Merry's Christmas: A Love Story (2 page)

He hadn’t gotten down on one knee. There
had been no candlelight dinner or romantic stroll on the waterfront. Merry knew
that, with Arthur, there was no pretense. He was a no-frills guy. You saw
exactly what you got. He had said those Four Words a woman longs to hear in the
kitchen of the diner, his forearms shiny with grease, in the process of yanking
the giblets out of a turkey’s hind parts.

Taken off guard, Merry had brushed it
off, as if Arthur must have been kidding. She’d tap danced her way around
really answering back then, not wanting to hurt his feelings or to make things
too awkward at this job she so desperately needed. But this time around, as
casual as Merry tried to keep things, she knew she owed the man an actual
answer.

“Arthur, you know I adore you—”

Arthur shook his head. “Yeah, I can hear
that
but
rolling up. But. But this, but that. That’s what you’re gonna
say, am I right?”

“I’m gonna say that, I just—I’m in this
crazy-making situation and—I’m not going to marry to solve a problem, Arthur. I
kind of want to marry for love.”

“Who says love ain’t a problem?” Arthur
asked. The man was way smarter than he looked.

♥    ♥    ♥

Far across town
in a decidedly upscale bistro, Daniel Bell leaned over the remains of Eggs
Benedict to kiss his date, Catherine Strong, goodbye. As he pulled away, she
lingered.

“You know what your problem is, Daniel?
You’re pathologically responsible, that’s all.”

Daniel straightened up congenially and
signed to cover the check. As beautiful as Catherine was, he found her coy wit
to be every bit as appealing as her pale blue eyes and her lithe, feminine
form. Rising, he stroked Catherine’s arm affectionately. “Much as I hate to
tear myself away, I’m sure your father would appreciate it. ‘Tis the season,
you know.”

As Daniel rose to leave, Catherine
checked her lipstick. “Daddy shouldn’t work you so hard,” she pouted.

“I do believe he’s testing me.”

“Grooming you,” Catherine corrected.
“There’s a difference. He’s been hinting about retiring.”

Daniel had supposed as much.

At seventy, Catherine’s father had been
dialing back time spent at the office gradually. The president of the bank that
had stayed in his family for generations, Catherine was his sole heir and the
apple of his eye. A shrewd man, he’d begun to entrust more and more
responsibility to Daniel, with a not so subtle approving nod toward the
developing relationship between his star vice president and his one-time
jet-setting daughter.

It had seemed strange at first to Daniel.
As a widower of almost three years, Daniel hadn’t dated or even desired to for
such a very long time. It had been all he could do to function after losing his
wife. Suddenly a single parent, he had thrown himself into his work, which was
precisely where he’d eventually met Catherine, fresh off a break-up and ready
to keep her feet on the ground for a while. Finally, the cloud of grief had
lifted for Daniel, and his lonesome heart had found a way to move on again.

“Would you be up for an early dinner?”
Daniel inquired.

“I believe I could swing that. Could we
try someplace new?”

Daniel smiled knowingly. He steeled
himself to take the plunge. “Actually, I was thinking my place. It’s time you
met the children.”

♥    ♥    ♥

Arthur dished
up an order of hash and scooted it up on the counter for Merry. “I’m just
saying.”

Merry wiped something sticky off her
hands. “And I appreciate it, Arthur, but—”

“Your point is that I ain’t ‘It’.”

Merry put her towel down, leaning closer
in earnest. The last thing she ever wanted to do was to hurt Arthur, but she
didn’t have an insincere bone in her body. “No, no, you’re undeniably It. Your
Itness is legend. I mean, you’re fabulously It for somebody. And you’re way It
as a friend for me, but—”

Arthur gestured toward the waiting order.
“Hash ain’t getting any hotter.”

Merry grabbed the plate and delivered it
to a man at the counter as fellow waitress Kiki Stone sidled up to her.
African-American and in her early forties, Kiki had a winning way of diving
straight for the bottom line. “How much you short?”

Merry waved her friend off. “Keep it,
Kiki. You’re feeding your boys by yourself. I’ll figure it out.”

Undaunted, Kiki cheerily emptied the tips
from her pockets. “Not gonna deprive me of my blessing. Nuh-uh. Mama always
said, ‘Give and it shall be given to you, pressed down, shaken together,
running all over the place.’ So, you best take what I got, get that whole
Christmas ball rolling.”

Leaving no room for Merry to protest, Kiki
picked up a pitcher of ice water and sashayed back out to the floor. Merry
glanced at the pile of cash. Kiki had a knack for racking up tips and this
particular morning had been no exception.

“Go on, there’s more where that come
from,” Kiki waved, already across the diner. Gratefully, Merry collected Kiki’s
earnings and stuffed them into her apron.

Later that day, Merry spun through the
revolving door of Strong Bank & Trust. There was something about revolving
doors that left her a little off balance, even after she’d escaped one’s orbit.
Regaining her equilibrium, she scanned the vaulted ceilings and the elegantly
appointed lobby, suddenly self-conscious about her uniform. Not far from the
entrance, she saw a man, apparently in his late thirties, shaking the hand of
an impeccably dressed elderly socialite. A uniformed driver stood at the
woman’s side.

“I’m Daniel Bell,” the man said. “It’ll
be my pleasure to handle your accounts, Mrs. Rockingham. Here’s my card.”

It’s not that Merry noticed every man who
crossed her path, but for some reason there was something about this Daniel
Bell that caught her attention. Maybe it was just overhearing his name, she
thought. Maybe it was the pleasantness of his voice. It might have been how
professional he looked in his perfectly tailored suit. Whatever it was, Merry
reasoned, he seemed like someone who could help her.

As Merry waited, she glanced down at the
coffee cup in her hand. She kicked herself for not throwing it away in the
trashcan on the street corner. It’s not that it was empty. It’s just that a
paper cup seemed incongruous in this place, so she checked around for a place
to toss it. As Mrs. Rockingham grandly passed to exit, Merry turned to clear
the woman’s path to the door.

There were times it seemed that Merry’s
timing was impeccable. This wasn’t one of them. As it was, when she backed
farther into the lobby, she smacked right into Daniel. Startled, she whirled
and, to make matters worse, coffee from the aforementioned coffee cup sloshed
onto Daniel’s charcoal suit.

“Oh!” Merry gasped. “Oh, no, I... Let
me—” Flustered, Merry quickly used her napkin to blot Daniel’s jacket.

“It’s fine,” he assured. “Really. I’ve
got it.”

As Daniel took over the wiping, Merry
couldn’t help but notice how congenial he was being about her gaffe, or how
very handsome he looked in his freshly stained jacket.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “Could I get
that cleaned?”

Daniel smiled, putting a hand up in
polite refusal. “No, no. Needed it anyway. Is there something I can do for you?”

Chagrined, Merry piped up. “You wouldn’t
know where I could get a loan application, would you?”

Night had long since fallen and, with it,
the Downtown Diner had closed its doors for the evening. Skeeter cozied up to a
heating vent just outside the front plate glass window.

Inside, Arthur put chairs up on tables
while Merry sat, studying the paperwork from the bank. With all its blank lines
gaping at her, the form was more than a little intimidating. Merry had always
done her best to pay her bills on time. A time or two she’d cut it close. Never
before, though, had she had a repossession that she would have to declare.

Not until that morning.

The voice Merry didn’t like to listen to
sorely tempted her to leave the smudge off her application. It was a voice
she’d heard more than once in her life, enough to recognize the grimy pit of
its origins. It rationalized omitting the humiliating truth that, try as she
might, she’d failed to make her November payment. It taunted her to worry what
that nice man at the bank would think of her when he saw what a deadbeat she
was.

Merry sat, motionless. She thought about
the times she’d listened to that nagging voice. She pondered how empty she’d
felt whenever she’d given into it. Finally, she shook her head
no
. She took
a deep breath and put her pen to the paper.
 

“I could help you with that loan app,”
Arthur offered. “Best reference you’d find. That don’t change, just ‘cause you
don’t go for what I got.”

Merry looked up with sheepish affection.
“You’re like a big brother, Arthur.”

“Big as in too old? That it?”

Arthur always nailed it on the head. As
much as Merry attempted to save his pride, he always saw through it. “Kinda
hoping to stay in my decade,” she admitted. “Still love you, though.”

Arthur shrugged, and then flipped another
chair over onto a table. “I’ll co-sign that if you need it.”

Merry felt awful. How could Arthur be so
completely great to her even though she was rejecting him? “I couldn’t—”

Arthur stopped. “So, you love me like a
brother. Whaddaya think brothers do?”

♥    ♥    ♥

Daniel entered
his high-toned kitchen, stopping a moment to take in the aroma of barbequed
chicken. There was his mother, Joan—still fit at sixty—husking fresh corn on
the cob. His fashion-forward fifteen year-old daughter, Tara, was in the
process of making a salad, and her sardonic twin sister, Hayden, pecked
insistently on a laptop. It was the new normal they’d found as a family since
what they rarely talked about.

“You’re home early,” Joan slyly observed.
“You must be terribly interested in this girl.”

“She’s a woman, Mother,” Daniel replied.

Joan brushed the correction off. “I’m as
liberated as the next one, but honestly, Dear. What woman doesn’t appreciate
the implication of youth?”

“I don’t,” Tara complained. “Not when I
can’t car date.”

Joan gave her granddaughter a consoling
squeeze. “Trust me. You’ll be older soon enough. Enjoy your youth for the two
seconds it lasts.”

“And by all means,” Hayden goaded, “rub
it in as often as possible that you have a boyfriend who wants to take you on a
car date.”

Tara rolled her eyes, completely
unamused.

Daniel scanned the faces of his girls. “I
hope I can count on you to remember your manners tonight. You, too, Mother.”

Hayden simultaneously slumped and
groaned. “Tell me we don’t have to like her.”

Daniel tried his best to be patient. He
knew that their mother would be a hard act to follow by anyone’s standards,
even his own. “You could be open,” he suggested. “I know she’ll never be your
mom, but...I like her.”

Suddenly, Tara showed interest. “You mean
you like her, like her?”

Daniel wasn’t one to blush, but he did
take a second to compose himself. “Yes. For the record, I like her, like her.
Run upstairs and change for dinner, will you?”

Already stylishly garbed, Tara flashed a
playfully indignant glare. “Excuse me, Dad, but...please.”

With a nod, Daniel acknowledged Tara’s
very suitable attire in contrast to her sister, Hayden’s. Hayden shook her head
and rose compliantly.

“Silly me. I thought I’d just wow her
with my witty repartee.”

“Which is always appreciated,” Daniel
added.

“Yeah, in Geekville—” Hayden began, just
as her nine year-old brother, Ollie, burst into the room.

Jubilantly filthy, Ollie ran straight to
his father. “Dad, can I start a worm farm?”

“—population: two,” Hayden concluded as
she disappeared up the kitchen stairs.

Daniel turned to his son. Ollie was
always popping with ideas, a new one it seemed, every day. “I suppose that’s
negotiable,” Daniel started. “But right now, how about you hit the shower? I
have a date coming.”

Clearly, Ollie was unimpressed. “More
girls?” he moaned. “We’re already surrounded.”

“Just one,” Daniel clarified, leading his
son to the kitchen stairs.

Visibly engaged at the prospect, Joan
probed. “Are you saying this thing is exclusive?”

Daniel turned back with a congenial sigh.
“Try to contain yourself, Mother.”

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