.” She folded her hands in front of her to keep them from fidgeting. “Have you found the plates and things?”

  Mason pointed to the corner where they’d stacked all 100 plates. Beside it was a box of smaller plates. Under the table were several more boxes. Gillian pointed to them.

  “What’s that?”

  Cash waved her off. “We thought we were doing buffet, so we’ve got all these chafing dishes.”

  Gillian offered a small smile. “I really am sorry about all these miscommunications. We are so grateful that you could be here to help us.” She tried not to look directly at Mason, although she would have liked to have a moment in private with him, just to set the record straight. “I’m so sorry that I’ve been so hard to work with tonight. It’s a very stressful time for me, between writing and directing the show, and trying to run the fundraiser at the same time, and then having the weather and Mike…” She stopped when tears threatened.

  She swallowed and nodded, meeting each of their eyes in turn. “I know you’re pinch-hitting for us and I just wanted to say thanks.”

  Tyson continued to stir the pot on the stove. “It’s a job for us, ma’am. We live to work.”

  A memory flashed into Gillian’s mind unbidden. She remembered having a conversation with Mason about the number of hours he spent in the restaurant every week.

  It had been after a particularly nasty fight they’d had when he missed her grandmother’s funeral to work a party at the restaurant.

  She’d told him very specifically that she wouldn’t tolerate him putting his work first and she remembered him using that phrase. He lived to work.

  With a quick glance at Mason, she confirmed that he was having the same memory by the glassy, far-away look in his eyes. It had become a phrase he used constantly after that.

  She couldn’t decide if she should break his reverie or not. Instead, she smiled at Cash. “I gave Mason a copy of the order. One of the ushers will come back at five-minutes to, each time there’s something that needs to come out of the kitchen.”

  Cash nodded and they both looked at Mason, who was too caught up in his mind to notice everyone staring at him.

  “Well, thanks. We’ll send you a check when you bill us.”

  “Great.” Cash went back to the roaster and Tyson went back to stirring. Gillian turned around and left the kitchen, but each step she took away from Mason felt strange.

  Given the way shows usually progressed around her, she probably wouldn’t be back in the kitchen again until they’d cleaned and gone.

  If that was the last time she ever saw Mason again, would she be fine with it?

  She passed through the curtains and was met by a gregarious crowd of people. Gillian felt the pressure of tears building behind her eyes as she navigated her way through them. She still felt so bad leaving Mason without a proper goodbye.

  But it was better this way.

  “Gillian Potter!” Bianca’s shrill voice carried over the din and pinned Gillian where she stood. The short, busty blonde waved Gillian over. Near the entrance to the ticket booth, Bianca and Arthur stood with a couple she vaguely recognized. She smiled at them and introduced herself as the show’s director.

  “Gillian. So lovely to finally meet you.” The wife said, offering her hand. “I’m Temecula Reed.”

  Gillian could have kissed the woman in her fancy vintage dress that looked like it may have been made by hand in the 50s by one of the famous style icons of yesteryear.

  If only she knew enough about fashion to know whose hands had made it. She could at least feel famous by association.

  “I had a chance to look inside the theater when we came.” Mrs. Reed said, leaning in. “You’ve done a beautiful job decorating.”

  Gillian almost laughed aloud. Instead she smiled and waved her hand to indicate the lobby. “Yes, Bianca loves her festive decorations.”

  “I get the Mistletoe theme.” Mr. Reed picked up a cookie from the table beside him that had a screen-print of a computer-drawn mistletoe on it. The corner of his mouth turned up. “Kitschy.”

  Gillian would have let out an audible sigh of relief if she hadn’t been so carefully watching herself.Arthur’s smile darkened when he glared at her.

  The lights flickered in the lobby and Gillian almost reached out for support. But she saw one of the ushers at the door, and he called out across the room, “Five minu
tes to curtain.”

  Gillian made her excuses to the Reeds and left Arthur to do whatever he felt he needed to do to curry their favor. She had a show to produce.

  The lobby crowd filed in to the theater and Gillian wove her way between couples and families and groups of friends. There was even a table of teens near the front, all dressed in the proverbial Ugly Christmas Sweaters. One even had a reindeer nose that lit up.

  Inside the theater, the appropriate music was playing, the pink lights barely illuminated the stage, and the path that snaked from the door to the stage was clear.

  Icicle lights sparkled on the trees around the outside of the room and the fake snow picked up the shimmer. It really did feel like a winter wonderland.

  Light-picking fingers played classical guitar and she recognized the melody of What Child is This? lilting in the background. Gillian stood back against the black-cloth-covered window, allowing the cold to sink through the curtain, into her backside.

  Each time she allowed her mind to stop working, she started to replay Mason’s kiss in her mind. Could she really let today be the last time she saw him again? What about Christmas spirit and all that?

  No, she couldn’t. She just couldn’t let him in like that. Christmas or not, Mason was dangerous.

  The pink lights dimmed and the whole room went dark. Gillian held her breath as the two young nymphs peeked out of the curtain and started the play. The spotlight grew from nothing to brightly encircle them, and they were off.

  For a good minute, she kept holding her breath. Just until the opening exchange had finished and the rest of the woodland court came on stage. Once the stags and rabbits and mice and other animals were prancing across the stage, Gillian finally started to breathe like a normal person.

  The first act continued, with Gillian keeping more of an eye on Temecula and Rocky Reed than she did on the actors. The kids knew the play backwards and forwards.

  It was everything else that was the wild card.

  Gillian glanced back at the two ushers, who waited with programs in their hand. One of them disappeared, no doubt to warn the kitchen about the waitresses about to descend on them.

  Mason.

  Ok, so she wasn’t ready to never see him again.

  She reached out to stop the usher. She could go back and talk to Mason herself. But before she could call out to him, a crack sounded in the lobby.

  Every light, spotlight, and blinking indicator in the entire theater went black.

  Mason stood in the sudden dark with his mouth open. This wasn’t like the breaker box dark. This time, there was no residual light from across the hall, or even down the back hall where there should have been either streetlights or the reflection of moonlight.

  Only the flickering flame of the gas stove lit that very closed-off corner of the kitchen.

  Mason had been putting the final touches on his pork roulade. Spooning sauce over the little pinwheels of “boar’s head” as they were called in the play. He and Cash and Tyson had been carefully replacing each roaster with plates full of food on the counters, knowing the waitresses were on their way soon.

  But when the light went out, the dark was so complete, Mason was afraid for any of them to step very far. It wouldn’t be long before they stepped on a roaster and overturned the pork juices all over the kitchen floor.

  “Dammit.” Cash’s voice sounded through the kitchen.

  “What? Did you knock something over?”

  “No. Your ex still has my keys.”

  Mason exhaled. “So we have no light. Anywhere. And we can’t move.”

  Footsteps sounded in the hallway.

  “Don’t come in here.” Mason yelled. “We’ve got roasters on the floor.”

  “I’ve got the long-stemmed lighter for the chafing dishes.” Tyson was somewhere near the oven. “It’s in the box under the table over by you, Mason.”

  Mason squinted. He knew there was about a foot in either direction before he would hit a roaster. “I think I can get to it.” He slid his foot along the floor until he toed something solid. Sliding his other foot behind him, he moved forward and put his hands out, right about pocket height. The whole table was covered in carefully arranged plates of pork, sauce, and potatoes, each with a thin slice of fennel, carrot, turnip, parsnip pie.

  The food would be getting cold if the waitresses didn’t come soon. They couldn’t serve cold food.

  From the hallway, Gillian’s voice sounded. “Mason. Can you hear me?”

  Mason felt the edge of the table and his watch clinked against one of the full plates. Carefully, he sank down to the boxes and began blindly rifling through them.

  “Hang on, Gillian. We’re in a bit of a maze, here.”

  “The electricity’s off everywhere. The whole block.”

  Mason’s hand closed over one of the chafing fuel canisters that sat in a low box beneath one of the big, silver dishes. He pulled one out, then felt in the next box, and the next, for the long, thin lighter.

  “It must be the storm,” Mason said. “Ha. Got it.” He pulled out the lighter, took the cap off the chafing fuel and set it next to his foot, then clicked the lighter on.

  “Mason, we’re going to have to cancel the show.” Gillian’s voice was clearer this time. She must have been standing at the open kitchen door. Voices began to murmur behind her, but Mason couldn’t really hear them.

  He lit the canister and a flame brought Gillian’s face into view. Her face was stained with the evidence of tears already.

  “What’s going on out in the theater?”

  “We paused the show while Arthur calls the electric company. Thankfully, the pianist knows some Christmas tunes and her piano light is battery-operated.”

  But Mason could hear the fear in her voice. He wanted to jump across the piles of food and take her in his arms.

  “Gillian!” Arthur’s voice was deep and obstructed, as though he spoke through gritted teeth. Mason wanted nothing more than to punch the jackass in the face.

  A light, hazy glow illuminated the sparkles on Gillian’s dress as Arthur’s cel phone came into view.

  “The electric company said the whole grid is down. There’s a line down somewhere, so it’s going to take them time to fix it.”

  Gillian’s face shadowed with lines. Her chest rose and fell rapidly. Mason could feel the tension building in the room and he tried to think of a way to stop it.

  “We’re going to have to call off the show, Arthur.” Gillian’s voice was so resolute, it made something twist inside Mason.

  Cash, who had been close enough to the door that he was within arm’s reach of Arthur, must have grabbed the dude’s phone because suddenly, the low glow was inside the kitchen. But with a few flicks of his thumb, a half-blinding light came out the back of Arthur’s phone and illuminated the floor of roasters.

  “There,” Cash said, handing back the phone. “It’s stupid to have an iPhone in a blackout and not use the flashlight.”

  Arthur huffed. “Yes, because a lot of good it’s going to do me to see a three foot swath on the ground in front of me. What we need, little genius, is to have the lights back on.”

  Mason met Gillian’s eyes over the hazy light produced by the combination of the chafing fuel and the iPhone flashlight and they were suddenly filled with the same recognition. “Maybe we don’t need the lights after all.”

  Gillian leaned against the window as the waitresses floated in to the dark, sparkling winter wonderland. Each table’s candles had been lit, two jars of lit chafing fuel sat on opposite sides of the candelabras, elevated by chunks of fresh-cut wood.

  The whole room flickered like a campfire.

  In front of the waitresses, ushers lit their way with jars of chafing fuel. Gillian silently thanked Mason and his brothers for being over-prepared.

  Silverware clinked on the plates as the guests dug into their food. Even Gillian had to admit, the pork looked beautiful, sitting on top of the piped potatoes and beside the rustic-loo
king slice of savory parsnip pie.

  Tears welled in her eyes as she heard the oooh and aaah of each guest when the plate was set in front of them. The ushers led the waitresses out each pass, so they could get more plates.

  As soon as the last guest was served, the Ugly Christmas Sweater table, led by her stage manager, took turns shining one of several mini spotlights on the actors as they continued the play.

  This time, Gillian didn’t even try to hold back the tears. She just let them come.

  She began to sniffle so loud, she had to go into the other room, which had been packed with candles so that it, too, flickered in one big flame like a medieval castle.

  Toward the back of the room, she saw a white coat hurrying toward the curtains, as though he’d been standing there when she exited and left so as not to see her.

  But she didn’t want him to hide in the kitchen any longer.

  “Mason,” she called out.

  He stopped and his shoulders dropped. Without turning, he said, “I’m just headed back to the kitchen now, Gillian. Don’t worry.”

  Her heart dropped and the tears threatened again. “No, don’t go to the kitchen.”

  He turned to face her. Gillian crossed the room and stood in front of him.

  “You saved the play, you know that?”

  “You saved the play, Jill. I saw you have the same idea just when I did. When Cash turned on the spotlight.”

  She offered a small, pained laugh. “Well, maybe Cash saved the play, then.”

  “We certainly saved the meal.” Mason gestured toward the theater. “I tested the very last plate as it went out to make sure it was still warm enough.”

  Gillian rubbed her forehead. “I don’t know how you managed all this.”

  Mason lowered his voice. “It’s my job, Gillian. I happen to be good at it.”

  “I know you are.”

  “No, I don’t think you do.”

  She met his eyes as he stepped toward her. “Why would you say that?”