Baby Christmas

by Pamela Browning

  “Look, Joe,” Rachel said, wrapping her robe more tightly around her. She thought he might be able to see right through it, the way he was looking at her.

  He raised his eyebrows inquiringly. He had the expression down pat. It said, How dare you challenge my authority. Why don’t you just give in? It even said, I think you’re cute when you put your foot down, which was the worst of all.

  She drew a deep breath. “I don’t think it would be appropriate for you to cart this baby off somewhere. I’m the one who found her, I’m the one who will have to answer to the HSS, and I feel the responsibility very strongly.”

  “That,” he said with equanimity, “is why you’re invited to come along. Nice tree, isn’t it?” He tore open a package of tinsel with his teeth and began to drape each strand meticulously over the branches of the tree, which was centered on the table next to the couch and, now that the damaged part had been cut away, was full and nicely tapered. The tree actually didn’t look too bad. In fact, it looked pretty good.

  “Yes, it’s a lovely tree. You’re not paying any attention to what I’m saying. What do you think gives you the right to come in here and start ordering me around? To kiss me, for heaven’s sake? To just…just—”

  Joe regarded her silently for a moment. “To tell the truth, I thought you might be lonely. You latched on to that baby as if you’d never let go. And as for kissing, you liked it. Didn’t you?”

  If she’d thought her annoyance would send Joe Marzinski slinking away with his tail tucked between his legs, she’d been wrong. Boy, had she.

  “There’s a question on the table,” he reminded her. “I asked you if you liked the kissing?”

  “I don’t have to answer that. You’ve been most helpful, but right now the most helpful thing you could do would be to leave.”

  “You liked the kissing, then. I knew it.” He favored her with an expression that might be classified as a smirk, only it was offered with too much good humor.

  “You don’t take hints very well,” she said, her voice rising.

  “Hints? I’d say that asking me to leave was more than a hint. It was a demand. But if I leave here, you and the baby will be going with me. By the way, I need to call my service and make sure there haven’t been any major eruptions of plumbing or glitches in electrical systems in any of the condos on my watch. Do you mind?”

  “Go ahead,” Rachel said wearily. “I guess I should be surprised that you requested permission.”

  While Joe dialed on his cell phone, Rachel padded into the kitchen. The counters and sink were spotless. Joe had even rinsed out the dish towel and hung it on its little rack. She poured herself a glass of cold water from the refrigerator and forced herself to think.

  She had a report to get out for Edgar Millhap of Green Star Tool & Die. He wasn’t known for being patient, and his assistant at corporate headquarters in Ohio had already called twice and inquired when the report would be ready. Rachel had promised that she’d have it tomorrow. And she could hear her fax machine beeping even now as it received a new transmission.

  Thinking she’d better check up on things, she went into her office and found a stack of faxes from Viento Communications in Mexico City. She was to forward them to Gilberto Perez, who was spending the holidays in his condo down the beach.

  Rachel shoveled the faxes into a file folder. She couldn’t go to the Marzinskis’ for dinner today. She would have to be firm with Joe. She’d run the faxes down to Gilberto’s condominium, drop them off with the doorman, hurry back. Chrissy could go with her.

  Joe appeared in the doorway. “Nothing much happening today on the condo crisis front. So everything’s cool.”

  “Lucky for you, but what about me? Joe, I can’t go to your parents’ with you. I have too much to do.”

  He stuffed his hands into his pockets and grinned at her. “When I bring you home afterward, I’ll stay for a while and help you with this stuff. Or I’ll take care of the baby while you work.”

  Rachel raised her eyes to his face. He was staring down at her, and those remarkable silver eyes held a kind of glow.

  “Well,” she said, because she didn’t want to say no to such a thoughtful offer. True, he wouldn’t be much help with the report, but at least he could manage the baby.

  “Say yes. It’s the best offer you’re going to get today.” He favored her with a coaxing smile.

  “I’ll have to take Gilberto his faxes,” she said dubiously. “They need to be delivered right away.”

  “We’ll drop them off. And, Rachel, I hereby declare you an honorary member of the Marzinski family for the day. By the way, we’ll need to leave at one o’clock. Marzinskis eat Christmas dinner in midafternoon so the little ones can nap afterward and the adults can visit.”

  Rachel glanced frantically at her desktop clock. “One o’clock? It’s twelve-thirty now,” she squeaked.

  “That means you’d better get a move on. We’re a casual group, but no one’s ever shown up for Christmas dinner in a bathrobe.”

  Muffled snuffles came from Chrissy in her crib, and a glance told Rachel that the baby was indeed waking. “Now you’ve done it,” she said. “She’s waking up. She’ll need to be diapered and fed and—oh, Joe, why don’t you just go home! Alone!” This last was uttered on a wail to mirror Chrissy’s.

  “I’m not going anywhere without you, and that’s that. I’ll take care of Chrissy. I know what to do. And I’ll get her all dressed in her new dress and she’ll look like a picture of perfection, won’t you, Chrissy girl?” He picked up the baby and dropped a kiss on her small head.

  “Ohh,” Rachel said, clenching her fists, and she went to get dressed.

  She heard Joe talking to the baby in a conversational tone.

  “Rachel may be hard to convince, but she’s worth it, don’t you think?”

  Rachel brushed a hand across her eyes. She felt the hot prick of tears behind her nose, and she willed herself not to get all emotional.

  It had been so long since she thought she was worth much at all. And now here was Joe Marzinski, who thought she was better than she was.

  Maybe there were such things as Christmas miracles after all.

  Chapter Five

  Some things in life you had to learn to accept.

  This was a lesson Rachel had learned. Or rather, she thought she had learned. But just when she began to believe she had accepted things as they were, something always happened. First she’d decided to accommodate Mimi when her grandmother decided to go jaunting around the Orient. On short notice, Rachel had subleased her New Jersey apartment, piled her computer and printer and office records into her little sedan and headed south. She’d endured the curiosity of the other residents at the Elysian Towers condominium and settled in.

  And now here was something else to accept. A really great-looking guy who insisted that she was supposed to celebrate Christmas with his family. She was terrified.

  “And then there’s Greg, who is married to my older sister, Mary Cecilia. They have five kids, an assortment of boys and girls. Gracie is married to Tom, her college sweetheart. They have three boys, all terrors. Lois and Jackson have two boys and two girls and she’s expecting another one in June. Tonia married Reggie right out of high school, and their girls are twins—Liza and Katie. Then there’s Jenn and her husband Elliott, who have Carson. He’s three or four. Four, I think. And Mom, a real doll, and Dad, who adores her. That’s about it.”

  Thoroughly intimidated by the thought of meeting all these people, Rachel adjusted Chrissy’s dress, flicking an imaginary piece of lint off the red velveteen. They’d delivered Gilberto Perez’s faxes, and now they were sailing across the concrete bridge traversing the Intracoastal Waterway, the metal bridge spacers thumping rhythmically beneath the tires of the Condo Crisis Control van. Rachel saw that below the bridge some people were waiting in their boats for the bridge to open and let them through. At that precise moment Rachel wished that she were on a boat, floating along toward som
ewhere. Somewhere else.

  They arrived at the end of the bridge and slid through a yellow caution light, then turned right. Past the post office, past the church, past a park where little children in helmets were riding spanking-new bikes on wobbly training wheels. There were teenagers, too, on Christmas-morning inline skates, shiny fresh-washed hair flying out behind them. Everything about Christmas was designed for families—toys, kids, warmth, emotion. It was almost more than Rachel could take.

  “Well, here we are,” Joe announced as he pulled up in front of the big two-story white stucco house.

  Bright sunlight bounced off the shiny finishes and chrome of several cars and minivans parked out in front. Joe eased the van into a space and came around to open the door for Rachel, who was unbuckling the baby from the car seat.

  Rachel, unaccustomed to wearing a skirt, tried to maneuver herself out of the high van. Her skirt inched higher on her leg and caught on the seat lever so that it revealed a quick glimpse of thigh.

  Joe raised his eyebrows, and Rachel used her free hand to tug the skirt lower, but not before she caught the gleam in his eye. All right, so he was a leg man. Every man had his preferences. There was nothing surprising about that. What Rachel found surprising was that Joe was at all interested in her legs or anything else about her.

  There wasn’t time to ponder this because all at once the front door of the big stucco house flew open and a slew of children spilled out.

  “Uncle Joe, Uncle Joe! Where’s the baby?”

  “Wait till you see my bike, it’s awesome!”

  “What did you bring me?”

  “‘Did you bring a baby? Tommy said you were bringing a baby!”

  “Guess what, Carson ate six candy canes and threw up all over Jamie’s new fire truck!”

  “What did you bring us! What did you bring us?”

  Joe patted a red-haired boy on the head, slid a hand down his ear and produced a shiny dime.

  “How about this, Tommy?” he said, and the boy grabbed it.

  The resulting clamor from the other children woke Chrissy, who had been dozing, and she started to fuss.

  “Oh, what a tiny baby!” This exclamation was delivered with a lisp because the speaker was missing her two front teeth.

  “This is Chrissy, Katie,” Joe said. “And this is Rachel.” He slid an arm around Rachel’s shoulders. She wanted to shrug it off; he was embarrassing her in front of these kids. But it felt good there, felt good to be included. It made her feel less like an interloper at this family event.

  “Are you going to get married?”

  “Not today, Jeffrey,” Joe assured the boy, who appeared to be about eleven.

  “A baby! Uncle Joe has a baby!” yelled Tommy. He raced back inside the house.

  Joe smiled down at Rachel. “That was Tommy. This one with the tattoo is Megan, and that’s Carson,” he said. A red-haired prepubescent girl with a fake tattoo on her cheek stuck her tongue out at him, and he made a grab for her ponytail but missed.

  Rachel tried to memorize the names, but she was sure she would never get them straight. Liza, Katie, Mary Grace, Jeffrey and Todd. All little whirlwinds, all dressed up in honor of the occasion. As they swirled around her, she was propelled up the steps and into the house where Marzinskis seemed to spill from every nook and cranny and where Joe’s mother greeted her with a big smile.

  “We’re so glad you could be here, Rachel,” she said, and Joe’s father grinned his welcome, too. Mary Marzinski wasn’t what Rachel had expected. She’d thought Joe’s mother would be a little dumpling of a woman, very old-worldish, but she was slim and fashionably dressed in a white tunic-and-pants outfit, her hair swinging in a chic blond bob. Joe’s father, Jim, was tall and balding and tanned from many hours in the sun.

  One by one Joe’s sisters emerged from the kitchen to meet Rachel. It didn’t escape Rachel’s attention that they were exchanging significant looks. At first she was barely aware of this byplay, but it became much more obvious when, even though Joe was explaining about the baby, everyone was paying more attention to Rachel.

  Fortunately Chrissy was at her cutest, yawning widely once and letting out a little coo when Rachel leaned over to adjust her blanket. The cuteness seemed to refocus everyone’s attention, for which Rachel was supremely grateful.

  “An honest-to-goodness baby in a Nativity-scene manger? Well, that takes the cake,” said Jenn, the youngest sister.

  “I want some cake too,” said Todd, an outspoken five-year-old, and that made everyone laugh. The ice was broken, and everyone began to resume whatever activity they had been pursuing when Joe, Rachel and the baby had arrived.

  The Marzinski house was bright and airy, with worn furnishings but with many decorations of the season. An enormous Christmas tree rose almost to the high cypress-beamed ceiling, and lopsided crayoned stars hung from the chandelier over the dining room table. One of the children, Jenn told her, had painted the charming Santa-and-elves mural on the glass of the door between the living room and the wide sunporch. Mistletoe hung from the hallway light fixture.

  “I’d better put Chrissy’s formula in the refrigerator,” Rachel said, and so Joe’s sister Gracie showed her where it was.

  Joe had brought the portable crib for Chrissy. Joe and Lois’s husband set it up in an alcove off the kitchen, and Rachel, who waited in the kitchen where she was studied carefully by a silent toddler named Melinda, settled the baby in it. After she was tucked in, Chrissy stared up at Rachel for about ten seconds and then her little eyelids began to drift closed. Melinda deserted when it seemed that nothing exciting was going to happen, running in search of her own bottle.

  Distracted by all the commotion around her, Rachel bent over the crib and focused on the now-sleeping baby. Easy for you to handle this situation, Rachel said in her mind to the baby. You can just close your eyes and shut everyone out. But I’ve got to deal with all these people with names that I’ll never remember, and they’re going to wonder why I don’t have any family of my own, and then I’ll have to tell

  But she wouldn’t tell. Not in a million years. No matter how nice everyone was. If they knew, they’d think she was a bad person, they’d understand that she’d failed the people who depended on her.

  Blinking away the sudden sting of tears, Rachel backed out of the alcove straight into the path of Mary Cecilia.

  This elder sister of Joe’s was the most formidable of the family members Rachel had met so far, with her stern, pulled-back hair and eyes that could pierce right through a person. At least that was the way they seemed to Rachel.

  “Oh…excuse me!” Rachel said.

  “It’s okay, I saw you coming. Would you mind grabbing that head of romaine off the table? I’m trying to put together a salad, but every time I start to do it, someone yells something and I have to go fix it.”

  “I’ll help,” Rachel offered, and Mary Cecilia looked surprised and then relieved.

  “You could wash the lettuce, if you don’t mind,” she said.

  Rachel was happy to have something useful to do. She ran water in the sink and held the lettuce leaves under it, a few at a time. Mary Cecilia dragged a salad spinner down from a top shelf, and Rachel put the lettuce in it after she’d washed off the worst of the grit. She didn’t know what to talk about with this woman except for the children.

  She was about to inquire as to how many of the children were hers when Mary Cecilia said abruptly, “We didn’t know our Joey had a girlfriend until he mentioned it at Thanksgiving.”

  Rachel dropped a paring knife with a clatter and watched helplessly as it clunked into the yawning black hole of the garbage disposal.

  “I’m not—” she began, but her words were lost in a series of bumps from the back porch followed by a long piercing wail. Carson had ridden his new scooter down the back steps and hit his head.

  Rachel, after initially ascertaining that Carson was all right except for a nasty bruise, fished the knife out of the disposal and went on mak
ing salad while Joe’s youngest sister, Jenn, Carson’s mother, tended to his injuries. Mary Cecilia hurried off to find bandages.

  While she was blessedly alone in the kitchen, Joe came in the back door and let it slam behind him. “Just another Marzinski Christmas,” he observed as he helped himself to a slice of tomato. “Never a dull moment.”

  “They think I’m your girlfriend.” Rachel hissed through her teeth as she snatched a piece of celery out of his hands so she could slice it.

  “I don’t have a girlfriend. And, anyway, so what?”

  “So I just met you last night. Your sister said you told them about a girlfriend at Thanksgiving. I’m not your girlfriend.”

  “We did sleep together,” Joe said in a reasoning tone.

  Rachel almost gasped, but it turned into a gulp. She looked around to see if anyone could have heard him, but the only person in the room was a blond moppet of indeterminate sex who was crawling around under the table pushing a truck. “That didn’t mean anything,” Rachel said.

  “It did to me.” A quick glance told her that Joe was grinning at her.

  “It didn’t mean anything to either of us,” Rachel retorted in righteous indignation. “I was sleepy, that’s all, and you were supposed to wake me up but you didn’t.”

  “Next time,” Joe said seriously, “I will.”

  Rachel wagged the paring knife at him. “You are one pushy guy, Joe Marzinski.”

  “Hey, that’s my brother you’re talking about! And why didn’t you tell us right off the bat that Rachel is your fiancée?” said Jenn playfully as she bustled in.

  “Fiancée?” said Joe.

  “Well, Jeffrey said you weren’t going to get married today, so I figured you must have another day in mind.”

  Rachel shot Joe an outraged glance.

  “Not exactly,” Joe hedged.

  Jenn, who had been peeking through the glass window in the door of the oven, turned to Joe. “Did you know we’re having a surprise guest?”