by Erica Lee
By the time she got to the chorus, she had gone into full out theatrical mode. Her eyes landed on me and she started singing right to me, at least that's what it felt like. I felt myself blushing as she pointed toward me while belting out about all she wanted for Christmas. I was embarrassed by my reaction. She was singing a song. It's not like she was actually singing it to me and even if she was, I had no interest in little miss free spirit. Had it really been so long since I had gotten female attention that the slightest hint of it could send me through a loop? Well, yeah it definitely had been. It's not like there were any other lesbians in this small town, plus finding a girlfriend had been the last thing on my mind these past six years.
I shook myself from my thoughts to realize that Layla was back onto the chorus of the song and was this time singing it to an old man sitting by himself at the bar. Unlike me, he wasn't turning red, but he did have a goofy grin on his face that showed that he didn't mind a young good looking girl giving him so much attention.
The song came to an end and everyone in the bar erupted into cheers. As soon as I started to clap, nana Harvey’s eyes went right to me. A smile spread over her face and she quickly made her way over to me. Before I could think, she started pushing me toward the karaoke set up.
She clapped her hands together in excitement. “I want to see my two girls do a duet,” she announced. “And I know just the song.”
She shoved a microphone into my hand before I could protest and I heard the music to “Baby it’s Cold Outside” start playing. I must have had a horrified look on my face because Layla gave me a reassuring smile.
I shook my head. “I’m not sure if it’s such a good idea for the two of us to sing this song.” I knew the town was very progressive for being so small, but I still didn’t know how they would react to two girls singing a song that was traditionally sung by a man and woman.
Luckily, Layla understood what I was trying to say. “Don’t worry about anyone else. No one would ever dare say anything rude with nana around. Anyway, I think at this point any homophobes have been run out of town.” She nodded her head over toward nana Harvey. “Look how happy she is to see us up here. We have to do it. I’ll do the guy’s part if that makes you feel more comfortable.”
I nodded my head, then looked to the screen with the lyrics. The first verse had already passed by, so I waited for my next part to come. I sang quietly into the microphone and stared at the ground. To my surprise, Layla grabbed my hand as she began singing her part. It surprised me so much that I almost missed singing the next line. As the song went on, Layla got more and more into it, but never let go of my hand. About halfway through the song, I started to feel more relaxed and looked into her eyes as I sang. She did the same and if I didn’t know any better, I would have believed she was truly begging me to stay with her. Of course, it was all an act but that didn’t keep me from getting butterflies in my stomach as she sang to me. Man, I really had gone way too long without female attention if singing a song with a girl I barely knew, and wasn’t particularly fond of, was having this affect on me.
The song went by way too quickly and before I knew it, we were getting a standing ovation from everyone in the bar. Layla dropped my hand and immediately put hers up for a high five. “We killed that!”
Nana Harvey ran up and gave us both a kiss on the forehead. “Oh my girls. That was amazing! You two make a great pair.”
She winked at me while she was walking away and I wondered what that was all about, but just chalked it up to nana Harvey being her usual crazy self.
Our duet must have worked though because soon there was a waiting list for people to sing karaoke. A few other people chose to sing “Baby it’s Cold Outside,” but everyone told us that they liked our rendition of it the best. They probably felt like they had to say that since it was nana Harvey’s bar.
I spent the rest of the night quietly sitting at the bar, sipping on a glass of red wine and enjoying the karaoke. Layla had a few mixed drinks and was suddenly best friends with everyone in the bar, pulling random people out of their seats to dance to the music with her.
I shook my head and laughed at the scene in front of me. While she certainly wasn’t the type of person I would have chosen to spend my time with, she was starting to grow on me. I couldn’t help but think that maybe this next month wouldn’t be as bad as I originally expected.
Chapter 7: Layla
I woke up to my alarm going off at 9:00 the morning after the bar’s karaoke night. At first I was confused why I even had an alarm set for a Saturday, but then I remembered Adrienne setting it when she was helping me into bed last night. I’d like to point out that I really didn’t need her help. Sure, I may have had a few pretty strong mixed drinks at the bar and was having a bit of trouble staying on my feet by the end of the night, but I was perfectly capable of stumbling into bed. Although, I must admit that it did feel good to wake up without a headache and I figured I owed that to the water and medicine that Adrienne had given me right before I fell asleep.
I walked into the kitchen to find that Adrienne was of course already showered and dressed. When she turned around, I saw that she had two mugs in her hands with steam from the coffee rising out of them.
She gave me a slight smile and raised the mugs in my direction. “I figured you could probably use a pick me up this morning. How do you take your coffee?”
“Two creams. Two sugars please.”
When she put the mugs on the counter, I noticed that she only added the cream and sugar to mine.
As she handed me my mug I nodded toward hers. “Black?”
She breathed into her coffee mug and took a big sip. When she looked up at me she had a serious look on her face. “Of course. All natural. The way it’s meant to be consumed. No bells and whistles.”
I scrunched my nose up at her to show her my disgust, but she didn’t even notice since she was already routing through papers that she had laid out on the table.
“These are the wish lists we got back from the kids. We got them from about 10 kids. Nana said we should buy 3 or 4 things from each list and then buy a few extra toys like dolls and trucks just incase kids come who didn’t give a list.”
I looked down at the papers she was holding and realized she had already written out notes on which gifts we should look for and what stores we could find them at. I let out a high pitched whistle.
“Well, it looks like you have it all figured out, huh? I was just going to go to the mall and start grabbing things as we saw them.”
She shook her head at me. “We would never accomplish what we need to if we did it that way.”
“Yeah, but it’s much more fun to just fly by the seat of your pants!”
She ignored my words and looked down at her watch. “Can you get ready quickly? We are already behind schedule.”
I sarcastically saluted her then ran up to my bedroom to get changed. I was back downstairs in just under 15 minutes. Adrienne looked impressed when she saw me appear so quickly, but she would never admit it. She just grabbed the keys to a moving truck nana rented to hold all the gifts and headed out the door.
After only 3 hours, we were at the mall finishing up the last of the shopping. After I paid for the last of the gifts and threw them into the truck, I turned to Adrienne.
“Do you mind if we head back into the mall for just a little longer so I could get a gift for nana?”
“Definitely. Do you have any ideas?”
I thought about it for a long time and couldn’t think of anything. “I’m honestly drawing a blank. Nana has everything. She isn’t a big fan of material gifts, so I need to get her something sentimental.”
A cute little smile spread across Adrienne’s face as if she just came up with the greatest idea. “I got it! You know how your grandma has the Layla Santa Clause shrine?”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, she made me get a picture with Santa from the time I was a baby up until I left for LA. I can’t believe she still has all of
them.”
“Well, I have caught her looking lovingly at those pictures countless times. She is obsessed with them. I know it would mean alot to her if you gave her another one for your first Christmas back in Pennsylvania.”
“My only Christmas back in Pennsylvania,” I corrected her. “But I do think that’s a great idea. Do you know what would make it even more special for her though?”
She raised a questioning eyebrow at me. “You need to be in it too. It can be her gift from both of us.”
Adrienne shook her head. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea. It’s your tradition. You’re her family.”
“That’s crap and you know it. She always says that we are both her girls. You’re just as much her family as I am.”
She gave me an appreciative smile. It was that smile that makes a girl’s heart skip a beat. At least, it would if she was the type of girl you were into.
“Ok. Let’s do it!”
As we waited in line behind all of the kids to get our picture, I couldn’t help but feel like a kid myself. Adrienne always looks serious so I couldn’t read whether she was excited too.
When we got to the front of the line, Santa motioned for each of us to sit on his lap then asked what we wanted for Christmas.
I laughed. “Oh Santa. I don’t need anything. Life is good. My only wish is for this picture to come out perfectly for my nana.”
When he looked at Adrienne for her answer, I swore I saw a sadness in her eyes. “Happiness,” she said quietly. Then she cleared her throat and continued. “I mean happiness for mankind. I want a happy world.”
Santa gave her a nice hearty “ho, ho, ho” and told her that it was a noble Christmas wish. Then we both smiled wide for the picture, which turned out great.
As we left the mall, I couldn’t stop thinking about what Adrienne had asked Santa for. She may have made it seem like she wanted happiness for mankind, but I wasn’t buying it. I heard her hesitation. She was wishing for her own happiness and I realized that I could use that as well.
Chapter 8: Adrienne
I was happy to have a day to relax on Sunday after putting so much work into shopping for the kids. The day was spent watching cheesy Christmas movies on tv with nana Harvey and Layla. I had to admit that I was starting to enjoy Layla’s company, so much so that I wasn’t dreading our Monday activity of ice skating. Even after nana Harvey backed out due to her arthritis and insisted that we still go, I still found myself excited.
After eating lunch, I waited for Layla to finish getting ready so we could head out. When we arrived at the town’s quaint outdoor ice skating rink, I was excited to see that there were only two other people there. It was an older couple, which made sense since kids were still in school and most adults would be working on a Monday afternoon.
I put on the ice skates that nana Harvey had bought me for Christmas two years ago while Layla went to the stand to rent a pair. As we made our way onto the ice, it quickly became obvious that Layla didn’t have much experience ice skating. She clung to the wall on the side of the rink and slowly made her way around. I had done two laps around the small rink before she had made it much more than 25 feet.
I skated up beside her. “I take it ice skating isn’t a big activity in LA?”
She smiled up at me and shook her head. “I used to skate all the time. But I haven’t gone since I was about 15. I guess I’ve become a little rusty.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at how pathetic she looked gripping onto the wall for dear life, so I reached my hand out to her. “Here. Let me help you.”
I paused for a moment when she grabbed my hand and took a deep breath. The cold air must have been messing with my system. Holding hands with a pretty girl wasn’t enough to take my breath away.
She held my hand tightly, but continued to grip the wall with her other hand. I laughed and shook my head at her.
“Why don’t you give the wall a break and try to do it on your own?”
As soon as she let go, I felt her begin to slip on the ice. Before I knew it she had dragged me down with her and we were both lying on the ice laughing hysterically. We paused for a moment to look at each other and Layla moved the hair that had fallen in front of my face.
“You look really pretty when you smile, you know. You should do it more often.” She paused before shrugging and adding, “Life is too short to take it so seriously.”
I gave her a quick thanks, then jumped up to my feet and reached my hand down for her. But instead of pulling her back up, my plan backfired and I ended up back on the ice again. We both laughed again, shaking our heads.
“This is your fault, you know,” Layla pointed out. “You told me to let go of the wall.”
I pointed to the wall behind her, still laughing. “Yeah, I suggest you use it to pull yourself back up. At least you can’t pull the wall down with you.”
She winked at me with a big smile on her face. “Oh don’t go doubting what I’m capable of.”
Once we were both finally on our feet we figured it would be a good idea to take a break from the ice, so we bought some hot chocolate and sat on a bench close to the rink.
After a few minutes of silence, I finally spoke. “So, why LA? What made you decide to move there? Especially when you were so young.”
Layla scrunched up for her face like she was trying to think of a good answer. “Why not? It’s LA. It’s the city where people go to make their dreams come true.”
Her answer didn’t make sense to me and even though I didn’t think it was the best idea, I decided to push it. “But that’s people who have dreams of becoming famous or working in film. From what nana Harvey tells me, that’s not what you’re interested in, right?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Who knows. Just because I haven’t gotten into anything like that yet, doesn’t mean that I won’t eventually. I just like to see where life takes me. Ten years ago, I followed my heart to LA and it’s worked out well for me.”
I knew it was probably a bad idea to push it further, but for some reason I couldn’t help myself. I wanted more answers from her. “It seems to me that you’re not running toward something, but rather away from something.”
For the first time, I saw a look cross Layla’s face that I had never seen before. It looked like a mix between anger and sadness. I was about to apologize, but she began to speak before I had the chance.
“Well, you really don’t know me, do you? So I guess you can’t make that assumption. Plus, I don’t really think you have room to talk. You seem to be pretty good at running away from things yourself.”
I felt myself becoming upset and angry right back at her. “I didn’t run away from anything. I was pushed away. I didn’t have a choice. You ran from the person who loves you more than anything; the person who would do anything for you. You live this perfect life in LA, without a care in the world, never needing to worry about whether or not the people who meant the most to you even give a crap about you anymore.”
“A perfect life in LA? You’re really going to act like my life is so much easier than yours? My parents might not have chosen to leave me, but they’re still gone. Reality check. Yours are still alive. You’re choosing to hide away in this small town when you could be down in Florida trying to mend your relationship with your parents that are still here. On this earth. Alive.”
I couldn’t blame Layla for being hurt by my words, but her words had just as much sting in them. She had no right to act like she knew me when she clearly had no idea what my life was like. She was wrong to make me out to be the bad guy in everything that happened with my parents and it hurt me that she didn’t realize that.
I stood up and grabbed my skates. “I think we should go home. I’m done here.”
“Me too,” Layla shouted back at me and huffed away to return her skates.
The whole ride home was completely silent. I felt tears threatening to fall from my eyes, but refused to let them. When I looked over at Layla, I could have swo
rn I saw a few tears roll down her cheeks. Even after our fight, I still felt the pull to reach over and try to comfort her. I didn’t do it though. Too much had been said between us and I wasn’t sure how to make it right. We both had pasts that had shaped us into the people we were today and it was going to take more than doing a few Christmas activities together to understand each other fully. With her heading back to LA on Christmas Day, it didn’t seem too likely that we would ever get to that point. Now the question was how we were going to get through the next few weeks without things being too awkward.
Chapter 9: Layla
I woke up early on the morning of December 9th to help nana get ready for the big Christmas party that she threw every year. She invited all of the neighbors and prepared a ton of food, as well as having Christmas themed games for the adults and kids to play. I figured it was the least I could do for her since I had spent most of the week hidden away in my room.
I had told nana that I felt like I was coming down with something, when I was really just trying to avoid Adrienne. I wasn’t mad at her anymore. I just didn’t know what to say. She had completely overstepped her boundaries, and even if the things she said did have some truth to them, she still had no right to voice her opinion. But I realized that some of the things I had said were hurtful and I’m not even sure why I said them. I shouldn’t have acted like it was Adrienne’s fault that she didn’t have a relationship with her parents, when I knew that wasn’t the case. I guess I was just trying to make her feel as crappy as I did in that moment.
We had done a good job of avoiding each other all week though, as Adrienne put in long hours in some of nana’s stores and I found excuses to skip meals or eat in my room. I surprisingly found myself missing Adrienne’s company though.
As I made my way downstairs, I walked into the kitchen to find that Adrienne was already awake and discussing the party with nana. I paused when I saw them both there and Adrienne gave me a forced smile.
