A Merry Little Christmas (4 page)

Many hours later, accompanied by screaming muscles, Charlie flopped down on the scruffy mattress in Franny’s makeshift apartment. The bed exhaled, making plumes of dirty smoke with a smell he couldn’t quite place. But then, he was content not to know its origin. What an apartment. Franny hadn’t exaggerated. At all. The three tiny rooms
were
rustic—so primitive, in fact, that he could see right through the floorboards offering a lovely view of the farm tools…which were more like instruments of torture than equipment.

He felt keenly annoyed with himself. He’d been caught whimpering like a pup, at least in his thoughts. Had wealth indeed made him go soft?

Charlie undid the hooks or fasteners or whatever they were that held up his overalls. The clothes were too big, but they would work. And he would do the job. He’d never been afraid of hard work, at least not the kind that required his brain. The only thing he truly was afraid of was failure. Oh, and squirrels. Ever since he’d been bitten by one of the varmints when he was six, he’d been afraid of the things. Charlie broke out in a cold sweat just thinking about the various ways those razor-sharp teeth could gnaw off his foot during the night.

He crept over to the bathroom, flipped on the bare bulb, and looked at the holes and loose boards in the ceiling. Hmm. There was no running or scratching, but he shut the door anyway. Showers weren’t going to be a picnic. But then, one didn’t die of being dirty. Maybe he’d forgo showers for a while.

Charlie sat down on the bed again and picked up his guitar from the stand. He’d made certain Franny hadn’t seen the instrument when he pulled it out of his trunk. Knowing her love for music, she would have wanted a performance right away, and he still wasn’t satisfied with his playing. It was an art he’d kept to himself mostly out of necessity and from a reticence to perform.

He popped a Life Saver into his mouth and began picking and strumming, humming his way through one of the Christmas songs he’d written. If only music were something his father loved too. If only he considered music a worthwhile endeavor, an inspired pursuit and not a thorough waste of time. Perhaps if his father had given him even a word of support, he wouldn’t have been so tentative about his music. But how long was he going to blame his father for his own hesitations in life? His own ineptitude?

Charlie stopped playing when he heard a faint noise. What was that? Didn’t sound anything like a squirrel. He set down his guitar and listened again. It was some kind of howling. Had to be coyotes. What else could it be? A few more of the beasts joined the first one until there was a whole chorus of yelps and howls. Kind of a surreal and lonely sound…but peaceful too.

He walked over to a window and pulled back the curtains, but the glass was so dirty he couldn’t see outside. After undoing the two latches and pounding on the frame with the heels of his hands, the window budged a little. He slid it open, leaned outside, and looked up at the starry night.

Thousands of uncountable, dazzling stars filled the sky. It made him think of the night when the shepherds were watching their flocks and a host of angels appeared in the heavens—on a clear bright night just like this one—and made the most important announcement ever made.

He continued staring, captivated by the sight. The stars couldn’t show off in the city. Too many artificial lights. Charlie took in a deep breath of the brisk air as his musings drifted right back to Franny. None of the women he’d dated in the past could have managed what she’d done. She’d dealt with a tragedy and taken on the burden of a family business even at a young age. And, amazingly, she had done it with an upbeat attitude.

Charlie memorized the details of the night sky and then shut the window. Maybe he’d practice his tune some more. There was still plenty of time, and he would be able to sleep late in the morning anyway. They’d both worked so hard all day; surely Franny would want an extra hour or two of rest. He gave the ancient radiator a kick to get it started again and then went back to his guitar. But the moment he started strumming, he heard another noise. This time it was a scratching sound, like an animal trying to get in out of the cold.

The squirrel.

Or maybe a whole nest of them.

In spite of the chilled air in the room, perspiration beaded on his scalp, ran down his forehead, and dripped onto his guitar.

It was going to be a long night.

Franny sat on her twin canopy bed and swung her legs like she had when she was three. The gentle squeak of the bedsprings comforted her as she absorbed the day’s events. She was used to hard work, bad weather, and rough times, but she’d never had a day so full of hope and possibility. Or a day so full of anyone like Charlie Landau. He was unique and funny, not altogether unattractive, and he stood out like a harp in a field of banjos.

She liked him. And she’d liked him even before he’d mentioned his family name.

The only male she’d really gotten to know, for recent comparison, was Derek Mauler, the local vet. She could safely say that it hadn’t worked out well. He’d asked her out on six dates. Each time, he’d taken her to the drive-in for a movie, which was fine, but later, at the drugstore, over her favorite meal of ham-salad sandwiches, chips, and an icy-cold Coca-Cola, Derek had mostly talked about the maladroitness of the local stockyards. Somehow Derek had become enamored with that word in high school, and the two of them—he and that word—had built quite a relationship over the years. So, Derek spent his days ingenuously trying to figure out how to work
maladroitness
into ordinary conversation so that it came off as natural as wheat in a silo. But no one in the town or the county, including herself, was brave-hearted enough to tell Derek that he had never once used the word correctly.

Of course, Derek wasn’t a man of only one word. He also had a surplus of commentary on every subject, including his remedy for purging the land of root rot. Not the creamiest way to top the parfait on a romantic evening. But even if Derek had talked about music and city life, he still wasn’t the one for her. Not even close.

“What a day. What a day.” Franny couldn’t stop saying it, thinking it. She’d prayed for change and it had come. Guess she should have prayed about it a long time ago. Maybe she was too afraid for an answer. “I’m sure there’s a country song in there somewhere.”

Franny sent a smile up to the Almighty on that one. She thought for sure He smiled back. “Lord, the only thing I can’t figure out is…well, Charlie seems like somebody I’d like to get to know better. Someone I already feel a fondness toward.” In fact, she was feeling so fondly, she almost needed to turn on the watercooler. “So, Lord, why did
he
have to be the one to give me my freedom?” Franny felt sure God was up to something wonderful. His ways were still quite the mystery to her. But she trusted Him enough to leave it in His hands.

Franny smooshed her lips between her fingers as if they were bread dough—a habit she found strangely comforting. Hmm. Something Charlie had said, though, niggled its way into her thoughts. He’d mentioned trying to make a profit over the next year. Did that mean he would sell the old place just as soon as he could make a quick buck? Seemed kind of sad to hold onto her family’s land for so long just to sell it to someone who didn’t really care about it.

Even though she didn’t love the farm as her parents had, she did have an attachment to it, and she would hate to see the farm change hands every year or so. She’d always imagined a small family buying the land—a father and mother who wanted to raise their children here. A family that would want to drop their fishing hooks into the creek together, lean into the ebb and flow of seasons, and choose to stay for a lifetime.

It’s 1961, Franny. The world is changing. People are changing.
She would need to make the mental adjustments or be left behind.

Franny scrubbed her face clean in the bathroom, slipped on her flannel pajamas, and burrowed under her Eight Maids a-Milking quilt. Back to business. She would need a plan for teaching a city boy how to run a farm. Seemed like Don Quixote’s impossible dream to teach someone in three weeks what it had taken her a decade to learn.

What to tutor him in first? She started to hum, since it helped her to think. One of the sows was about to have her little ones. Franny would have to ease the mommy-to-be into the farrowing pen. It could be Charlie’s first lesson. Yes. Perfect. That settled it. In the morning, early, before the chickens were up or the roosters were crowing, Charlie could help her deliver the piglets. And maybe she’d remember to take her Brownie camera and shoot photos of it all.

Charlie roused for a moment when he heard a sound. What was that noise?
Probably just my imagination.
He rolled over and smiled. Amazingly, despite the yammering coyotes, the mattress with lumps the size of grenades, and the threat of being dismembered by a pack of wild squirrels, he’d floated off into a long autumn nap. Franny had given him several hundred blankets since the radiator was on the clunky side, and under those covers, he’d slept like a newborn infant.
Guess I’d better be careful who I tell that one to.
He tucked the blanket under his chin and moaned softly. The sun hadn’t come up yet, so there was still plenty of time for more slumber. Was that a rooster crowing? Too early.

Just as he sailed away again on the sleigh ride of snoring bliss, there came a rapping at the door. But coyotes didn’t knock. Was he dreaming?

Then he heard the tap again. And this time it was accompanied by a voice that sounded faintly like Franny. Surely not. No human creature was up at such an unearthly hour. No rational person did farm chores in the dark.

“Charlieee.” He heard a voice like a cherub’s whisper through the crevice in the door. “It’s time.”

Time for what? To get up? She had to be kidding. Charlie tried to shake off the haze of sleep but left the blankets just under his nose. Was Franny humming “Good King Wenceslas” this early in the morning? “Yes? What is it?”

“It’s the sow, Tutti. She needs a midwife,” Franny said. “And you’re
it
.”

Charlie’s chuckle got muffled under the covers. “That’s a good one.”

A chasm of quiet filled the space between them.

“Franny?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re not joking, are you?”

“I always get up this early. Most of the farmers do. It’s the only way you can get all the work done before nightfall.”

Charlie had to admit that until that very moment he’d harbored a more gentlemanly vision of farming, but Franny was determined to dislodge that refined illusion with a good swift kick out of bed. His plan would not be thwarted by laziness, however, so he threw off his covers, hooked up his overalls, tied up his work boots, and opened the door.

Franny looked him over and chuckled.

“What is it now?”

“You look like you’ve had a squirrel wriggling in your hair all night.”

Not a good word to wake up to. Maybe he’d used too much Brylcreem. Charlie ran his fingers through his hair and shrugged. “I’m ready. Let’s birth some babies.” It would be the first time in his life he’d gone to work without taking a shower beforehand, but he didn’t think the pigs were going to be concerned about body odor. They had plenty of their own to manage.

“Well, first you look like you could use some breakfast and coffee. I’ve made eggs and biscuits and gravy.”

“You did that all this morning?”

“Always do.”

While I slept.

Franny looked chipper and rosy-cheeked and ready to attack the day.

Charlie grabbed a coat from a box of old clothes and followed her to the farmhouse. He felt ravenous. He had no right to be, since he hadn’t hefted anything this morning, but he knew he could eat everything in sight. She’d already proven herself to be a good cook from the previous evening. Not the gourmet fare he’d grown up with, but hearty and appetizing nevertheless.

As a matter of fact, what would he do for food when she left? Frozen dinners came to mind, and he shuddered. He could always hire a chef, but where would he or she live? Certainly not in the apartment. He’d have to build a house for his cook. But somewhere in all the expenditures, he was bound to end up in the red. And the whole point of the venture was to make money, not spend it.