My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories (16 page)

But North wasn’t looking at her. He stared past her with widened eyes. “And how, exactly, do you plan on carrying a tree into
that
?”

*   *   *

Furniture and bags and boxes were stacked to the ceiling. Literally
to the ceiling.
Even with the overhead fixtures turned on, the apartment was still dark. The towering, shadowy objects blocked most of the light. And there was only one pathway through it, straight ahead, barely wider than a person.

“You’re a hoarder.” North’s voice was amazed and incredulous.

“I’m not a hoarder. And neither is my mom.”

“Then what’s with all the hoarding, hoarder?”

Marigold’s chest tightened like a Victorian corset. “It’s a temporary situation. We’re … between houses.”

“Why isn’t this stuff in storage?”

“Because storage costs money, and we’re saving it for the new house.”

North didn’t have a comeback for that one. An abashed expression crossed his face, but it disappeared quickly. Purposefully. Maybe he understood. “So … where am I supposed to put the tree?”

“I told you. I’ve got it from here.”

“Clearly you don’t. It can’t even fit through there.” He gestured at the narrow pathway. “And where’s your end game? Where do you plan on putting it?”

Marigold was overwhelmed by a familiar sense of fear and humiliation. How could she have let him up here? How could she have spent money on something that they’d have to throw out next week? Something that couldn’t even fit into their apartment? Her mother would be furious. Marigold’s heart raced. “I—I don’t know. I was going to put it in front of the sliding-glass door. Like all the others in the building.”

North craned his neck across the threshold. “The balcony door? The one straight ahead? The one
behind
that china cabinet?”

“Yeah. Maybe?”

“You’re insane. Why would you buy a Christmas tree?”

“Because you’re extremely persuasive!”

North whipped around to stare at her. For a moment, his expression was unreadable. And then … he smiled. It was warm—unexpectedly warm—and it made Marigold feel the teensiest bit calmer.

“So what are you gonna do?” he asked.

“I guess … shift some of this around?” Her expression was as doubtful as her question. After all, she and her mother hadn’t touched anything since they’d moved in.

North took a tentative step inside the apartment. As he scratched the back of his head, Marigold’s chest sunk. She shouldn’t be embarrassed—
They had a reason for this, damn it. This was all temporary, damn it
—but she was.

“This is madness,” he said. “There’s no way it’s safe.”

“We’ve been here for a year, and nothing has fallen on us yet.”

“You’ve lived in this pit of death for
a year
?” He slunk into its depths. The pathway led to the most basic and primal living areas—kitchen, bathroom, bedrooms. “I’m sorry, I can’t let you bring my tree in here,” he called out from around the corner. “It would die before Christmas. And that’s only five days away.”

“Doesn’t matter.
My
tree only has to live until tomorrow.”

“What’s tomorrow? The day the demolition crew arrives?”

“It’s Yule. The winter solstice.”

North’s head popped out from behind a wobbly stack of dining room chairs. “Are you a witch?”

Marigold burst into a surprised laugh.

“Wiccan, I mean? A Wiccan witch?” he asked.

“No.”

“Pagan? Some kind of … neopagan?”

Marigold shook her head.

“A druid? I don’t know, who celebrates the solstice?”

“Anyone can celebrate it.” She followed him farther inside. “It’s an astronomical phenomenon.
Science.
The winter solstice is the shortest day of the year.”

“So you and your mother are … scientists.”

Marigold grinned. “No. My mom’s definitely a pagan.”

“And here I am, asking again: why, exactly, did you buy a Christmas tree?”

“Because I
like
them. My dad”—Marigold stopped herself before continuing uneasily—“He celebrated Christmas. My mom didn’t, but she agreed to make them a part of our tradition, because they’re nice. And nature-y. And, besides, the Christians probably wouldn’t even have them if it weren’t for the pagans who celebrated Yule. Evergreens were
their
thing first.”

She expected him to call her out on being so defensive—Marigold was always getting defensive—but the lines in his forehead softened. “And where’s your dad now?” he asked.

Dead. He was expecting her to say
dead.

“In Charlotte,” she said.

“Oh.” North looked relieved, but only momentarily. “Divorce?”

“They were never married.”

“Siblings?”

“I’m an only child.”

“And where’s your mom?”

Marigold had thought she’d made this clear. “She lives here, of course.”

“I meant, where is she
now
?”

She felt embarrassed again, which was followed quickly by frustration. “Work. She works a night shift.” But as soon as the words left her mouth, Marigold was horrified. She’d just told a
stranger
that they were
alone.
How could she be so stupid?

But North only seemed irritated. “So there’s no one here to help us. Fantastic.”

“Excuse me?”

He slid out a turquoise Moroccan end table from the top of a furniture tower as carefully as if he were playing a game of Jenga. “You’ll have to back up now.”

Marigold’s frustration was growing at a colossal rate. “Sorry?”

“This can all be reorganized, but I’ll need a lot more space to work. Everything in these front rooms”—North gestured his head from side to side—“needs to be moved out there.” He jerked his head toward the outside hall. “You’re in my way.” And then he pushed forward, backing her out of her own apartment with her own Moroccan end table.

Marigold was gobsmacked. “What are you
doing
?”

“Helping you.” He set down the table beside her Christmas tree. “Obviously.”

“Don’t you have to get back to work?”

“I do. Which is why you’re going to keep doing this while I’m gone. One item at a time, okay?” He nodded, answering his own question. “Okay. I’ll be back when my shift is over.”

*   *   *

Marigold didn’t understand how he’d talked her into this. For the last two hours, she’d been carrying dusty chairs and dirty cardboard boxes and trash bags filled with linens and laundry baskets filled with tchotchkes into the outside hallway. Ms. Agrippa had yelled at her three times.

What would her mother say when she came home—in the earliest hours of the morning—and found that their
entire apartment
had been rearranged? And that Marigold had let a
stranger
help her do it? That it was his
suggestion
?

Though … this wasn’t true. Not entirely.

Marigold did sort of know why she’d let him talk her into this, and it wasn’t just because she thought, for sure, that
now
she could ask for his help with the voice work. North’s company had been the most entertaining she’d had in ages, since her friends had left for college last autumn. With North, she didn’t know what would happen next. And for the last several months, Marigold had known
exactly
what would happen next. A broken, depressed mother and an endless schedule of work, alleviated only by the silent company of her computer—and the world and people contained within it.

North was real. North was
flesh.

And now her own flesh was covered with a thin glaze of sweat. Great.

It was just after ten o’clock, and she was paper-toweling her armpits, when she heard his heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. She hastily threw away the paper towel and greeted him at the door.

“Happy solstice.” North handed her a tree stand.

“We
do
have one of these. Somewhere,” she added.

“I believe you. I think you have one of everything in here. But I’m not betting on our chances of finding it.”

Marigold wasn’t sure if she was amused or annoyed.

North barged past her and into the apartment. “Thank you, North,” he said.

Annoyed.
Her jaw clenched. “Thank you, North.”

“You’re welcome, Marigold.” He glanced around the room appreciatively. “Wow. You got more cleared out than I thought you would.”

“Like I told you earlier: I’m stronger than I look.”

“It’s brighter in here, too.”

Marigold couldn’t refute that, but … everything still had to come back inside. She wished she could throw it all away instead. “You seriously think we can fit all of that back in here? And with enough room for the tree?”

“You sound doubtful. Why do you sound doubtful? I have yet to do a single dubious thing in your presence.”

Dubious.
That was another good word. Not only did she like
how
he spoke, but she liked
what
he spoke. “You’ve done a few dubious things,” she said.

“Name one.”

“Helping out
me,
someone you don’t even know, in such an extreme manner? That’s textbook dubious.”

“I’d like to argue that”—he grinned—“but I can’t.”

“Why
are
you helping me?”

His eyes returned to her apartment, scanning its square footage, measuring its nooks and crannies. “Because I have superior organizational skills. I sense how things can fit together. I’m, like, a human Tetris. It’s my superpower. It’s my duty to help you.”

Marigold crossed her arms. “Your superpower.”

“Everyone has at least one. Unfortunately, most people have dumb ones like always being the first to spot a four-leaf clover. Or always being able to guess a person’s weight to the exact pound.”

Marigold wondered if that were true. It was nice to think that she might have a superpower, even a dumb one, hidden inside of her. What might it be?

“Okay.” North pushed her back into the real world. “While I move the rest of this furniture”—she hadn’t been able to move the bigger items—“you’ll need to vacuum and dust. It’s like eight cats live here. Do you have eight cats?”

“I have eighteen.”

“Ah. But you do have a vacuum cleaner?”

Marigold lifted her chin. “Yes, of course.” Though, admittedly, they hadn’t been able to use it here.

“Will Ms. Agrippa be angry to hear you vacuuming at this hour?”

“Very.”

North’s eyes glinted. “Perfect.”

*   *   *

Marigold vacuumed, fended off her neighbor, and dusted the newly emptied areas of her apartment while North hauled around the furniture. She hadn’t wanted to admit that they didn’t have dust rags—well, they
did,
but God only knew where they were packed—so she used washcloths from one of the trash bags. They were the decorative washcloths that they used to save for company.

The apartment had two bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen, a dining room, and a living room. When the front rooms were clear, North explained their next move. They were standing in the center of the small dining room. Marigold had never stood on this particular patch of carpeting before.

“We’re gonna turn this room—since it’s divided from the others—into your storage space. We should be able to fit almost everything in here, including the stuff from your bedrooms, and we’ll stack the rest alongside that wall.” He pointed toward the longest wall in the living room.

Marigold frowned.

“It’s all about how it’s packed and stacked,” he said. “What I saw when I arrived was a complete mismanagement of space.”

She understood his logic, but after how she’d been living for the last year, she still couldn’t imagine anything different. Or, she had to acknowledge, maybe she wasn’t
allowing
herself to imagine it. Maybe that would only lead to disappointment.

“The movers did that,” she said. “They’re the ones who put everything up here.”

“But
you
left it.”

Marigold was too ashamed to answer his unasked question.
Why?
She wasn’t even sure she understood the full answer. Thankfully, North was already walking through the apartment again. “We’ll need the biggest, flattest pieces first,” he said.

“Like the china cabinet?”

“Exactly.”

They carried it together, stiffly and clunkily, but the instant it was in its new place, Marigold felt … lighter. The sliding-glass door was free and clear. She could see outside—the tree lot, the grocery store, the December sky. The crescent moon. She could step onto her balcony, if she wanted. If it weren’t so cold and windy.

And now there was a place for the tree.

“What’s next?” It was hard to downplay her excitement. “The bookcases?”

North shook his head. “That’s an
empty
china cabinet. Wasted real estate.”

“Oh.” Marigold hesitated. The cabinet usually held a mixture of hand-thrown pottery crafted by her mother’s friends and heirloom china that her grandparents had actually brought here
from
China. But she had no idea where these items were currently located. “I’m not sure where we packed the nice dishes,” she admitted.

“We don’t need the nice dishes. We just need to fill it.”

North pointed out the correctly sized boxes and bags, and they used them to pack the interior. They moved on quickly, removing the large farmhouse table from her mother’s bedroom and resting it on its side across from the china cabinet. Into this arrangement, they inserted the bookcases—stacking their shelves with still-packed boxes of books—and two overstuffed living room chairs. A porch swing, two rocking chairs, four patio chairs, a lawn mower, and half of the regular dining room chairs were further tucked in with expert precision.

The way North stacked everything—some things upside down, some things on their sides—
was
Tetris-like. Blocky. Stable. Every piece of furniture was padded with linens and towels, and every remaining crevice was jammed with knickknacks and small appliances. Everything was dusted before it was slid into place. North only vetoed a handful of items—a lamp, a table, a rug, and a few others. Those were set aside.