I followed the line of stars, slightly awed. “You know, people have charted stars for me a million times but I always forget how it works. How did you learn to do it?”
“Boy Scouts.”
“Speaking of the Big Dipper,” Cracker interrupted us, “where is Nate tonight?”
“He had a business dinner,” I said, trying not to sound defensive.
“Oh, of course,” Cracker said. “Wednesday night at the Rodanthe Rotary. That's so bogus.”
Was it me, or was Cracker bringing the mood down, taking shots at my boyfriend? “You know, Cracker, I give up on you and Nate. You're probably better off keeping your distance, but if you got to know him I think you'd understand him. You might even like him.”
“When a pig flies.”
I wanted to go over and wrap his scarf around his face until he became a muffler mummy. At least that would shut him up. I think Ben sensed the tension between us; he kept talking, which is not Ben's style at all. Usually, Ben is the strong, silent type, as intrusive as an end table.
“Actually, the Big Dipper is not a constellation,” Ben went on, and I realized he had spoken more tonight than he ever had in the past year. Maybe he was trying to cheer Cracker up, too. “It's part of Ursa Major, which means “Great Bear.” But it is a popular star group, probably because it's so easy to spot. You know, in Southern France they call the Big Dipper âthe Saucepan.' In Great Britain it's a âPlough.' And for runaway slaves, it used to be a symbol of freedom because it led them north as they traveled by night. Did you ever hear that spiritual about âfollowing the Drinking Gourd'?”
“That's right,” I said, my thoughts still floating among the stars. “A symbol of freedom. Hard to believe that there's something we share with people around the world, people throughout the ages. The same stars. Isn't it amazing?”
“I find it more amazing that you can hang a wish on the death of a star,” Cracker muttered.
“Call it superstition, but I definitely felt something when that star shot across the sky. I mean, in the entire universe there's this huge action, this enormous thing that just happened, and I can't believe that anything about it was an accident. It's got to be a sign. A sign of good things to come.”
“Says
you,”
Cracker said.
“Would you lighten up, Professor Poopypants? Don't you ever look for the signposts along the way? Indications that you're on the right track?”
Cracker shook his head. “Sweetpea, I've been derailed for some time now. When you're speeding down the highway to hell, you don't stop to admire the view.”
“She's got a point there, Cracker.” Ben squinted at him. “Unless you buy the theory of a totally random universe, you've got to heed the signs along the way.”
I have always been fascinated by signs and symbols. “You know,” I said “when I was a kid I came across this chart in a children's almanac. Three or four pages of symbols and signs. I was familiar with some of them, like a skull and crossbones for poison, and a little school house with an âX' for a school crossing. And then there was the universal symbol for âno'âthe old red circle with a slash through it. No smoking! No pets! No diving! But others were foreign and strange to me.”
That was back in the days when my life had seemed normal, when I had a mother and a father like the other kids at school, two parents who left my sister and me alone to fight and wrestle and make up and pass a flashlight from top to bottom bunk for reading under the blankets at night. That was how I'd discovered the symbols. I was probably just seven or eight at the time, my sister eleven or so, and she'd tossed the book onto a stack on the floor as if it were useless. “A bunch of crap,” Jane had called it, grabbing my attention by using a word that was forbidden in our house.
I'd picked up the book and it had opened before me like panels to a hidden passage.
“I remember scanning the chart,” I told the guys, “running my fingers over the rows of symbols and their meanings, so clearly spelled out. And I thought,
here it is, right before me.
Here's what everything means. As if those pages of symbols could explain it allâthe secrets of the universe revealed.”
Cracker sighed. “Honeylamb, I wish it were that easy.”
“No, you don't,” Ben spoke up, and Cracker and I turned toward him in surprise. “That's like wishing for light without darkness, or yin without yang. Without the quest for symbolic meaning, the final outcome would lack significance. Part of the enlightenment comes through the journey.”
For the second time that evening, Ben surprised me. Apparently there was a beautiful mind lurking beneath that surfer-dude facade. More insight into the man who'd abandoned civilization to mire himself in sand and surfboard wax.
“Something gives me the feeling I am in way over my head.” Cracker squinted at Ben. “That's pretty heavy stuff for an expatriate engineer. Who died and made you Obi-Wan Kenobi?”
Ben just gave a stiff smile. “No animals were harmed in the making of this expatriate.”
Cracker and I laughed, and I slung an arm around his shoulders, glad that the tension between us had broken. “Can you show me some more constellations, Ben?” I asked.
As we walked, our shoes scuffing over sandy pavement, I thought of how one symbol led to another. The constellations had been named by ancient Greeks, and Greek mythology had its counterparts in Roman legend. In college, my humanities major had opened the door to vast matrixes of symbols and their multifaceted meanings as professors demonstrated how nearly every cult and religion possessed the same archetypes. Most people recognized that Venus was the Roman embodiment of Aphrodite. But to learn that Venus also symbolized the planet Venus, which ruled those born under the astrological signs of Libra and Taurus, and represented the angel Ariel, or possibly Mary Magdalene's womb . . . to learn that it was associated to the colors pink and green, to the stones rose quartz and pink tourmaline, which symbolized romantic love and friendship . . .
As my friends jumped over the candy-cane-striped curb of our parking lot, I smiled at the vision of my shop, its cedar shakes and gingerbread trim lit up like a gingerbread house. Maybe it was my fascination with symbols that drew me to this unusual occupation: proprietor of The Christmas Elf. There were so many symbols for Christmas: stars and bells, mangers, candy canes, gingerbread men, fat red bows and pine cones dusted with silvery snow, mistletoe and holly, poinsettias, evergreen trees topped by white angels. My shop offered an abundance of decorations, samplers, and knickknacks bearing those symbols, along with a few more modern items like holiday CDs and watches and clocks that chimed carols on the hour.
The shop happened by accident, really. I'd followed Nathan Graham, the love of my life down here to . . . well, to be with him. Just as I was getting out of grad school at Brown, Nate had decided to try his fortunes as a realtor here in this predominantly summer community. At that time he'd been separated from Gina for about a year and believed that the move would give him the space he needed. I couldn't agree more, having been the “other woman” for awhile, putting up with Gina and Nate's kids living just a few blocks away in Providence. Somehow, packing the car and a U-Haul trailer and rolling south on I-95, I had realized that the trip was the beginning of a bonding adventure for Nate and me.
The Outer Banks would be our place. Our home.
Since Nate had his spot at Munchin Realty, he'd already secured a basic one-bedroom cottage a block off the beach in Nag's Head. While he lined up summer rentals, I kept busy unpacking and decorating the place, which required a few coats of paint, borders, and numerous trips to Pottery Barn, Pier One and local beach shops for accessories. For a while I was in my element: turning a drab, poorly insulated shack into a cozy four-star bungalow with built-in hot tub and Japanese garden. But once our cottage became worthy of a spread in
Better Homes and Gardens,
boredom set in.
I remember those early spring days, pressing through the wind as I walked miles along the beach, impatient for summer to come, longing for fulfillment of my career aspirations. There I was, a Master of Fine Arts, marooned on a deserted island among a community of sweet-talking, slow-moving people who eyed me as if I were a cute alien. In truth, I was a fish out of water. This long, narrow barrier reef island is dotted by ethereal lighthouses and isolated from the mainland by its very nature. The only access is by a bridge to the north or a ferry system to the south, boats traveling between Cedar Island, Ocracoake, and Hatteras. If you want to get anywhere you have to travel for miles on Highway 12, which takes you through every town as well as stretches of preserved wetlands like Pea Island, a strip of tall grasses and dunes where lumps of fog sit on the road even on the sunniest days. We're far from the mainland, yet loaded up with satellite TV and hot tubs, with plenty of stores and shops and a Brew Thru, where you can drive right in and stock up on liquor without even stepping out of your car. It's a land apart, and it took me awhile to adjust with my east-coast, Yankee priorities.
One afternoon I was nursing a beer at The Crusty Captain when Cracker leaned over the bar and told me one of his customers was interested in my work. People were friendly, but Cracker was the first person I'd really met in town, and I'd brought him a couple of Christmas ornaments I'd been crafting out of pine cones, ribbons, and glitter glueâjust something to do to pass the time since the pine cones fell right in our back yard. “Her name's Ms. Raven, and she told me she'd buy a whole carton of your doodads for her gift shop down in Hatteras. But I told her you were just making them for your family.”
I remember that moment well, my jaw dropping as my heart sparked. “She would give me money for these things?”
Cracker grinned a snaggletooth smile that, along with his growly voice, reminded me of a crocodile. “She offered ten dollars for a dozen, but I think we can get her up to fifteen or twenty.”
And with a box of pine cones and a bartender's crooked grin, my business was born.
Right away, I expanded my repertoire, using hot-glue guns, Styrofoam balls, beads, sequins, and ribbons to fashion an array of ornaments, which Nate started selling from the reception area at Munchin Realty. Then, when Nate saw the summer tourists pull out wallets fat with disposable cash, he quickly found me a retail space of my own in this gray-shingled cottage, just across the parking lot from the strip of stores containing The Crusty Captain, Ben's Surf Shop, and Miller's One-Stop General Storeâand The Christmas Elf was born.
“Great Gussy, Ricki! Hurry it up before your jingle bells freeze!” Cracker called from the porch of The Christmas Elf, where the rest of the carolers streamed inside.
Back in reality, I quickened my step to catch up. The shop had been kept open by my part-time assistant, Adena, a quiet student at Carteret Community College who now was ladling hot, spiced cider for Georgia and Lola. Ben and Tito were already settled in on the sofa, and Cracker stood cranking the cords on the Christmas cuckoo clocks, one of his daily rituals when he stopped into the shop.
Strains of Handel's “Hallelujah” chorus filled the cinnamon-spiced air as I slipped out of my winter gear and joined Adena. “How's it going?” I asked, slipping a red and green striped apron over my head.
“Great!” Adena smiled, her naturally rosy cheeks a good match for her disposition. She was pretty enough for a Rockwell portrait, if the artist wouldn't mind including the row of piercings that ran up her left ear. “A few customers from Devil's Kill dropped by, and we got a large phone order from Oregon. Oh, and someone wants the poinsettia quilt. I told her we'd hold it until Monday.”
“Did you hear that?” I called to Georgia. “Sounds like your quilt will be sold.”
“Woohoo!” Georgia beamed. “That'll be like found money.”
Georgia had made it with some church friends in a quilting bee, and I'd agreed to sell some of their rich, warm works of art on consignment. “I'll be sorry to see it go.”
“We've got another one almost ready for you,” Georgia said, beaming. “It's covered with Christmas snow scenes.”
“I can't wait to see it.” I turned on my cell phone and saw that I had three calls from Nate. They must have come in while we were caroling. I hit the speed-dial and he picked up.
“Hey, hi!” I said. “We just got back from caroling and I saw that you called.”
“I can't talk now,” he said. “I'm having dinner with Chet.”
“Oh. Were you calling about something important?” I asked.
“Just killing time. I'll see you later.”
“Okay, bye.” I tried to sound cheerful as I clicked off, but nobody likes to hear that she's a time-killer. I would have to give Nate a little talk, but for now I tucked the stress away and smiled over the shop, which was brimming with pink faces, fragrant spices, and lively chatter.
I took a sip of warm cider, then went to my craft table to turn on the hot-glue gun. I'd been working on snow clouds, a berry garland, and glittering Christmas starsâdecorations for the Christmas pageant at the elementary school, an annual event in Nag's Head. I figured now would be a good time to finish so that Adena could deliver them in the morning.