A Very Merry Christmas

  I found no humor in it at all. The only thing I found was desolation. Bleak, stripped, raw desolation. I found the lock, I unlocked the door, he locked it, then placed a hand over the handle. Our faces were about six inches from each other.

  “What’s wrong, Logan, is the same thing I’ve been telling you. I don’t want to get involved with you.” Oh, but how I did. “You suck me into this relationship, and then I have to pull away again. I’m pulling away now.”

  He looked at me like I’d slapped him, his face stony. “But why?”

  I shook my head.

  “No? You’re going to say, sorry, Logan, not interested, that was fun, thanks for the romance, thanks for your time, that’s it? I’m done. We’re done. You have no explanation?”

  I had an explanation, but I couldn’t share it with him. He would pity me, tell me it didn’t matter, but it would. I knew it would.

  “After all the time we’ve spent together you can’t take one minute to be honest and tell me what it is about me, about us, that you don’t like? You can’t tell me why you see no future for us?”

  That darn dam in my eyes broke again, and tears seared my cheeks, sobs catching in my throat. I wanted to bring my arms up around those shoulders again and kiss him until I couldn’t think.

  Instead I dragged his hand away from the lock, opened the door, and threw myself out of the car.

  I started running, ignoring his command to stop, to come back, to talk to him.

  I ran up one street, knowing he was following me in his truck. I cut down another, then ran up the steps to the elementary school I’d attended and headed toward the grassy field, now covered in snow. I hoped he wouldn’t follow.

  He did. He parked the car and started running after me.

  “You have got to be kidding, Meredith,” he shouted, still angry. “I am actually chasing you across a schoolyard so we can talk?”

  I kept running. He caught up to me in about five seconds. I turned to push him away, lost my balance, grabbed his shoulders, and we ended up in the expected heap on the snowy ground, him on top of me, the stars shining, that North Star still so bright, and I pulled my leg away from him. He felt so good on top of me, so strong and comfortable. I bit down on my lip in total misery. I would never have this, never have him on me again.

  We were both panting, but I was the one crying, hiccupping sounds emerging from my throat, other animal-like cries embarrassing me.

  “Meredith,” Logan’s voice softened as my sobs became worse. “Honey, I don’t like to see you this upset. I’m sorry, baby, I’m sorry.” He turned over on his back and brought me with him. “Calm down, it’s okay.”

  “You’re . . . you’re . . .” I gasped. “You’re going to get wet.”

  “I don’t care, honey, get your tears out. Cry, I’m right here. I’m not leaving you.”

  I shook my head, and he stroked a hand over my hair, another over my back, and murmured, “I don’t understand what the problem is, I don’t get it, I don’t know why you’re struggling with me, with us, but please calm down, honey, breathe, breathe in and out, here.” He stroked my back, up and down, my head on his chest as I cried, all over that muscley chest of his, as he laid in the snow, next to the elementary school I’d attended, that North Star shining.

  * * *

  “I can’t see you anymore.” My voice was dull, but resolute. The tears were, for the time being, imprisoned inside me again. I’d forced them in, and I was once more in Logan’s truck, although now we were parked outside my brick home, my Christmas lights twinkling.

  Logan groaned, his knuckles white around the steering wheel. “You’re not going to tell me why, are you?”

  “We’re not going to make it, Logan, so why continue?”

  “We could make it. You’re not allowing it.” His jaw was clenched, his body rigid. We were both exhausted.

  “We’re different.”

  “Not at all. We have a passion together I’ve never had with anyone else. With no one else. We talk like we’ve been best friends our whole lives. We laugh. I respect you, I like you as a person. We love to fly fish, ride horses, be outside. I get along with Sarah and Jacob. But you can’t trust, can you? You can’t let go of your own independence. You don’t need anyone, do you, Meredith? You can do everything on your own, run your life on your own, you don’t need help of any sort, and you don’t want to make any room in your life for me.”

  My own words, hundreds of times uttered, came back to haunt me: “I can do it myself! I don’t need help! I can do everything everyone else can!”

  I knew they weren’t true. I needed Logan. I loved Logan. I wanted him in my life.

  I had never felt so despairing in my entire life. Never. But I knew he wouldn’t be attracted to me later. I knew I’d have to see him around town, probably for the rest of my life, and know exactly why he rejected me, and I would have to pretend that I didn’t care that we were not together. I would see pity, and I could not stand that.

  I climbed out of the truck, and this time he didn’t try to stop me.

  Chapter 10

  “Logan’s gone.”

  I froze, one hand clenched around my cell phone, my other clenched around a garlic press. “What?”

  “Logan’s gone, Meredith,” Martha said. “I went down to the Community Center to do some decorating and I walked in and, wow, Meredith, wow. Logan must have been there all night. Liberty Hall said he left around 4:00 this afternoon and was catching a flight to California for work. He did everything, Meredith, everything. The stage is completely done. He finished building it out; the stairs rise in both directions. The balconies are finished. He finished building the boxes for all the Christmas trees to stand on, and then he and Paulo put all the Christmas trees on top, it looks beautiful. Meredith, are you there?”

  He was gone. “Did . . . did he say when he would be back?”

  “He said he would be gone for a while, that’s what Liberty said. He said something had come up. Liberty said that he was polite and nice like always but she said he seemed upset, sort of angry, too. Did you two have a falling out?”

  “What are you talking about?” I dropped the garlic press on the counter.

  “Well, Meredith, everyone knows that you two have been seeing each other. It’s a small town you know. People have been talking about how sweet it was that the two of you were dancing in front of the cathedral and how Logan always smiles at you, even when you’re not looking at him, and how he comes in so often to have breakfast and the two of you end up sitting down together for coffee and laughing. We all think you’re a fabulous match! If there’s a wedding, can I do your flowers? I already have the dinner menu in my head. Mary’s so excited, she wants to sit down with the three of us, have some orange mango tea, a few scones, like your mother would enjoy, maybe she can fly in for the planning?”

  I couldn’t speak. People knew? This shock was only secondary to the first one. The first one being: Logan was gone.

  “I have to go, Martha.” I hung up.

  Dark, dark sadness settled over me, about as dark as the darkness was after the accident.

  * * *

  Two days after Logan left, Maly brought me an exquisite gingerbread house decorated with white icing. Tiny green candies formed a walk to the front door, which was surrounded by a string of red licorice. Mints covered the roof. “For you, Meredith. Because you seem so sad.”

  She set the house down, then gave me a hug as my eyes flooded. “He come back, I know it. He come back. You perfect wife for him.”

  * * *

  “My friend, Meredith, please.” Chinaza indicated the chair across from his in my dining room. I glanced around at the other diners; they were all fine for a few minutes.

  “Thank you for making elegant swan in my coffee latte this morning. You are fine woman.”

  “You’re welcome, Chinaza.”

  He leaned forward, his dark eyes sad, earnest, and took my hand in both of his. “Tell me.”

  ?
??Tell you what, Chinaza?”

  “Logan has broken your tender heart. Let us, you and I, talk about it. I will offer you my solace and friendship. Remember, hold true friends with both hands. I am your friend, Meredith. I will help you.”

  He knew, too. Did everyone know?

  “Friend, Meredith, I am so sorry. Life is full of these challenges, isn’t it?”

  I nodded.

  “Yes, we have a saying in Nigeria. ‘However long the night, the dawn will break.’ Your night will break, friend Meredith. I know you and Logan will be together again soon, I feel it.”

  * * *

  “Good morning, Simon,” I said, standing by his table after talking with Chinaza who had insisted on bringing me his favorite Nigerian dish for my dinner that night.

  Simon dropped his hands in his lap and twisted his napkin. He had eaten his eggs; he had eaten three of five apple slices; he had drunk his decaffeinated coffee. “Good morning, Meredith.”

  “How was everything?”

  “It was perfect. As usual. Your cooking skills are impeccable.”

  “Thank you.”

  “However, I feel that you’re upset, which is bringing me some indigestion. My stomach is uneasy. Is there a problem?” His brow scrunched.

  Don’t cry! “I’m fine, thank you.” Oh, Logan, how I miss you. I want you back. I want you here for the concert. I want you here so I can see you, be with you. “Well, I wish my concert directing skills were as good as my cooking skills.”

  “I am positive that the Christmas Concert Series will be hugely successful.”

  “Thank you, Simon, but I don’t know.” I cleared my throat and tried not to feel too guilty about a sudden inspiration and perhaps a wee white lie. “It’s not coming together right. We so need the concert to be a success, to attract people to Telena, what with the economy being so bad. We need to add some class, a high caliber performance. Simon, would you like to play your violin?”

  Simon went pale. His shoulders slumped, his breathing became labored.

  Of course I felt terrible. We needed him to play at the concert. What a gift his presence would be. On the other hand, wouldn’t playing again help him, too? He was a world class talent. Surely he didn’t want to hide forever?

  “I can’t do it. . . .” He closed his eyes, blew through his mouth. “I can . . . I can’t . . . I could try . . . one song . . . perhaps . . . no no . . . I could try to be brave. . . A favorite Christmas carol.”

  “Great!” I leaned down and kissed his cheek. “Rehearsal is tonight!”

  I quickly spun on my heel and darted toward the kitchen before he could say no.

  For a moment, my gloom lifted.

  Norm called out, “Well done, young woman. Well done.” Then Davis counted down and all the Old Timers yelled, “Merry Meredith!”

  * * *

  The next week passed in a painful, wrenching blur, and I cried for each and every reason.

  I cried when I watched snowflakes drift down and when the bells of the cathedral rang. I cried sitting in front of the pink angel Christmas tree. I cried when carolers came to our door and when I wrapped Sarah’s and Jacob’s presents. I cried thinking of the chicken feathers I found underneath the house because someone must have kept chickens there years ago and I wondered if her life had a lot of tears in it. I cried when I decorated the trees at the Community Center with white lights.

  I cried when Mary put my hand on her stomach and I felt the baby kick and she said, “Do you think I’m having quadruplets? That’s how huge I feel. I will never be sexy again,” and burst into tears. “I will be frumpy. A frumpy Mary mommy!”

  I hid the tears from Sarah and Jacob, but they knew I was sad. Sarah said, “You know, Aunt Meredith, I have decided that Logan is pretty cool except when he keeps telling me to respect myself and that I’d better get good grades or I won’t have a future. He’s a dude.”

  So, as I figured other women in this house had done, I brushed off the tears and kept on keeping on. I had kids to raise, a business to run, a concert to put on, presents to wrap, carols to sing, eggnog to drink.

  No time for tears. Buck up, Meredith, I told myself. Buck up and Merry stupid Christmas.

  I thought I felt a pat on my back. I turned. No one was there, of course.

  * * *

  “Okay, everyone, we’re running through this rehearsal one more time,” I shouted. “Everyone in place . . . choirs on the wings. Mary and Joseph! There’s Joseph, where’s Mary?”

  And that’s when I had to stop and get all choked up and everyone else stopped and stared at who I was staring at, which was Sarah.

  Sarah, the girl who used to dress like a streetwalker with black makeup was transformed. No low cut shirt, no tight pants, no rebellious, sulky expression on her face. No, this was the new Sarah, dressed as Mary would have dressed, complete with a simple cotton shift, her hair covered, sandals on her feet, and no makeup.

  Who had gotten her to accept the role as Mary? Logan had. “No one’s perfect, Sarah, but you would make the perfect Mary.”

  Joseph, a top athlete and academic at Sarah’s high school, waved at me. “Mary and I are ready to have our baby!” he called out as everyone laughed. “We need our donkey, and we’re off to Bethlehem to get ourselves checked into a five-star hotel!”

  I glanced over at Jacob. He was at the piano, ready to play. Who had gotten him here? Logan.

  Logan had encouraged him, told him his was a talent to be shared, that Christmas was a time of new beginnings, that it didn’t matter if the kids at school called him “a piano geek,” which Jacob said they would.

  “You can get past that, Jacob,” Logan said. “What you’re not going to be able to get past is declining to play in the concert your aunt is directing even though I think you want to and your aunt needs you. Real men don’t worry about what other people think, except for the people they love. Real men act with integrity and honesty and keep working hard, they keep going even when the people around them are trying to knock them down. Don’t let anyone knock you down, son.”

  Jacob ran those talented fingers over the keyboard, then he looked up at me and grinned. I grinned back. I was so proud of him.

  At that very second, Simon walked in with his violin. He was greeted by several people. I could tell he was scared to death. But he was there.

  Christmas has many miracles.

  If only my heart could breathe.

  * * *

  “Everyone says a terrible rehearsal is a sign of a stupendous opening night, right?” I tapped my cowboy boot. Dark green, silver details. Christmassy.

  “Sure, Aunt Meredith,” Sarah drawled in her pregnant Mary outfit. “One of the kid angels refuses to wear her halo and wants to wear her devil mask instead. Those teenagers playing ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ have dyed their hair pink. The choirs are off-key and sound like hyenas. Anybody know when to come up on stage?”

  “Meredith,” Martha said. “The prop with Rudolph collapsed, Lee can’t find the extra microphones, Juan wants to know where the elf costumes are, and the cradle for the baby Jesus has mysteriously disappeared.”

  I ran my hands through my hair. Think, Meredith, think.

  I strode to the middle of the stage that Logan built. I stared out at the milling, chatting, jolly people who had all made new jolly friends and felt so jolly living in jolly Telena.

  “People!” I yelled. They kept up their jolliness. I pulled a microphone toward me, “Mrs. Claus is going to start throwing meringue cookies if you don’t listen!”

  I knew that would do it.

  “Here’s what we gotta do, right now . . .”

  * * *

  The next morning Mary said to me, “I am going to explode.”

  “Mary, please,” I told her, exhausted from another nightmare last night, the car accident in glowing, Technicolor, 3-D detail, as if I was watching it from a tree. “Please, I have told you to go home, you shouldn’t even be working, I told you I would pay you to stay home.”
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  She patted my arm. “I want to be here, though. I like you, Meredith, and I want to be here for you in your time of need. You’re my friend.”

  Martha kept bustling around the kitchen, busy, busy, busy.

  “Please go home,” I told Mary. “I’m tired looking at you. You’re humongous.”

  “I told you, I am going to explode.”

  * * *

  “Meredith.”

  I whipped around in the darkness outside the Community Center, then sagged with relief.

  Logan.

  He was back.

  The relief was replaced by anguish and roaring pain. I wanted to fling myself on him and wrap my legs around his waist.

  “Hello, Logan.” I was the last to leave and, after running through the program twice, I thought maybe, maybe, we were ready for tomorrow night. “You’re back.”

  Logan took a few steps closer, walking through the shadows, and I felt my breath catch. The angels should not have blessed this man with such wondrously sexy looks. It was almost sinful.

  “Yes, I’m back.”

  Don’t cry, Meredith! Buck up! “Is everything okay?”

  He scoffed, then crossed his arms, that cowboy hat low on his brow. He looked like he’d lost weight, in fact, he didn’t seem that . . . well, he was pale under the tan, his face drawn. “What, specifically, are you referring to? My business? My life? You?”

  “You left abruptly, and I thought there might be a problem.” In the distance I could see the tip of the town Christmas tree, bright, shiny, colorful. That made me want to cry, too.

  “With my business, there are no problems. With my life, with you, there is a problem. It’s a big problem.”

  He was not going to let this, to let us, go. I don’t know why I thought he ever would. I hadn’t known him long, but I knew him. I knew the depths of this man, how he felt, how he lived. I sure loved him.

  Yep, I sure loved him. I wanted to reach out, hug him close to me, strip off that beige jacket, flick off that cowboy hat, and follow him down onto his bed with the perfect view of the pink and gold sunsets. Ah, these womanly emotions, they can wrangle you into nothin’.