Eight Christmas Eves (7 page)

Helen stuck her
tongue out at him and tried to pat down her hair, which was flying out
everywhere with static electricity.

Without
realizing it, Cyrus’s eyes had drifted down to do an automatic assessment of
her outfit. He couldn’t help but notice that she was now only wearing a thin,
clinging tank top, clearly revealing the lines of her bra and the full curves
of her figure.

Cyrus’s first
reaction was that Helen had developed physically a lot in the last year. His
second was that it was highly inappropriate for him to be noticing that at all.

As he looked quickly
away, he noticed that Ben didn’t have the same qualms and was eyeing Helen
appreciatively in typical teenage fashion.

As far as Cyrus
was concerned, it was highly inappropriate for
Ben
to be looking at
Helen that way as well.

He cleared his
throat. “Why don’t you go find another sweatshirt? It’s too cold for you to
just wear that top. Ben and I can keep working on the cookies.”

Helen nodded,
looking a little flustered, and Cyrus was relieved when she left the kitchen,
so Ben could no longer leer at her.

Cyrus asked Ben
some casual questions so he could get to know him a little. By the time Helen
returned, thankfully wearing another thick sweatshirt, Cyrus had concluded that
Ben was a nice enough boy and would probably be as safe a boyfriend as Helen was
likely to find.

It wouldn’t
necessarily be fair of Cyrus to hold against him the fact that Helen had
invited him to barge in on their Christmas Eve tradition and that he’d leered
at her body too much.

*
* *

When the cookies were made and
Ben went home, it was time to change for dinner. Cyrus went to his room to
shower and change.

As he was
making his way down to dinner, Helen came running down the stairs so quickly
she almost barreled into him.

She wore a dark
green cashmere sweater that he thought was far too mature for her age in
neckline and clinginess. The only saving grace was that she wore a velvet
jacket over it. Her hair was loose and shiny, hanging down her back. It had
been clipped up before, so Cyrus hadn’t realized how long it had gotten.

“Did you like
Ben?” she asked, clinging to his arm and grinning up at him.

“He seemed nice
enough.”

She frowned.
“That’s not very enthusiastic.”

“Well, I only
met him for a half-hour. It doesn’t matter if I like him anyway. It only
matters if
you
like him.”

“Well, I
do
like him, but I want you to like him too.”

Cyrus thought
about that and decided it was a good thing. At least Helen still cared about
his opinion and wanted to keep him as part of her life.

Even though, as
his father had predicted, he might not be her favorite person anymore.

As he and Helen
waited in the dining room, Cyrus figured his father would probably be smirking
over Cyrus’s surprise encounter with Ben.

Instead, when
Drake Owen walked into the room, his expression was perfectly composed,
perfectly cool, and almost arrogant. He walked with his normal slow dignity,
and he appeared neither uncomfortable nor self-conscious.

Which was quite
a remarkable feat, given the fact that Drake Owen was wearing a thick sweater
of bright green, red, and gold on which was appliquéd a hideously gaudy image
of a reindeer whose nose was actually illuminated to glow red.

At the sight of
him, Helen squealed with excitement, clapped her hands with glee, and did a
little jig of pure delight.

Cyrus stared in
absolute amazement.

“Well,” his
father said, arching his eyebrows and ignoring both responses. “Shall we eat?”

Helen was still
giggling helplessly as they took their seats. Finally Cyrus recovered enough to
ask, “How the hell did she manage to get you to wear that?”

“He lost a
bet,” Helen explained, her face astonishingly pretty all flushed and glowing
with amusement.

Cyrus blinked.
“What was the bet?”

“I didn’t lose
a bet,” his father objected coolly. “I made a calculated decision to accept a
challenge and was quite pleased when Miss Coleman managed to achieve it. I am
happy to comply with her one condition, which was my wearing her Christmas gift
to dinner.”

Cyrus couldn’t
help but smile at his father’s bland tone.

“Call it what
you want,” Helen said, “But we all know it was a bet that you lost.”

“
I
don’t
know. What was it?” Cyrus was starting to feel frustrated at being left out of
the background on this bizarre scenario.

“I was writing
a story for the school newspaper. It was about a bunch of stuff your dad had
donated to the school, and your dad was being very close-mouthed about donating
them at all. He actually thought I wouldn’t be able to find proof on my own. So
our bet—“

“Our negotiated
agreement
,” Drake corrected.

“Our
agreement
—which
was quite clearly a bet—was that if I could find evidence that he’d donated
them on my own, he would wear his Rudolph sweater for Christmas dinner.”

“So I take it
you found out all the information you were looking for?”

“I still find it
hard to believe you were able to get your hands on that evidence,” his father
said, sipping a glass of red wine.

“Never doubt my
ability to investigate a mystery,” Helen said with a grin.

“To snoop,”
Cyrus added.

Helen gave him
an indignant look. “I thought you were on my side.”

“Of course I
am. If only because you managed to get my father to wear that hideous sweater.
I’ve had to wear mine twice.”

Helen laughed,
and his father actually chuckled. When Cyrus looked over at him, he suddenly
realized that his dad was actually enjoying himself. They shared a look of
genuine warmth that made Cyrus’s chest clench.

For a moment,
it felt like they were a real family.

He wasn’t sure
how Helen had done it, but she’d been good for his father.

She’d been good
for him too.

*
* *

Cyrus was cueing up the movie
when Helen came into the media room, wearing fuzzy pajama pants, a fitted
t-shirt and a long, red sweater that tied at the waist. She flopped down on the
sofa beside him, propping her legs up on the coffee table and revealing blue
socks with big white snowflakes on them.

“So Ben’s a
no-show?” Cyrus asked.

“Yeah. His
parents wanted him to spend the evening with them.”

He couldn’t
tell how disappointed she was, since her expression was more wry than anything
else. “Well, that’s normal, isn’t it? Most families want to spend Christmas Eve
together.”

“Yeah,” she
said with a sigh.

As ridiculous
and irrational as it was, Cyrus couldn’t help but feel a little hurt that she
wasn’t satisfied in spending the evening with just him as they normally did.

He’d finally
gotten his life to a decent place. He had worthwhile work to do and was
achieving some measure of respect for it. Things were going all right with his
father. He was no longer constantly in the gossip columns for partying and
one-night stands.

And he’d
thought he had someone who felt like family, who would always like him and want
to be with him no matter what.

“Sorry I’m only
a distant second,” he said dryly, making sure to sound more teasing than
reproachful, “when it comes to company for the evening.”

She made a
squeaky sound, one that was evidently an objection. “You’re not a distant
second!” She scooted over closer to him on the couch and leaned her head against
his shoulder for a minute. “I wasn’t upset about him not being here. I was just
thinking it would be nice to have parents who made sure you spent Christmas Eve
with them.”

Suddenly
understanding her mood—which had absolutely nothing to do with a crush on
Ben—he felt a surge of empathy and put an arm around her to give her a
half-hug.

“I miss my
parents,” she said softly, snuggling against him as if she was glad for the
comfort. “Sometimes I still sleep with my dad’s sweatshirt.”

Cyrus’s throat
hurt as he felt for her, as he hurt for her. He understood her deeply. For many
long, aching years, he’d missed having a father too.

After a minute,
he cleared his throat. As Helen had gotten older, they’d been able to talk
more, but it had always been companionable rather than intimate. He wasn’t used
to dealing with the kind of naked vulnerability from anyone that Helen was
sharing with him now.

It made him
feel vulnerable too.

But it would
hurt her feelings if he pulled away, and he wasn’t willing to do that. Instead,
he said lightly, “Well, it’s not the same, but you’ll always have
me
.
That’s better than nothing, I guess.”

She sucked in a
breath and pulled away far enough to gaze up at him. Her eyes were soft and
hopeful. “You mean it? You won’t forget about me when you get married to some
gorgeous, sophisticated woman like Alicia Morse?”

“Of course, I
won’t forget about you. And what do you know about Alicia?”

“Not much,” she
admitted, “Just that you’ve been dating her for the last month or so.”

“You aren’t still
reading that trashy site, are you?” he demanded, stiffening at the thought.

For the last
two years, he’d given up almost all of his wild, reckless habits. It was partly
getting out of school and investing in a real career, but it was also because
he had trouble doing certain things when he knew that Helen was watching. If
the bloggers wrote about it, Helen would find out.

He’d drunk too
much and driven too fast and fucked too many women in some sort of futile
attempt to feel alive, but he could no longer do any of those things without
feeling guilty about how Helen might regard it.

“No, I’m not
reading it. It got pretty boring after you reformed yourself anyway.” Her lips
quivered as he rolled his eyes at her choice of words. “But I’ve heard a few
rumors about you and Alicia. Do you think it’s serious?”

He felt a
little uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation, but there was no
reason not to answer honestly. He’d always felt safe with her, like she wasn’t
a threat. Besides, she was still just a kid. He shook his head. “I don’t think
so.”

“Oh. Well,
you’ll eventually find a beautiful, elegant woman you want to marry. You won’t
forget about me then, will you?”

“Helen, stop
it,” he said, frowning because she sounded like she was really afraid he would.
“I’m not going to forget about you. I know I’m not a brother or a cousin or
anything, but I’m
something
. And I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”

He knew he’d
said the right thing when her face broke into a glowing smile. She hugged him
hard around the neck and said, her voice muffled by his shoulder, “And you’re
stuck with me too.”

That sounded
about right to Cyrus. It felt safe, secure. He figured it was what family was
supposed to be.

“Shall we watch
the movie?” he asked, pulling out of the hug. “And we still need to try those
sugar cookies.”

“Yes,” she
said, beaming at him. “Turn it on, and I’ll go get the cookies.”

Cyrus did as
she said. Then he stretched out his legs and let out his breath, finally relaxing.
If his life kept going in this comfortable direction, things would be just
fine.

It was a pretty
good Christmas Eve after all.

three
years ago

Helen was trying very hard not
to eavesdrop.

Cyrus’s
apartment did not have thin walls, and he’d closed the door to his office when
the lawyer arrived. If she wanted to overhear the conversation, she would have
to do something very obvious like press her ear against the door.

In a different
situation, she wouldn’t have hesitated to do so, but she felt really bad for
Cyrus and thought he deserved his privacy. She already knew more about his
marriage and divorce than she should have, and the whole thing made her feel a
little sick. So—even though she wanted desperately to know what his divorce
attorney was telling him—she resisted the temptation and instead wandered into
the kitchen.

His apartment
wasn’t huge and ostentatious like Drake’s penthouse. It had an airy great room
with a top-of-the-line, open-concept kitchen and a huge wall of glass doors
leading out onto a wide terrace. The exotic hardwood floors, the classic
furniture, and the expensive fabrics obviously testified to the expense, but
there was only one bedroom, one office, and one full and one half bath.

Cyrus paid for
his place out of his own earnings, although Helen knew his father had offered
him a much grander Owen property. Helen figured Cyrus’s reasons were similar to
her own reasons for insisting she live in a dorm room for her freshman year in
college instead of the high end apartment Drake had offered her.

She’d finished
her final exams after her first semester in college more than a week ago, but
she’d stayed in D.C., since there was more to do here and no one would be at
the house in Clarksburg until Christmas Eve anyway. She’d arranged to ride back
with Cyrus to Clarksburg this afternoon, but he hadn’t quite been ready to go
when she’d arrived.

To distract
herself from the temptation to eavesdrop, she started to rinse off some of the
dishes in the sink and put them in the dishwasher. Cyrus was used to having a
domestic staff who immediately picked up behind him, the dishes had piled up
over the holiday. Helen had been that way too until she’d started living on her
own in the dorm.

She loaded the
dishwasher and then began to hand wash the stemware.

She hoped Cyrus
was all right.

It had to suck
to sign divorce papers on Christmas Eve day.

She knew he
wanted to get it over with—that even the good memories from his marriage had
turned bitter—but that wouldn’t make it any easier to have the relationship
end.

Helen had never
liked Rose Marie. She’d been worried when Cyrus started to date the gorgeous
brunette with a lithe body and startlingly pale blue eyes, and she'd been even
more worried when it turned serious. Rose Marie knew how to play up to a man
better than anyone Helen had ever seen, but Helen had immediately pegged her as
shallow, superficial, and selfish at heart. Time had only confirmed this first
impression.

Cyrus hadn’t
seen it, though. He’d fallen hard for Rose Marie, and Helen had tried her best
to be supportive, since she didn’t want to alienate him.

She’d been
almost relieved, however, a couple of months into the marriage, when Rose Marie
started to show her true colors and Cyrus began to recognize that his wife
cared more about herself than she would ever care about him.

It had been
about the same time Helen had moved to D.C. to start college. Because they
were, for the first time, living in the same city, Helen had seen Cyrus more
often than ever before. They started to have lunch every week or so, and Helen
had really appreciated the familiarity and security of hanging out with Cyrus,
since starting college had been hard. Somehow, the rumors had started around
campus almost as soon as she’d arrived about the fortune she’d inherit when she
turned twenty-one. Trying to make new friends when people either labeled you a
spoiled princess or tried to suck up in the hopes of being connected to money
and power was a very difficult task.

At least Cyrus
understood.

Rose Marie,
however, had
not
understood. Whenever Helen happened to encounter
Cyrus’s wife, the other woman had treated her with increasing condescension and
contempt.

Helen vividly
remembered one evening, when her roommate was having a sex-a-thon in their dorm
room and Cyrus had said she could come over to his place to watch movies or do
homework. She and Cyrus had just been hanging out in the living room—both
working on their laptops, her on a paper and him on some sort of business
report. Rose Marie had been at a museum board meeting until late, and she’d
gotten home a little before midnight.

She’d looked
stunning in a pink, fur-trimmed suit, with her dark hair piled up on her head,
but she’d completely lost it when she saw Helen, demanding that she get out of
her house immediately and not come back.

Helen had been
too shocked and horrified to even respond, but Cyrus had snapped into fury.
Without speaking, he’d taken Rose Marie’s arm in an unyielding grip and walked her
back into the study. Helen was able to recognize the anger in his eyes, on his
tense face, and in his stance.

She could well
imagine what they’d been discussing in the study, and soon she didn’t have to
imagine at all since Rose Marie started to yell.

Rose Marie
berated Cyrus in loud, shrill tones for not appreciating her, for working all
the time, for hoarding his money and never giving her any, for treating her
like she was silly and stupid.

“You’d rather
spend time with that
child
than with your own wife,” Rose Marie had
shrieked. Helen knew instinctively the “child” being referred to was her. “And
I’m not going to put up with it. You have to decide. It’s me or her.”

Finally, Cyrus
raised his voice enough to be heard through the closed door. “You know I’ll
never accept such an ultimatum. She’s my family.”

“She is
not
your family! You’re not even related.
I’m
your family.”

“Then for once
try to act like family and think of someone besides yourself. I’m not going to
stop seeing Helen. To even ask such a thing of me is appalling.”

“Then that’s
it. I’m leaving. You can have your little Helen, since she's obviously more
important to you than me.”

That had been
the last straw for Helen. She jumped up, gathered her stuff together, and
hurried out of the apartment, just as she heard Cyrus tell Rose Marie that she
was absolutely insane.

Rose Marie and
Cyrus had separated soon after that evening, and the divorce proceedings had
been completed remarkably quickly, thanks to the Owen money and the skill of
his lawyer.

This afternoon,
it was finished, just over a year since Cyrus and Rose Marie started dating.

Helen was
wiping down the sink and counter when Cyrus and his attorney emerged from the
study.

She scanned
Cyrus anxiously. He was a little paler than usual, and there were shadows under
his eyes. She was pretty sure he’d been working too hard and hadn’t been
sleeping, but he was as well-dressed as normal, in black trousers and a black
dress shirt. With his five o’clock shadow and lean, strong body, he looked masculine
and sophisticated both.

She always felt
pleasure and familiarity when she looked at him. But, for the first
time—ever—Helen also felt a surge of attraction. It was like she wanted him in
a way she never had before.

The feeling
startled and upset her. When she'd been younger, she hadn’t even thought Cyrus
was handsome. Now, of course, she recognized he was, but she’d never really
thought about him that way. To be hit with that kind of visceral response to
him completely out of the blue was quite disorienting.

And it was
almost certainly wrong.

She shook it
off and focused on what mattered, the fact that signing the divorce papers
would have been very hard for him.

He noticed her
look of anxious scrutiny and gave her a tired smile.

“Good
afternoon, Ms. Coleman,” the attorney said with a friendly grin. “You’re
getting prettier every time I see you.”

Helen smiled at
the man, smoothing down her dark-red corduroy jacket over her jeans. He had
always been nice and had sounded like the compliment was sincere and not
because he wanted something from her. “Thank you. I hope you have a merry
Christmas.”

“You too. Merry
Christmas, Mr. Owen. I hope your New Year is a good one.”

Cyrus returned
the greeting and walked his lawyer to the door as Helen finished wiping down
the kitchen counter.

“You didn’t
have to do that,” he said, returning to the kitchen once the other man had
left.

Helen shrugged.
“Just killing time.”

“Sorry you had
to wait. Things took longer than I expected.” Cyrus ran a hand through his hair
and closed his eyes momentarily.

“So it’s done?”

“Yes.
Officially divorced.”

“Well,” she
said, feeling a little awkward and self-conscious. “At least it’s over.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m really
sorry, Cyrus.”

His blue eyes had
been unfocused, but he shifted them quickly to her face. “What are you sorry
about? It wasn’t your fault.”

“I know. I just
meant I’m sorry it happened at all. But I know I…I mean, I know it didn’t make
things easier that I was around…I know she didn’t really…” Helen trailed off,
her cheeks flushing deeply. She wanted to say something to acknowledge her part
in all of this—that she appreciated Cyrus standing by her and not dropping her
because his wife had been territorial and insecure—but she couldn’t figure out
a way to say it.

“Helen,” he
said, taking a step closer to her. He took the dish cloth she’d been using out
of her hand and put it on the counter. “What happened had nothing to do with
you.”

She just
nodded, swallowing hard.

“She would have
found something to accuse me of, whether you were around or not.”

“I know.”

His eyes held
hers intently. “She didn’t like anyone or anything that distracted from her. It
wasn’t anything personal about you. It was just the way she was.”

Helen dropped
her eyes. “I’m still sorry—if my being around made things worse.”

“You don’t make
anything worse, Helen.” His voice was low and a little hoarse, and he ran one
hand very lightly down the long length of her hair. She’d been growing her hair
out now for years, and it was almost to her waist.

Some tension in
her chest and belly eased, since it had sounded like he really meant what he
said. She looked up at him again. His eyes were poignant and exhausted. “Are
you okay, Cyrus?” she asked in almost a whisper.

“I’m fine. I…”

When he trailed
off, she prompted, “You what?”

“I really tried
to love her. I thought it could work, but maybe I was wrong from the start. She
just couldn’t seem to love me.”

“It wasn’t
you,” Helen said quickly, immediately riling to his defense. “It was her. She—”
She broke off the words, suddenly remembering that it was wisest not to say
anything negative about another’s spouse, either during the marriage or after
it ended.

“She what?”

Helen
swallowed. Decided, since he seemed to really want to know, it was worth
risking it. “Maybe I’m wrong, but it always seemed to me like she never really
wanted to be loved. She wanted to be worshiped.”

Cyrus stared at
a spot over her shoulder for a long time. Then he let out a slow breath and
admitted, “Yeah. That's about right.”

*
* *

The drive to Clarksburg was
quiet but not awkward or unpleasant. Since Cyrus seemed so tired, Helen
volunteered to drive and—when she kept nagging—he finally let her.

Helen loved
driving Cyrus’s Aston Martin—one of the ludicrously expensive cars he
owned.  She was having a grand time when she glanced over at him in the
passenger seat and saw he was watching her with a faint smile.

“I’m doing
fine,” she said, a little defensively.

“Of course you
are. Why would you think I was implying differently.”

“You looked
like you were laughing at me.”

“I wasn’t.”

She shot him
another quick look and assured herself this was true.

After another
few minutes of silence except for the sound of the engine and the wind against the
car, Cyrus asked idly, “So how’s Ben?”

“He’s fine. He
went back to Clarksburg last week to spend the holiday with his parents.”

“Is he still
dating…what’s her name?”

“Julie,” Helen
replied. “Yes, they’re still dating, and it seems to be going well, I guess.”

Helen and Ben
had dated for about a year in high school. There had been plenty of reasons for
them to break up, but Helen had still been devastated when they had. It had
taken a long time for her and Ben to get to be real friends again.

They were now,
though, and Helen was happy he was in a good relationship with someone else.

“What about
you?” Cyrus asked. “Things still going well with…”

He’d trailed
off as if he couldn’t remember the name of the guy Helen had recently been
dating either.  “Ethan,” Helen finished for him. “Yes. It’s early yet, but
I like him. He flew back to visit his family in Chicago over Christmas.”

Helen had met
Ethan in Biology lab. He was a senior, and she’d loved his dark, rakish
appearance and his flirtatious attitude. He’d made her feel like she was the
most desirable girl in the world, which was not a feeling she normally
experienced.

“His family
owns a big department store chain in the Midwest, so at least I know he’s not
after my money.”

Cyrus’s eyes
were focused straight ahead, on the road ahead of them. “Just because his
family has money doesn’t mean
he
does.”

“What does that
mean?”