Bluegrass Christmas

by Allie Pleiter

  Mac narrowed his eyes at Gil. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  “Nah.” For a minute it looked like Gil might cuff Mac—they were like brawling brothers, those two. “Then I’d probably be the one stuck cleaning it up.”

  Emily came holding two more boxes of cookies. “We’re done here, aren’t we, boys? I’ve got a big day at the shop tomorrow and I’m sure Mary could do without the ‘Gil and Mac Parade of Manliness.’”

  In the five seconds it took them to get their dander up, Emily was practically out the door with Mary close behind. “Sorry you had to see that,” Emily apologized, nodding her head back toward the pair of men. “Usually they save it for the barn.” She parked the boxes on the hood of the big green Homestretch Farm truck and fished in her pocket for her car keys. “Gil said you might need help decking out your apartment for the holidays now that you’ve got a tree. I’ve got a few extra ideas if you’d like…”

  “Sure,” Mary conceded, wondering if she’d regret it. “I need all the help I can get.”

  Later that night, Mary picked out a holiday CD, heated up a mug of instant cocoa and sat a big pillar candle in the fireplace. Wrapping herself in a large fuzzy throw, she turned off all the lights and sat on the floor leaning up against the sofa. It was starting to feel like a real Christmas.

  Her first Christmas away from the retail version of Christmas. Away from the professional caroling of her musical training, away from the check-the-sales-records competition of the ad career, away even from the old Mary for whom church was something people just did on Easter and Christmas. She began to hum “Away in a Manger,” thinking of the baby Jesus with new poignancy. Mac was right, nothing could be further from Bippo Bears than that starlit night. “A night,” as Pastor Dave had said in a recent sermon, “that split history in two. That split the universe into ‘before and after’ and made the impossible possible.”

  You have, haven’t You? I’d have thought it impossible to be here. To be gone from that world and into this one. You’ve changed my life, and You’ll always be changing it, won’t You?

  So why am I still so afraid? I’m glad to be using my talents for You now, here, but what do I do about all that stuff from my past? Do I throw it away, erase it like I want to? What if my past is coming after me, Lord? I’m so new at this.

  You’ve got to show me what to do, Lord.

  Mac wasn’t really sure why he needed a special rehearsal in Pastor Dave’s office, but when he got the e-mail, he showed up. Script in hand, Mac knocked on the office door and entered.

  To find Mary Thorpe and Howard. No Pastor Dave.

  “I don’t have any scenes with him,” Howard objected. He’d noticed, too, evidently.

  Mary stood up. “That’s right. You don’t. Because you two don’t seem to be able to get along lately. And, you know, we need to change that.” Her voice was unsteady, but determined.

  Mac took a step farther into the room, realizing he’d just been ambushed. Maybe he should have left the snake under the sink. “We get along just fine.”

  “We disagree on several issues,” Howard stated formally, “but that’s all.”

  Mary motioned to the chair at the meeting table across from Howard. “What will it take for you two to come out in favor of a community Christmas Eve potluck dinner?”

  “A what?” Howard asked at the same moment Mac was thinking it.

  “A community Christmas Eve dinner. A potluck. After the drama. Instead of everyone heading off to their own homes, I’m proposing we have a town-wide potluck.”

  “On Christmas Eve?” Mac had a long tradition of spending Christmas Eve in the privacy of his own quiet home, not surrounded by Jell-O salad and casseroles. “Don’t you think it’s a bit much?”

  “I have to say, I’m siding with MacCarthy on this one. I admire your commitment and creativity, but I think the drama will be more than enough.”

  “The drama only provides limited interaction,” she declared firmly. “And, only for those in the cast and crew at that. While I’ve made the production as big as possible, that hardly includes the whole town. Pastor Dave and I have talked it over, and we think this is just the ticket.”

  “Dave thought this was a good idea?” Howard’s scowl matched the one Mac was trying to hide.

  “He did.” Mary stood her ground. “But he also said we’d get nowhere if you weren’t behind it, Howard.”

  Howard always looked like he found that surprising, which was funny, because Mac knew Howard expected to be consulted. On everything.

  “That may be true,” Howard consented, “but I doubt people are going to want to spend their Christmas Eve dinners in the church basement. Folks have family. Traditions. I’m not keen to mess with that.”

  Normally, “messing with tradition” would be just the kind of argument to get Mac in favor of something, but not in this case. “Maybe after the dress rehearsal? You know, the night before?”

  “That’s not the night for it,” Mary replied. “The old saying ‘bad dress rehearsal, good performance’ didn’t come out of nowhere. This needs to be a celebration, ‘job well done’ and such in order to help the community come together.” She spread her hands on the table. “You hired me to achieve a goal, and I think this is the way to achieve that goal. You two play a very big part in what this town is going through, that’s why we cast you in such visible roles. Think of this as an extension of that.”

  “No offense, Mary,” said Mac, “but I just don’t think it’s a good idea. Folks will want to be home. I want to be home. I have plans already, and I imagine most other people do, too.”

  Howard crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m just not ready to say yes to this, Miss Thorpe. And that’s the truth of it.”

  If Mary Thorpe had done nothing else for Middleburg, she’d just come up with the one thing he and Howard could agree on.

  “Will you think it over?” Mary persisted.

  “I doubt I’ll change my mind,” Howard offered, leaning back in his chair.

  “But you will think it over?” Mary definitely wasn’t backing down. Where was this woman when the snake was in her kitchen? Mac felt a twinge of guilt for pegging her as a “fraidy cat.”

  “If you insist.”

  “I insist.” Mary held Howard’s eye for a moment before turning to Mac. “And you?”

  “I’m with Howard. I’m no fan, but I’ll give it a day or two.”

  “I suppose I can’t ask for more than that now, can I?”

  Mary shut the door behind her two targets, letting out the breath she’d been holding half of the meeting. While she hadn’t gotten yes, she hadn’t gotten no, either—yet.

  Shaking the jitters out of her shoulders, Mary saw Pastor Dave peering around the corner. “So,” he prompted, one eyebrow raised but a glint in his eye, “what happened?”

  “They don’t like it.” Mary wasn’t quite sure how she came to be disappointed in this, but maybe it was that she just hated friction between people—it was one of the reasons she’d always freelanced in her music and advertising; she just couldn’t stand the “creative tension” that seemed to be the necessary evil of those kind of workplaces.

  “Well, we knew that would happen. Were you able to keep them from saying an outright no? That’s really as far as I reckon we were going to get, anyway.”

  “They said they’d think about it.” That hardly qualified as a success in her book. It just barely edged its way out of the realm of failure.

  “That’s great!” He clasped a friendly hand on her shoulder, and broke into a wide smile. Well, at least “the boss” was pleased. “That’s a victory, Mary. We’ll bring ’em around, just you wait. Besides,” he leaned in and whispered, “I’ve got our secret weapon all lined up. It’s time to bring in the big guns.”

  Mary gulped. “Big guns?”

  “Have you met Sandy Burnside?”

  It was hard for anyone within six miles of Middleburg not to meet Sandy Burnside? “Yes.”


  “I got Sandy on board last night. Sandy is pretty much a force of nature around here. Between Sandy and her buddies, Mac and Howard don’t stand a chance. We’ll have our potluck up and running by the end of the week.”

  “They didn’t look especially fond of the idea, Dave.”

  “Of course not. But that’s the beauty of a small town like Middleburg.” He practically winked. “There’s nowhere to hide.”

  Chapter Seven

  Mac was answering an e-mail full of campaign-issue questions from Peter Epson when Sandy Burnside burst into his office. If the woman had anything close to “downtime,” Mac never saw it. He’d often wondered why Sandy had never run for mayor—she had locked horns with Howard more than anyone. She plunked down her enormous handbag on Mac’s desk, nearly scattering the papers. “Why are you raising such a stink about something as sweet as Christmas Eve dinner?”

  Pushing his keyboard away, Mac crossed a foot over one knee and resigned himself to whatever venting was about to come his way. “Sandy, I don’t like the idea. But I’m guessing you already know that.”

  Sandy blew out a breath, shaking her head. “You’d think we had moved Christmas to February the way you two are hollering. Howard was breaking out the hundred-dollar phrases like ‘disruption of family traditions.’ ‘Casualizing of an important night.’” She leaned in. “I ask you, is ‘casualizing’ even a word?”

  “Listen, Sandy…” How he spent Christmas Eve was his business. He didn’t like that it had now become a campaign issue.

  Sandy was on a roll. “And wasn’t it Howard’s idea in the first place to create a holiday drama that would bring the town together? I mean it wasn’t actually his idea…I think it was Pastor Dave’s to be exact…but doesn’t Howard think every good idea was his idea?”

  “Howard does like the drama thing. But we both think the dinner’s too much. Howard thinks we all ought to go home and be with our families.”

  “Be with your family with everybody’s families,” Sandy countered. “All together. That’s the whole point.”

  “Howard thinks the play will be enough and believe it or not, Sandy, I agree with him.”

  She shot him a Why do you think I’m here? glare.

  “People have Christmas Eve traditions.” He tried another tactic, since her expression wasn’t softening one bit. “What about your schedule—aren’t your stores open late on Christmas Eve?”

  Sandy narrowed her eyes. “Burnside employees,” she said gravely, “go home to their families at four o’clock on Christmas Eve.”

  “See? It’s the same thing. People might want to be home. I want to be home.”

  “Getting out of work is different than saying you won’t celebrate Christmas Eve with your friends and neighbors.” Sandy planted her hands on Mac’s desk. “We need unity.”

  Mac tried to keep his sigh from becoming a grunt. “I’m doing the drama thing, Sandy. I spend Christmas Day surrounded by family and kids and presents and ham and eggnog. Has it ever occurred to you that Christmas Eve is a time I like to be on my own? Quiet? In prayer even? You’re saying I’m a poor citizen—a poor Christian—because I don’t want to spend that time over ground beef with people I see every other day of the year?”

  Sandy’s face took on a look that was far too close to pity. “You prefer to spend Christmas Eve alone?” Her tone was that of What kind of a sick soul are you, anyway?

  There it was; that annoying you can’t possibly be happy attitude. That look Ma got that declared a single man couldn’t really be happy, only deluded or a very good liar. As if solitude or freedom were things real men outgrew. The kind of look that made Mac want to move to Montana with only cows for company. “Yes,” he responded, his voice low and authoritative, “I do.”

  “Well,” Sandy interjected, snatching up her bag. “I think that’s the saddest thing I’ve heard this week.”

  “Sandy,” Mac continued, even though he knew better than to get into this with her, “I’ve spent Christmas Eve alone for the past four years, and you never thought of me as sad before. I was a fine, upstanding citizen until ten minutes ago. A man needs his solitude.”

  She jutted out her chin as if the thought was selfish, unpatriotic even. “A town needs unity. Especially now. And if it needs to happen by Jell-O salad, then I’ll be the first to whip up a bowl. I expect you to do the same.” She turned on her heels and left his office.

  Mac sat back in his chair, raked his fingers through his hair in aggravation and stared at the ceiling between him and Mary Thorpe. You did this, he thought. We’re in such different places. Faith doesn’t boil down to potlucks and the way anyone spends Christmas Eve, Mary. Mary was still in the realm of spiritual blacks and whites, and he’d spent enough years on the road of faith to know the detours numbered in the thousands. There might be things she could teach him, but when a woman challenged him, Mac wanted it to be about more than a Christmas Eve potluck.

  The fact that Mac was walking into a costume fitting didn’t do much for his sour mood. Big blue rectangle with sleeves—those Bible-era robes didn’t need tailoring. Beyond how tall he was or how long his arms were, what else did they need to know?

  Everything, evidently. Mac was just about at the end of his patience by the time Audrey Lupine took enough measurements to fit him for a tuxedo. Audrey was efficient and detail-oriented, which was a big plus in librarians, but he wasn’t sure tunics demanded that much attention to detail. Between that, and the four times he’d been stabbed with a pin, Mac was practically stomping his way to Mary Thorpe’s office to complain about the way it had invaded his life when he heard it.

  Walking by the sanctuary, Mac was startled by a clear, sweet melody overhead. A violin in the choir loft, as near as he could tell. An amazingly pure, almost ethereal tune he recognized as one of those old, classical English carols. The kind he’d heard on Christmas albums, but almost no one knew the lyrics. Something that sounded as if it should be echoing in an Italian cathedral rather than through the rafters of MCC.

  It was almost a minute before he realized it must be Mary—he didn’t know anyone else in Middleburg who could play the violin that well, and he remembered her orchestral background from Pastor Dave’s introduction. He’d forgotten that she’d been a professional musician before coming to Middleburg. The quality of her playing stunned him, making him want to hear more. He pushed through the back doors of the sanctuary so that he was standing underneath her in the choir loft.

  She finished the one song, but he heard her move to the piano and begin to play. Something jazzy and contemporary, surprising him when he recognized it as “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” She began to sing, and her musicality lost its precise rigid quality, the notes dipping and sliding free in a way he felt down the back of his neck.

  There was such emotion in her voice and her playing. Sadness pulled at the edges of her notes. Why wouldn’t Mary Thorpe be homesick? It had to be tough to inject yourself into a completely new town at Christmas. And one not dealing well with the season at that. She’d probably expected to come into a Norman Rockwell painting, not an episode of bluegrass Jerry Springer. His first impulse was to simply slip back out the door, but that would be the cowardly thing to do. So, even as her voice took on a greater sadness, Mac made his way up the choir loft stairs until he saw her seated with her back to him at the piano. He let her finish the song, but only because something told him that she needed to get all the way through the music.

  “Mary,” he said quietly when the last chord had died down.

  Despite his effort to be unintrusive, she practically jumped off the piano bench. “Mac!”

  “I’m sorry to sneak up on you. That was beautiful.” He winced inwardly, thinking that sounded dumb. “Both songs. You sing so well.” Again, he thought he sounded bumbling.

  She blushed. “Music major. Comes with the territory I suppose.”

  “You okay?” He regretted asking the minute it left his mouth. What would he do if she said no?
She sounded so emotional when she sang, so sad, and he definitely wasn’t ready to get into that with her.

  “Fine.” She said it quickly and defiantly. In a way that broadcast she was anything but fine. They both looked down for a moment, uncomfortable. “Did you need something?”

  “I was here for a costume fitting. We’ve finally found Curly’s new song, by the way.”

  “Really? Who’d he take a liking to?”

  “You’d get a kick out of who he likes now.” He rolled his eyes. “Someone ought to get some enjoyment out of it.”

  She swung her legs around the piano bench to face him. “Who’d he choose?”

  “Well,” Mac began to say as he took a few steps into the choir loft and sat down in one of the chairs. “I wasn’t getting anywhere with any of the other CDs you gave me, so I put the radio on to one of those stations playing all Christmas music. One song came on, and he went nuts, just like he did for the tenor guy you were playing.”

  “Another tenor?”

  “Well, I suppose you could say that. Three of them, actually.”

  “Oh, the Three Tenors? He has good taste.”

  “Not exactly. More like the three rodents. Curly’s taken a shine to Alvin and the Chipmunks. Believe me, the only thing worse than the chipmunks’ version of that ‘Christmas Time is Here’ song is Curly’s version. It’s like cats dying.” He frowned at the sheer memory of Curly’s yuletide caterwauling. “I never thought I’d say this, but I prefer opera to that noise.”

  “Oh, my!” She was trying not to laugh. “I think that would be awful.”

  “No thinking about it. It is awful. You ought to be downright grateful Curly isn’t in the office this week. It’d turn your ears black.”

  “Part of me wants to hear it, and the other part of me is glad I missed it.”

  Mac cracked a smile. “Listen to the part that happily missed it. No one but Curly’s closest kin should be subjected to that racket.”