A Carol Christmas (30 page)

“Ah,” sang Beryl, “Here’s my assistant now.”

Mr. Margolin, Mr. Nutri Bread himself, was a man in his late fifties who looked like he ate too much of his own product. He rose from his chair to shake my hand. “Wonderful campaign,” he said. “We’re very excited.”

“We’re all very excited,” said Mr. Phelps, smiling benevolently on me.

Oh, if I were in a happier frame of mind, what a perfect day this would be!

“Well,” Phelps said briskly, “let’s get started.”

As we pulled up our chairs and began the meeting, I was wishing I’d talked with Mom the night before, wishing I could have heard her say, “I forgive you, Andie.” Then maybe I could have forgiven myself. If only I’d taken a minute to call her when I first got to work and tell her I loved her and how sorry I was that I’d messed up Christmas.

There was a knock on the conference room door, then Iris poked her head around. She looked apologetically at Beryl and said, “I have a call for Andie.”

“Tell whoever it is that she’s in a meeting,” Beryl said for me.

“I did. She says it’s very important.”

“Who is it?” I asked.

“Your mother.”

I started to get up, but Beryl put a hand on my arm.

“I’m sure your mother won’t mind waiting for just a little bit.” Beryl smiled at me as she spoke, but only with her mouth. Her eyes said, “Move and I’ll run you through the paper shredder.” To Iris, she said, “Please tell Andie’s mother that Andie will return her call as soon as possible.”

“Okay,” Iris said, and shut the door.

“I really think I’d better take that call,” I said.

“We’re in the middle of an important meeting,” Beryl said. Like she needed to remind me.

“I’ll only be a minute,” I assured her. “Family emergency,” I added for the benefit of our client as I slid my chair back.

Mr. Nutri Bread raised an eyebrow at Mr. Phelps as if to ask, “What kind of a loose ship are you running?”

I hurried from the conference room before Mr. Phelps could prove what a tight ship he ran and command me to stay put. As I slipped out the door I heard Mr. Phelps say, “She’s just the assistant. Beryl can carry on.”

Carry on. How British! How depressing.

I was too late to take the call, of course. Iris had already cut Mom loose. I scurried to my office and dialed home, but all I got was a busy signal. I waited a minute, then tried again. Still busy. Mom was probably on the phone with Gram, telling her all about the ingrate daughter who wouldn’t even take calls at work from her own mother.

I waited another minute and tried one last time. Still busy. I gave up and returned to the meeting.

Beryl was now holding forth, while behind her flashes of future magazine ads blazed from a screen. They looked great. The ideas—mine—were brilliant. Who cared?

After we had finished, Mr. Nutri Bread shook Beryl’s hand, then mine. “Great stuff,” he said to Beryl, “great stuff.” If I’d stayed in the conference room he might have been looking at me when he said that.

“Your company is in good hands with Image Makers,” Mr. Phelps assured him, then he clapped a hand on Mr. Nutri Bread’s shoulder and led him from the room.

I started to follow. “A moment, please, Andie,” said Beryl from behind me.

I stopped and the door shut after the two men, leaving us alone in the room. I turned slowly, bracing myself for the lecture that lay ahead.

“Andie, I don’t know what is going on these days.” I opened my mouth to tell her, but she didn’t pause long enough to let me. “And I don’t care. What I do care about is your performance here today.”

“It won’t happen again. I just needed to get some things straightened out.”

She went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “Busy as we were, I let you go home for Christmas. You had a nice vacation.”

Nice? Compared to what, prison time?

“And once you came back, I expected the job to receive your full attention. That has not happened. If you cannot commit to this agency, I need to know now, because if you can’t commit, we have to go on without you. That’s nothing personal, my dear, it’s just business.”

Just business. No one here cared about me or my problems. That was how business worked. I understood that. But what about my friends? Back at the apartment my best friend was treating me like we were in high school and I was the unpopular geek trying to fit in. Nothing was right, here.

“Andie!”

I jerked my attention back to Beryl. Now she looked like an angry school teacher. “Sorry,” I said.

She looked both disgusted and resigned all at the same time. “Not half as sorry as I am. I get the distinct impression that you don’t care about this account or your position with this agency.”

It wasn’t that I didn’t care, I realized, it was that I didn’t care enough. Did I really want to stay here in New York with people to whom I had only a slender connection?

“I think you’d better carefully consider your priorities,” Beryl said.

I nodded and fled to my office to carefully consider my priorities. At lunch I went home sick.

Camilla and company were all out sightseeing, so I had the place to myself. I looked out the apartment window at the stretch of gray sky, of sidewalks dotted with trees struggling for existence and buildings that packed people in like ants in an ant farm, and thought about Carol, with its abundance of space and greenery. Was this really where I wanted to spend the rest of my life? What was it here that was so important to me?

I thought of my family with all their faults, and a bubble of feeling swelled in my heart. It wasn’t something I’d ever expected to feel, so it took me a few minutes to recognize that I was homesick. I replayed in my mind all those sentimental scenes: the Christmas tree outing with Ben and Keira, the snowball fight, playing Anagrams with Mom, that special moment with Aunt Chloe at the Christmas Eve service. Gabe’s kiss.

I wanted to kiss Gabe again. And I wanted to go to my grandmother’s for lunch and choke down Prune Whip, and maybe get a little place of my own in Carol and hang Aunt Chloe’s portrait of me. Maybe in the laundry room.

I grabbed the phone and called home. Mom answered on the first ring with an anxious hello.

“Mom, I’m so sorry.” It was all I could say before I started crying.

Mom started crying too. “Oh, Andie, this was the most horrible Christmas we’ve ever had.” Considering past Christmas, that was saying something.

“Please forgive me,” I begged. “I shouldn’t have run away. I’ll try to make it up to you somehow.”

“I love you, Andie. We all do.”

And there it was in a nutshell, the reason I belonged in Carol instead of New York.

After a few more teary protestations of love, I told Mom I had some important things I needed to do. We said goodbye, and I sat down at my computer and typed a fond farewell to Beryl.

Then I called Great Bargain Airlines.

“Heepy Nee Yeer,” said a familiar voice. “Hee mee Eee heelp ee?”

Geet mee heem where I belong
.

Chapter Twenty-two

It was after 10, and Keira’s New Year’s Eve party was in full swing when my cab pulled up outside Spencer’s place. It had started to snow, and soft flakes danced around me as I looked at the people moving around behind the living room window.

My heart rate picked up speed. Mom was the only one I’d gotten up my nerve to talk to so far, and I was a little unsure of my welcome, especially from Keira. One thing I did know. It was cold standing out here, and it looked warm in the house. I picked up my suitcase and walked up the front walk.

I remembered Ben’s crack about me being a prodigal, and my finger hovered over the doorbell. I hadn’t been a prodigal on my first return, but this time I truly was one, a woman who had scorned all that her family had given her. I thought of the messy apartment in New York. I’d even slept with pigs.

This party had originally been planned for me, but now I could as easily see my sister telling me to get out. And I deserved it. I wished I’d sent flowers on ahead of me, or one of those singing telegrams people used to send. Something. Anything.

Stop stalling, Andie
.

I rang the doorbell and held my breath.

My sister answered, wreathed in holiday smiles. She looked at me and her face froze. “Andie?”

I gave a half shrug. “I’m afraid so. Is it too late to come to the party?”

The door slammed in my face.

I guess it was.

From the other side, though, I could hear my sister calling, “Oh, my gosh, it’s Andie!”

“No kidding? Well, let her in, idiot.” My brother’s voice. The door swung wide and Ben hauled me in. “Bruno! About time you got here.”

“I knew you’d be back,” Keira informed me as he fetched my luggage from the porch. “You
so
owe everybody.”

She was so right. I looked past my siblings, into a living room full of staring people, all casually dressed and wearing shiny New Year’s hats. A few I didn’t know and assumed were friends of Spencer and Keira.

Great. I was going to have an audience.

I began to feel squeamish as my gaze darted around the room. Gram sat enthroned in the easy chair. The way she was frowning at me, I half-expected her to command, “Off with her head.” Spencer stood gawking by the punch bowl, his cup halfway to his mouth. Aunt Chloe was frozen by the canapes, and her new friend, Oscar, stood next to her. From the way he was checking me out, I was sure he’d heard all about me by now. April was there with her accountant boyfriend and Mom and Mr. Winkler. Even Dad. Amazingly, with both Winkler and Dad in the room, Spencer’s tree was still intact. And there, next to it, stood Gabe Knightly. He smiled approvingly, and saluted me with his punch cup.

The action made my heart flip-flop. It also gave me courage. I cleared my throat. “I guess you’re all wondering, well, those of you who know me, why I’m here after running out on you on Christmas day.”

No one said a word, not even Keira, who always had something to say about everything. They just kept staring at me.

“I came to say how sorry I am. I have no excuse.” I bit my lip and lifted an apologetic shoulder. “Except maybe Christmas cookie overload,” I added, trying to lighten the moment. Nobody laughed. I plunged on. “I hope you can forgive me. And take me back,” I added.

That was all I could get out. My throat constricted, and my eyes filled with tears.

“Oh, Andie, dear,” Mom said. She came toward me, arms outstretched, and I ran into them and started crying.

That opened the floodgates. Everyone rushed me, talking at once, telling me that it was okay and that they loved me and were glad to have me back. Aunt Chloe fastened a party hat on me, snapping my chin with the elastic strap in the process.

“Here,” said Dad from behind me, “let her take off her coat.”

The coat came off, revealing the sweatshirt I’d had specially made with an old picture of all of us from a previous Christmas, gathered around a tippy-looking tree. Underneath it bright letters proclaimed
Happy Hartwell Holidays... There’s No Place Like Home
.

“Look at that!” cried Aunt Chloe. “Oh, Andie. It’s adorable. Jannie, wouldn’t this make a cute Man Haters item?”

Mom was beaming approvingly at me.

I smiled at her and said, “I mean it.”

“I never doubted it,” she told me.

"I want one of those," Keira said, slinging an arm around my shoulder.

“I hate to break things up,” said Spencer, “but if we’re going to get downtown in time for the fireworks, we should get going.”

That started a flurry of action. “Who’s got room in their car for Andie?” Keira asked, looking at Gabe. Subtle as always.

“I’ll take her,” he said.

“Well, I’m going to go home,” Gram announced from her chair. “All that standing around in the cold is too much for my old bones. Come here and kiss me good-bye, Andrea,” she commanded.

I came and knelt in front of her, and she caught my chin in her hand. “You’re a good girl. I always knew you’d do the right thing.” Then she nodded Gabe’s direction. “You could do worse than that one. Don’t let him slip through your hands again. Your eggs are getting old.”

Oh, yes, it was good to be home.

“I have to swing by the house,” I told Gabe as we filed out.

He was carrying my suitcases. “Need to drop these off?”

“And pick something up,” I said, then turned to Mom to find out where she’d squirreled it.

“You’re not serious, are you?” Gabe asked after we’d gotten in his car.

“Penance,” I said.

He shook his head. “That’s not penance, that’s purgatory.”

Nonetheless, when we got to the house I dug out Mom’s present and put it on.

“How do I look?” I asked Gabe.

He grinned. “Like a Hartwell.”

I have to admit, I felt a little silly walking down Main Street in my silver paper hat, which matched what the rest of my family were wearing. But the hat was nothing compared to that pink jacket. Here I was, a walking billboard for my hometown, announcing that I’d done Carol. But wearing Mom’s present was the least I could do to show my family I loved them and make up for my bad behavior.

At eleven thirty we all stood together on a snow carpeted sidewalk under bursts of color shooting into the sky. The fireworks made the falling snowflakes glow like specks of glitter.
So this is what it’s like to live in a snow globe
, I thought, and smiled at Gabe. He smiled back and squeezed my hand.

“Can I reapply for the position of maid of honor?” I asked Keira at one point.

She smiled at me. “Absolutely. By the way, we signed papers on the house.”

“The one you wanted?”

Keira was practically bouncing as she nodded. “Of course, I’ll have to work for a couple of years to pay for it.”

A couple of years, I thought. Very smart of Spencer to speak in generalities.

“And I’ll have to quit the coffee shop and get a real job,” she continued. “I’m sure I won’t have trouble finding something.”

Maybe not, I thought, but keeping something might be another story. I tried to imagine my sister in an office and failed. Her boss, whoever that turned out to be, had my sympathies.

As the minutes marched toward midnight I saw lots of people I knew in the crowd. The Harrises strolled by. I smiled at Mr. Harris, but he pretended he didn’t see. And there were the Baileys on the other side of Main Street. Mrs. Bailey waved at me, and I waved back. I saw James and Brittany too. James gave me an apologetic smile. Brittany saw and tightened her grip on his arm. She could keep him.