A Cliché Christmas (4 page)

When Nan had requested my presence at church that morning, I simply held up my notebook paper and Post-it Notes, and she went on her way without another word.
The woman couldn’t get everything she wanted, right?

Nan was working on her fund-raising plans at the kitchen table while classical jazz played somewhere in the background.
No Christmas music.
That had been my only request. She must have been feeling generous because she honored it—no questions asked. As I made a note about lighting, I pictured the beautiful blond child I met yesterday at the theater. I couldn’t get her face, her smile, her
joy
out of my mind.

My chest warmed when I thought about the way she tapped each of Weston’s fists, knowing there was a piece of gum waiting for her inside one. She chose correctly. Everything about her seemed healthy and whole. It was nearly impossible to believe that something so toxic lived inside her.

A loud rap on the door caused me to drop my pen.

“I’ll get it,” Nan practically sang.

I expected Eddy’s shrill bark to reverberate off the walls any second, but instead, I heard a familiar baritone.

“Good evening, Nan.”

I froze.
Why is he here?

“Is Georgia around?”

“She sure i
s . . .
right over there, roasting herself by the fireplace.”

I pretended not to hear the conversation that was just twenty feet from me and began writing completely illegible notes on the paper next to my thigh.

“Hey.”

A knot formed at the base of my belly when I glanced up at him. The scent of freshly cut timber lingered between us. And though my pulse quickened to a staccato, I replied as coolly as possible, “Hey.”

“I was asked to give you something.” He pulled an envelope from the back pocket of his jeans.

“Please have a seat, Weston. Can I get you a cup of coffee or hot chocolate?” Nan asked from the kitchen.

Really, the woman was nearly insufferable at times.
I hid my inner eye roll.

“Oh, wel
l . . .
if it isn’t any trouble. A cup of coffee would be great. Black, please.”

“Decaf?”

“Nah, I’ll be up for a while tonight.”

Weston took a seat across from me on the floral sofa.
What is happening here?
I touched the messy bun atop my head in search of stray locks, suddenly self-conscious as his gaze fixated on my face.

I looked down at the envelope in my hands and ran a finger under the flap on the back.

“It’s from Savannah,” Weston said.

I pulled out two folded pieces of construction paper and studied them both silently. The first was a letter, addressed to me in the sweetest—and messiest—handwriting I’d ever seen.

Dear Miss Georgia,

Thank you for helping me. I love when the angel comes to Mary. I want to see an angel someday.

Love,

Savannah

On the second page was a picture of Savannah’s angel with Mary. She labeled them both. And the best part was that Mary looked to be in jeans and a T-shirt. I smiled at her originality.

“I think that’s the first honest smile I’ve seen since you got here.”

I wiped it from my face immediately.

Tucking the paper back inside the envelope, I forced out a reply: “Please tell her I said thank you.”

“She’s leaving in the morning for Portland—to start her treatments.”

My gut twisted and my gaze flickered to his briefly. “I’m sorry.”

Biting my bottom lip, I stared at the papers scattered around me.

There were several seconds of uncomfortable quiet, the kind that made my skin itch. I swallowed. Finally, Nan strolled in with Weston’s coffee. She handed him the mug.

“I think I’ll head back to my bedroom to read. Gotta keep the old mind in shape. Good night, kids.”

Naturally.

Weston said good night to her, and I imagined all the ways I could drain his coffee mug so that he would make a quick exit as well.

“S
o . . .
what are you doing down there on the floor?” he asked.

“Working.”

He chuckled. “Anything I can help you with?”

You leaving would help me immensely.
“Nope. I’ve got it covered,” I said, marking page numbers on the script in front of me.

“You haven’t changed.”

Was that an insult?
“Sorry to disappoint.”

“Who said I was disappointed?”

My breathing faltered, and I forced my next words to the surface. “Listen, I want to help your niece, Weston. She seems like a great little girl. And you know I’ll do my best to raise the funds she needs for her medical care, but I do not have energy to d
o . . .
whatever
this
is.” I looked up at him despite my internal protest. “I’ll have your scene list ready by tomorrow night so you can build the sets accordingly.”

“So, that’s it, then?”

I gawked at him.
What else does he want from me?

“U
m . . .
pretty much, yeah.”

“Fine.” He stood, placing his mug on the coffee table beside me.

“Fine,” I said, standing quickly to beat him to the front door.

Swinging it wide, I felt a burst of frosty air bite my face and sting my eyes. Weston took two steps out the door, then turned to face me again. My lungs emptied of oxygen as I worked to rip my gaze from his.

“I live in the blue house on Maple and Tenth.”

He lives her
e . . .
in Lenox?

I opened my mouth to ask—

“You can take your set demands there after rehearsal tomorrow night.”

The wind cut through me, and I shivered. “You’re not coming?”

“Are you
asking
me to come?” His eyes sparked with challenge, but I refused the bait. I didn’t need him. I would never rely on Weston James.

Not again.

“No.”

He chuckled before jogging down the steps toward the walkway. Just as I closed the door, I heard, “Good night, Miss Figgy Pudding.”

C
HAPTER
F
OUR

I
’d been staring up at the ceiling in my tiny bedroom for hours, thinking about Savannah’s letter—and a certain uncle of hers.

Whether it was the seventh-grade home economics bake-off when Weston put cumin in my oatmeal cookies instead of cinnamon, or when I stole his shoelaces before the timed mile run in PE our sophomore year, Weston and I had more stories than a library could contain. Our entire childhood—kindergarten through high school graduation—overflowed with our shared history. He teased me relentlessly growing up, and I had secretly relished his attention.

We ran in completely separate circles, if you could call my complete lack of social status a circle. But even though we were never officially friends, I knew Weston James had accepted me even when none of the others had.

And it was all fun and games until—

I sat up in bed, unwilling to let my mind wander any further. Instead, I fixated on something else entirely. Throwing off my covers, I made a dash for the living room, where I’d left Savannah’s letter. I pushed her grateful words aside and lifted the creative drawing of her modern-day Mary to the dying firelight.

Modern Mary.

And that’s when I struck gold. At 3:03 on Monday morning.
Why does creativity flourish at the most inopportune times?

I grabbed my laptop from the sofa and clicked open a new document. Instead of the blink of the cursor taunting me, I found a friendly challenge. A new story waited to be told. Yes, I may have been
so over
Christmas plots in general, but there was something quite enticing about a modern-day Nativity scene. I picked up the pile of scattered papers marked with useless notes and set them aside.

I lifted up a silent prayer, hoping I could pull this off in time for the casting.

And then I typed. Furiously.

Fifteen hours and countin
g . . .

Sleep was overrated anyway.

With a fresh script in one hand, my fourth cup of double-shot espresso in the other, and my undereye concealer as thick as painter’s putty, I was ready to face the music—literally. I could hear the plunking of piano keys from the parking lot.

As the doors of the theater whooshed open, I found myself searching every face. True to his word, Weston wasn’t there. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

I hated the idea of him hovering around, yet driving to his house later to drop off the set plans was likely a worse fate.

Betty took the stage. “Gather around everyone. Our director is here.”

I walked toward the stage, quietly refusing to join her up there. Once had been enough. I stayed on the floor just below her. When I reached for the microphone, she looked at me with confusion in her eyes.

“I’m fine down here. Thank you, Betty.” She nodded, handing it over immediately.

“Thank you all for coming tonight,” I began. “I’ll be casting for the roles in
Modern Mary
in a few minutes, but if there isn’t a role for you, please know that we can still use you somewhere. This production will take a lot of work to pull off. We may have set a lofty goal, but it’s for a good cause. Let’s not forget that.”

I heard several verbal confirmations before I continued. “This play is a new one.”
The I-wrote-it-this-morning kind of new
. “It was actually inspired by Savannah herself, and I hope you’ll be as excited as I am about it. It’s the Christmas story we all kno
w . . .
but set in modern times. What if Mary were a freshman in high school? What if the wise men were stockbrokers from New York? What if the shepherds who were out tending their flocks were actually cowboys on a dude ranch? It’s the same story with a modern twist.”

“Don’t you think it’s sacrilegious to make the Virgin Mary a high school student?”

I stood on my tiptoes to see where the sharp voice had come from. It didn’t take long to find the source. Sydney Parker stood to the side, arms crossed over her large and perky chest.

“I mean, really? That sounds like a bad holiday TV special.”

Her well-planned dig was easy enough to avert.

“Well, good thing it’s just a pageant then, one to raise money for a sick little girl who loves to draw Mary in jeans and a T-shirt.”

The sour look on Sydney’s pouty lips intensified.

“Anyone else?” I asked the crowd.

“Sounds cool!” an older teenage boy yelled. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“Yeah. Let’s do it!” another one said.

I wiped the smirk meant for Sydney from my face and then announced each part. Audition lines formed as Betty and I settled into the front-row theater seats. I found myself wishing for a third person to help with the judging, dismissing Weston’s face as soon as it came to mind. I looked around the crowd again and saw an old acquaintance from high school, Misty Peach.

She was as sweet as her name implied, and better yet, she had been a stagehand for our high school plays. I swallowed the humiliation that surfaced when I thought about one particular production and waved her over. She looked more than a little surprised.

“Hey, Georgia—did you need me?”

“Yes! Hey, Misty.” I smiled and touched her shoulder. “Would you mind helping me cast tonight? It’s better to have three heads instead of two. That way there’s a tiebreaker.”

She bit her lip. “Wel
l . . .
I suppose I could do that. I’m not very qualified, though, I’m afraid. I’m a stay-at-home mom, not a professional i
n . . .
well, anything.”

I squeezed her arm. “You’ll be perfect.”

“If you say so. I do love Savannah. She’s in my son’s kindergarten class at schoo
l . . .
I think this is a great idea.”

I patted the chair next to me. “Thank you, Misty.”

For the next two hours, I listened, took notes, and tried not to yawn or fall off my seat from exhaustion as every able body in Lenox tried out for
Modern Mary
.

When the last audition was done, my eyes actually started to leak tears—a mixture of fatigue, joy, and pure delirium.

The three of us agreed on every casting decision except for the boy who would play Joseph. Betty was insistent on giving the part to Ben (a teenager who picked his nose halfway through his reading and proceeded to wipe it on his jeans) whereas I felt Justin was a better fit. Thank goodness Misty chimed in with her two cents.

“Betty, Ben may be your nephew, but we can’t show favoritism in casting. Justin is my choice, too, and majority rules.”

I like this girl.

“Well, it sounds like we’re done here, then.” I yawned as Betty moved to stand up. “Thank you both for your input tonight. Betty, I’m grateful for your help with the music.” Her countenance lifted at the compliment.

“I’m glad to help.” She grinned, her short salt-and-pepper hair bouncing with each step as she walked out the door.

“Misty, how would you like to be my assistant?”

She smiled wide. “Really? I’d love to. Thank you, Georgia. I’ll just need to work out child care in the evenings with my husband, but it shouldn’t be a problem.”

I covered a yawn with my fist. “Great, thank you.”

She hugged me. “It’s so nice to have you home, Georgia.”

Home. There was that word again.

As I parked in front of Weston’s house, adrenaline surged through my veins.

Unwilling to let my guard down in front of him for a single minute, I reminded myself that this interaction needed to be quick. The less time in Weston’s company, the better. I may not have slept for nearly forty hours, but I could surely keep it together for a few more minutes—sleep deprived or not. I blinked my eyes against the stinging cold and tucked the set list under my arm. I rubbed my hands together to create warmth that wasn’t there.

Gloves. Why can’t I remember to buy some darn gloves?

Walking toward the blue house on the corner of Maple and Tenth, I wondered, not for the first time, why he was living in Leno
x . . .
not building skyscrapers in Boston.

I knocked, and the door opened.

He stood there, forearm resting against the doorjamb, his gray T-shirt pulled tight across his chest and biceps. My eyes ignoring the warning bells sounding in my head, I took in his low-slung jeans.
Was he for real?
I swallowed hard, trying to will moisture back into my mouth.

“Here.” The word escaped like a glorified croak as I tried to hand him the highlighted set list, but he scowled at it as if I’d just pulled the sheaf of paper from a public toilet.

“That’s not how I do things.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, shivering.

“If you want me to build a set for you, you can come inside and talk with me about it—civilly.”

“No.” I crossed my arms, the papers crinkling.

He crossed his, too. “Then you better go down to Ernie’s Hardware in the morning and see if he can help you. Oh, and don’t worry, I hear he still has one good eye.”

Urgh!
“You’re impossible.”

“And you’re as irritating as—”

I growled and pushed past him. Surprisingly, his house was quite nice inside. I wouldn’t dare compliment him, though. We were
not
friends anymore. We were simply working on a Christmas play together.

I still couldn’t quite believe that little twist of irony—which at the moment felt more like a stab wound.

“You can sit down over there. Want a cup of coffee?”

I glanced at the clock and did a quick calculation.
Thirty-nine and a half hours without sleep.
I nodded. Coffee would be necessary for me to make it through even a five-minute conversation. I sat on his leather sofa and took out my phone, texting Nan.
Dropping off set info to Weston. Be home soon.

An immediate reply:
Going to bed. Don’t rush back. :)

Sinking into the couch, I closed my eyes as I took in a big whiff of masculinity: sawdust, leather, and—

“Georgia?”

I jolted awake, heart galloping.

“Were you just drooling on my couch?”

I wiped my mouth, embarrassed by the moisture left on my hand. “U
m . . .
I was just admiring your sofa. It’s nic
e . . .
for a bachelor, I mean.”
Wait, is he a bachelor?

He placed the coffee mugs on the side table and sat in the recliner next to me. “You interested in my personal life, Georgia?”

“No.” The heat creeping up my neck felt like it would set my hair on fire. “Let’s just get this over with.” I picked up the highlighted script and handed it to him. He began reading it immediately.

“This new?” he asked.

“What?”

“This play. Did you just write this?”

How does he know that?

I shrugged, unwilling to tell him more than he needed to know.

“I haven’t seen this one.” He flipped through the pages.

What was that supposed to mean?

Something sparked to life around us—something I wanted to pound until it begged for mercy and died a slow and painful death, but my curiosity won out.

“You’ve seen more than one of my movies?”

“I’ve kept tabs on you, Georgia Cole.” His eyes pierced me through, and I turned my head quickly.

“Well, I can’t say I’ve done the same for you.”

“You knew I moved to Boston.”

“Everyone knew you were headed there after graduation.”

His smile was bold, unyielding. “You’re hardly ‘everyone.’ ”

Was he flirting with me?
Somehow I didn’t think that was possible.

“Why
are
you in Lenox anyway?” I pulled my legs underneath me and anchored my elbow on the arm of the sofa. My head felt like it weighed two hundred pounds, and it was getting heavier by the second.

I knew I was getting off topic, but the fogginess in my brain made it nearly impossible to think clearly.

“I moved back after Chad died.”

Leaning my head toward him, I searched his eyes. Such a simple statement, yet I knew it wasn’t. Chad Hart was Willa’s high school sweetheart. They were newlyweds when I left town for LA. They were also the Barbie and Ken of Lenox—molded to love one another.