When the Snow Falls Page 15

  Dwayne said, maddeningly, “I don’t have any real plans.”

  “Jane?” she prodded.

  I shook my head, though food is always a big lure.

  “Well, if Jane can’t come, maybe you can,” she said to Dwayne, smiling prettily.

  “Okay, I’ll go,” I said before Dwayne could answer. I didn’t want to go to her viper’s nest, but the truth was, I had no plans and I really didn’t want Dwayne going without me. She wasn’t being completely straight with him about her intentions, a problem I planned to rectify as soon as she was gone.

  Which turned out to be nearly two hours later as she hung around and hung around and hung around. It took me bringing up the lawsuit again, and asking her for details about what Karen said during their twelve-plus-hour stint together, and Dwayne saying he had to meet a client and leaving, before she finally looked at the time on her cell phone and made a sound of dismay. “So much to do!” she cried.

  “So, Karen never said anything about a previous suicide attempt,” I reiterated as she was leaving. “You didn’t touch on that at all?”

  “I told you, she said she was depressed about her life. That’s all.”

  “No specifics.”

  “Jane,” she said, exasperated, “why don’t you ask her? No. And she didn’t mention a brother or a boyfriend or a therapist. She’s alone in the world. It’s tragic. I still really feel for her, you know. If it weren’t for James, I don’t know how I would have survived in this world. And the holidays just exacerbate the loneliness.”

  She was edging to the door and I was following after her, intent on locking it behind her, when she suddenly turned and grabbed my forearm. “I think you’re making more of the role-playing than I meant. If you’re not into it, James and I are okay with that. We just want to get together with you two.”

  I said nothing. I wasn’t sure I could trust her.

  “I just want us all to be good friends. I think Dwayne would like that, too. He certainly only has eyes for you.”

  “Well, that’s not true.”

  “You know why he agreed to the Christmas Eve dinner? Because he knows you’re alone this holiday season and doesn’t know how to be with you without scaring you away, so I set the whole thing up for you.”

  “You’re deluded.”

  “I’m playing Santa and giving you what you want for Christmas, whether you know it or not.”

  “You’re playing Cupid,” I shot back.

  “You said you’d come Friday,” she reminded me.

  “I . . . I don’t know what I’m doing. Just go away.”

  “Promise me you’ll come.”

  I had my hand at the small of her back, gently pushing. “I’ll talk to Dwayne.”

  “You want him, Jane. I can tell your resistance is an act. I have a gift for reading people, knowing what they need.”

  I almost told her that she hadn’t seemed to get Karen Aldridge even after hours of plying her with tea and conversation. “I’ll call you.”

  “You’ll see me Friday evening. Six o’clock. Dress festively.”

  “This is about as festive as I’m ever going to get,” I pointed out. Another step or two and she’d be out the door.

  She stopped and glanced down at her own outfit. “It is comfortable, but it’s our work armor. It’s not for special events.”

  Our work armor? Good. God. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’ve got to get a life.”

  “You haven’t changed a bit since high school,” she said, turning back to me with a smile. She still had one foot in the doorway, by purpose or design, I couldn’t tell. I clung to the knob in the hopes she would leave before I had to push her out the door by force. “You always kind of wanted to be a rebel, but you’re just so sane. We’ve always been sisters at heart.”

  “I’m not sure I feel the same way.”

  “You want to tell me I’m crazy. It’s all over your face. But you know what I’m talking about. And I just know you’re going to settle this problem with Karen. Thanks, Jane. I mean it.”

  Then she finally left.

  I shut the door, locked it and backed away. Honestly, I didn’t know if she was as wacko as I believed, or if there was some sage truth in her words that I couldn’t see because I was “just so sane.”

  Either way, I was done for the day. I thought about texting Dwayne and complaining about him not telling me about fraternizing with Darcy at the wine bar, but instead I headed home to The Binkster and possibly a decent meal provided by my new houseguest.

  Chapter 5

  The following morning, I ran the two and a half miles to the Coffee Nook. My shoulder did ache a little from the gun’s backfire, but I ignored it as I went in search of coffee, conversation and a bagel, as Roberta had apparently given up cooking in favor of decorating. When I’d shown up the night before, out of sorts after dealing with Darcy’s loopiness and Dwayne’s apparent defection, it was to find more plastic boxes stacked around my living room, leaving a mere goat trail between the front door and the kitchen. The candles on the tree were lit again, but at least the holiday music wasn’t blasting.

  “What is this?” I asked Roberta, who was busily positioning garlands of fake holly and fir boughs around every door and window. There were more candles as well, trios of them nestled in rings of plastic greenery on every flat surface. A deflated blowup of a team of reindeer, Santa and a sleigh was draped atop the boxes against the wall that backed up to the garage.

  “Jane, do you have a hair dryer? I just can’t blow Santa on my own.”

  This sounded faintly dirty, but I left it, sensing she wouldn’t appreciate my take on it. “Uh, yeah, but Roberta . . .”

  “Oh, I’m almost done, dear. I was going to make dinner, but I went back to the house, just to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything, and Gary was there and it was terrible.” With that, she dissolved into tears, and I’d had to help her into my bedroom because there was no space left to sit in the living room.

  It took another hour of me finding her tissues and listening to the horror that was her ex before she felt well enough to return to the living room and finish today’s decorating. I moved the boxes off the couch so she’d have a place to sleep, and in the end we retired to the kitchen, where she put together BLTs.

  This morning, however, she was still asleep and didn’t awaken even while I fed The Binkster and took her outside to relieve herself. I took the dog back to my bedroom and changed into my jogging gear, then headed out, locking the front door behind me with my key.

  It was dark as pitch, so I had a softly flashing red light strapped around my leg and reflective stripes down both legs and on my stocking cap and gloves. I try to run during daylight hours, but I needed to get the hell out and go today. Luckily, it wasn’t raining, snowing, sleeting or precipitating in any way. My breath came out in visible puffs and my lungs burned from the cold, but it felt great.

  By the time I arrived at the Coffee Nook, it was full of customers. I was disappointed to see that my friend, Billy Leonard, whose take on life runs along similar lines as my own, wasn’t perched on one of the stools. I seated myself on one next to a guy reading the newspaper, someone I didn’t know. I have to admit I feel very territorial about my place at the Nook, and when others deign to encroach, I grow tense and competitive. Still, it is a public place, and occasionally a newbie is going to wander in and disrupt the status quo.

  Chuck’s truck pulled into the lot just after I’d ordered my bagel. I inwardly sighed. Running into my soon-to-be landlord again was almost too much. This just couldn’t become a daily event. I watched him slam out of his car and stomp toward the front door. I thought about cancelling my order, but Julie, the Nook’s proprietress, had just pulled the piping hot bagel from the toaster oven and onto a plate. She added a foil-wrapped pat of butter and a wee bucket of cream cheese and slid the meal toward me.

  “Jane!” Chuck boomed as he came in, throwing his arms wide.

  If he thought I was going
to hug him, he had another think coming. I grabbed a bagel half and shoved it into my mouth plain, then silently signaled to Chuck that I couldn’t talk right now.

  “I checked the pipes. Everything’s A-OK, but who’s the old lady living at your place?”

  The decibel level of his question was in the ear-splitting range. I shook my head to confirm that, well, there was a bagel in my mouth and I couldn’t speak. The old lady part was a low blow, especially since Chuck is a good fifteen to twenty years older than I am, and Roberta was likely closer to his age than mine.

  Julie asked, “How’s the deal going?”

  She was looking at me sympathetically, but I saw the question was for Chuck. He grumbled, “Got all kinds of problems. You know how much a goddamn appraisal is? Why can’t banks just use what’s on a property tax statement, huh? And underwriters are pieces of crap. Keep demanding something more every time you get them the last thing they asked for. A bunch of scaredy-ass box checkers with no business sense whatsoever. Makes you wonder what the world’s coming to when these are the people we have to suck up to just to get a goddamned deal to go through.”

  I followed enough of that to feel a spark of hope that maybe, just maybe, the whole thing would fall apart. Ogilvy, my current landlord, was no peach, but I clearly hadn’t given him enough credit.

  “You headin’ out?” Chuck asked, concerned, as I walked into the faint light of morning.

  “Ummm,” I said. I was bummed that I hadn’t had time to add either butter or cream cheese to my bagel, but I had one-half in my mouth and another in my hand, and leaving Chuck felt like the best idea yet.

  “I’ll drive ya,” he said. “Wanna talk to you about a few things.”

  I yanked the bagel out of my mouth, ready to disabuse him of that idea straightaway, when the skies opened up and sent an icy shower of half rain/half sleet pouring down in a thick sheet.

  “Okay,” I said.

  That afternoon, I watched the weather from my bedroom window because you couldn’t see out any of the ones in the living room. Roberta had gotten the blow-up reindeer, Santa and sleigh operational, but they were being pelted so hard that they quickly sank into a pool of red, white and brown plastic that had Roberta gazing out at them sadly.

  Chuck had been thrilled to have me to himself for the two and a half miles back to my cottage. This was, apparently, the month I was destined to pick up friends I didn’t want, and I listened in silence as he blathered on about what great friends we were and how he was going to be the best landlord ever, while I slowly worked my way through my dry bagel. The only time I perked up was when he magnanimously said he was going to allow me to use the garage as soon as all of Ogilvy’s stuff was out of it. Ogilvy had held a garage sale a few weeks back, but there were still remnants around. I’d always wanted to use the garage for my car, but that hadn’t been my agreement with Ogilvy. Maybe there was one teensy good thing about having a switch of landlords. Maybe . . .

  “Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve,” Roberta said in a lonely voice.

  She made my heart flip uncomfortably. I didn’t want to go to Darcy’s house for dinner, but I sure as hell didn’t want Dwayne going without me.

  “Today’s Christmas Eve eve,” Roberta went on. “It’s when Gary and I always celebrated. We never could do Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, as there were always his sisters and brother or his mom, when she was alive, and of course his dad, long ago. We made a pact to always celebrate on the twenty-third . . . today. Guess that won’t be happening.”

  I mumbled something sympathetic. Personally, the idea of adding another special day to the season made me feel tired. The buildup to Christmas was way too long as it was, and Roberta and her husband appeared to have found a new way to drag it out even further.

  “Guess I’m free Christmas and Christmas Eve this year. Do you want to do something together?” she asked.

  “Maybe,” I said. If I could get out of Darcy’s dinner and convince Dwayne to do the same. “I have some plans I’ve got to check on.”

  “Never mind. I’m okay.”

  She clearly was not. “Let me see if I can move things around.”

  “Okay,” she said in a small voice. “I think I’ll go see Gary tonight . . . our special night. He tried to take everything from me, so maybe I’ll show up on his doorstep, just to remind him of that fact.”

  That sounded like a really bad idea. “You sure?”

  “He can’t just sashay off with her and not expect any kind of reaction from me. This is my night, tonight. I’m not just gonna sit back and take it. I’m done with that.”

  “All right,” I said dubiously.

  Christmas Eve I was up early. I looked out my window at the dark sky and was pleased to see no precipitation so far. I peeked in on Roberta, but she was dead asleep on the couch. She’d gotten in really, really late, and I was dying to know how it had gone with the rat bastard, but it appeared I was going to have to wait.

  I put on my running gear and rotated my shoulder a bit. Much better. Instead of my usual trip to the Coffee Nook, I ran around my neighborhood. As I passed a new home that had been erected recently where an old cabin had stood, a huge black dog with enormous jaws came racing out, howling at the top of his lungs. My heart jumped to my throat and I ran like I’d never run before, but luckily the beast seemed to know the limits of its yard because it didn’t run me down and tackle me.

  My panicked sprint caught up to me, however, and I pulled up lame at the end of the road. I bent over and sucked air into my lungs, my heart pounding furiously inside my chest, all this because I didn’t want to run into Chuck again. What the hell. I was really going to have to grow some balls or, barring that—I didn’t think it was going to happen, anatomically speaking—I was going to have to come to terms with my new living arrangement . . . or move.

  I stopped in at a Starbucks that’s closer to my house than the Nook, though it felt blasphemous. I just didn’t want to go home right away, as I almost didn’t want the day to really get going. Was I falling into the bah-humbug routine? Probably. I’d also picked up a limp from my all-out race, which irked me at myself. It was with a physical effort that I finished my latte—a bad idea, I know, since I’m mildly lactose intolerant, but the coffee’s a little stronger than I like at Starbucks. Then, I squared my shoulders and headed back home in a limping walk.

  I was confronted with an octet of singing elves as I walked in. They stood in two rows, their red-and-green-felt torsos snapping back and forth to the sound of “. . . up on the rooftop reindeers pause, out jumps good old Santa Claus . . .” Their faces were molded plastic with frozen grins and staring eyes. “. . . ho, ho, ho, who wouldn’t go? . . .”

  “Oh my God,” I breathed.

  Apparently, Roberta had levered herself off the couch. I could hear the bathroom sink running.

  “. . . who wouldn’t go-oh! Up on the rooftop, quick, quick, quick . . .”

  “Roberta!” I yelled. The Binkster toddled out of the bedroom, stopped in the doorway and gazed from me to the gyrating elves, whose little peaked hats stood straight up and ended in shiny gold balls, then back at me, her brown eyes long-suffering.

  “. . . through the chimney with good St. Nick!”

  I stumbled forward and grabbed up the first elf, searching for a switch to turn it off, off, OFF! Finally finding it, I grabbed the next one, and the next, and the next, until all eight of them were frozen and silent, though their scary faces all gazed at me with evil smiles.

  I gave myself a shake all over. Though I’m not one of those people who find clowns really scary, I’d cracked open the door to that particular paranoia and found it really creepy inside.

  As I was putting the elves back in the large open box beside them, which looked to be what they’d arrived in, Roberta came out of the bathroom, dressed for the day in a long black skirt, boots and a red quilted jacket that buttoned up the front with red-and-white buttons that looked like peppermints. “What are you doing?” she deman
ded.

  I put the last elf inside and tried to put the lid back on. It didn’t fit right, and as I struggled, one of the elves started singing again, but muted, like he’d been gagged.

  “They’ve gotta go,” I said. “All of this has gotta go.” I swept my arm around the room.

  “But it’s not Christmas yet,” she protested.

  “As good as.”

  “You want me to go, too?”

  A tinny little voice sang, “. . . through the chimney with lots of toys, all for the little ones’ Christmas joys. . . .”

  “I want to commit elf-icide, if there is such a thing.”

  She looked hurt, but she simply nodded her head. “So, no dinner tonight?”

  “No dinner.”

  “Okay. I’ll start packing up.”

  She walked away from me and toward the kitchen. I felt like a heel, but I didn’t try to stop her.

  I went to take a shower, then changed into my jeans and a V-necked, long-sleeved black T-shirt. No ribbed turtleneck this time. It wasn’t much, but it helped a little in erasing the mental image I had of Darcy in one of my outfits. If she kept that up and insisted on being my friend, I might have to change my wardrobe entirely, maybe to navy blue or dark gray instead of black. I thought about adding a red scarf, but since I didn’t own one, I came out in my usual colors. By that time, Roberta had hauled several boxes out to her car and was just coming through the front door again. She said, “They’re predicting snow late tonight. Looks like we’re going to have a white Christmas.”

  I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kick her out. “I want you to stay,” I told her. “I’m sorry. I’m basically a miserable person and have a low tolerance for fun, but don’t take it personally.”

  She smiled slightly.

  “Just no elves, okay?”

  “I have a place to go.”