by Kim Pritekel
"Nah. I’m not real fond of flaunting my personal life around."
"Ah. Well, then we could always find you a male to escort you for one night." I laughed.
"Yeah. That would be interesting."
"Um," Haley looked down at her hands, which were fidgeting with each other. "Speaking of dates," She looked out the passenger-side window. "I was asked out on one." Slowly she looked over at me, as if she’d be in trouble, or something.
In truth my stomach had fallen to my knees, but there was no way I could tell her that. She had every right in the world to be happy, and to date.
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Who’s the lucky guy?" I concentrated all my attention on the road. I didn’t want her to know that I was bothered in the least. Somehow, wrongly, I felt betrayed.
"His name is Craig. He’s actually a phlebotomist at the hospital."
"I see. A legal vampire." She chuckled.
"Yeah."
"How did this come about? When do you go out?"
"A lady I work with, Cheryl. She’s kind of the old school, and doesn’t think a woman should be alone. That sort of thing." I grimaced.
"What century is she living in?"
"Yeah, I know. I humor her because she’s almost seventy, and thinks she’s my mother or something."
"More like grandmother."
"Be nice."
"So, when do you go?" I glanced over at her, surprised to find myself looking right into blue eyes. I turned away, watching the road. It’s slick, you know.
"Saturday night."
My stomach fell for the second time. That was our night together. Yeah, I was not such a fan of this Craig guy.
"Oh. What do you plan to do?" She sighed, running a hand through her hair, taking it out of its ponytail, and combing her fingers through the dark strands.
"I have no idea. What on earth do you do on a date? It’s been way too long." I smiled.
"Movies? Dinner? Bowling?"
"Bowling sounds like fun. I haven’t done that in forever."
I continue to drive, and Haley continued to talk about this Craig asshole. I didn’t want to think about her going out with someone.
The car filled with silence for a moment, then Haley began to talk about something else. Thank god.
"Have you ever been to California, Andi?" I looked at her, a bit surprised at her choice in subject.
"Nope."
"Have you ever wanted to? I mean, does it hold any interest for you?"
"Sure. It seems like a different planet compared to Minnesota."
"Oh, god, yeah. It was really a shock to come back here," she said, laughing.
"Really?" I glanced over at her.
"Sure. We never saw days like this." She indicated the white wonderland outside the windows. "It’s so beautiful there."
"It always looked it whenever I saw pictures of it, and so many movies take place there. I’ve always wanted to see the Pacific, too."
"Hmm."
* * *
I got a fire started, the temperatures dropping even more, glancing at the clock on the mantle, for about the fiftieth time, before I sat down in my arm chair, book in hand. Bunsen was curled up in his little doggy bed I’d set by the fire to warm up his little Pug body.
With a sigh, I opened the paperback to my marked place, and began to read. Sort of.
I didn’t get it. I used to love these nights where I could sit quietly, drinking water, or hot tea, or even the occasional glass of wine, and just enjoy a book or a good movie, hell, even a good crossword puzzle. Tonight I’d tried them all. The movie had seemed boring and dull, I couldn’t concentrate on the crossword puzzle to get the answers, and the book was quickly losing my interest, though I was trying valiantly, again, to keep going.
I glanced at the clock again. It was just ten after nine, and the world around me had faded to black as night fell, and now the only light now was the flames dancing in the fireplace, and a small wall sconce near my chair to read by. Curling my feet up a little tighter under me, I cleared my throat, and began to read chapter 14.
Never in my life had I had a problem with entertaining myself, and I sure as hell didn’t like the fact that it seemed to be a problem now. I had never needed someone around to make me smile or happy. My books, and research, and games of Literati had all done that for me.
But now? Not so much. It was disturbing, and completely disconcerting.
Ding dong.
I looked up, toward the door, the blackness beyond the etched glass telling me nothing.
I set the book on my chair, and walked toward it, flipping the porch light on as I went. Who would possibly coming around my place at 9:25 p.m. on a Saturday night?
Unlocking and opening the door, I was stunned to see Haley standing there, smiling at me. I stood back, trying to overcome my shock, and suppress my joy. Then I got worried.
"Are you okay?" I asked, taking a step forward, my hand on the door.
"I will be if I can come in. It’s freezing out here."
"Yeah, you know better than that." I stepped back, and she quickly came in, me slamming the door shut behind her. "What are you doing here?"
"What? Don’t you want me here?" she asked with a grin as she unwound the scarf from around her neck, then started on the buttons of her coat.
"Well, sure, but I mean you had your date."
"Oh, yeah." She said, hanging the coat up on the coat tree, and stuffing her discarded gloves in the pockets. "Craig was a real treat." I headed toward the living room, she followed, nearly running me over to sit on the hearth of the fireplace, wrapping her arms around herself. "God, I bet it’s below zero already."
"I’ll get you some hot tea."
"Oh, that sounds nice." She smiled, her teeth still chattering. I quickly poured her a cup from the kettle on the stove, adding just a tad of sugar and honey to it, just how she liked it, and hurried over to her with it.
"Drink." Wrapping her hands around it, she slowly sipped. I pulled the ottoman from my arm chair, and rolled it so I could sit in front of her. "Give me." I grabbed a leg, setting her ankle on my thigh, and taking off snow-caked tennis shoe. "Did you go this casual on your date?" She shook her head.
"No. Went home and changed first."
"Oh." Untying the laces, I took the shoe off, and began to rub her foot, getting some blood and warmth back into it. "So tell me about it."
"Well," she said, taking another sip before setting the cup aside in order to grab the excited Pug who had woken up, and was now demanding her attention. "Craig was nice enough, I guess. But, quite full of himself. He has designs on heading off to medical school and becoming one of the greatest doctors who ever lived." She chuckled at the thought as she held my dog close to her chest, kissing the top of his head, and petting his back.
"Real winner, eh?"
"And then some. This guy had the balls to try and correct me on the amount of schooling I had! Really a prick. I don’t think I got one word in edgewise once he got started on himself. I don’t think he asked me one thing except to pass the salt at dinner. Truly horrible." She grabbed Bunsen’s face, looking into his eyes. "Don’t you ever treat a lady Pug like that, little guy, or you’ll be in big trouble. Got me?"
Snort.
"I think he understands." She grinned, putting him down so he could go back and curl up in his bed. "I have a confession to make, too," she said shyly, glancing at me briefly.
"What’s that?"
"I missed you, missed our Saturday night."
I smiled at her, saying nothing, but beaming inside.
Haley sighed as I put that foot back on the floor, and grabbed the other leg, doing the same to the other foot. She closed her eyes. "That feels so good, Andi."
"Are you warming up any?"
"Mmhmm. You could say that."
I smiled, continuing my ministrations
"Andi?"
"Hmm?"
"When are we going to have our Christmas?" I
looked at her to see she was looking at me through half-closed lids.
"Well, I don’t know."
"It’s just that Christmas is four days away, and I’ll be in New York with my family at my brother’s place, and won’t be back until the twenty-seventh. I don’t want to have an after-Christmas."
"Well, how about tonight?" She sat up straight as an arrow.
"Really?" I nodded.
"Sure. Why not?" Pulling her leg away from me, she began to quickly put her shoes back on.
"I’ll go get your stuff and bring it all over." I smiled, loving the way she was the biggest kid I knew.
"Okay. Me and Bunsen will be waiting."
Haley smiled, and hurried toward the door, throwing all her winter gear on, and bursting back out into the cold night. I sat there for a moment, listening to the sound of her car starting up, then it hit me.
Christmas!
I ran to the spare bedroom, Bunsen running after me, barking his little gray and black head off as I grabbed my little four-foot tree with the lights already built into it, and a few boxes of decorations. I hadn’t planned to even bother this year, only have a tree because I had Kendall for Christmas Eve last year.
We ran back out to the living room where I pushed the lamp off the side table by the couch, and set the tree up on it, plugging it in so the lights would start blinking, and doing their business, and I could start throwing colorful balls and tinsel on it. Bunsen had fun, too.
Next I had to get all of Haley’s gifts, arranging them just so. I really hoped she’d like them. I had an envelope, which held her big gift, a huge three by three box, and one smaller gift.
I sat in the chair again, grabbing my book again. Nonchalant was not my strong suit at times, but I was going to do my best. The house was completely dark now, save for the fireplace and the Christmas tree lights, bouncing colorful patterns on the surrounding walls.
I heard Haley knocking.
"Come in!"
The knob turned, and the door opened, with Haley being blown in, quickly closing the door behind her, leaning against it.
"Whew. It’s just not pleasant out there." She stopped, and turned to look toward the light I imagine she saw out of the corner of her eye. A smile quickly spread across her face, and she turned, walked into the living room. "Well, you’ve been busy." She said, walking up to the tree, fingering a few decorations. She turned to me a grinned, nodding her head. "I approve."
"Well, I’m so glad." I smiled, standing. "Who’s going to go first?"
"Why don’t you?"
"Okay." I grinned like a little kid, rubbing my hands together. Haley set down her offerings; two envelopes, one thick, an extremely odd-looking thing that was round, but not, and a small oval box.
"Here." She handed me the odd-looking thing. It wasn’t heavy, per se, but it wasn’t real light, either. I carefully took the wrapping paper off of it, wondering why Haley had bothered wrapping it at all. Finally a little, limp spine came flopping out. I looked up at Haley with a grin on my face. Getting the rest of the paper off, I saw that I held a rainbow colored Koosh that was huge; nearly twice the size of a softball.
"That is one big Koosh." I laughed. "Love the rainbow, too."
"Well, I figured I could help your budding Koosh collection that Kendall started, along."
"Yeah, it got started thanks to you." I laughed. She placed her hand on her chest.
"I remain innocent of all charges."
"Right. Thank you. I think I’ll take this to work and put it on my desk." I threw it up into the air, catching it, then walked over to the tree where I grabbed the small box, handed it to Haley. With the glee of a child, she took it, examining it, feeling its weight, and trying to determine its size. "Would you just open the damn thing?"
Finally she began to carefully peel back the paper until she came to a white box. Slicing the tape with her nails, the box was opened, and she pulled out what was inside. She smiled as she looked a the Beanie Baby, but looked slightly confused.
"Look at the tag." She did, and grinned.
"Siggy Bear, huh?"
"Yes, ma’am. He is one in the new career collection that Beanie has put out."
"So this is their little shrink bear?" I nodded. She hugged me. "Thank you, Andi."
"You’re welcome."
As we proceeded, my next gift was a little booklet that she had put together herself with little coupons for things such as: Good for one pair of boots from Eddie Bauer; Good for one dinner at Landlocked Sea; Good for a free movie night with dinner, and so on.
"Oh, this is nice. So, through this I could have you as my very own personal entertainment slave?" I asked, looking at the booklet.
"In so many words, yes." I grinned.
"I like that idea."
Next Haley opened the big box that sat on the floor. She looked curiously at the slightly smaller white box inside. With a grunt, she lifted it, setting it on the floor in front of the fire. Again, using her handy dandy nails, she got the tape cut, and pulled the flaps of the box open. She looked up at me.
"What is it?"
"Pull it out." She did, flopping it onto the floor. It was large, orange, and had limp string/spine-like things handing off of it. It dawned on her.
"Is it?" I grinned, nodding. "This is like the world’s biggest Koosh!" she looked at it with utter excitement.
"Sit on it."
"No, it isn’t."
"It is." With absolute vigor, she plopped herself down on the bean-Koosh, falling into the softness.
"This is the best. Where did you find this?"
"It took awhile, but when I saw it, I knew you had to have it. Whoa!" I found myself sitting half on the beanbag chair, and half on my friend.
"Isn’t this nice?"
"Yeah." I sighed, reclining back against both. Haley wrapped her arms around me, hugging me tightly.
"This is so great, Andi. Thank you." I leaned my head against the side of hers.
"You’re welcome. Come on, we have more to do."
We grunted like old women as we pulled our bodies out of the comfort of the chair.
Next I was handed the little oval box. I took the bow off the top, and lifted the lid, taking out Styrofoam to see a little, crystal Pug sitting at the bottom of the box.
Sucking in a breath, I carefully lifted it out, knowing it was Swarovsky crystal. I set the little guy on my palm, and looked toward the firelight.
"It’s a little see-through Bunsen," I marveled. Haley chuckled, looking at me with expectant eyes. "Thank you." I carefully put the piece back in the box, and grabbed her for a tight hug.
"You’re welcome."
Now it was time for my big one to her. I handed her the envelope, and she opened it quickly, reading the card, which told her in all the words that I didn’t have, how much she meant to me, and how lucky and happy I was that she was in my life.
Haley lowered the card, looked at me.
"Ditto," was all she said, then turned back to the card, and the small envelope that was inside. Once she opened it, and saw the tickets to the Chicago Culinary Institute’s graduation, where you could go, for a hefty fee, and have a huge, gourmet meal prepared for you by the chefs trained at one of the greatest culinary schools in the world.
Haley looked at me, her eyes narrowing.
"Ohhh, you are bad, aren’t you?" she asked, her voice low, sending chills up and down my spine.
"Well, you did say you are a food slut."
"I did, and I am." She walked over to me, taking me in a huge hug, our bodies pressed together as we both just breathed each other in, then I felt her lips on my cheek. "Thank you, Andi," she whispered into my ear. I tried to suppress the shiver that ran through me.
We parted, and she held on to my hand for a moment longer, looking into my eyes before she let go, and turned away, grabbing her final gift from the coffee table, also an envelope.
"Us and our envelopes, huh?" I smiled. So did she as she handed it to me.
; "I really hope you like this. I kind of took a gamble, and a sort of liberty, I guess." Haley stood, watching me, her hands behind her back, rocking nervously on her feet.
Intrigued, I carefully opened the card to find a naked Santa looking at me with his traditional red hat covering his gift to Mrs. Claus. I looked up at her.
"Ha ha." She grinned.
"There just aren’t that many naked Mrs. Claus’ out there."
Smiling, I read the card, which of course had a funny message, but what caught me was what Haley had written inside.
Andi,
Thank you for being you, and for letting me be in your life. You have changed me in so many ways over the last fourteen years, and for that I thank you. I hope you’ll always be willing to be in my life.
Love,
Haley
I looked up at her, feeling the slightest bit of a lump in my throat. Without a word, I grabbed her to me, giving her a hug, my eyes closed as I squeezed.
"Always," I whispered.
"Always," she whispered back.
Pulling away from her, I looked at what else was in the card. Having a feeling of what it was, I opened the small paper folder that held two plane tickets. Attached to them on a yellow sticky note read: ‘For when you decide to go to California.’
I looked up at her.
"Haley, this is too much."
"Not at all. I hope you don’t think this is presumptuous of me, but you had said you wanted to see the Pacific. You can take whoever you want, see the state together. Those are good for a year."
"You know I’d take you." Again, we stepped into another hug, but this one wasn’t about to let go anytime soon. I sighed, feeling complete for the first time in my life.
"Merry Christmas, Andi."
"Merry Christmas, Haley."
* * *
Christmas was a lonely affair for me this year, like so many before it. I went to my mom’s house the day of, and of course Chris and his wife were there, and Clive and his family. I enjoyed myself, but truth be told, I wanted to be alone. The worst feeling in the world was to be lonely when in a crowd.
I got home, and went to bed.
* * *
It was New Year’s Eve, and I had a party to go to. When Haley had gotten back from New York, she had come right over to my house, and within the hour she had managed to talk me into going. She said she had the perfect date lined up for me.
