A Carol Christmas (29 page)

It seemed I was barely asleep when someone banged on the bathroom door. “Hey, who’s in there? I need to use the can.”

I climbed out of the tub, rubbing my hurting neck.

The banging started again. “Hurry up, man.”

I opened the door to find a blond-haired guy, shirtless and in jeans, waiting none too patiently. He wasn’t even half as cute as Gabe.

“Thanks,” he said and pushed past me, shutting the door on a corner of my blanket.

Interesting. He didn’t even ask who I was or how I got in. A man on a mission.

I left the trapped blanket and stumbled out to our tiny living room, where the couch was now vacant. I stepped past the empty potato chip bag and the glasses scattered in my path, and sat on the couch. It would be more comfortable to lie on it, I decided, and let myself fall over. The guy in the bathroom had warmed it all up. I took over his pillow and blanket and shut my eyes.
Today the couch, tonight my bed
.

“Hey, excuse me.” A hand shook my shoulder, and I cracked open an eye.

It was Mr. No Shirt. “Who are you? I was sleeping there.”

“I’m Andie. This is my apartment, and now I’m sleeping here. You can have the bathtub.”

He glared at me and stomped off, and I shut my eye again.

The next time someone woke me, it was Camilla. “Andie, you’re home.”

I knew I couldn’t have slept for long, because this time when I opened my eyes they were still as gritty as ever and I felt that slightly woozy feeling you get from lack of sleep.

“Where’s Wess?” Camilla asked.

“In the tub,” I mumbled.

“Oh. Taking a bath?”

“No, I sent him there to sleep. I just got in on a red-eye, but I didn’t have a bed to sleep in.”

Camilla’s face turned red. “She wanted her own bed.”

“Yeah, well, that makes two of us,” I growled. “Tonight she can have the bathtub.” I said and rolled over.

Pretty soon other voices woke me.

“This is my roommate, Andie,” Camilla said to the people lounging around my living room, drinking coffee.

Everyone murmured hi and looked at me like I was some unusual specimen on display in a science class. Mr. No Shirt regarded me as if I were a hostile alien.

“You can have your bed back,” said the strawberry blonde who was occupying the best chair in the apartment. She was already dressed in very expensive-looking jeans and a blue cashmere sweater. She was dangling one leg over the chair and eating cereal from one of my bowls. My favorite bowl, in fact.

“Gee, thanks,” I said.

“We’re going to hit the after-Christmas sales,” Camilla explained.

No “Andie, would you like to go?” But, of course, they wouldn’t ask me. They knew I needed to sleep.

I nodded and got off the couch. Mr. No Shirt flopped down and took my place. Maybe they’d taken a vote on whether or not I could come, and he’d cast the deciding vote. Voted off the shopping island.

“Have fun,” I said, not really meaning it, and started down the hall.

Nobody answered. Nobody even heard me. They were already talking about their plans for the day.

Great to be home
, I thought, and crashed on the bed.

The apartment was silent when I finally got up. I felt like the last living person on the planet, abandoned and hopeless. I got myself a cup of coffee. What to do for the day? I could check my e-mail, but I was afraid of what I’d find.

I opted for a bath. On my second, more alert visit to the bathroom, I noticed that it was a mess: wet towels on the floor instead of in the hamper, toiletries strewn everywhere, and someone had been using my favorite body wash.

I picked up the mess, then got cleaned up myself. Then I hid my body wash. There. That was better.

In the kitchen I found the sink piled with dishes, and there were more dishes scattered around the counter. Camilla tended to leave dirty dishes around, but never anything like this. If the four little pigs thought I was going to clean up after them, they could think again. I got my purse and went shopping myself.

While I was out, I decided to be a good sport and make dinner for our guests. They hadn’t exactly seen me at my best yet. Some homemade butternut bisque (my specialty) would make a good impression. I did stop for a minute to ask myself why I was bothering to make a good impression on people who obviously didn’t care about making one on me, but I decided I didn’t want to answer. Then I’d have to start asking myself all over again why I was here with people who didn’t care about me instead of home with ones who did.

Back with my squash, I called Camilla on her cell. “Hey, I’ve got dinner covered. When do you think you guys are coming home?”

“Oh, don’t worry about dinner,” Camilla said breezily. “We’re going out for pizza. Wess is paying.”

“Pizza sounds great. Where are you going?”

“Uh, we’re already there.”

And you ’re not invited
. “Oh,” I said. “Okay.”

“Don’t wait up for us,” said Camilla. “And don’t worry about your bed. Tess said she’d share mine.”

Which she was supposed to have been doing in the first place. “Thanks,” I said.

My sarcasm was lost on Camilla. “No problem. See ya.”

And I’d rushed home for this, could hardly wait to leave my crazy family for the world of sane people. I grabbed a carving knife from the wood block on the counter and put it through the squash, telling myself I needed a quiet evening at home, anyway. I had to get prepared for my big meeting the next day.

After my solitary meal (I cleaned up after myself and left the rest of the mess for Camilla and the snob-slobs), I made a half-hearted attempt to finish my mystery novel. But I found I simply couldn’t get fired up over who had done in Emily Emerson, not with the mess the life of Andie Hartwell was in.

Our phone rang, and I checked the caller I.D. It was Mom. I didn’t have the courage to pick up. What could I say to her?
Sorry I made you nuts and ran away
. That was exactly what I needed to say. but the words were lodged in my throat, probably caught there under other, less noble words.
You made me come back and I didn ’t want to. If you'd have just let me stay in New York where I was happy, this would never have happened
. Yeah, it was all Mom’s fault I’d been a Grinch.

Our vintage answering machine clicked on. “Andie, it’s Mom. Are you there? I guess not. Sweetheart, we need to talk. Please call me.”

I half got up to grab the receiver as she spoke, then fell back in my chair. I couldn’t pick up. Not now, not yet. Maybe not ever. I went to bed and pulled the blankets over my head.

I tossed and turned that night, thinking about my family, my future, who I was, and what I wanted to be. I tried desperately to put the words of the stranger from the cab out of my mind. But I couldn’t. I just kept playing them over and over. All that talk about walls. Someone else had been talking about walls recently. Who … ?

Oh, my
. The guy in the emergency room. Two men talking about the same thing. To me. What were the chances? And, come to think of it, those two men had looked a lot alike. I started remembering all the movies I’d seen with …

Oh, don’t be ridiculous, I told myself. Next I’d be seeing Scrooge’s ghosts.

I left the bedroom and tip-toed past the sleeping bodies in the living room to nuke myself a cup of instant cocoa. Then, steaming mug in hand, I stood, looking out the window at a sky tinged with predawn light and began a do-it-yourself shrink session, starting with acknowledging some important home truths I’d been denying.

Like, if I were going to be honest with myself, I had to admit I’d built up some walls. Hiding behind them, I could distance myself from the craziness, the squabbles, the over-the-top behavior of my family. From a distance, I could tell myself how much I loved my family while completely avoiding them. I could check out and skip happily down my own, self-centered path. Boy, I put on a good face: Andie the perfect, Andie the problem-free.

Andie the distant, Andie the hypocrite.

Keira was right. I liked to pretend I was superior, but when my superiority was tested by my family’s imperfections, I flunked. Oh, I was an expert wall builder.

And grudges? I could hold a grudge tighter than Scrooge could pinch a penny, especially against poor Gabe.

I squeezed my eyes shut in an attempt to block out all the scenes pressing in on me: my embarrassment over my mom’s business, giving the brush-off to an old friend, changing my departure date, my rudeness to Gabe on our near-bakery trip, and my undignified climb out the bedroom window. Oh, that was the worst, the most pathetic of all. Even though I’d tried to find one, there was no excuse for what I’d done.

I hadn’t exactly been at my best since I’d been back either. I don’t like me in New York, I thought.

I felt hollow inside, the kind of hollow that couldn’t be filled by a simple cup of cocoa.

The sun was rising now, opening a blazing curtain of color on a new day, my big day at work. And all I could think about was fixing the mess with my family. What was I going to do?

Chapter Twenty-one

Image Makers was the same buzzing hive of activity I had left only a few days ago, with busy co-workers shooting casual hellos at me. No one asked about my Christmas.
Welcome back to the Big Apple. Take a number. And don’t expect anyone to call it
.

“You look awful,” said Iris, but she never asked me what was wrong. Had everyone here always been this uncaring, and if the answer to that was yes, why hadn’t I ever noticed?

I went to my office and checked my e-mail, not the smartest thing to do right before a big meeting, I concluded. My mailbox was overflowing with mail from my family.

From Keira: “Mom cried all day. I hope you’re happy with yourself.”

I felt sick. I deleted the message, unanswered.

From Ben: “Hey, Bruno, what gives? How come you ran out on us?”

If he’d asked me that a few hours earlier, I could have told him exactly why, and the reasons would have all left my self-made halo of perfection in place. Now? I didn’t answer his either.

From Keira again: “Gram thinks you’re a spoiled brat. I am now her favorite. You’re probably out of the will.”

I deserved to be.

I opened the next e-mail from my sister, this one with the subject heading of “Aunt Chloe.”

“Aunt Chloe is still crying,” Keira informed me. “We think she’s having a nervous breakdown.”

I moved on to the next Keira blast, titled “the wedding.” “FORGET BEING MY MAID OF HONOR,” she typed in upper case anger. “I’LL FIND SOMEONE WHO CARES!!”

Who could blame her? By now I had a lump in my throat the size of a baseball, and more e-mails as well as texts on my phone with which to torture myself.

From Dad: “Why did you run away, Princess? The only reason I came over was to see you.”

I could imagine him typing out his disappointment with his one good hand. I sniffed.

From Mom: “Andie, I’m so sorry I yelled at you. We can’t leave things like this.”

Tears stung my eyes as I typed an answer to her: “Mom, I’m a jerk. You should disown me.”

I left the rest of my family’s messages (six more from Keira and one from Aunt Chloe) unopened and unanswered, hoping I would eventually find the right words to say to everyone. I wished I were someone else, anyone else.

As I went to Beryl’s office for our pre-meeting meeting, I tried to leave behind all thoughts of my family problems. But they trailed after me like so much toilet paper stuck to my shoe.

“My goodness,” Beryl said. “You don’t look very rested, poppet. When did you get in?”

“Yesterday.”

She was looking at me like I was yesterday’s garbage.

“I’ve got concealer in my purse,” I offered, and she nodded.

“Well, let’s make sure we’re on the same page, shall we?” she said briskly, and we sat down at her desk. She pulled a folder to her and opened it and began to talk.

I tried to track, I really did. But my mind kept wandering. Even as I was here with Beryl my cell phone was probably bloating up with angry text messages from my sister and more pleading voice messages from my mom.

I was in advertising. Maybe I should take out an ad in the
Carol Clarion: Andie Hartwell has the best family in Carol
.

I rejected the idea. After what I’d done, it sounded insincere.

I should at least call Mom before the meeting with Mr. Margolin, tell her I was sorry. Keira I could text. I’d send Aunt Chloe chocolates …

“Andie? Andie.”

Beryl’s sharp voice cut through my thoughts. I realized my gaze had drifted, and I hauled it back and anchored it on her.

“Where were you just now?” she demanded.

“I’m sorry. I guess my thoughts just wandered.”

She laid down the papers she was holding and looked at me sternly. “We have a very important meeting and your thoughts wandered?”

“It won’t happen again,” I assured her.

“I should think not. You’re being given a very great opportunity here. I hope you appreciate that.”

I nodded. “I do.”

I forced myself to at least look like I was paying attention to everything Beryl said, but she saw through the facade, probably because she had to ask me the same question twice before getting an answer.

“Andie, I don’t know what is going on in your personal life, but you had better set it aside right no w,” she said sternly.

“I’m sorry. It’s just that there’s this problem with my family.

She cut me off. “You are not with your family anymore. You are at work. And we are about to go into a meeting with a client who represents a very large amount of money for this agency.”

I bit my lip and nodded. This was my career, my future. I had to get a grip.

But all I could think about was the mess I’d left behind in Carol.

Beryl stood. “All right. I suggest you pull yourself together quickly. We’re in the conference room in ten minutes.”

I nodded and hurried to the bathroom to try and hide my worries with makeup.

I didn’t look much better when I was done, but I gave up and sped down the hall to the conference room. Everyone else was already there.