Love Finds You in Holiday, Florida

by Sandra D. Bricker

  She reached for a tissue from the package under the dash. As she dabbed her face, her eyes landed on the two large plastic flamingos in the garden. She’d always despised those things so much, from the very first day Zan had insisted they bring them home. One of them, the one balancing on just one leg, was cocked sideways, as if it was a little bit drunk.

  “Come on, Mac. We’ll hang Christmas lights on the palm tree in the front yard, and these pink guys can stand underneath it, like presents under the tree.”

  “We are not hanging Christmas lights on the palm tree, Zan.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, for one thing, because we’re spending Christmas in Boston with Debra and her family. We’re going to have a traditional blue spruce tree, a turkey with chestnut stuffing, and snow on the ground, if we’re lucky.”

  “Debra won’t care if we have a tropical Christmas instead! In fact, she’d be just the girl to love the idea.”

  “No, Zan.”

  “Think about it?”

  “Okay, I thought about it. And we’re having a traditional Christmas at home.”

  “Can the flamingos come to visit?”

  “Alexander Constantine, I can promise you one thing. Those horrible flamingos will never be a part of our holiday celebration.”

  “Never?”

  “Not ever.”

  “Well, now you’ve hurt their feelings.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Mutt will get over it, you’re right. But check him out, Mac. Doesn’t Jeff look sad?”

  Cassie’s tears started again, and this time they were coming in streams. Wiping her face with the back of her hand, she reversed out into the street and drove straight to the home improvement store. Along with five sections of carved cherry chair rail molding, she also purchased two boxes of gaudy, colorful outdoor Christmas lights, three boxes of simple white twinkling ones, and a 25-foot extension cord.

  While James unloaded the molding strips from her car and set about cutting and placing them, Cassie gathered her boxes of lights and the crisply rolled extension cord, and she headed straight for the front yard.

  Do something today that you said you would never do! she was reminded. And what could be more never-never than draping Christmas lights on the five-foot-tall palm tree in front of the house?

  Once she figured out how to conceal the extension cord in the low shrubs that outlined the front walk, Cassie plugged the cord into the outlet and flipped the switch. She clapped her hands when the palm illuminated with bright red and green lights, and she jumped from one foot to the other. If anyone saw her, she knew for certain they would send the men with the little white coats, but she didn’t care. She was thrilled. And Sophie was certainly entertained by her glee. The dog stood in front of her with her ears happily pinned back, panting in a way that made her look like she was laughing.

  There was something exhilarating—in fact, liberating!—about what she’d just done. She couldn’t wait to call Rachel and tell her that she’d managed to “surprise” herself two days in a row now, thanks to that thoughtful Christmas gift. But the call would have to wait, she decided. First, there were a couple of pink flamingos that needed a new home under that palm!

  Cassie plucked the drunken flamingo from the garden and dragged it by the beak across the sidewalk, through the shrubs, and over the lawn toward the palm tree. As she planted it into place, she glanced across the street and spotted Millicent sitting in the rocker on her front porch.

  “Hey there, dance partner!” she called, before giving her neighbor a wave.

  The older woman returned it, and it seemed to Cassie that it was a bit halfhearted. She was quick to drag the second flamingo from the garden, and once it was secure in its spot beside the other, she dusted off her hands and set out across the street.

  “Afternoon, Millicent,” she said as she meandered up the sidewalk with Sophie on her heels. “How are you today?”

  “Just dandy,” the woman replied, but her attempt at a smile didn’t quite make it to her eyes. “I see you’re getting into the holiday spirit over there.”

  “Florida style,” Cassie admitted. “What about you? Is your tree up?”

  “Oh, I didn’t get a tree this year.”

  “Can I ask why not?”

  “No reason, really. I guess I’m just not feeling very jolly.”

  “Believe me, I hear that,” Cassie told her as she sat down on the porch step. “We’re nearly finished with the work on the house, with the holiday just a couple of days away, and I just realized that this is the first Christmas I haven’t spent with my daughter and her family.”

  “Oh, that’s a shame.”

  “But there was good news from them today,” she beamed. “Debra’s expecting a baby. This will be their third child.”

  “You look far too young to be the grandmother of three,” Millicent told her. “I envy you that big family. Bernard and I missed out by not having children. I never thought so until after he was gone and I spent that first Thanksgiving alone.”

  “Will you be alone on Christmas?” Cassie asked.

  “Oh, yes. I usually am.”

  “Would you be willing to come over and have Christmas dinner with me?”

  The woman tilted her head away for a moment, and when she looked back again, her eyes were smoky and red. “I appreciate the thought, I really do. But—”

  “Please say yes, Millicent,” Cassie interrupted. “I just hate the idea of being alone.”

  “You…you do?”

  “It would be so much fun to have that to plan for,” she went on, trying to interject as much enthusiasm as she could muster for Millicent’s sake. “I could make a turkey and all the trimmings for us. And maybe after dinner we could put one of those sappy Christmas movies into the DVD and watch it with our pie. What do you think?”

  “Well…,” the woman said, and then she chuckled. “It does sound enticing.”

  “And we’ve just finished the renovations on my kitchen and dining room, so you’ll be able to see what I’ve been doing over there! What do you say? Will you come keep me company on Christmas?”

  Millicent looked very much like she was about to cry, but Cassie pretended not to notice. When she agreed, Cassie jumped to her feet and hurried over to her, wrapping her in an eager embrace, as if the woman had just done her the greatest favor of her life.

  “Thank you so much!” she exclaimed. “I’m so excited for the holiday now.”

  “I might just get excited, too,” Millicent offered. “Thank you, Cassie.”

  “Well, I need to go over and check on James. He’s putting up the chair rail in my dining room, and then we’re going to hang the new chandelier.”

  “That sounds just fine, dear.”

  “We’ll decide later on a time for dinner,” Cassie said as she headed down the sidewalk. “Oh! What’s your pleasure for pie? Pumpkin or apple?”

  “Either one will be delicious. How about I make the cranberry sauce? I have my mama’s recipe somewhere inside,” Millicent said. She pushed herself out of the rocker and wobbled to her feet. “I’m going to look for it right now.”

  “Ooh, I love cranberries!” Cassie called back to her. “Talk to you later.”

  Cassie’s heart soared as she and Sophie jogged across the street and up the driveway. If she hadn’t decided to light that dumb palm tree, she might never have seen Millicent sitting there…or uncovered those holiday blues the older woman wore like a woolen scarf.

  She noticed that she had a much lighter step at the idea of spending Christmas with someone who really needed her. No one had needed Cassie for a very long time, and she’d forgotten how much she enjoyed the feeling.

  Wondering if Richard Dillon had anyone to spend the holiday with, Cassie walked into the house and then stopped in her tracks with a gasp.

  The copper grapevine chandelier illuminated the dining room with amber light, and James had moved the long rectangular dining table into place benea
th it, with the eight chairs neatly hugging its edges. He’d placed the cherry molding at the perfect level, about one-third of the way up the wall. Aside from screaming out for appropriate accessories, Cassie’s dining room had been transformed into her original vision.

  James came around the corner from the hallway and smiled at her. “What do you think?”

  Cassie placed her hand over her heart and just sighed.

  “I think that’s good?”

  “Yes,” she confirmed. “It’s very good. It looks amazing, doesn’t it?”

  “Well, I’m a chrome-and-glass kind of guy myself,” he teased. “But I think the place is beautiful, and it really does suit you.”

  “Thank you so much, James. You’ve done such a lot of work.”

  “Come and see the light fixtures in the master bath.”

  “You’ve already hung them?”

  “Yeah. Now I’m working on pulling up the floor. Do you need anything out of there before I get too far?”

  “Probably. Let me move some things to the guest bath for a couple of days.”

  James followed her down the hall and stood back as she leaned around the doorway to the bathroom. Simple pewter scrollwork accented the three-light fixture now hanging over the beveled bathroom mirror, and matching sconces stood alone on either side. Seafoam Blue had already been applied to the one wall where the new lighting was placed, and Cassie picked up one of the floor tiles and held it next to the painted wall.

  “Ohhh,” she sighed softly. “This room is going to be exquisite.” She was already thinking of a shade of deep wine for the towels to accent one of the mosaic colors in the tiles and perhaps including a panel of leaded glass instead of a traditional window treatment so that the light would stream in through the window above the garden tub.

  “I’ll pull up the rest of the flooring this afternoon,” he told her. “And then I think I can get the new floor laid on Monday. I hope it’s all right if I take the weekend off.”

  “Of course,” she said. “Any experience I’ve had with renovations like this has taught me to expect nothing but delays and problems, James. You’ve been an absolute dream.”

  “Tell that to my Tammy-girl,” he said with a grin. Cassie thought it was sweet to hear him refer to Tameka in such a loving expression.

  “Do you and Tameka have plans for Christmas?” she asked him.

  “We’re going to Tammy’s folks’ place in Ocala on Christmas Eve.”

  “And for Christmas Day?”

  “I don’t really know yet,” he replied with a chuckle. “I just go where I’m told.”

  “Well, if the two of you would like to join me for Christmas dinner, I’ve invited a neighbor woman, and we’d love to have you with us.”

  “I’ll talk to Tammy and let you know. Thanks, Cassie.”

  She found herself hoping that they could come. Christmas was shaping up to be quite an unexpected event!

  Cassie grabbed her shampoo and conditioner from the cubbyhole over the tub and a few toiletries from the counter. “I’ll put these in the guest bath and let you get back to work on the floor,” she told James. “Then do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to hang twinkle lights out on my deck.”

  “Aren’t you in a festive holiday spirit!” he teased.

  “You know, all of a sudden, I kind of am.”

  Chapter Six

  8 DOWN: Better than all the rest

  Cassie looked at herself in the bathroom mirror and laughed right out loud. She remembered Debra coming home from a night out with friends many years prior, covered in multicolored splatters of paint.

  “We were painting Jackie’s new apartment, Mom, and the next thing we knew, we were having this crazy paint fight!” she’d said. Cassie interrupted her with a scream and a shove to keep her daughter from touching anything.

  She hadn’t been fighting with anyone, but Cassie certainly looked the part. The gray sweats she’d worn to paint the dining room were covered in dry spatters of Café au Lait, and now she’d added droplets of Seafoam Blue down the leg and smeared it across the sleeve of her T-shirt. A streak of blue highlighted her bangs, and a matching smudge ran down one side of her nose.

  The results were worthy of the cost, however, and she stepped out into the bedroom and looked in at her beautiful pale blue master bath. She could hardly wait until Monday after James laid the glazed mosaic floor tiles so she could see the finished product.

  “Perfect,” she said aloud. “It’s perfect.”

  She stepped back in the bathroom and rinsed the brushes in the bathtub as she made a mental list of added touches that might be nice.

  I’ll take a drive over to Tarpon to shop around for a lead glass panel for the window.

  Don’t forget wine-colored guest towels and a mat for the floor.

  Ooh, maybe a new towel rack? The shiny silver one that’s already there doesn’t match the brushed pewter sconces.

  A whispering thought tickled the back of Cassie’s brain. You’re going to sell the place. It doesn’t have to be a showplace. But she brushed it away by trying to recall the name of the store where she’d seen framed panels of leaded and stained glass like the one she wanted for the bathroom window. Perhaps Millicent would want to go along with her after Sunday services. They could have lunch at one of the Greek restaurants near the sponge docks. Years had passed since she and Zan had visited the area, and she wondered if it had changed much.

  Cassie shed her clothes near the closet in the bedroom, careful to fold them so that the wet paint didn’t end up on the carpet or wall. She’d awoken before dawn that morning and made the spontaneous decision to paint the master bath. As she glanced at the clock on the night table now, she realized it was still early—barely 9 a.m.

  The idea of going to church feathered across her mind, and she debated with herself over it. She could make the ten o’clock Sunday church service if she hurried and then be in Tarpon Springs by noon. It had been such a long time since she’d been to services, but the old-fashioned church with the tall white steeple at the edge of town sort of called to her for some reason, and she wished she had a phone number for Millicent to see if she’d go along with her.

  The old blue Volvo was missing from the woman’s carport by the time Cassie left her house at 9:45, so she drove to Grace Community on her own. The choir was already singing when she opened the large door at the back of the church and headed up the aisle to find a seat. Millicent was seated a couple of rows ahead of her with several of her lady friends; Cassie recognized them from the dance lesson in the recreation hall.

  When the pastor invited the congregation to greet one another, Millicent hurried toward Cassie and took her by the hand. “Come sit with us, why don’t you?”

  Just as she sat down in the pew beside the women, she noticed Richard two rows up, seated with Laura, his pretty blond dance partner. She watched him, wondering if their eyes would meet, but he never even glanced in her direction.

  The pastor’s sermon revolved around the story of Jonah. Although he was a wonderful storyteller, Cassie had to push for the extra effort it took to focus on his words. She thought that it bordered on the ridiculous how she kept glancing over at Richard and his beautiful blond companion.

  Enough already. Are you sixteen years old? Pay attention!

  The pastor told how God had instructed Jonah to go to a city called Nineveh and warn the inhabitants about their rebellious behavior against Him. Jonah didn’t want to be the one to admonish them, and so he ran in the opposite direction, boarding a ship headed for Tarshish.

  You are not a teenager, and he’s not your boyfriend. What do you care if Richard Dillon has an eye for blonds? And if Laura the Dancer finds him mutually attractive, it’s her bad luck.

  “A great storm came up on the sea,” Pastor Sullivan told them. “Isn’t that just the way? You’re running away from one thing and then you get yourself into more trouble than you ever imagined.”

  Cassie chuckled along with
the parishioners, and Millicent poked her with her elbow. It took all of her strength not to dart one more glance in Richard’s direction.

  “So the sailors, realizing that Jonah’s rebellion from God was the reason for the terrible storm, threw Jonah overboard, and he was swallowed up by a whale. You all know the story. When the whale regurgitated Jonah out on dry land a few days later, he went to Nineveh as he’d been commanded. All that gook and grime inside the belly of the whale could have been avoided if he’d just followed God’s leading in the first place.”

  Cassie wondered how many times she’d made the same mistake as Jonah, avoiding what she was supposed to do and then having to do it anyway. She thought about Zan’s many pleadings to spend Christmas at the house in Holiday and how many times she’d refused. And now here she was, but she didn’t have Zan to share it with anymore.

  After the benediction, Cassie leaned over toward Millicent and asked her if she was interested in joining her for lunch in Tarpon Springs.

  “Oh, we’re serving at the pancake brunch in the hall. You come and have some pancakes, huh?”

  “I have to pass,” Cassie told her. “I’m looking for a specific shop in Tarpon near the sponge docks. I haven’t been there in years, but I really want to see if it’s still there.”

  “See if what’s still there?”

  She turned to find Richard standing beside her, and she greeted him with a shaky smile.

  He’s just a random man, Cassandra. What is your problem?

  “Cassie’s going fishing,” Millicent teased. “She’s looking for a store that used to be out in Tarpon Springs near the docks.”

  “What store is it?” he asked.

  “I wish I knew. But they had framed panels of stained glass hanging in their window.”

  “Oh, I have to run now to serve pancakes,” Millicent announced. “You have a good time, Cassie. I’ll see you later.”

  “Would you like some company?” Richard asked her once Millicent and her friends had gone.

  “Well, what about Laura?”