Scrooge and the Single Girl

by Christine Rimmer

  What was it with him and this woman? They could argue over anything. They’d even argue over who got to take the blame. “Jillian. I left the door open and I shoved the cat off my lap.”

  “No. I left the door open.”

  “But I—”

  “Will. Could we just not argue? Please?”

  “I only want you to understand that—”

  “Uh-uh. My understanding is not what you want. What you want is to take the blame. But I’m not going to let you have the blame, because you don’t deserve it—not in this case, anyway.

  “Oh, Will…” Her voice had gone soft, with a quaver in it. A single tear was sliding down her cheek. “I know you’re no animal lover. But you wouldn’t hurt Missy on purpose. Smashing her tail with your chair was an accident. And pushing her off your lap wouldn’t have hurt her. It was my fault. I left the door open.”

  “Jilly—”

  “There’s no point in beating this subject to death. I’m feeling kind of low, and I think I’ll just go upstairs for a while.”

  Chapter Seven

  Will let her go. He understood that she needed some time to herself.

  In an hour or two, he figured, she’d come back downstairs. He was kind of out of practice at consoling people, but as soon as she came back down, he’d try to cheer her up. He knew where to look to find a few decks of cards and a couple of board games. They could play whatever she wanted to play. And he’d let her choose the radio station.

  At lunchtime, she was still up there. And she was so damn quiet. He hadn’t heard her moving around at all. That didn’t seem normal—not for someone like Jilly, who’d almost gone around the bend last night when he’d made her lie still on the couch for an hour.

  But he thought he knew how to bring her down. He had a pretty good idea of her food preferences—and he’d watched her eat. She was a girl with a serious appetite. By now, she had to be good and hungry.

  He heated up a big can of Chef Boyardee ravioli. When he put the food on the stove, he opened the door to the stairs good and wide so the smell would drift up to her.

  She didn’t come down.

  Outside, it was still snowing—and still well below freezing. He kept telling himself she’d at least have to come down long enough to struggle out to her car and bring in her champagne, her various vegetables and that free-range organic turkey of hers. But she didn’t.

  At one-thirty, he decided he’d better do something about her groceries, since it was becoming all too clear that she wasn’t planning to. He put on his boots and his jacket and struggled through the snow, trekking back and forth from her car until he’d brought in everything—every damn bag of Cheez Doodles, as well as all her other stuff—the rest of the food and the suitcases, the laptop, the boom box. He got it all. Except the cat supplies.

  Will was a realist. The cat, he was certain, had gone to that big scratching post in the sky. After all, he thought bleakly as he put her precious perishables in the fridge, it is Christmas. In Will’s experience, the worst things always happened at Christmas. Little Missy’s disappearance and ultimate demise was just one more link in the chain of yuletide disasters Will Bravo had known.

  He glanced at the ceiling, wondering what she could be doing up there so quietly. It just wasn’t like her.

  Then again, maybe she was taking a long nap. Sleep would be good for her. And she was bound to come down soon.

  Around two-thirty, he heard her footsteps on the stairs. His spirits rose. He set his book aside—but then he heard the bathroom door close. He figured she’d come on in the living area in a minute or two. She didn’t. When she came out of the bathroom, she went back up the stairs.

  Three o’clock came and went. And four. And five.

  At dinnertime, he pulled out all the stops and whipped up a double batch of Kraft macaroni and cheese. Caitlin, who in the past few months had seemed to mention Jillian every ten minutes or so, had told him that she’d seen Jilly eat two huge bowls of macaroni and cheese at the Highgrade one lunchtime when she was in town for a visit with Jane. The Highgrade was the saloon/café/gaming establishment his mother had owned since before he was born.

  “That girl can eat,” Caitlin had said. “She told me the mac and cheese at my place was the best—next to Kraft.” Caitlin had laughed that low, provocative laugh of hers. “Does that sound like anyone you know, my sweet darlin’?” She’d given him a wink, false eyelashes swooping down and fluttering up again.

  At the time, he couldn’t have cared less that Jillian Diamond shared his fondness for Kraft macaroni and cheese, and he’d told Caitlin as much. But right now, the information could come in handy.

  He had the door open to the stairs and he banged the utensils around more than he needed to, trying to get her attention. When the food was ready, he carried the full pan over and fanned the steam up the stairwell.

  Then he listened, closely, for the sound of her moving around.

  Nothing.

  She’d been up there for nine hours—minus that one trip down to use the bathroom. He understood her need to mourn the loss of her cat. But nine hours of silence and stillness from someone like Jilly simply wasn’t natural. He mounted one step and then another and then he paused to listen some more.

  Still nothing. He didn’t like it. It was just too damn quiet up there. And it was dark, too. She hadn’t even bothered to turn on a light.

  He couldn’t take it anymore.

  He got a big bowl, filled it with macaroni and cheese and stuck a spoon in it. Then he grabbed two bags of Cheez Doodles and quietly started upward into the darkness at the top of the stairs.

  He found her lying on the bed in the room beyond the curtain, fully dressed—or so it appeared, though most of her body was covered by one of his grandmother’s old afghans. In the moonlight, the skin of her cheek and throat had the luster of pearl. She’d curled herself up in a fetal press, facing the wall, her tan-and-gold hair—shadows and silver by moonlight—trailing onto the pillow. On the far side of the bed was a snow-drift of discarded tissues. She lay very still.

  Too still? A shiver of fear coursed through him.

  But no. He couldn’t believe that she would end it all because her cat had wandered outside in a blizzard. Not Jilly. She could drive a man nuts with her constant babbling and her unrealistic, overbearing enthusiasms, but basically, in her own unusual way, she was well-balanced and mentally sound. He would lay odds on that.

  Then again, it was Christmas Eve. In his experience, at Christmastime, all bets were off.

  He leaned in closer. She was breathing—the shallow, even breathing of sleep. He resisted the urge to grab her shoulder and give it a shake just to make certain she’d wake up. Of course, she’d wake up. It was only his own paranoia that had him imagining otherwise.

  Taking extreme care to be silent, he set the bowl on the bedside table and tiptoed back the way he’d come, pausing at the low dresser to drop off the Cheez Doodles, trying his damnedest to keep the bags from crackling in the process. He was just about to duck back through the curtain when he heard the bedsprings creak behind him. There was a click—the bedside lamp. A soft glow filled the room.

  “Will?”

  He turned. She was already sitting up, raking her hand back through her sleep-tangled hair. She had marks from the bedspread pattern pressed into her right cheek and those fine eyes were red-rimmed and puffy-looking, with dark shadows beneath. The puffy eyes and the pile of tissues told it all. She’d been doing some serious crying—and quietly. That really got to him, that she would lie up here for hours, silently crying. It was so unlike the Jillian he thought he knew.

  She spotted the bags he’d just set on the dresser, glanced over at the night table and saw the bowl of macaroni and cheese. “Oh,” she said, her lower lip quivering, looking so sad and sweet and grateful it cut him to the core. “The two major food groups. Oh, thank you, Will.”

  “Will you eat?” he asked, more gruffly than he meant to.

  Her
stomach growled right then, loudly. She put her hand on it and a smile broke across her face. “I guess I’d better.” She grabbed the bowl, scooped up a big spoonful—and stopped with the spoon halfway to her mouth. “Did you?”

  “What?”

  “Eat.”

  “No, but—”

  She dropped the spoon back in the bowl, pushed the afghan to her feet and slid off the bed. “Come on. Let’s go downstairs. I can splash a little cold water on my face and you can fill yourself a bowl and pour us two giant glasses of milk.”

  When they got to the bottom of the stairs, she saw her suitcases, waiting where he’d left them, not far from kitchen door. She gave him another of those heart-twisting smiles. “You brought in my bags. Thank you.”

  He felt absurdly pleased with himself. “I thought you might be needing them. And you don’t have to worry about that expensive fresh turkey.”

  “You didn’t.” She turned and pulled open the refrigerator door. “You did. You brought in—”

  “Pretty much everything.” Except the cat supplies, which he decided it would be wiser not to mention.

  She shut the refrigerator door. “I know it’s awful out there. Thank you. Again.”

  “No problem. Go wash up and let’s eat.”

  They ate and cleaned up the dishes without saying much. But the silence was okay, companionable and relaxed.

  “For your entertainment this evening,” he announced as she was wiping the counter, “you get your choice of checkers or Scrabble. I also play a killer game of Go Fish.”

  She smiled again. “What about poker? I bet you’re good at that.”

  “Five-card stud, seven-card draw, no limit Texas hold ’em. You name it, I play it. I’m not as good as Cade—but nobody’s as good as Cade.” His baby brother made his living with a deck of cards. He’d won the World Championship of Poker at Binion’s in Vegas a few years back and he had the gold bracelet to prove it.

  She was looking at him sideways. “You are being so good to me, it’s making me nervous.”

  “It’s my goal to behave like a bona fide human being for as long as we’re stuck here together.”

  “An honorable goal—and do you know what I’d like more than just about anything right now?”

  “Name it.”

  She hitched a thumb toward the bathroom door. “A long soak in that big tub in there.”

  “Be my guest.”

  She was in the bathroom for over an hour. Will tried to read his book, but his mind kept straying to grisly images of potential disaster: a tub drowning, a blow-dryer electrocution…

  When he finally heard the bathroom door open, he breathed a hefty sigh of relief. He heard her go up the stairs. Great. Now, at last, he’d be able to concentrate on his book.

  He’d read about three interminable sentences when he realized he could smell that enticing perfume she always wore. He set the book aside and followed his nose into the bathroom, where it was warm and steamy and her scent was everywhere.

  He stood in there, just smelling the air, for several seconds. Then, feeling vaguely foolish, he flipped on the faucet over the old concrete sinks and washed his hands, knowing he was only doing it so he could tell himself he’d come in here for a valid reason, not just in order to smell Jilly Diamond’s tempting perfume.

  He dried his hands, pausing in the process to listen. Was she moving around up there? Was she really all right?

  She’d seemed okay since he’d gone up the stairs to check on her. She’d even smiled now and then, and teased him about how nice he was being to her. She was fine, he was sure of it. He should just leave her alone….

  Jilly looked up from her laptop when she heard Will come up the stairs.

  He stopped on the other side of the curtain. “Jilly?”

  “I’m decent.” She had on her fuzzy pajamas, which were modesty personified, as they covered more than most of the things she wore in the daytime. She’d pulled on a pair of thick yellow socks to keep her feet nice and toasty and she was sitting on top of the blankets, her computer in her lap. “Come on in.”

  He parted the curtain and stepped through. “Just checking on you.” He looked incredibly handsome—and very concerned for her welfare.

  A lovely, warm contented feeling flooded through her. “Well, let’s see.” She touched the bump on her head. “I think the danger of brain damage is past.”

  He gave her a gorgeous crooked smile. “I’m glad to hear it. But I was more thinking about…” He seemed at a loss for the most tactful way to phrase it.

  “My emotional state?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Let’s say I’m a little wobbly, but at least I’m no longer curled in a ball sobbing my heart out.”

  “Sounds like progress.”

  “Oh, definitely.” She indicated the clear space on the far side of the bed. “As you can see, I’ve dispensed with my mountain of used tissues. I won’t be building another one.”

  “Very encouraging.”

  “Yes. I think so, too. And thanks for asking. For…caring.”

  “If there’s anything else I can do, I want you to let me know.”

  She knew her next line. Thanks so much, and have a nice night.

  But really, he didn’t seem all that eager to get away. And while she didn’t feel much like playing checkers, she wouldn’t mind a little company for a while.

  She picked up the open bag at her side and held it out. “Cheez Doodle? Hey, if you want to stick around for a while, I’ll even turn off the Christmas music.” It was one of her favorites, Aaron Neville’s Soulful Christmas. “As you can see, I’ve already got it turned down very low in deference to your hatred of all things ho-ho-ho.”

  He folded those big arms and leaned against the pink Sheetrock doorframe. “I can hardly hear it.”

  “That’s good?”

  “It’s fine.” He was standing up straight again and coming her way. When he got to the bed, she handed him the bag. He took it and stood there, crunching away. “You’re working?”

  “Just a few notes for a column. I have to turn in five a week now. So I have to keep them coming.”

  “More advice to the lovelorn?”

  She punched the Save icon and arched him a look. “Not at the moment.” She closed the file and got out of the program.

  “That’s your column, right? Helping people work out their love lives?”

  “I’ll advise on anything—how to get stains out of your carpet, how to accessorize for success and how to pull yourself together after a failed love affair. There are those who say I have no shame when it comes to telling people how to live their lives. But I look at it this way. If the people ask, then I’ll come up with an answer.” She shut the laptop down. “Lately, I’ve been getting a lot of questions on holiday stress and how to handle it, so I’m working up something on that.” She lowered the screen and slipped the computer to the floor, into the space between the lamp table and the bed.

  There was nowhere else to sit except the bed and an uncomfortable-looking straight chair way over in the corner. She scooted sideways to make a space for him. He dropped down beside her, shucked off his moccasins and made himself comfortable, propping a pillow behind his back and leaning against the wall beneath the window. It looked as if he might be staying for a while.

  Jilly decided that would be just fine with her. She plumped the pillow on her side and leaned back against it with a sigh. He held out the bag, she grabbed a handful. For a minute or two, they sat there, chewing, as Aaron Neville sang “White Christmas,” the volume so low it almost seemed to Jilly that the music was only in her head.

  She sent him a look.

  “What?”

  “Well, I can’t help but wonder…”

  He seemed a little wary, but not dangerously so. “Wonder what?”

  “I guess I can just ask and you can tell me it’s none of my business—but in a friendly way, okay?—if you don’t want to answer.”

  He actually chu
ckled. “Go for it.”

  “Why do you hate Christmas?”

  He grunted. “I guess I should have known that was coming.”

  “Oh, come on.” She reached for the bag. He tipped it her way. She took another handful and popped three or four of the crunchy cheesy morsels into her mouth. “Just tell me. If you don’t, I’ll only ask Celia or Jane the next time I talk to them.”

  “You do that, huh? Talk to your friends about me?”

  “I haven’t up till now. Until now, I’ve been scrupulously careful never to ask my friends anything about you.”

  “Never?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Why scrupulously?”

  “Oh, please. It’s obvious.”

  “Tell me, anyway.”

  She knew what he was up to. “First, you tell me if you’re going to answer my question.”

  “Jilly…”

  “Well, are you?”

  “The answer to your question is very long and very sad and once you hear it, you’ll wish you hadn’t asked.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.”

  He looked at her for a long time. Then he said, “Cute pajamas. I like the stripes. And the daisies.”

  “You are not even close to distracting me from my intent.”

  “I can’t believe you’ve got me considering telling you.”

  “I’m a very charming woman, once you get used to me.”

  “Not to mention relentless.”

  “That, too. Will you tell me?”

  “If I do, you have to remember that you asked for it—and kept asking for it—until I gave in.”

  “Agreed.”

  He looked at her again—a long, deep look. And for just a second or two, in spite of the fact that he was a young, broad-shouldered, healthy-looking man, she saw a flash of resemblance to the frail old woman in her dream of the night before. It occurred to her that she’d never seen Mavis McCormack—in the flesh or in a photograph. And she couldn’t help wondering about the woman in her dream. Did she look even remotely like the real Mavis?