Erica fingered the ring that hung on a chain around her neck—the ring that had been her mom’s last gift to her. Tears stung her eyes and she grabbed her denim jacket. “I’ll see y’all later.”
Webb stood up. “I’ll run you back.”
“Bye, Laura,” Erica said as she shrugged into her jacket. “I hope you feel better.”
Her aunt grunted.
Outside, Webb put Erica’s bicycle into the back of his truck. They climbed into the cab and, as he drove the blacktop roads at a more leisurely pace than usual, he glanced sidewise at her. “I hope you’re not upset with Laura.”
She shrugged. “I get the feeling that Fred the Chicken rates higher than I do these days.” Fred, a one-legged rooster, probably was the apple of Laura’s eye. Erica didn’t resent Fred, but it would have seemed silly to say she was jealous of a little baby who wasn’t even born yet.
“She’s been knocked for a loop by the pregnancy,” Webb explained. “She’d never been sick a day in her life before this.”
“Yes, I remember,” Erica said.
As if she didn’t know her aunt as well as he did! Webb might have been friends with Laura since junior high school, but Erica had known her forever and had lived with her for several years after her mother had gotten divorced and moved back to the farm. Laura had always seemed almost as much of a friend as an aunt. But of course now Laura had Webb ... and in a few months there would be Hortense.
Everyone had someone. Except for her.
Could it be that the older she grew, the more she shriveled in importance to everyone who mattered to her? It probably wouldn’t have been that way with her mother, but...
Her lip started to tremble, so she broke off the thought.
“Christmas can be the hardest time of year,” Webb said.
She nodded.
“Next year things will be more normal,” he added.
Normal? Was he insane? Next year he was going to have a little baby. Erica knew what that meant: diapers, colic, teething, never sleeping, short tempers. Breastfeeding. All focus on the baby. Baby constantly monitored. Did it say a word or was that just gas? Babies meant you couldn’t go out, or, if you did, you had to carry along so much baby junk—diaper bags, strollers, bottles, sippy cups, binkies—that it almost wasn’t worth the effort.
“Life takes a little patience sometimes,” Webb told her.
Patience. Webb could have been the poster boy for that quality. He’d waited forever for Laura to agree to marry him.
But it was unfair of him to preach to her. “It’s not like I’m impatient,” Erica said in her own defense. “It’s just ...”
“Just what?”
I can’t wait to be grown up. So I’ll matter again.
She tried to find the right words—ones that didn’t make her sound like she was impatient. Which she supposed she was ... although it was more complicated than that. “Is it selfish to want something good to happen?” she asked. “To happen to me?”
He shook his head. “No. You’re overdue, I’d say.”
She growled in frustration. “So, when?”
“I guess you need to keep your eyes open for an opportunity to happen along—something you want. And then grab it.”
Great. How often did opportunities happen along for a thirteen-year-old girl in Sweetgum, Texas?
When they reached Erica’s dad’s house, Webb got out and lifted her bike out of the back of the truck in one swipe and rolled it to her side. He gave her a quick, bracing squeeze on the shoulder. “Hang in there, E.”
She bit her lip. “What else can I do?”
“Remember, you’re coming out to the farm Christmas Day and staying till New Year’s. You and me’ll make that batch of cookies. Let the Grinch sit in her chair and squawk all she likes.”
She smiled tightly. He meant well. But I need those cookies for the Christmas party today.
She took her bike around to the back and then trudged toward the kitchen door, mentally bracing herself for several scenes with Leanne before it was time to go to the party. Whenever Erica tried to bake anything, Leanne was always convinced she was going to burn the house down.
The moment Erica opened the door, however, it was clear something had changed. The air was charged. The “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” was blaring through the house, but this time the music was accompanied by the sounds of footsteps scurrying, doors slamming, and Angel Baby wailing at the top of her lungs.
Leanne came winging into the kitchen with her screaming daughter on her hip. “There you are! We couldn’t find you.”
“I was at the farm. I told you I was going.”
Leanne handed Angelica over to Erica. “See if you can get her to be quiet.”
“Me?” Erica asked.
“Yes, you. I’m asking you for help. We’re having a crisis here, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“I just walked in the door,” Erica reminded her over the piercing screams.
Her excuse didn’t hold water with Leanne. “Well, catch up—we’re leaving.”
“Leaving? ”
“My sister’s got appendicitis and we’re having to go to Houston ASAP to take care of her kids. We’ll be spending Christmas there, so pack enough to get you through the holidays. And please see what you can do about Angelica. My head is throbbing!” She hurried out of the kitchen.
“Wait.” Erica trotted after her, confused. “I’m going to Houston?”
“Of course.”
“But what about my party this afternoon?”
“You’ll have to miss it.”
Erica’s face flushed at the injustice of that. Missing the party wasn’t what bugged her the most, though. Now, instead of a week at the farm, she was going to have to spend her Christmas with Leanne’s family? People she wasn’t even related to.
Her father came out of his and Leanne’s bedroom with a suitcase. “Are you ready yet?”
“Hello?” Erica said. “I just now walked in.”
“Well, get packed. We’re hitting the road in fifteen minutes.”
Fifteen minutes? Were they crazy? “But I’m supposed to spend Christmas at the farm!”
“The farm and Houston are two hundred miles apart, Erica. I can’t drive you back and forth,” her father said in exasperation, even though she hadn’t asked him to drive her anywhere. “Decide where you want to be and then stick with it.”
Where she wanted to be? Really wanted to be? Deciding took her about half a second.
“I’ll call Aunt Laura,” she said. “They’ll come pick me up. Y’all won’t even have to worry about driving me over.”
Her dad stopped and raised his brows, as if this solution hadn’t occurred to him. But of course it hadn’t, because he hadn’t realized there was a problem. He’d assumed Erica would fall into step with whatever was going on.
“Webb and I were just talking about my staying over there,” she assured him. “He and Laura won’t mind if I come a couple of days early.”
“Well, go make your call.”
She nodded, hurried into her room, and shut the door. Still holding her sister, she flopped down on the bed, hugging the kid to her chest like a squirmy pillow. Erica considered getting on the phone, just for show, but decided against it. Instead, she lay there with Angelica, absorbing her fussing, and breathed in her baby shampoo scent.
A plan began to form in her head. She could call her friend Rachel and say she needed a ride to the party in Carter’s Springs. Then, at the right time, she could tell everyone her aunt had come to pick her up, and then she would leave. No one at the church—Leanne’s new church—really knew Laura, so they wouldn’t want to say hello to her. Best part of all, the church was in the middle of town ... not far from the bus station.
After a few minutes, she stood up. Angelica was calmer now, which was more than Erica could say for herself. Anxiety and excitement buzzed in her chest. She took Angelica out and handed her off to her dad, who’d put on his jacket to leave. “Eve
rything’s cool, Dad,” she said, surprised at how calm her voice sounded. “Webb said he’d swing by and pick me up just as soon as he runs a couple of errands.”
“Good. That makes things simpler.” He gave Angelica back to his wife.
Now that they were about to leave, Leanne pursed her lips in concern. “It’s going to be Angel Baby’s first birthday–Christmas not having her big sis with her,” she cooed, pouting.
Erica tried to muster the appearance of regret. “Yeah, well ...”
“C’mon,” her father said to Leanne. “Traffic on the interstate’s going to be a bi—bear.”
They hurried out.
Erica ran after them at the last minute. “Dad!”
He turned as he was opening the driver-side door. “What?”
“Can I have some money?”
For a second he looked as if he was going to lecture her, but then he surprised her by reaching for his wallet. “I was going to give you a hundred dollars anyway, for your Christmas present. So here it is.”
He forked over five twenties, and she was so thrilled she practically launched herself at him in a hug. “Merry Christmas, Dad!”
“Merry Christmas, Erica. Be on your worst behavior for your Aunt Laura.”
She laughed. There had never been any love lost between those two.
“I’ll give her your regards,” she promised him.
Leanne, who had strapped Angelica into her car seat and already was settling into the front, got out again and poked her head over the roof. “Don’t forget to lock up the house.”
“I won’t,” Erica promised.
“And leave the porch light on.”
“Okay.”
Her father installed himself in the driver’s seat, buckled up, and pulled out onto the road, but Leanne made him stop a few yards from the drive. She lowered her window and called out to Erica. “Make sure the appliances are turned off. And the Christmas tree lights are unplugged. Oh! And it would be great if you could come by and check on the house while we’re gone ...”
Her father accelerated, forcing Leanne to duck her head back in.
Erica stood in the front yard in the drizzle, waving at them until the car disappeared.
And to think, a half hour ago she’d decided that opportunity never came along in Sweetgum. Now a big fat Christmas miracle had dropped right in her lap.
She hurried inside to check airfares.
Chapter 2
“I hate to think of you spending Christmas all alone,” Dinah said.
She simultaneously frowned at Heidi and hacked off a slice of carrot cake for Clay, who, if he wasn’t the Sweetgum Café’s best customer, at least had the best attendance record, probably because he lived three doors down. Already tonight he had been planted on a stool next to the counter for an hour, nursing his after-dinner cup of coffee and mooning at Dinah. When the waitress slapped the piece of cake in front of him, he stared lovingly at that, too.
“It’s my Greta Garbo Christmas,” Heidi explained for the hundredth time. “I vant to be alone. I’ve been looking forward to a quiet ‘staycay’ for months. I’ve got a pile of books to read, and my Netflix copy of Avatar has been sitting on my TV stand for five months.”
Dinah rolled her eyes. “You could come to my folks’ place in Chippenhook—we have DVD players there now.”
Clay interrupted them. “A front’s coming in tonight. Maybe you shouldn’t plan on going to Vermont tomorrow, Dinah.”
“The ticket’s bought,” Dinah said. “Snow or no snow, I’m going to be on a northbound train tomorrow night.”
She had been talking for weeks about going home for Christmas—not because she was homesick, but because she’d heard that her old flame, Dan Janacek, the boy next door—or from the farm next door—who was now an investment banking prince in the city, was going to be home for the holidays, too.
“If he works on Wall Street,” Clay asked with a hint of bitterness, “right here in the city, why haven’t we ever seen him? And why isn’t he offering to go home with you?”
Heidi had wondered the same things. From what Dinah had said, it seemed as though it was only when this Dan guy knew he was going to be stuck on a visit home that he paid her any attention.
“He has a car,” Dinah said. “People like Dan don’t take Amtrak.”
“But if he has a car, it would be all the more polite to ask you along,” Clay pointed out.
Dinah put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Do you intend to eat that cake or just stare at it?”
Actually, he had been staring at her—not that Dinah ever seemed to notice.
“Of course,” he said, giving the cake his attention at last. “This looks great, Dinah. Like my grandmom used to make.”
Heidi slanted a skeptical glance at both Clay and the dessert. She had made the cake herself, but Dinah, who had been on holiday overdrive for weeks now—no doubt thinking of a certain investment broker under the mistletoe—had put green food coloring in the icing. “I don’t know how they do things in Boggy Bottom, Arkansas,” Heidi said, “but green icing on carrot cake is just wrong.”
“Bog Hollow,” Clay corrected her quietly.
“You’re an old Scrooge,” Dinah told Heidi, wiping down the counter. “All the customers have mentioned the icing.”
“Of course they have,” Heidi said. “It’s peculiar.”
“I think it’s ... festive,” Clay said, taking a bite. After a few cautious chews, his face broke into a relieved smile. “And it tastes the same.”
Dinah rounded on Heidi in triumph. “There! See? You have no Christmas spirit.”
“Which is another reason you don’t want me anywhere near your parents’ place on Christmas,” Heidi said. “I intend to lock myself in a room completely devoid of evergreen, gift wrap, and candy canes. No offense to anyone with visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads, but I just don’t want to have to think about Christmas this year.”
Mostly, she didn’t want to have to think about the fact that it was Christmas and she was alone. Her mother was spending the holiday in Cancun with her new husband, Tom. The two had actually invited Heidi along, but after having had last Christmas consumed with being her mother’s maid of honor—elf of honor, her mother had joked—she certainly didn’t want to tag along this year for their first anniversary celebration. And she also had been invited—by Erica, at least—to visit Texas. But fly down for two measly days to inflict herself on Laura and be reminded that even her cranky, misanthropic ex-stepsister had managed to achieve a happily-ever-after ending for herself? No thanks.
Anyway, she couldn’t afford it. The café kept her bank account running on empty.
Maybe some might think self-imposed isolation was a weird way to try to forget she was all alone in the world at Christmas. But Heidi had decided the best and most restful approach to the holiday was to pretend it was a regular weekend, the kind normal people had—people who didn’t own their own businesses. This would actually be her first real weekend since deciding to open the Sweetgum Café had plunged her into a nonstop cycle of work, worry, and near-destitution.
And yet, she loved the café. It was her pride and joy. She just needed a mother’s day out, and Christmas was it.
Dinah sighed in frustration. “So you’re going to hole up in that shoe box?”
“Yup.”
“All alone?”
“All alone in my shoe box. Sounds cozy to me.”
Dinah shook her head as the bell over the door jingled. “You’re pathetic.” She turned to greet a new customer, but her smile disappeared when she saw that it was only Patrick and Marcus, two of the neighborhood cops who stopped by regularly. Having had brushes with the law, Heidi understood the importance of good police relations. As long as she owned a café, cop coffee would be free.
Dinah, who was eight years younger than Heidi and had a comparatively uncheckered past, was less in awe of the boys in blue, especially since some cops equated free coffee with free
dom from tipping. “Would you two please tell Heidi that she’s pathetic?” she asked them by way of greeting. “She’s still insisting on being a total Christmas refusenik. It’s not normal.” Dinah appealed to Patrick. “Please tell her it’s not normal.”
His gaze sought Heidi’s and immediately she turned away to join Sal by the sink. She tried to avoid drawing attention to herself in front of policemen—especially when someone was crowing about how abnormal she was—and Patrick’s way of looking at her was particularly unnerving. He was imposingly tall, with striking green-blue eyes. Hypnotic eyes. The kind of eyes that could probably make a suspect confess to anything.
Sal flicked a sympathetic smile her way. He was supposed to be their dishwasher, but the title didn’t begin to describe him. Busboy, baker’s helper, short-order cook, plumber, electrician, bouncer—he was all of those things at the Sweetgum Café, and, icing on the cake, he had grown up working in his uncle’s restaurant in Bay Ridge, so he knew way more than Heidi about the ins and outs of the business. He’d even informed her of the proper amount to bribe an NYC health inspector. She vowed never to use the information for her restaurant ... although she’d keep it in mind the next time she dined out in Bay Ridge.
Sadly, Sal also knew something about robbing fast-food joints—or, as he insisted, had fallen in with a crowd who did—which was why he’d spent eight months of his nineteenth year on Riker’s Island. Heidi had taken pity on him when he’d come around looking for a job. Having ended up as a key witness during her ex-boyfriend’s trial for embezzlement a year ago, she knew all about keeping company with the wrong people and coming to grief. She was a firm believer in second chances.
And since hiring Sal, she was also a firm believer in lugging the cash box home every night.
“The no-decorations thing is why we’re here, Heidi,” Patrick confessed. “We found you a Christmas tree.”
Puzzled, Heidi turned. “We already have one.”
Festooned with lights, ornaments, and tinsel, the restaurant tree stood next to the fireplace, which had stockings bearing all the employees’ names hanging on the mantel. Between the café and Heidi’s apartment, the café was by far the more festive place to hang out. Which was good, since she seemed to spend most of her life here. The café was situated in a brownstone just off Court Street that had been zoned commercial a few years before. Its recent roots as someone’s living room made it homey and warm—and, at the moment, thanks mostly to Dinah, it was so Christmassy it could have been the set for a Bing Crosby special.
Making Spirits Bright Page 9
