by Erica Lee
Holiday Healing
A Romantic Christmas Novella
By: Erica Lee
Copyright © 2017 By Erica Lee
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to all my cheesy hallmark movie loving friends. Thanks for encouraging me along the way while I was writing this and appreciating the cheesiness of it. Also, thanks for always being down to watch cheesy Christmas movies with me.
Chapter 1: Layla
Buzz. Buzz. My head shot up as I heard my phone vibrating on my night stand. I opened my eyes a little too quickly and couldn’t stop the room from spinning around me. I looked at the phone to find that my nana was calling. I was confused why she would be calling me on a Sunday morning. She knew that my Saturday nights were not conducive to early Sunday morning conversations. But as I blinked the phone into focus, I realized she wasn’t calling for an early Sunday morning conversation. The 2...3...0 slowly came into view. Had I really slept until 2:30 today? Noon was the normal waking hour for a Sunday.
I held my head and reached for the glass of water that I had drunkenly thrown beside the bed before passing out last night. Clearly I had good intentions as I also had two Tylenol laying beside the glass. I popped those in my mouth and took a big gulp of water, before grabbing the phone which was vibrating again from my nana calling back already.
“He...hello?” I stammered out. “Is everything ok nana?”
“Oh honey, everything is fine. I just needed to talk to you about Christmas.”
I pulled the phone away from my ear to check the date, confirming that I hadn’t somehow slept through the whole month of November. Nope, it was still only November 10. At this point, even Thanksgiving was a distant thought for me. When I didn’t say anything, my nana continued.
“My arthritis has been acting up so badly this year and I can only imagine that it’s going to get worse as the weather gets colder. I can’t imagine sitting on that 5 hour flight out to you. I just don’t think I can do it anymore sweetheart. I’m not the young woman I used to be.”
Shoot. Christmas was the one time of year I actually saw my nana since moving to LA 10 years ago as soon as I turned 18. I had left our small town in Pennsylvania and never looked back. I didn’t miss anything about that wretched town, but I sure did miss my nana.
“Are.. are you sure nana? It’s just that this has been our tradition every year and I don’t want to miss out on that time with you.”
“I don’t want to miss out on our time together either sweetheart, which is why I have a proposition for you.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping I would fall back to sleep and realize I had just been dreaming. I had a really bad feeling that I knew what was coming next and I also knew that I wouldn’t be able to say no.
“I want you to spend Christmas with me here on the east coast. I was actually hoping I could get you to spend a few weeks here. I could fly you home right before thanksgiving and you could stay until Christmas. I’m sure you have some big New Year's bash at one of your hot night clubs out there, so I won’t make you stay for that.”
I held my head again, trying to think of a good excuse to get out of what she was suggesting. I couldn’t use work as an excuse since I never stayed attached to any job very long. All of my time was spent hopping between random jobs and counting on the money my nana put in my checking account each month to pay for my small studio apartment. I was currently working as a bartender at one of the smaller bars in West Hollywood. I wasn’t overly attached to the job, but the tips were nice and the girls I met were even nicer. I purposely struck up conversations with the ones from out of town, so I could have some fun without getting sucked into anything serious. But anyway, I was letting my mind wander. I had to think of a good reason that this wouldn’t work.
“Nana, I can’t make you pay for a flight. Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away. Flights are going to be out of control expensive at this point.”
My nana laughed on the other end of the phone. “Oh hush dear. I don’t care about money. I would pay all the money in the world to get you back home with me, even for just a little bit.”
Of course. I’m not sure what I was thinking. My nana practically owned our whole hometown. She and my pap had moved there when they were just 20 and at that point, there was even less to it than there was today. They had built it up with libraries, post offices, and little shops, until it became less of an abandoned field and more of a bustling small town. Well, as bustling as a 2,000 person town in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania could be. It was a town where you could barely walk 100 feet without seeing something with the name “Harvey” on it. When I was a kid, I was excited about seeing my last name all over town, but as I got older it had lost it’s luster. My thoughts were interrupted by nana speaking again.
“So what do you say kiddo? Can I book your flight?”
I sighed to myself. There was no getting out of this. “Sure nana. I would love to visit with you.”
I heard her clap her hands together on the other end of the phone. “Oh that’s perfect. I have flight information pulled up right now. I found a red eye that leaves from you at 10:30 on Tuesday November 21st and gets into Philadelphia at 7AM on the 22nd. I’ll book it now.”
I rolled my eyes and tried to suppress a giggle. My nana knew exactly what she was doing. She may have acted like she was asking me to come home and giving me the option, but she knew that she was going to make it happen.
“Ok nana. Should I get a rental car so I can get from the airport to home?”
Philadelphia was only about an hour and a half from our town, which was shocking since they were so drastically different, but it still wasn’t a short enough drive to just call an Uber or Lyft.
“Oh honey, don’t be crazy. I’ll get someone to come pick you up.”
I rolled my eyes again. Of course she would. Just like my nana could get me to do anything for her (short of moving back home), she could get anyone in the town to do what she asks as well.
I hung up with my nana and drifted back to sleep as I wondered what poor sucker would get roped into picking me up at the airport.
Chapter 2: Adrienne
6:45 am… the clock on my dashboard taunted me as I yawned and pulled into the short term parking lot at the Philadelphia airport. I’m not sure how I let Mrs. Harvey (or nana as I like to call her) convince me to do this. Ok, that’s a lie. I know exactly how she convinced me. Nana Harvey could talk me into doing anything for her after everything she had done for me.
When I was 22 and had just graduated from college, I decided it was time to come out to my parents. I had known I was gay since about age 16, but was worried about telling anyone in my conservative small town in Florida. I had come out to a few friends in college which went well since I was attending a liberal arts school, so I decided it was time. I knew they wouldn’t love the idea, but I didn’t know that they would take it just as badly as they did.
As soon as I told them, my mother immediately broke into tears and started praying and my father told me that I was no longer welcome in their house.
I looked to my mom for back up, but through her tears she softly stated, “I think you should go.”
So I packed up whatever I could fit into my car and started driving north. I had no exact destination in mind. I thought about possibly going to New York, but wasn’t sure how I would afford the price of living there. I ha
d saved up a pretty decent amount of money from working through high school and college. While most of my friends had spent their money as soon as they got it, I was careful about always putting money away. But even with that money, New York didn’t seem like the type of place someone should go without a job or a plan. Every hour, I checked my phone hoping that I would get a call from my parents telling me to come home.
On about the 3rd day of travel, I made my 3rd pit stop in a small town in Pennsylvania. I saw a sign for Harvey’s diner and decided greasy diner food was exactly what I needed. While I was eating, nana Harvey came in to greet the patrons. She noticed right away that I wasn’t one of the usuals so she struck up a conversation with me. I told her that I had recently graduated from college and was driving up north from Florida to find a job and a new place to live. Since I had nowhere in particular in mind, nana Harvey suggested that I stay with her for a few days. She insisted that I was too skinny and that she needed to spend those days putting some meat on my bones, but I later learned that she just wanted the company.
After a few days of staying with nana Harvey, she started asking me about my family. I didn’t want to tell her what had happened, especially since she was an older lady from a small town and I had to assume that she would have the same reaction to my coming out as my parents. There was no way around it though when I broke into tears just at the mention of my parents. I told her the whole story from figuring out I was gay as a teenager to just coming out to my parents a few days before. To my surprise, she took me in her arms and rocked me as I cried. She told me that my parents were dumb for not accepting me and that she couldn’t imagine how anyone could treat their children like that.
I looked at her with bloodshot eyes and asked, “So you don’t care that I’m gay?”
She laughed one of her big jolly laughs and hugged me tighter. “Oh honey, of course not. And believe me when I tell you this - no one else in this town will care if you’re gay either. We almost had ourselves a little drama when my granddaughter, who is right around your age actually, came out when she was 15. But I shut down all of the nay sayers. I don’t need anyone like that in this town. Love is love, right?”
It was the first time a grown up had been that open minded toward me and I immediately felt at home. Nana Harvey was more than happy to make the town home for me. She let me live in her big house with her and made all of my meals, in exchange for me working in a few of the buildings she still owned around town. She quickly became like family to me and since that call never came from my parents, even after 6 years, she was the only family I had.
Which brings me back to why I had woken up at an ungodly hour to drive an hour and a half to the Philadelphia airport. Nana Harvey had recruited me to pick up her long lost granddaughter. All I knew about this girl was that she was right around my age, is gay, and that she hasn’t come home once since she left when she turned 18 - leaving her nana here alone with no family. Apparently, she hadn’t even come home for her pap’s funeral. He had passed away about a year before I arrived in town. Nana Harvey only had one son, but he had passed, along with his wife, about 11 years earlier. Nana Harvey had told me it was a terrible car accident, but didn’t go into many details. All I know is that is the excuse she always used for her granddaughter fleeing across the country and never looking back. While I could sympathize with how hard it must have been to lose her parents in such a horrible way, it still didn’t get rid of the distaste I had toward her for completely abandoning her grandmother.
So let’s just say, I wasn’t excited at all about the fact that not only was I picking her up, but nana Harvey expected me to also entertain her over the next month. She had even gone as far as to make a calendar of activities we were supposed to do together. To make matters worse, they were all Christmas activities. Since nana Harvey was normally traveling over Christmas, I tried to avoid the holiday all together. I normally spent that time doing more work at the stores and catching up on reading some novels. Every year nana Harvey had offered for me to go to LA with her and every year I turned her down, mostly to avoid meeting this granddaughter who I was now waiting for by the baggage claim, holding a sign with the name “Layla Harvey” that nana Harvey insisted I bring.
I looked up toward the escalator to find a blonde with wavy hair coming down who matched the pictures at nana Harvey’s house. She was wearing sunglasses, along with shorts and a t-shirt, apparently unaware of what the weather was like in Pennsylvania at this time of year. Her body was sun kissed and flawless, in the annoyingly flawless way where she clearly knew just how good she looked. She slid the sunglasses onto her head and seemed to lose her balance a little. Plane legs I guess. Wait, was she swaying back and forth?
“Are you drunk?” That wasn’t quite the introduction I had planned on making, but when she stumbled over to me I couldn’t help but state the obvious.
She looked at me with glazed over eyes and smiled. “What can I say? It was a long flight.” Then she took her phone out of her pocket and blinked her eyes trying to focus on the time. “Plus, it’s about 4am LA time. It’s a perfectly normal time to have a little fun.”
I sighed and shook my head. This girl was infuriating. I couldn’t imagine how I was supposed to make it through the next month spending essentially every moment with her.
I mustered up a fake smile, before addressing her again. “So, shall we get your bags?”
She nodded her head then skipped off toward the baggage claim area. We stood silently while waiting for her bags and the silence continued on the drive home.
About an hour into the trip, Layla finally opened her eyes and looked over at me. “I’m Layla by the way. I’m guessing you figured that out from the sign you were holding. And you are… ummm…Alyssa Ross, right?”
I couldn’t help but blatantly roll my eyes at her. “It’s actually Adrienne Rosen.”
She nodded knowingly as she threw her feet up onto my dashboard. “Oh right. I was close.”
I cringed at her blatant disrespect and decided to be flat out with her. “Your nana really misses you, you know.”
She smiled over at me, clearly not taking the hint. “Yeah, I have missed her a ton too. I can’t wait to finally see her.”
“Well, then maybe you could put a little more effort into seeing her. You're her only family and she’s not getting any younger.”
Layla’s face contorted and turned red. Seeing her expression made me regret the words that had just come out of my mouth. She looked over at me and frowned.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” she muttered. I was about to apologize for overstepping my boundaries when I realized that she meant that in the literal sense. Before I could do anything, she leaned forward and let out all of the contents of her stomach on the floor of my car.
I rolled down the windows and stared out at the passing countryside. “Feeling better now?”
Chapter 3: Layla
I dragged myself out of bed at 11:00 on Thanksgiving day to find nana and Adrienne already deep into cooking thanksgiving dinner (or I guess it would be considered Thanksgiving lunch in our case). I could have sworn I saw Adrienne roll her eyes at me as I strolled in. I had only been in town a little over 24 hours and I was already tired of that girl. I’m not sure why nana was always raving about her. She really must be lonely to truly find Adrienne to be good company.
Adrienne was about as fun as a 60 year old librarian and she was only 28. She always had her straight brown hair pulled into a high ponytail and she wore glasses that took away from her piercing blue eyes. She must have had a collection of button up sweaters because she had worn one both yesterday and today. She was actually very pretty, so I found myself wondering how good she would look if she just put in a little effort.
If nana had noticed the eye roll, she chose to ignore it, as she ran over to me and wrapped me in a big hug.
“We thought you might sleep all day,” she laughed.
I looked around the kitchen at all of the food bein
g made. It was so strange being back here after all this time. When I skipped town 10 years ago, I had vowed that I would never come back. It had been easy to stay away when nana didn’t put any pressure on me. But of course, it had taken just one phone call and here I was.
“So, what is all this food for anyway? I thought it was just the three of us eating together today.” I held my breath and hoped they wouldn’t realize the hint of relief in my voice at the thought of having other people present for our meal.
Nana smiled and winked at me. “It’s just us my dear. We will be taking the leftover food to the Harvey Soup Kitchen and serving them their thanksgiving dinner tonight.”
Of course. Nana had always been big into giving back to those around her, especially around the holidays. She always said there was no reason to have a lot of money if you weren’t going to use it to help others. I loved that nana felt this way and I was looking forward to finally doing some volunteer work, but at the same time, I could definitely think of some fun things I could spend nana’s extra money on in LA.
My thoughts were interrupted by nana throwing dishes at me and asking if I could set the table. I set it just the way she liked it then ran upstairs to take a quick shower. When I returned to the kitchen, the whole feast was sitting on the table waiting for me.
I smiled and picked up a loose piece of turkey. “Shall we eat?” I winked at Adrienne who refused to smile at me. That girl really had an issue with me for some reason.
When we sat down, nana suggested that we go around and say what we are thankful for. She asked me to start.
“I’m thankful for my awesome apartment and the perfect weather in LA all year round. I’m also thankful that you still had all my sweaters here waiting for me.” I winked at nana and she smiled back at me while squeezing my hand.
