LITMIR.BIZ

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Marybeth turned to wave at the gathering of wheelchairs in the recreation room of the seniors’ center the Saturday before Christmas, bearing the collective weights of people who’d grown dear to her over the three years she’d been catering their Christmas lunch party. This year she’d brought homemade ornaments for them to hang on their bedposts—ornaments she’d crocheted during the evenings while she and Brutus watched television.

      She lingered, helping lay out all the food, handing out the gifts and chatting with everyone. They pressed her to join them for the meal, but she bowed out claiming her arriving guest as her excuse.

      Leaving the seniors’ center she headed over to the Mathers’s to unload the pile of gifts she had for them on the backseat of her Expedition. Though Bonnie had tried all week to get her to change her mind, Marybeth still thought she wanted to be alone this first Christmas without her dad.

      “I can’t believe you aren’t coming over on Monday,” fifteen-year-old Wendy said as she helped Marybeth carry in packages.

      Her dad was still at work and her mother was at the soup kitchen.

      “It’s just this one year,” Marybeth told the teenager who was as much daughter and sister to her as longtime neighbor. “I think it’ll be easier if I’m not following the same traditions, you know?”

      “I get it,” Wendy said. “I’m not sure Mom does, but she’ll come around. She always does.”

      “Hey,” Marybeth said, nudging the younger girl. “How’d your date go last night?”

      “With Randy?” Wendy had had a crush on the boy from their church for months and he’d finally asked her out.

      “Who else?”

      Wendy’s blush was answer enough. “It was good,” she said and Marybeth knew immediately that this was one of those times when the word was a definite understatement.

      Finished with the presents, Wendy walked with Marybeth back to her car. “Who was your first boyfriend? I don’t remember him.”

      “That’s because I never really had one,” she said. “And it’s a good thing because you’d have been bugging us all the time if I had.”

      “No,” Wendy said, frowning. “Seriously. What about that first time you met someone and just knew you’d die if he didn’t like you as much as you liked him?”

      Warning bells ringing, Marybeth stopped by the door of her car. “I never met anyone who made me feel that way,” she said slowly, while her mind raced ahead. “But I knew some girls who did,” she added, remembering how frantic her friend Cara had been their last year in junior high. The girl had even run away from home to be with the guy she’d thought was her soul mate. “And what I can tell you is that as intense as those feelings are, they can’t be trusted until you’re a bit older. Right now, they aren’t just from the heart, but get confused and mixed up with hormonal changes, too.”

       Bonnie, don’t hate me. I hope I’m not screwing this up.

      “I don’t know,” Wendy said. “I mean, even hearing Randy’s laugh makes me all warm inside.”

      No. Not this soon. Please. “Have you talked to your mom about this?”

      “Sorta. She likes Randy. She likes his parents, too. She just tells me to be careful, but that’s not the point. I am careful. I’m a good girl. How could I not be with you and Mom in my life?”

      Marybeth grinned with the girl.

      “I’m not going to do anything crazy,” Wendy said, growing serious. “I’m just going crazy with these feelings. I’ll die if he doesn’t ask me out again.”

      “No, you won’t.” Marybeth gave the girl a hug. “You’ll call me and come over for the weekend and we’ll eat tacos and ice cream and watch movies that make us cry and talk bad about Randy and you’ll find someone else to like before you know it.”

      “You didn’t.”

      “I didn’t find a Randy, either.” Marybeth thanked fate for the little help finding a comeback on that one. “Not all women are meant to fall in love. If you are, then it’ll happen. And if not, no amount of wishing or pushing can make it happen. Wishing and pushing will only make you make mistakes. And bring unhappiness.”

      “I don’t get it,” Wendy said as Marybeth climbed into her SUV.

      “Get what?”

      “You. I mean, look at you. You’ve got it all. Looks, brains, money. You’re skinny and gorgeous. Any guy would be a fool not to fall for you.”

      “But in order for it to work, I’d have to fall for him, too,” Marybeth said, wondering if it was her father’s death, leaving her all alone in the world, that was bringing out this sudden urge in the Mathers for her to find a mate. “I’m not opposed to falling in love, sweetie,” she told her friend. “I just haven’t. And I’m okay with that. Most days, I think I prefer it that way.”

      “I sure wouldn’t,” Wendy said with a chuckle. “Think about Christmas,” she called out as Marybeth drove off.

      She agreed that she would. But she didn’t think she was going to change her mind.

      HE’D STEPPED into a Christmas wonderland. He should have suspected when he’d noticed that the garden stakes interspersed throughout the flowers were of old world Santa and snowman design, and seen the lights hiding in the garland bordering the porch railing. Red bows dotted the garland and the pine smell teased his nostrils with memories of long ago Christmases with his parents at their cabin in Northern California.

      The outside of the Orange Blossom Inn was festive. Still, it did nothing to prepare Craig for the spectacular sight as he stepped inside. From the felt and sequined door hangings and stops, to the intricately stitched wall hangings, from the colorful stockings hanging from every door handle, to the various collections of figurines sitting on every available surface, Craig’s gaze moved around the foyer and reception area and beyond to the enormous, heavily decorated Christmas tree adorning the formal parlor to his right. Brightly lit, with the colored lights he preferred over the small white lights that had become so popular, the tree promised hours of sightseeing. It looked like every single ornament on the edifice was homemade.

      No porcelain or glass or anything else that appeared the least bit factory influenced. Oddly out of place, considering the rest of Christmas abundance around him, was the bare wood floor beneath and around the tree.

      Where were the gaily wrapped and decorated packages the tableau cried out for?

      An electric train, much like the collector’s one he and his father had worked on when he’d been a kid—complete with the lighted town buildings and trees and people—filled a table that took up an entire wall of the parlor. It chugged softly along, the only moving entity in the room.

      The place smelled like cookies and pine and with a long, deep breath, Craig knew he’d made the right decision. The song “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” came to mind and it took him a second or two to realize that it was playing softly.

      There was a voice singing it, too, but from a distance. Singing live. With a tone so pure, so solid it gave him chills. Whoever that woman was, she should be in L.A., or on the stage, making millions on recordings.

      “Oh! Sorry! I didn’t hear the bell.”

      Craig wasn’t sure which he noticed first, that the singing had stopped, or that the owner of that voice he was hearing was speaking another rendition of that angelic gift.

      “I’m looking for Marybeth Lawson,” he stated his business, trying, without success, to break gazes with the violeteyed blonde standing there holding a plate of delicious-looking cookies.

      The cook? Was his first thought.

      And his second—what a waste.

      “I’m Marybeth.”

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