How I Came to Sparkle Again (17 page)

When she reached the Kennel, it was dark. Eric and Hans had forgotten to turn on the Christmas lights. It was a stark contrast to her early days with David. In addition, the only ones to greet her at the Kennel tonight were the dogs. They seemed happy to see her, though.
Maybe that’s enough,
she thought.
Maybe it’s enough to have dogs that are happy to see me.

Eric had left Jill a bottle of red wine and a Christmas cactus in her room with a card. Inside, he had simply signed his name. Hans had left her a Whitman’s Sampler. Jill was surprised and wondered if they had done that ahead of time or if they’d rushed off to the grocery store after seeing she had done something for them. Jill guessed the latter. Still, she smiled at their gifts.

When she went to the bathroom to brush her teeth, she discovered Tom had left her a gift on the bathroom counter. She unwrapped it and found three bars of soap from a local soap maker: lavender, wild rose, and cinnamon. They were all wrapped in pretty fabrics and smelled heavenly. She wondered how Tom came to pick out such a nice gift, and it crossed her mind that maybe he had slept with the soap maker. Whatever the case, it was a lovely gift.

Before she crawled into bed, she found herself missing David badly, so she called him, but she only got his voice mail. “It’s a tough day, isn’t it?” she said. “You’re the only person in the whole world who would understand. I’ve been thinking about how hard grief is, how it makes us temporarily insane, but also about the good times and about the vows we made, and I want to keep my vows to you. I just would like to spend the winter here and heal, so that when I come back, it really does feel like a fresh start. Is that okay? Call me.”

She lay in bed waiting for him to call, but he never did, and her stomach sank as she realized that he might be spending Christmas with the woman he had slept with. Even if he couldn’t be her husband on this night, she had hoped he could at least have been her friend—the only person in the world who might be feeling her loss. She had hoped for at least a call, just to let her know she wasn’t all alone in her grief. As time ticked by, she realized that the phone was not going to ring and that she was all alone in her grief.

*   *   *

Tom had gone out for drinks at the Gold Pan and had a nice holiday buzz as he walked the streets back home. But outside the door, he heard Jill’s sobs, and it sobered him immediately.

Tom considered his options. He was going to require some backup, so before going into the Kennel, he went over to Lisa’s. He opened the door without knocking. “Lisa?”

She sat watching
It’s a Wonderful Life
on TV, looked up, and said, “Thomas, I said ‘celibate,’ not ‘celebrate.’”

“No, it’s Jill,” he said. “This one’s too big for me.”

*   *   *

Lisa opened Jill’s door, came in, and put her arms around her.

“It was supposed to be my baby’s first Christmas,” Jill sobbed.

“I know,” Lisa said.

“I’ll never get another chance to have that. I hemorrhaged and they had to perform a hysterectomy.”

“Oh,” Lisa said, and gave Jill an extra squeeze.

“I told David to sing to him because I couldn’t sing to him. I couldn’t sing to my own baby. I never got to sing to my own baby! I wanted to, but I couldn’t stop crying. God, I hope he sang to our baby!” Jill covered her face with both hands and gasped for air as more sobs racked her body.

Lisa just held on until Jill finally fell asleep. She knew there were no words.

Then she snuck out of Jill’s room and into Tom’s. He was lying on his back under the covers with his knees bent. Stout slept on the bed next to him, near the window.

Tom looked over at Lisa in his door and waited.

She came in, lifted the covers, and crawled in next to him, fitting her back in close to him. He rolled over on his side and put his arm around her. She put her hand over his.

“Thank you,” she said.

He held her tighter.

“Thank you,” he replied.

chapter twelve

SNOW REPORT FOR DECEMBER 31

Current temperature: 18F, high of 21F at 2
P.M.
, low of 14F at 4
A.M.

Clear skies, winds out of the southwest at 45 mph with gusts of up to 70 mph.

56" mid-mountain, 64" at the summit. 0" new in the last 24 hours. 2" of new in the last 48.

“So, are you doing okay these days?” Eric asked Jill as she sat in the groomer next to him, eating pizza. Jill thought his voice was like one of those motel beds that vibrate when you stick quarters in it. It was low and sexy and made her cheeks tickle. Yes, the Kennel men were charmers.

“Uh-huh,” Jill answered as though everything were fine, and took another bite.

Eric looked at her a little too long.

“You know, don’t you?” she asked without looking at him.

He paused. “Yeah,” he said. “Tom told me. That’s so rough, Jill. I’m sorry.”

She just nodded and looked at her pizza. “Quick, change the subject,” she said.

“So, I’m sure you remember the Dirtbag Ball—Sparkle’s raunchy prom where that year’s ultimate ski bum is crowned the dirtbag king or queen … usually someone who crawled out of their VW bus in the resort parking lot each morning all winter smelling like body odor and their three dogs, ate a slice of leftover pizza, and caught first chair up the mountain.”

Jill laughed. No one had ever summed it up so perfectly.

“Well, I’ve been putting together my Dirtbag Ball costume,” he continued. “A couple years ago I wore duct tape pants, but they were too hot, so last year I changed things up to make them more workable. I made duct tape shorts to go with my duct tape vest and tie. I didn’t get to wear them last year, though, because I lost a bet and had to wear a dress instead.”

“Bummer,” Jill said.

As midnight approached, Eric drove to the top of the mountain near the others, pointed the cat toward where the fireworks would be, and turned it off. To their right was Hans with Lisa in his cat, and on the other side of them was Tom, who had ridden up with someone Jill hadn’t met yet.

“Hang on,” Eric said, and stepped outside. High winds nearly blew him over as he walked to the base of a little tree and came back in with a bottle of champagne. “Whew!” he said.

Just then, his phone rang. “Yeah,” he said into it. “It’s way too windy … Okay. Later.” He hung up and put the phone back in his pocket. “Everyone is staying in the cats. It’s wicked out there.”

Jill didn’t mind. She liked being warm.

He opened the door, popped the cork, and held the bottle outside while it spilled over. Then he handed it to Jill and she took a swig while he shut his door. When she handed it back, the first fireworks began exploding and Eric leaned over for a New Year’s kiss. “Happy New Year, Jill,” he said, and planted a soft one on her. It was a little too long to be what Jill would call a friendly New Year’s kiss between buddies. But then it was over and he took a swig of champagne.

“Happy New Year,” Jill replied, a little flustered.

“You’re going to have a much better year,” he said. “I made all kinds of good wishes for you while I was kissing you, so they’re going to come true.”

“Really? Is that how it works? I didn’t make any wishes for you,” Jill said.

“What? You’ve got to make some good wishes for me. Come on, let’s do it again,” he said.

“Hold on,” Jill said, and took a really long swig of champagne. As her inhibitions subsided, she unbuckled her seat belt so she could crawl partway over the console in the middle. She gulped a little more champagne and handed it back. He leaned over for the kiss. “Wait,” she said, and held up a finger. “I have to think. This wishing thing is a big responsibility.”

“Come here, you goof,” he said, and put a hand behind her head to pull her in for a kiss—still no tongue, but definitely more passionate. Jill tried to think of at least one good wish for him, but her mind went blank. All she could think of was that she wished he’d stop smoking pot every day and take better care of his health. “Sorry if that was a bit much,” he said, “but I really wanted your good wishes to come true.”

That made Jill laugh. If only he knew what they were, he wouldn’t. Outside, big explosions of red, purple, white, and green filled the sky.

“What?” he asked, alarmed that she was laughing. “What did you wish?”

“Well, what did you want me to wish for you?” she asked.

“Health, happiness, good snow, good crops, good hunting season—you know, the standards,” he said.

“Uh-oh,” she said. “Then I screwed up.” She laughed some more and rubbed her forehead. “I’m really sorry. God, I hope you don’t have a bad year all because of me.”

“Quick, Jill! Do-over! There’s still time! My future is at stake!”

This time, Jill put her hand on his cheek and kissed him very gently and very sweetly, and she wished for him all the things he desired. He had one hand on her arm and the other on her thigh. The kiss ended slowly and just as tenderly as it had begun. “Okay, I nailed it that time,” Jill said with a big, proud smile.

“I made another wish for you, too.”

“Thanks,” Jill said, and crawled backward back into her seat to watch the rest of the fireworks. Eric handed her the bottle and she took another drink.

“You’re a good kisser,” he said.

“Thanks. You too,” Jill replied, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. “Wait, is it weird that we just kissed three times?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “They were New Year’s kisses.”

“Oh, good,” Jill said.
Of course,
she realized. Eric likely kissed several women a season, or even a month. For him, it was definitely not a big deal. They could have slept together and for him it still would not have been a big deal. And of course it was strange to her. She hadn’t kissed anyone other than David since she was twenty.

She did feel some satisfaction at having kissed another man besides David. Like maybe she had evened the score just a little. She didn’t want to feel that way, but she did. Then she began to wonder if David had also just kissed someone tonight. She wanted to believe he hadn’t, but in her gut she had a feeling that he had. Still, Jill felt kissing Eric put her on more even ground with David. She was no longer guiltless. And she also understood something about how a person could feel something good and exciting with a new person, and how it was possible to get caught up in it and not to think about your spouse.

*   *   *

The ball in Times Square was on TV along with thousands of people excited for the promise of the new year. Cassie watched them with disdain. “How did they pick this day to be the beginning of the year, anyway?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Mike answered. “The sun doesn’t do anything special on this day. The moon doesn’t do anything special on this day. I have no idea who pulled this day out of a hat.”

“It seems like a big bunch of crap to me,” Cassie said.

“Let’s use the word
baloney
instead.”

“Like in an hour everything is going to be all perfect and new, like everything that sucked about last year will be gone.… It’s just crap,” Cassie said.

“Baloney,” Mike corrected again.

“Tomorrow we’re going to wake up and everything that sucks is still going to suck.”

Mike didn’t really like that word choice either, but he decided now might not be the time to pick that battle. Now might be the time to simply hear his daughter. He wasn’t sure what to do, but he figured getting away from the TV might be a good first step. “Want to snowshoe up the little ridge and watch the fireworks?”

“Sure,” Cassie said.

So they got dressed and trudged up a ridge to a little knoll not particularly far up on Big Daddy, and although they were tired, it felt good. It felt good to simply move forward in the little ways that they could. It felt good to move forward instead of lie down and give up. Mike carried a backpack with two nylon chairs that folded up into skinny tubes, a bottle of sparkling apple cider, and a little coconut cake someone had left at the station as a thank-you, and when they reached the knoll, he took it all out, popped the cork, and handed Cassie a fork.

They sat there for a few minutes in silence, just looking at the night sky together. The Milky Way was so thick with stars, it was practically blinding. Cassie took a few bites of cake and handed it back to her dad.

Mike was thinking about how on years when he’d worked on New Year’s Eve, Kate had walked to the station for her midnight kiss. One year he was on a call and missed it. He thought about how it must have been hard to be his wife, to be alone at some pretty important moments, to be robbed of holidays, or at least holidays at home, birthdays, all that. Before she told him about the lump in her breast, when he knew something was wrong but wasn’t sure what, he wondered if the distance he felt was the cumulative effect of all the times he had let her down—all those little disappointments.

“I’m cold,” Cassie said.

“Then let’s go,” Mike replied, and he folded up the chairs and put them back in his backpack along with the uneaten cake. He carried the bottle of sparkling cider as they walked away since he couldn’t put the cork back in it.

The fireworks started as they walked down through a sparse glade of young trees. They paused for a moment to watch a few, then kept walking.

When they reached home, Cassie ran herself a bath while Mike made cocoa. She took a mug into the bath with her, stirred the little marshmallows until they melted into the chocolate, and then sipped away at it until her core began to warm again. Halfway through the cup, she watched the designs the remaining melted marshmallows made. Some spots looked like hearts. And she looked at the surface of her bathwater, where the bubble bath had all popped down to a simple soapy layer, and saw hearts in that, too.

It made her wonder if they were messages from her mother like the stones, messages that the new year would be better, or if the hearts in her cocoa and in her bath just meant that hearts were everywhere if you looked for them.