A Carol Christmas (13 page)

Keira didn’t even wait for me to straighten or slide over. She piled in on top of me and shut the cab door, screaming, “Get in, Ben!”

“Get off me!” I demanded.

She got up enough for me to pull my torso free.

I sat up, holding my nose. It felt like a punching bag with Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, and Evander Holyfield all pounding on it at once. “You broke my nose.”

“Better a broken nose than getting your body torn from limb to limb.”

I looked past her, out the truck window. “I don’t see anything.” My sister had just broken my nose for the sake of an imaginary cougar.

“It’s out there,” she said and began scrabbling in her pocket.

I grabbed her arm. “Touch that pepper spray and you die. We’re safe in the truck now.”

“But Ben’s not.”

“And he’s not even worried. That should tell you something. You broke my nose for nothing more than a runaway imagination.”

She looked at my face. “It’s not even bleeding.” Then she turned back to scanning the horizon for predators.

Her lack of sympathy inspired me with an uncivilized urge to mash her face into the cab window and see if her nose would bleed. “Thanks for the sympathy,” I grumbled. “I saved your life.”

Ben climbed into the cab. “What was all that about?”

“I saw a cougar,” Keira told him. “Didn’t you hear me screaming for you to get in the truck?”

“Yeah, but since there wasn’t anything around but a mongrel dog, I wasn’t too worried.”

“Dog?” she repeated weakly, and I glared at her.

Ben shook his head and started the engine. “I’m out with Dumb and Dumber.”

“Not funny,” I said, insulted.

Keira was still peering out the window. “Are you sure?” “Yes, Keir, I’m sure. I saw it too.”

“Well, you might have said something before she trampled me,” I complained.

He shrugged. “She wouldn’t have listened.”

“Just like you didn’t listen about the tree,” Keira said. “We’re going to have to saw half the thing off just to get it in the house.”

“It’ll look great once it’s up,” Ben said.

That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it
, I thought.

We went down the road like a street sweeper, the dangling branches brushing the dusting of snow from the pavement. Passing cars hugged the curb or swerved and honked.

Keira looked out the back window. “We look like a float.”

We looked like something, that was for sure.

Ben went down the middle of our street in an effort not to hit any of the neighbors’ cars parked along the curb.

At one point we heard a yelp and saw a fuzzy four-legged ball doing a backward somersault.

“Oh, no! Stop the car!” Keira commanded. “Your tree just drop-kicked the Baileys’ dog.”

“Is it okay?” Ben asked. He didn’t stop, but he checked his side mirror.

I looked over my shoulder. Mrs. Bailey had come out and was cradling her cockapoo. The dog was wriggling and licking her face, probably thankful to be alive.
I’ll never complain about my humans again
.

“Looks like you dodged that bullet,” I said.

Keira pointed to the left and cried, “Look out!”

“What!” Ben swerved and the truck skidded, making the monster tree in back do the hula.

We skated sideways on Ben’s bald tires and heard scraping as the tree ran woody fingers along the side of a car parked in front of the Harrises’ house. This was followed by a distinctive
thwunk
that proclaimed something got broken.

“Oh, no,” Keira moaned. “Your tree just attacked that car. Looks like it took off the side mirror.”

“Great,” Ben said. He scowled at Keira. “What were you yelling about, anyway?”

“A cat. You were going to hit it.”

“Better a cat than the Harrises’ car,” Ben said.

“That’s a terrible thing to say,” Keira scolded. “Anyway, that’s not their car. They keep both theirs in the garage.” Ben sighed. He stopped the truck, leaving it in the middle of the road, and got out.

Right on cue, the Harrises’ front door opened to reveal Mr. and Mrs. Harris and three other people—a couple and a man. Mr. Harris and the two men were just shaking hands when Mr. Harris saw Ben walking toward him. His easy smile melted into a frown.

“Roll down the window some more,” Keira commanded. “I want to hear.”

I complied, deciding if anything bad were going to happen, Keira and I should be prepared.

“Good grief,” Mr. Harris was saying in disgust. “Why’d you bring home such a monstrosity, anyway? What were you thinking?”

One of the men in the visiting trio said, “That’s okay. The streets are slick. It could have happened to anyone.”

“Not necessarily,” said Mr. Harris. Implied message: only a Hartwell could manage to sideswipe a car with a Christmas tree.

I felt my face start sizzling. I wanted to call out, “I’m just a passenger, a visitor.” No, make that “I don’t know these people. They kidnapped me.”

“I’m really sorry,” Ben said to the owner of the damaged car. “I’ll be happy to pay for a new side mirror. And a new paint job,” he added.

“Don’t want to report it to your insurance?” goaded Mr. Harris.

“Well, it’s a small enough thing,” said the other man amiably. “What’s your phone number, son?”

While Ben and the other man exchanged phone numbers, I heard the third man ask Mr. Harris, “Are these people neighbors?” He was looking at us like we’d stepped out of the pages of
The Grapes of Wrath
.

“They live down the street,” Mr. Harris said evasively and made a wave with his hand that implied we were clear at the end of the block.

Two whole houses down, I thought.

“The neighbors on both sides of us are great,” Mr. Harris continued.

The man looked at us thoughtfully. Keira tilted her head and looked cross-eyed at him, and I slumped down in the seat.

“What are you doing?” I hissed.

“Just giving them something to look at,” she said loudly enough for the entire neighborhood to hear.

Ben skidded back to the truck and got in, and I put the window back up.

“It looks like Mr. Harris had a fish on the line to buy his house,” I said. “I think we scared him away.”

Keira chuckled. “Merry Christmas, Mr. Harris.”

Poor Mr. Harris. I really couldn’t blame him for wanting to get away.

We took out the mailbox turning into the driveway.

Mom came to stand in the doorway and looked to where the truck was hiding under our evergreen. “That looks awfully big,” she called.

“That’s what I told him,” Keira said as she came up the walk, “but he wouldn’t listen.”

“It’ll be fine,” Ben muttered and set to work turning the tree loose.

As Keira had predicted, it was too big. We couldn’t even get it into the house, so Ben was banished to outer darkness to chop off limbs while we stayed warm inside and helped Mom untangle strings of lights to the accompaniment of Christmas music on the radio.

“We Need a Little Christmas” had just begun to play when the door opened and two sets of legs began marching in under the flopping boughs of the tree. Maybe James the bass player had stopped by, I thought hopefully.

“We’re putting it in the usual spot by the window,” Ben said.

James didn’t know the usual spot for the Hartwell Christmas tree. Come to think of it, that body looked awfully familiar. I looked again and got the now familiar zing.

The tree started to rise to its majestic height, scraping the paint off the ceiling in the process. “Looks like we’ll have to trim the top some more,” said Gabe.

Keira shot me a mischievous glance. Had she known he was coming over?

“Gabe, what a nice surprise!” Mom chimed.

Behind her a new song began, a choir singing “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”

“On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me . . . ”

A pest to match my oversized tree
, I thought.

“By the way, the snow is really sticking now,” Gabe announced as he and Ben dragged the tree out, scraping off more ceiling paint in the process.

“Maybe you should go home before the streets get undrivable,” I suggested.

“I have four-wheel drive and all-weather tires,” he called back.

Mom stood looking at the ceiling. “Looks like I’ll be ringing in the new year repainting,” she said.

“Did you know Gabe was coming over?” I asked her.

Mom shook her head. “No.”

My sister had taken advantage of Mom’s little speech and retreated to the kitchen, where she was now hiding behind the fridge door. “Anyone want some cranberry juice?” she called.

“Keira, did you know Gabe was coming over?”

She didn’t answer me.

I marched into the kitchen. “Did you, by any chance, tell him we were putting up our tree tonight?”

She was now much too busy filling her glass to look at me. “I was talking to him about houses earlier. I might have mentioned it.”

“You
might
have mentioned it.”

“Well, okay, so I did. So what?”

“So stop it already. I didn’t come home to see Gabe.” Keira put the juice container back in the fridge and shoved the door shut. “You know, we’ve all stayed friends, so there’s no reason why he shouldn’t come by to visit if he wants to.” She grabbed her glass and sauntered back into the living room.

That was beside the point. “I know what you’re doing,” I said. “You’re trying to match us up, probably as a sop to your conscience. And I don’t need to be matched. I can get my own man.”

“Yeah? Who’ve you gotten so far?” Keira taunted.

“That’s enough, you two,” Mom said just as the door opened again.

“Okay,” Ben said, “this time it should fit.”

The Christmas tree might fit, but Gabe sure wouldn’t. In fact, he was going to be a complete damper on the evening. He had a home of his own. He should be in it. Who asked him to keep popping up here like one of Scrooge’s ghosts?

The guys had the tree secured in the tree stand now. It took up a quarter of the living room.

Ben stepped back and admired his handiwork. “Looks great,” he approved.

It’ll take two weeks to decorate, I thought.

“It looks a little tippy,” Mom said.

“Oh, it’s in there good and solid,” Ben assured her. “So, where’s the lights?”

“You guys’ll have to put them up,” Keira said. “There’s no way we’ll be able to reach around your monster tree to do it.”

Ben scowled.

“No problem,” Gabe said cheerily. He smiled at me.

I turned my back and headed for the kitchen. “Anyone want some eggnog?”

“Sure,” Gabe said. “Thanks, Andie,” he added, like I’d really meant that offer for him.

“I’ll take some too,” Ben said, shrugging out of his coat.

I fetched eggnog, and Mom put out cookies and yogurt coated pretzels, and somewhere along the way I forgot I was ticked with Keira and Gabe and got into the ritual of hanging ornaments.

“Oh, I remember these,” I said, pulling out the box with the hand-blown Italian balls. There were only three left now in a box that had once held six.

Mom took the box from me and looked at it wistfully. “Your father and I got those the first year we were married.”

I wished I hadn’t said anything.

“Look,” Keira cried, pulling out a white bird of paradise with a long, sweeping tail. “The bird Gabe gave you.” That made me think of the fun times we’d had that Christmas we were together, and I found myself smiling in spite of feeling badly about Mom and Dad.

My smile fell away as I pulled out a bell made of spun acrylic. I held it on my palm. “I think this is something he gave you.” I looked at him, daring him to deny it.

His cheeks suddenly looked like he’d swallowed a red tree light. He looked at me helplessly and shrugged.

The phone rang and Mom snagged it. “Well, April. We haven’t heard from you in ages. How are you?”

I cocked an eyebrow at Gabe and his cheeks got redder.

“Should I ask her why you broke up too?” I said to him under my breath.

“I could tell you. If you’d listen.”

“Telephone, Andie,” Mom called.

Saved by the bell. “I’m sure it’s a fascinating story, but some other time,” I said. I didn’t want to talk to April any more than I wanted to talk to Gabe. Surely it was enough for me to come home and deal with my nutsy family without having to add old boyfriends and false girlfriends to the list.

I took the receiver from Mom and injected politeness into my vocal cords before saying hello.

“So, did you get a chance to check your schedule?” she asked.

“I haven’t even had a chance to check my makeup,” I said. No lie. My family had me on the fast track. “We just got back with the tree, and now we’re putting it up. Gabe’s over,” I added, just to see what she’d say.

“Oh, wow. Are you guys getting back together?”

She sounded so genuinely interested and caring. What a fake!

“No,” I said firmly.

“You need to know something,” April said, “even if you can’t fit in getting together this week. Gabe was still hooked on you when he was dating me.”

“Right,” I scoffed.

“No, it’s true. I could tell it wasn’t working between us, and I finally pinned him down. I thought you two were long over. I mean, it had been years.” April made a sound of disgust. “When he admitted he still had it bad for you I told him to take a hike. Anyway, it was all for the best. I’m with a really hot guy now. He’s an accountant too.”

A hot accountant. I guess numbers could be exciting.

“So, maybe we could all go out together,” she suggested.

“I’ll be coming back to visit again,” I said.
In a millennium or two
. “How about next time?”

There was a silence on the phone. I could almost hear the wheels in April’s mind turning while she tried to decide if I was ditching her or planning for the future.

“Okay,” she said at last. “Let’s not lose touch like we did before.”

Lose touch. There was an interesting expression. It always made it sound accidental when people decided a relationship wasn’t worth the trouble.

“Not a good thing,” I agreed vaguely.

It seemed to satisfy her. “I guess I’d better let you get back to the tree trimming,” she said.

I looked to where the others were happily hanging ornaments. A real, live, Norman Rockwell moment. I should take advantage of it while it lasted. I said good-bye to April and returned to the tree.