Cole in My Stocking (18 page)

In case the front yard didn’t effectively communicate the festive occasion, the décor inside screamed
Christmas!
from top to bottom. The corners were filled with table-top Christmas trees and ornaments. A handsome sideboard along one wall held a Christmas village on a bed of cotton that looked like snow, complete with ice-skating figurines on a mirror-pond. Jars of candy canes and peppermint candy added a holiday touch to the windowsills and mantles. The main attraction was an eight-foot tall Christmas tree taking up the wall between a large, stone fireplace and a bay window that looked out over the front yard. At least I assumed it was a tree. It was cone shaped but otherwise covered with too many lights and too much tinsel to make out exactly what lay underneath.

Cole helped me out of my jacket, and Bernice took both mine and his down the hall, presumably because the row of coat hooks in the entryway was at capacity. While she was gone, Bill shouted, “Hey Gina!” in the general direction of the kitchen.

“Yeah?” came a shouted response.

“Come meet Cole’s girlfriend!”

“Cole has a girlfriend?” I heard five exclamation points at the end of the feminine shriek, the exact wording of which was repeated by two other women and then in a squeaky voice that had to belong to a pre-teen girl.

“As of last night!” Bill shouted back at the kitchen, eliciting a chorus of squeals.

Cole chuckled and pulled me in front of him so I was standing with my back to his front. His forearm banded across my upper chest. The way we were standing, his family would have no doubt that yes, Cole had a girlfriend and I was she. Either he was trying to make that statement, or for reasons of self-preservation he was using me as a shield from the horde of gibbering females clomping in our direction.

A striking blond woman in a dress with a bold red and white print led the parade out of the kitchen. Skipping at her side was a girl with braces who looked about twelve years old. Behind them was a plump older woman with a dark blond bob who had to be kin to Bernice and a solidly-built woman who looked to be in her thirties wearing a sweater in the exact same shade as the one I had on. She had her dark blond hair scraped back into a ponytail tied with a green ribbon.

The woman in the red dress stopped in front of me, her bright eyes bouncing between me and Cole.

Bill slung an arm around her shoulders. “Gina, this is Mandy. Gripper’s daughter.” To me, he said, “This is my wife, Gina, and this is Mallory, our oldest. Bill Junior, Tom, and Zach are our boys. This is our Aunt Suzanne,” he said, indicating the woman with the bob. Nodding at the woman with the ponytail, he said, “This is our sister, Holly. Her husband, Glen, is a cop in Derry. He’s on duty today, but he’ll stop in to say hi. Nancy, Viv, Don, Van, and Gramps aren’t here yet. When they come in, the number of kids will double, so brace yourself.”

“Nancy and Viv are our other sisters,” Cole said in my ear. “Don and Van are their husbands. Gramps lives with Viv and Van and their kids.”

Everyone smiled at me warmly. I would never remember all their names.

“Hi.” I gave a little finger wave. “Thanks for letting me crash your Christmas.”

Bernice snagged my hand and dragged me to the kitchen. “Don’t be silly, sweetheart. You’re not crashing. You’re practically family.”

I cast a frantic look back at Cole. I didn’t do excited female chit-chat, and I had a feeling that’s what I had in store unless my new boyfriend intervened.

Grinning from ear to ear, he made no move to rescue me. He actually seemed to be enjoying my panic.

I narrowed my eyes, sending him the message that he’d pay for this later.

He winked and headed deeper into the living room with Bill.

Those Oakleys were going back. First thing in the morning. Unless Cole made this up to me in a big way.

Chapter 14

“It’s present time!” Gina announced once the dining room table had been cleared by the older children.

Christmas dinner had been turkey and gravy, mashed potatoes, yams, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, and the best stuffing I’d ever tasted. Though dinner had been scheduled for two p.m., the turkey hadn’t “popped” until four thirty. The lengthened cooking time had confounded Bernice. No one else had been surprised, since she had a habit of opening the oven door to ponder the doneness of the turkey while letting out all the heat. She had done this several times per hour until her eighty-five-year-old father, whom everyone called Great Grandpa, had taken a break from frosting cookies to stand guard over the oven door. “I’ll pop
you
if you touch that oven door one more time, Bernie!” He’d slapped a rolling pin against his palm for emphasis. “Every time you do it, the damn thing needs to preheat all over again.”

“How else will I know when it’s done?” Cole’s mom had said.

“When we all drop dead from starvation. That’s when it’ll be done if you keep opening that door!”

Cole had guided me though the kitchen as if his mother and grandfather hadn’t been shouting at each other, and made me his accomplice in plundering the cheese and cracker tray.

“Here,” he’d said. “You carry the pickles and olives. I’ll get a new box of Ritz from the pantry. You need another Coke, honey?”

Meanwhile, three feet away, “You had to have been switched at birth with my real daughter. My real daughter would know how to cook a turkey!”

Hooking an arm around my neck, Cole had steered me out of the kitchen.

“Is this normal?” I’d asked over the snack-laden plate in my hands.

“Is what normal?” That had been answer enough.

Cole had a big, boisterous family, and they had all gathered in this house for the holiday to love each other the way people who have known each other a lifetime do. I found the dynamic fascinating, probably because this family was completely different from mine. For Dad and me, Christmas had usually included an exchange of unwrapped, utilitarian gifts like flashlights and pocket knives and a pizza from Bruno’s to be consumed in front of the TV. We would watch the characters from our favorite Christmas movies work out their problems in lieu of acknowledging our own.

Eventually, the turkey made it to the ten-foot, antique table, which was set with mismatched, everyday plates and silverware. The older kids sat with the adults while the younger ones ran around and played. Each of Cole’s siblings got up at least a dozen times to feed, change, or correct a little one. Direct relation to a child didn’t seem to be a prerequisite. Everyone pitched in with all the kids. This made it hard to remember who belonged to whom, but the demonstration of family closeness left me as sated as the delicious meal. Not once had anyone raised their voice with any real anger. Not once had anyone insulted anyone else. Not once had anyone made me feel unwelcome or unworthy.

After depositing a load of dirty silverware in the dishwasher, I found Cole helping Holly arrange the kids into a semicircle around the tree. When he saw me, his face lit up, and he extended his arm. I snuggled right up against his side, where I’d been pretty much all day except for the initial hour of female getting-to-know-the-new-girl time. He’d hardly left my side since reclaiming me from the estrogen-laden kitchen, so I’d decided he was forgiven. Also, it hadn’t been that painful. The women in Cole’s family were friendly and welcoming and actually pretty fun to talk to.

He drew me down with him onto an overstuffed, plaid-patterned loveseat.

Gina clapped once and said, “I’ll be Santa. Is everyone here? Zach, where’s Nathan and Bill Junior?”

“Upstairs playing with Grandpa’s train set,” Gina’s youngest said.

Bill pushed himself off the couch with a groan. “I’ll go get them.” He pecked Gina beside her lipsticked lips on his way to the stairs.

A few minutes later, Bill herded his two older sons into the living room, and the crowd was complete, if not exactly orderly. Smooshed beside me and Cole on the loveseat was Viv, Cole’s youngest sister, who was eight years older than me and nursing a one-year-old. Viv chatted animatedly with another of Cole’s sisters, Nancy, who sat on the end of the nearby couch. Nancy was pregnant out to here with twins. Her husband, Don, yakked with Bill over by the window while he nudged a pudgy toddler back toward the other kids with a foot. Holly, Cole’s oldest sister, was waving a prettily-wrapped present before Cole’s little nieces and nephews, attempting to bribe them into compliance, I assumed. Bernice was perched on the arm of the couch, telling Gina which presents to start with. Viv’s husband, Van, was next to Bernice, looking haggard but happy. And Cole’s grandfather was deep into a turkey coma over in the recliner.

Gina and her daughter, Molly, worked together to distribute presents. Gina kept reminding everyone to wait until all the presents were handed out before opening them. A few of the younger kids couldn’t quite manage this feat, and the adults greeted their lack of patience with fond smiles instead of harsh words.

While the two “Santas” handed out parcels wrapped in shiny paper or tucked into gift bags, Cole kept his eyes on me. His gaze was soft, a tummy-tingling contrast to his usual intensity. He was probably checking to make sure I didn’t feel weird about not having anything to open. He needn’t have bothered.

The kids all had a lot of presents, but most of the adults only had a few. I didn’t mind not having one, and I’d decided to return the Oakleys tomorrow, so I wouldn’t have an awkward moment of giving Cole something and him feeling weird about not having anything to give me.

I returned the smile in his eyes, happy just to be here to share this experience. This was how I’d always imagined family should be, but it was completely disparate from the reality I’d known. Cole and I had only been together for a short time, but I knew I would cherish the chaotic beauty of this day for the rest of my life.

“For you, Mandy!” Gina sang out, tossing a flat box in red paper onto my lap.

Cole winked. He had a modest pile of presents at his feet.

I looked for a tag on the gift in my lap, certain Gina had been mistaken.

To: Mandy. From: Bernice. So so happy you could join us, sweetheart!

Talk about a punch to the emotional epicenter. I had to bite my lip to keep from crying.

Gina clapped and said. “All right, everyone. One…two…three…tear into those gifties! Go! Go! Go!”

Pandemonium ensued. It was like a pack of hyenas descending on a herd of paper antelope.

Shouts of young enthusiasm exploded one after the other.

“Thank you, Gram!”

“Oh, mom! Look what Uncle Bill got me!”

“Nathan, that’s mine! The blue one is yours!”

I was so transfixed by the disorder I forgot about the present on my lap.

Cole rubbed my shoulder with his thumb. “Open it.” He nodded at the present. Then he removed his arm from around me and turned his attention to his own gifts. Whether the moment of privacy was intentional or not, I appreciated it.

With difficulty, I wrenched my attention off the glowing faces of Cole’s nieces and nephews and the flying bits of ribbon and paper and looked down at Bernice’s gift. The paper was beautiful. Metallic red with embossed snowflakes in a flat red of the same tone. I peeked at Bernice, who was busy hugging one of her grandchildren. I opened it carefully, preserving the paper as much as I could, not sure why when all around me, shreds of wrapping were becoming land-fill material. It felt like everything about this present, from its unexpected existence to its tag to the loving way it was wrapped to whatever lay inside held great importance.

I’d received many presents from friends and sometimes even from boyfriends over the years, but nothing from a maternal figure since Mom had died. My brain recorded every nuance as I lifted the tape along one seam with a faint snap, slid the white box, like something you’d give clothing in, from the sheath of paper, and wiggled the top off.

Whatever lay inside was wrapped in silver tissue paper. I lifted the bundle from the box. It was light. Definitely some kind of clothing. A blouse, maybe? A lightweight sweater?

I lifted one flap of tissue paper and then the other. Crimson cashmere flirted with my fingertips.
Stroke me,
it tempted.
Rub me on your cheek. I am soft enough to swaddle a newborn in, and I’m all for you.

I lifted the fabric and unfolded it. It was a luxuriously long scarf wide enough to fold in half and still have the coverage required to keep a neck warm from the chill. It slid like water through my hands. It was the most beautiful present I’d ever received.

I stared at it as tears filled my eyes.

Cole’s arm went around me. Then his other. He held me, giving me a safe place to cry my eyes out where no one but him or me would know.

“You like it?” he asked.

I nodded against his shoulder, speechless.

He thumbed away my tears. He looked a little choked up, too, not like he would cry, but like he felt a fraction of what I was feeling, and it made him happy. “She got it for you a few days ago. When I saw you were home, I decided you’d be coming here with me today. Ma said it would be poor form to have a guest come for Christmas and not have a gift to open.”

I peeked up at him. “She didn’t have to do that. I didn’t get anything for her.” I should have brought the poinsettia I’d gotten at Wal-Mart last night or a decoration for the tree or a dish to contribute to the meal.
Something.

“She wanted to. She’s just like that.”

“She didn’t even know we were dating when she got it.”

“I know. I think she was hoping, though.” He winked.

The reality that I was dating Cole settled over me like a lead bib when you’re getting dental X-rays, weighty, unshakable. It made me feel claustrophobic, but it also made my tummy tighten with giddy butterflies.

He really was my boyfriend. His family liked me. This was happening. Whether I was fully committed or not.

Before getting into his truck this morning, I’d thought I could walk away from Cole when I returned to Philly. I was no longer sure I could do that.

The problem was, serious relationships didn’t work in my life. Hard to have a serious relationship when one half of the couple doesn’t do sex. I couldn’t imagine having a conversation about sex with Cole, let alone actually
having
it with him.