Sweet Christmas Kisses (104 page)

Not Rob and the kids.

“Jess.”

Lila stared from the base of the stairs. Everything she felt flooded her face.

Jess’s pulse rang in her ears and simmered at a low boil in her chest. “What’s he doing here?”

“I don’t know. I was talking to him on the phone. I guess he wanted to surprise me.”

More knocking on the door.

“You have to let him in.”

It wasn’t manners or courtesy that moved Jess. It was the raw emotion on her sister’s face. Jess groaned and opened the door. “Pete?”

“Hi, Jess. Are you going to shut it in my face again? Or, hey, here’s a new concept—how about inviting me in?”

His sarcasm made her feel better. It erased her guilt over being rude. Pete deserved that and more.

“Don’t tempt me.” She stepped back and ushered him in.

Lila said, “I told you not to come.”

“I missed you.” Pete held out the cup. “Here you go. Can you believe how warm it is out there? Seems almost wrong. It’s winter, after all.”

“Pete.” Lila stared at the cup.

“You said you needed coffee.”

“But–”

“What? Did I do something wrong?” He seemed to be asking Lila, but was looking at Jess.

Lila said, “I told him not to come. I said we’d talk when I got home.”

Pete moved further into the room, heading toward a chair. Lila took a step in his direction.

“Hold it, Pete. Not here. You two take this somewhere else. Or better yet, hash it out later, much later, after Christmas. After New Year’s. Maybe after the fourth of July. But not here.”

Pete turned his back on her to face Lila. Intended or not, he deliberately ignited Jess’s personal bomb.

“Get out.”

Lila hemmed, “Jess…”

“Out.” She pointed toward the door. “I don’t want the drama here. If you invited him, Lila, then take him elsewhere. If you didn’t invite him, he can just go. Now.”

Pete spun around to face her. “What did I ever do to you? When did you decide it was your job to run Lila’s life? Not only Lila’s, but everyone’s.”

“I have no interest in your life, running it or otherwise. Life isn’t exciting enough for you. You invite drama in. You do that just by showing up here. For this house, for this week, I get to say what I want.”

Pete’s face flushed. “You always say whatever you want.”

“No, I don’t, and that isn’t what I meant. I’m saying I make the rules here.”

Lila’s voice, soft and almost unheard, sliced between them. “You always make the rules.”

Jess stared at her. Wasn’t she fighting for her sister? She was on Lila’s side. Jess wanted to tell her… What? That she meant well?

“Not fair, Lila.”

“I’ll get my sweater.” She looked at Pete. “Wait for me in the car.”

“Whatever you want.” Pete smiled and left. His feet pounded down the steps.

At least, Lila had found her shoes. Jess refused to ask how long she’d be gone. She clamped her jaws together and watched Lila leave with her sweater and her purse. She watched the door close behind her.

Even though her world was breaking into brittle pieces, Jess had to restrain herself from calling after her, “Take a coat. It could turn cold.” Instead, she pressed her hands flat against the door as if to ensure it stayed closed.

She touched her forehead to the door and breathed deeply. 

What do you do when you go away for the holidays, arrange a special celebration for your loved ones, and no one shows up? What do you do when you look around and confirm you are, indeed, alone?

The semi-tattered games they’d played twenty-five years ago, the worn corners of the game boxes taped to hold them together, were stacked on the coffee table. The draped garland, the candles on the window sills and tabletops, were still in place, but no longer festive.

Jess scraped the cold eggs onto a plate and took a fork from the drawer.

She could’ve saved herself the planning, the packing, the long drive, the toting of stuff up those steep, skinny stairs…which, she realized, she’d have to do all over again, but in reverse this time, with no holiday party, no pay-off, for the effort she’d put into the project. Instead of bringing her family back together, this disaster only emphasized the tragic truth.

Never mind the money spent and the probable damage done to her employment by insisting she had to take Christmas week off.

She toyed with the idea of calling Rob and decided against it. Why should she volunteer to receive more bad news?

Jess moved the eggs around with her fork. Unappealing. Her appetite had vanished.

All of this effort would have been worth it for a holiday with her family. If she’d wanted to be alone for Christmas, she could’ve stayed home.

Tears worked out of the corners of her eyes. She strode across the room and out the door to the porch. The salt air would dry up her tears and the ocean breeze would blow the frustration and anger from her brain.

Jess walked along the crossover. High-level clouds rolled in keeping pace with her edginess. The light wind blowing onshore was chilly but not cold. She walked to the end of the crossover and stood at the railing for a minute before kicking off her shoes and going down to the sand.

The dry sand was surprisingly, pleasantly warm beneath her feet. She dug in her toes as the grains shifted beneath her feet. The air was too warm for a December morning. The humidity was higher, perhaps growing as the atmosphere bunched up, caught between the tropical air moving north and the cold air plunging south. This bubble of unseasonable warmth was going to blow up sooner or later.

As was she.

No one was in sight up the beach. The opposite direction was also empty. The ocean was churning and white caps rode the waves on the incoming tide as they bashed ashore. The first cold, wet fingers of salt water rushed up the sand and touched her toes. Jess stretched her arms wide and, into the fury of the ocean, knowing the human sound would be swallowed up by the greater roar, she screamed her frustration.

When it was done and the last note sounded on the last expelled breath, she didn’t feel any calmer, but thought she might have gained a sore throat.

The next lacy fringe of water snuck up. It rolled over her feet. Cold. Very. She jumped back a few steps.

Jess heard the boom of the wind before she saw it. It rolled up the strand kicking up sheets of sand as it came. Sharp specks began stinging her cheek. She flew up the stairs, scrambled to snag her shoes as she dashed past, not stopping until she reached the door. The branches of the fir tree shimmied in a gust. That lone ornament swung on a branch. Without hesitation, Jess opened the door and put it between her and the weather.

The tree rocked and the ball fell off and rolled across the boards. It was a good thing she didn’t want this tree.

But was that true? Would it still be true tomorrow? Rob and Elaine and the kids might yet come and Rob had gone to the trouble of ordering the tree and having it delivered. She didn’t want to disappoint him.

Another blast hit the tree and it danced.

Jess opened the door.

It was a big tree. In past years she’d moved her fully decorated tree to tweak the position. She could do this. It wasn’t a matter of strength, but of leverage.

She wrapped her hands around the trunk and rocked the tree toward her. Water spilled from the base and wet her feet as the tree passed the tipping point. She almost lost it, nearly went over backward with it, but despite the sandy, gritty wind, she focused. Gently rocking it back and forth, she maneuvered the tree through the doorway sacrificing the ‘fir’ on some of the outer limbs, to get it inside. Before slamming the door, she grabbed the cardboard box. She left it and the tree in the middle of the floor. She scratched her arms. They itched.

The tree was going right back outside as soon as the weather permitted, unless Rob arrived first.

****

The big wind brought rain with it, but only briefly. As soon as the shower stopped, someone knocked on the front door.

Her neighbor. She saw him through the large glass panel in the door.

She twisted the knob and opened it a few inches. “Hello?”

He looked beyond her at the tree standing in the middle of the room, then his gaze returned to her face.

“Sorry to interrupt. Just wanted to check on you. Everything okay?”

“It is, and no need to check on me.”

His face pinked up and he looked down. “That’s what I told myself, but I decided to risk embarrassment for me and annoyance from you. You screamed. Right before the rain started?”

“Screamed?” It was her turn to blush. Her cheeks felt warm.

“Well, yeah. When the wind blows off the ocean and toward the houses it carries the sound right along with it. But it was the slamming door that got my attention first. Well, after the shouting, that is. And followed by that scream, even though you looked okay when you ran back from the beach, I started to worry. If you’re okay, and you do look good, I mean you seem fine, I’ll go back next door.”

“I
am
fine. Are you watching me?” A stalker. She had a stalker and maybe a peeping tom. “I don’t know how or why you’re so informed about what’s going on over here, but it’s creepy that you keep showing up and seem to know–”

“The windows were open. I was on the porch, my side. The voices were pretty loud.”

Jess put a hand over her eyes. Was nothing private? She looked at him. She didn’t know what to say.

“Every family has problems,” he said.

Jess stared.

“All families have issues,” he repeated.

“True.” She felt off-balance.

“Anyway, I’m glad it worked out. It’s good you took the tree inside because the weather’s going to be unpredictable the next few days. There’s another front working its way through.”

“You deliver Christmas trees and weather forecasts, too?”

“Multi-talented.” He nodded toward the tree. “Need any help getting it situated?”

“As soon as the rain passes, it’s going back outside.”

For the first time, real anger seemed to edge into his easy demeanor. His eyes narrowed in a squint and his frown pushed the good-natured concern right off of his face. He stepped back.

“You’re hauling that tree in and out? Why? For what?” 

“What’s it to you anyway? It isn’t any of your business.”

“Apparently not and you’ve made that very clear. If I’d known it was going to cause you so much hassle, I wouldn’t have brought it.”

Jess corrected him. “You wouldn’t have brought it if Rob hadn’t ordered it.”

He spoke softly, “Rob didn’t order it.”

She frowned. “But you said…”

“I said it was special delivery.”

“Who then? If not Rob? Rob told me he was taking care of the tree.”

“Maybe he intended to take care of it when he got here.”

Confused, she shook her head. “Then why did you bring it?”

“Thought you might need one, considering the season and the occasion.” He turned away, but before he vanished around the privacy panel, he paused and said, “Guess you still don’t remember me, do you?”

Remember him? What did that mean?

Jess started to follow him around the panel and would’ve gone right up to the door, knocking, demanding to know what he meant, except that she couldn’t. Her feet carried her back the other way—inside and to the photo album.

She touched the leather cover. Like a faint whisper in her head, she heard a name.

She lifted the cover of the beach album, but stopped short of opening it. The pictures played out in her head instead.

Kids on the beach. Shorts and sweat jackets. The smell of salt and ocean. Squeals and shouts.

She hadn’t recognized him. Hardly surprising. She hadn’t
forgotten
him. It had been long ago, true, and brief, but some things don’t get forgotten unless…

Unless one wanted to forget?

Jess closed her eyes and tried to recall his face, then and now. The dark eyes hadn’t changed, or not much. The face had hardened, the bone structure stronger.

He’d been a cute kid. He’d seemed especially cute that last year when they were twelve.

Jess opened the album and thumbed through. He was in the group of kids on the beach. Suddenly, he was very clear and real in her head.

She looked toward the front door. He was only yards away. A few steps and a knock on the door, and then what? Trading old memories? How hypocritical could she be? Acting as though the memories meant something when she’d dismissed him from her life so easily?

A few steps away. Next door. She had to say something.

Maybe an acknowledgement then? He’d arrived with that tree and a foolish smile on his face. He’d remembered the Dawson’s and had brought an evergreen welcome in his arms. So an acknowledgement from her, and maybe an apology, too, was called for.

Before going outside, she stopped to fill a large cup with water and poured it into the basin of the tree stand. Someone else had done that when the tree was outside and she was pretty sure she knew who—someone who’d tried to keep the tree fresh during its stay on the porch.

Jess stepped outside, but didn’t make it past her side of the privacy panel. Pete walked up the steps to the porch.

“Jessie.” He stood on the crossover, not moving onto the porch itself. He wore a cap. Water droplets covered it. The sleeves of his jacket were wet.

A few raindrops sprinkled them as they stood there. Her jaw tightened. Annoyance spurred aggression. Those feelings rose in her, battling for prominence.

A small voice in her brain told her to back off. She crossed her arms, in fact, holding them. It might appear to be a stubborn pose, but it also kept her hands from wringing his neck.

“Lila’s not here,” she said.

“I know.” He looked down at his shoes, then up again. He met her eyes. “I want to speak with you.”

“Why? Whatever is going on between you and Lila isn’t my business and you don’t need my approval.”

“Not really true, though.”

“So you care what I think?” She scoffed. Not likely.

He shrugged. “Not really, except for how it affects Lila. She cares a lot.”

“Since when?” Jess threw the words out in reflex and heard the sharpness in them. She jammed her hands into her pockets.