Christmas at the Hummingbird House (7 page)

“Michael,” he said.  “Call me Mick.”

“Wonderful,” Paul said, rubbing his hands together in satisfaction. “Mr. Michaels, we’re delighted you’re here.”

“Delighted,” parroted Derrick, although he couldn’t help looking at the traces of ink that peeked from beneath the wrists of the leather jacket.

“We find ourselves a bit behind with our holiday chores,” Paul went on, “and the truth is …”  He glanced at Derrick.  “Well, our talents really don’t lie in the area of manual labor.”

“Fortunately,” replied Mick cheerfully, “mine do. And I think it’s very important for everyone to do what they’re suited for.”

Derrick brightened. “I was saying that only a moment ago! You are a godsend, Mr. Michaels!”  He grabbed the other man’s hand and pumped it enthusiastically.

“Please,” replied the stranger, smiling, “it’s Mick.”

“All right then.”  Derrick stepped back, beaming.  “Mick, welcome to the Hummingbird House.”  Then, “What do you know about hanging Christmas lights?”

“Whatever you need me to,” Mick assured him, and Paul and Derrick exchanged a triumphant look.

“Welcome aboard, Mick,” Paul declared, opening the door wide for him.  “Come in, we’ll show you around and talk about what we had in mind.  Have you had lunch?  No?  Purline, set another plate.”

Purline glared at him, and Paul could not help returning a smirk as he edged past her on his way to join Derrick and Mick for the tour.  “What do you know about that, Purline?” he said.  “You were right.  The Lord
does
help those who help themselves.” 

He quickened his step and called ahead, “If you’re ready to start right after lunch, the first thing we could use your help with is situating a few Christmas trees.”

“All in all,” declared Paul as he poured them each a glass of after-dinner sherry that evening, “a most satisfying day.  I’ll admit, I was a bit uncertain when it started out, but in the end … voila.”  He gestured with one of the glasses to the Christmas tree, complete with lights, silver and blue ribbons, and hundreds of sparkling glass hummingbirds, that graced the parlor.  Since Derrick was not actually in the room as he spoke, he put the other glass on the small table beside the fireplace and stepped back to once again admire the Christmas tree.

Of course, that was the only tree in the house that was completely decorated.  But all of the stands had been assembled and filled with the proper sized tree, the garland had been draped around the windows and doors, and all of the wreaths had been hung.  While placing the hooks for the outdoor lighting, Mick had discovered a sagging gutter, which he promised to replace the following day.  Work would then begin on the light display for the garden, and Mick had every confidence that the delicate hummingbird light sculpture, whose wings were designed to flutter every time it dipped its head to drink from the fountain, would be fully operational by Sunday.  Paul found himself hoping for a dark and gloomy Sunday so that the brunch guests could enjoy the show.

Derrick came into the room, the telephone handset in his hand, a puzzled look on his face.  “The most peculiar thing,” he said.

Paul, still gazing at the tree proudly, replied, “Magnificent, isn’t it?  Exactly what I pictured when we bought the place.”

“I just got off the phone with Harmony,” Derrick said, and Paul looked at him.  “I wanted to thank her for sending Mick, and I managed to catch her on her layover in London.  She didn’t know what I was talking about.  She didn’t send him.”

Paul was silent, letting the news sink in.  “I don’t know which is more alarming,” he said in a moment.  “The possibility that Purline was right about Mick, or the thought that there is still a surprise from Harmony somewhere in our future.”

Derrick nodded glum agreement. Then he cheered marginally.  “Maybe he won’t come back.”

Paul said, “Maybe.”  But he did not look happy about it.

When the fading daylight put an end to the workday, Mick had roared off on his motorcycle with a promise to return bright and early the next morning.  Paul had wanted to pay him cash for the day’s work, but he insisted he wouldn’t accept payment until the job was finished, which seemed to Paul the mark of an honest man. Surely the mark of a criminal would have been to take the money and
then
run.  Wouldn’t it?

Then Derrick brightened.  “It was probably the girls. They heard he was looking for work and sent him over.”

Paul suggested, “We could call and ask.”

Derrick hesitated.  “He really can do anything, you know.  Do you remember that outlet that was malfunctioning on the back porch?  He rewired it there on the spot.”

“He’s a steady worker, and fast.  He got every one of those trees set up and the garland hung without taking a break.”

“And he said he’d trim back that poplar branch that’s been obscuring our view all summer,” Derrick said.  “You know how hard we’ve tried to get someone out to do that.”

Paul lifted and eyebrow.  “Did he?” He took a sip of his sherry.  “You know, it really was a small miracle, the way everything turned out.”

“And you don’t question miracles,” Derrick said.

“Purline would say we should count our blessings.”

“Besides,” added Derrick, “the girls probably sent him.”

“I’m sure of it,” agreed Paul.

Derrick picked up his sherry and took his chair beside the fireplace.  Paul settled into the chair opposite and they sat in contented silence, admiring the tree and counting their blessings.

SEVEN

The Magnolia Suite

O
utside the elegantly appointed master retreat, Carl Bartlett could hear what he had come to think of as the usual clatter and dissonance of family life: petulant voices raised in anger, the thumping bass notes of rap music played too loud, the crash and slam of objects both breakable and unbreakable.  His wife’s voice, sometimes strident, sometimes pleading, sometimes completely out of patience.  The retorts of his two teenage daughters: sharp, disrespectful, dismissive.  Everyone lived like this.  Didn’t they?

When he was at home, which was not very often, Carl kept the door closed to whatever room he was in, hoping, like a cowardly ostrich with his head in the sand, that if he stayed hidden long enough the storm would pass him by.  It would not, of course.  He knew that now.  The storm, it seemed, was of his own making, and it would follow him for the rest of his life no matter where he went.

He wasn’t sure how everything had gotten so out of hand.  It would have been different if he had been a bad man, a cruel father or an indifferent husband.  But he loved his wife.  He loved his daughters.  Everything he had ever done, or ever would do, was for them.  Everything.

He went to the window, pushed back the ivory satin drape, and stood for a moment looking out at the Christmas lights that twinkled throughout the neighborhood.  They lived in a big brick house overlooking the river, in a gated community where the lots were large, the houses set far apart, and the taste level of outdoor Christmas decorations was strictly regulated.  The tacky lawn snowmen and high-wattage roof lights of Carl’s childhood had no place here. He missed that.

The girls were just outside the bedroom door now; they must know he could hear them.  Perhaps that was the point.

“This is the lamest thing
ever
, Mom!” That was Kelly, the youngest. She had a nose ring.  How that had happened Carl hadn’t a clue. “Disney World?  Are you kidding me? I’m fourteen, for God’s sake!”

“Jason’s mom said it was okay if I spent the holidays with them.”  That was Pam, his sixteen-year-old.  She had a spider tattoo behind her left ear.  “All the way to New Year’s! You don’t believe me, just call her up!”

“Stop it, both of you!”  Carl’s wife, Leona, sounded close to the edge, her voice at that register that was just below screaming.  “This is the first time your father has had two weeks off in fifteen years, and we’re going on a family vacation, do you hear me?  I don’t want another word about it!”

“But why does he have to ruin Christmas?  I have plans!”

“Two weeks!” Kelly cried. “I’ll die!”

“Why doesn’t he just go back to work?” Pam added spitefully.  “Everybody’s happier when he’s not here anyway.”

That hurt, Carl would not deny it. But he had discovered over the past several years that when the pain inside you was so big you couldn’t remember a time when it wasn’t there, those little pinpricks weren’t quite as noticeable as they once might have been.

He went to his dresser and opened the top drawer.  From beneath a neatly folded stack of sweaters he withdrew a manila envelope and opened it.  He pulled out the top sheet of the stack of papers inside, the one addressed to the Attorney General of the State of Virginia.

Sir
, it read,
pursuant to our conversation of December 1, I enclose the following documents …

That was as far as he got before he heard the doorknob turn.  It occurred to him that Leona might have deliberately chosen to finish the fight with the girls outside the bedroom door so that he could hear it.  Perhaps she expected him to intervene.  Perhaps she wanted him to sympathize with what she had to put up with everyday.  Perhaps she just wanted to punish him.  It didn’t matter.  None of it did.

He slipped the letter back into the envelope.  It was only a copy, as were the pages that accompanied it.  The originals had been mailed yesterday.  It was done.  There was no turning back now.

“Go to your rooms,” Leona said sharply, “and finish packing.  We’re going to be on the road by seven in the morning.”

“I won’t even be awake at seven in the morning!”

“I’m not going!  I’ll run away!”

With the door open a crack, Carl could hear every word clearly.

“You’re going, damn it! We’re all going!  We’re going and you’re going to pretend to have a good time whether you like it or not! Get used to it!”

Carl returned the envelope to its hiding place beneath the stack of sweaters just as Leona came into the room, slamming the door behind her.  “Sometimes I wish she
would
run away, the ungrateful little …”  She stopped herself with a breath and leaned against the door tiredly. She grimaced as Carl turned away from the dresser, one of the sweaters in his hand. “The very thought of two weeks in a car with those two is making me break out in hives. God give me strength.”

Carl walked to the bed and put the sweater in the suitcase that was open there.  Leona pushed away from the door and added quickly, “Not that I don’t think it’s a wonderful idea, darling, all of us going away for the holidays together, and you were so sweet to think of it, but the girls
are
a little old for Disney World, and God, a whole week with your mother?  And I’ve got to be honest, that lodge in the woods?  What on earth is there for them to do there?”

She walked over to the inlaid walnut dressing table in the sitting alcove and poured herself a measure of bourbon from the decanter atop it.  She liked to think if she kept the booze in her bedroom the girls wouldn’t know how much she drank.  They did.

Carl said, turning away from the suitcase, “We had such a good time at Disney World when we took the girls the last time.  And Mother’s house is only twenty minutes away.  She hasn’t seen the kids in three years.”

Leona gestured to him in a questioning manner with the decanter.  He shook his head and she started to replace the cap, then changed her mind and poured another splash into her glass.  “Darling, the last time we took a trip together was ten years ago, and there’s a huge difference between the ages of six and sixteen when it comes to children. And now Jason’s folks have invited Pammie on this ski trip next week, and my life will be absolute hell for the rest of the school year if she doesn’t get to go.  Not to mention Kelly, who’s had her dress picked out for Amy Brenton’s party for six months and …”  She interrupted herself to take a sturdy drink from her glass, then dropped down to the club chair beside the window and crossed her long legs with a sigh. “Sweetheart, I know you mean well, but honestly, I can’t think what’s gotten into you.  You don’t even know these kids.”  She said it without accusation or rancor, merely stating a fact.  “Why on earth would you want to spend two weeks with them?”

He turned to look at her.  She was as beautiful as the day he had married her, with gleaming dark hair falling in graceful waves over her shoulders, a flawless complexion, perfect smile and a size-four figure that was meant for wearing the latest fashions from Paris or New York.  She was, in short, everything his money could buy, and she worked hard at staying that way. If he met her today he would fall in love with her all over again.

He, by contrast, had aged considerably.  There were puffy circles around his eyes and ten extra pounds around his waist from the fifteen-hour days he spent behind a desk.  His hair was thinning and his shoulders were stooped, and if she met him for the first time today, she wouldn’t give him a second glance.  Did she love him?  He thought so.  But it didn’t matter.  Not now.

He said, “I just wanted us to have one nice old-fashioned Christmas together.  I wanted the kids to be kids and the family to be together. One Christmas. That’s all.”

She sipped her drink, frowning a little.  “Maybe if we gave her the car,” she said.

“What?”

She made a vague circling gesture with her glass before taking another sip.  “Pammie.  She’s been driving me out of my mind about a new MINI Cooper since Barb Singleton got one for her birthday.  Maybe we should give it to her for Christmas.”

He said, “Didn’t we give her the Audi when she turned sixteen?”

“Well, yes, but it was a
family
car, not her own.  Not a new car.”

“It didn’t even have five thousand miles on it,” he objected.

She brightened and sipped from her glass. “Yes,” she said. “A new car.  That should do the trick.  Now what about Kelly?  How can we make this up to her?”

“Make it up to her? I’m giving them Disney World, a grandmother who’ll spoil them silly, and a vacation package with sleigh rides and gourmet meals and spa treatments.  What exactly am I supposed to be apologizing for?”

She looked exasperated.  “Oh, Carl, honestly, haven’t you been paying attention at all?  What I’m trying to tell you is …”  Her cell phone rang, and she dug it out of the pocket of her designer jeans, glancing at it in annoyance. “Damn, that’s Susan Hiller.  I promised to call her back three hours ago.”  She clicked on the phone and stood up, pasting a huge smile on her face.  “Susan!  Darling!  I’ve been trying and trying to reach you, but your line has been busy. Now listen, I don’t want you to worry one minute about the benefit ball.  I have everything all worked out with Nigel, and he promised to e-mail you the list …”  She walked out of the room, heels clicking on the hardwood floors, without glancing at Carl again.

Carl went back to his closet and took out the wrapped presents he had already bought for his wife and the girls.  He tucked the gifts into his suitcase and hoped he would be forgiven the fact that none of the small boxes contained a new car.

He hoped he would be forgiven a lot of things.