The Snow Globe (7 page)

They stood beside a snowman wearing a very ugly scarf. Kiley recognized those colors. Obviously, when it came to figuring out how best to use Allison's early craftwork, great minds thought
alike. The snowman's wardrobe didn't catch Kiley's eye as much as the expression on Bryn's face. She looked up at her mother as though Suzanne was the Madonna.

And Suzanne's expression? It was one Kiley recognized. It said:
Okay. Snowman completed? Check. Now, let's get on to the next thing on the list—pronto
. And there was always a next thing on the list. Suzanne liked to live in the moment, the moment that belonged to the future. She was constantly looking ahead: to the next decorating project, the next listing, or the next sale, busy building an empire in which her home was the crown jewel. Kiley admired her friend's efficiency, but she sometimes worried that Suz didn't really appreciate how much she already had.

“So, let's see the snow globe,” said Suz, cutting to the chase.

“How about a cup of tea first? Allison's coming over with chocolate mint brownies.”

“Her Christmas ones?” Suzanne asked hopefully. Kiley nodded and she said, “Okay, I'll wait.”

“What do you mean wait?”

“Well, I can't stay too long. I have to run over to the office and do a couple of things.”

“You know, rest is not a four-letter word,” said Kiley.

Suzanne made a face. “I'll rest in January, but right now I have a million things to do for the holiday home tour.” She checked her watch, reminding Kiley of the White Rabbit in
Alice in Wonderland
.

“You don't have to stay, you know,” Kiley said, miffed. “No one forced you to come over and check my grip on reality.”

Suzanne's expression turned penitent and she let her hand fall to her side. “Sorry. But cut me some slack, okay? I wouldn't be here if I didn't care.” She went to the couch and perched on one end. “Tea sounds great.” As Kiley moved to the stove to heat water for brewing she saw Furina stalking toward Suzanne's lap. Suz held up a hand, stopping the cat in her tracks. “Don't even think about it.”

Furina jumped off the couch and walked away, tail held high. Poor Furina. Suzanne had never allowed her within lap range after the night Furina yakked up a fur ball on the cream-colored sweater Suz had left laying on a chair.

The doorbell rang and then the door flew open. “I'm here,” announced Allison. “Let the brownie binging begin.”

That brought Suz off the couch.

Kiley started herbal tea steeping in her Fiestaware pot, then joined her two friends at the kitchen counter, where Allison had set down a small decorative Fitz and Floyd Christmas plate laden with brownies thickly topped with green frosting and sprinkles.

“Oh my gosh, I think I just gained two pounds from simply looking at those,” said Suzanne, awe in her voice.

That was a joke. Suzanne managed her weight as efficiently as she did her calendar. Her body wouldn't dare harbor any fat.

Kiley never worried about her weight. Running burned up enough calories that she could splurge when she wanted. Which was just what she intended to do now. She picked one up and bit into it. Heaven.

Suzanne took a delicate nibble of one, then closed her eyes
and savored. “Better than sex,” she murmured.

“Nothing is better than sex,” Allison informed her.

She merely shrugged. “This takes less energy.” Both friends looked at her in disgust. “What?” she protested.

“If we have to explain, you're beyond help,” Allison said sternly.

Any minute Suz was going to demand to check out the snow globe. “So, what does Bryn want from Santa this year?” asked Kiley, trying to postpone the inevitable.

Suz rolled her eyes. “A puppy.”

“Aw, that's sweet,” said Allison.

“Oh, yeah. It's especially sweet when the thing is whining to go out at two in the morning or when it pees on the carpet. No, thanks.”

“You have hardwood,” Kiley said dismissively.

“Excuse me? Are you forgetting my new Persian rug in the living room? Anyway, having a puppy would be just like having a baby and I don't have time,” Suzanne added. She leaned on the counter and started in on another brownie.

“Even Martha Stewart has a dog,” protested Allison.

“And a staff to train it,” countered Suzanne. “Anyway, why are we talking about me? We're here to hear about Mr. Wonderful and gaze into the snow globe.”

Allison took a brownie from the plate, looked at it longingly, and then returned it. “Has he called yet?”

Kiley picked it up, broke it in two, and handed Allison half. “No. But we only met Friday,” she said as much to herself as to her friend. And talked for hours and shared a good-night kiss
that had curled her toes. Why hadn't he called?

“But he's perfect,” said Allison. She took a bite of the brownie then threw the rest in the garbage. “And the snow globe led her to him.”

Suzanne took a quick sip of her tea, then said, “Okay, I want to see this for myself.”

“Doubting Thomas,” muttered Kiley, but she took them to her bedroom. Furina was now stretched out on her bed, happily getting little black cat hairs all over her comforter.

Suzanne walked to where the snow globe sat on the dresser. “It is beautiful, I'll say that. I have to admit, if I'd seen it before you I'd have bought it. It would have looked great on my mantel.” She picked it up and handed it to Kiley. “It's show time. Let's see it do its stuff.”

Kiley made a face at her and took it. There was the Alpine village and the toyshop and the angel. Her heart sped up. What if, all of a sudden, it decided not to work?

“Come on,” urged Allison. “I'm dying to see.”

Kiley took a deep breath and gave it a jiggle. The snow swirled. And then settled. And there it was: Craig's toyshop. He still stood in the doorway. And she was there, too, right next to him, smiling up at him. A thrill ran through her and she grinned.

“Do it again,” suggested Allison. “Maybe it needs to, you know, get warmed up.”

Kiley blinked. “What do you mean? Don't you see it? There's the toyshop, there's Craig, there's…”

Both her friends were exchanging worried looks.

Her heart sank. “You don't see it?”

An uncomfortable silence settled over the room. Kiley gave the snow globe another shake and all three women stared at it.

“Sorry, Kiles,” said Suzanne. “I'm still not seeing it.”

Kiley looked hopefully to Allison, who shook her head slowly and said, “Maybe you're the only one who can.”

“Or you dreamed what you saw,” said Suzanne. “Didn't you say it was the middle of the night?”

“I saw it this morning, too, the same thing that's there now,” Kiley insisted. “And I'm not imagining it.” She set the snow globe back on the dresser and left the room. “Maybe it doesn't show itself to skeptics.”

“I'm not a skeptic,” Allison protested, following her out.

Suzanne fell in line behind them. “Okay, maybe it is there and I'm blind. And maybe you've found the perfect man and your future will be great. I mean, I hope you have. I just don't want you to get hurt, that's all. So don't be mad at me.”

Kiley sighed. How could she be mad at a friend who cared
enough to worry about her? Suzanne was looking at her, defensive, hopeful, sympathetic. “I wish I could be.”

Suzanne smiled and hugged Kiley. “Keep me posted on what happens with Toy Boy. If that snow globe works I may have to borrow it and ask it to show me where the buyers for the house on Eleventh Avenue are.”

Leave it to Suz to want to turn the snow globe into an Aladdin's lamp.

Their friendship restored to an even keel, Suzanne pulled her coat from the closet. “I've gotta go. Allison, I'll talk to you more next week about the food for the home tour,” she added. Then she was gone.

Allison shook her head. “How did we ever wind up becoming friends with such an overachiever?”

“You're a bit of an overachiever yourself, you know. Working full time and catering on the side.”

“Yeah, but the catering is fun,” Allison said with a grin. “Sometimes, when I'm in the kitchen, I can almost feel my grandma there with me.” It had been almost a year since her grandmother died, but Allison's eyes still glistened with tears.

“She'd be proud of you,” said Kiley.

“I hope so,” said Allison, and wiped at a corner of her eye.

Kiley helped herself to another brownie. “So, do you think I'm nuts?” she asked, careful not to look at her friend.

“Absolutely not,” Allison said firmly. “Of course, I'm probably the wrong person to ask. I still put out cookies for Santa.”

Kiley regarded her skeptically. “You don't.”

“Of course, I do.” She grinned. “Then on Christmas morning
I eat 'em. Seriously,” she added, “I believe in miracles. After all, isn't that what this time of year is all about?” She hugged Kiley. “And I believe you. If you say you see the toyshop and Craig in that snow globe then you do. And that's that.”

Allison's support should have been enough, but Kiley found herself doubting her own eyesight. After Allison left she settled on the couch with the snow globe and started a blizzard. Even before the snow finished falling she could see the Pike Place toyshop. She was not imagining this. Couldn't be. But how could she prove it?

Inspiration hit. She jumped off the couch and ran for her digital camera. Allison hadn't been looking carefully enough. Suzanne had been deliberately blind. The light had been bad. As with many live shows, something had gone wrong. But this time she'd capture that image and then Suzanne would have to believe her. Camera in hand, she shook the snow globe and then set it on the coffee table and snapped the picture. Ha!

Smiling, she looked at the camera screen. There was the snow globe, but the Pike Place Market toyshop was nowhere to be seen. Instead, the angel in its Alpine village seemed to mock her. Icy fingers of fear ran over her skin and she dropped the camera. She
was
hallucinating. “I
am
going crazy,” she said to herself in shock.

But crazy people didn't find a shop, let alone a man, that was an exact match to what they had seen in a snow globe, did they?

Kiley suddenly remembered Otto Schwartz, its original owner. He probably thought he was crazy when he first saw his future
wife inside that glass ball, but a miracle happened anyway. Miracles had a way of happening when people needed them most. Kings were born in mangers; angels serenaded shepherds. Not everyone saw miracles when they happened, but that didn't make them any less real.

She erased the false picture from her camera's memory card and returned the snow globe to her dresser. Then she settled in with her new issue of
Runner's World,
keeping the phone handy. Craig would call. They'd be together. It was her turn for a holiday miracle.

She got three more calls that night. One from Mom, asking how she was doing, another from Gwinnie, calling to reassure herself that Kiley hadn't yet disowned her, and another from a telemarketer. But nothing from Craig Peters. To distract herself from her disappointment and the possibility that she might be going insane, she watched her favorite TV shows until, finally, there was nothing left to do but to go to bed and feel let down.

She avoided even looking at the snow globe as she turned off the bathroom light and padded to her sleigh bed (the second purchase she'd made with Jeremy for their new life together).

Craig would call. Tomorrow.

 

Kiley began her next day with a morning run, splashing through puddles, enjoying air still fresh from the weekend's snowfall, breathing in, breathing out, welcoming the endorphins racing through her body as she jogged her way along the sidewalk. She
returned home feeling energized. Until she checked her cell and found she had no messages.

He'll call, she told herself. Meanwhile, you have things to do. And to prove it, she spent the rest of the morning on the Internet, catching up on her social networking, searching job sites and sending off e-mails to let friends and former coworkers know that her services were now available if anyone needed a Web site designed or a mailing list managed or…anything. Just a couple of clients would keep her boat afloat until she found full-time employment again.

Having done all she could on the job front, she put on her favorite Carrie Underwood CD and went into a cleaning fever, singing along with “Before He Cheats” at the top of her lungs. Okay, all better now, she told herself. So what if Jeremy had dumped her, if Craig Peters hadn't called. Her life was still good. She had…she had…What
did
she have?

Furina. She picked up the cat, who was twining around her legs as she cleaned off her kitchen countertops, reminding Kiley that her cat food bowl was empty. “Who needs men, anyway, right?” she told the cat, running her hands through Furina's soft fur. Of course, employment was another matter. “I am not going to get depressed,” she informed the cat, setting her back down on the floor. “And you are not getting anything more until tonight. You're on a diet. Remember?”

Furina rubbed against her leg again.
Pleeease? You think you've got it bad? I haven't had a man in years. The least you can do is let me enjoy a little extra tuna
.

Kiley gave in. “Okay, okay. But you're not getting the whole
can. You have to have a little self-control.” Like Kiley had exerted over the last of the brownies? Good thing she'd gotten that run in.

The job hunting was done, the condo was clean—what next? She plopped on her couch and frowned at her library book. Then she frowned at the TV. Finally, she glared at the phone. This was ridiculous. Pathetic. She was not going to sit around and wait for a man to call. She needed groceries. She'd go see what she could get for twenty dollars.

She bought the makings for soup, which would get her through the week (and give her something to do when she got home), and all the while her cell phone sat silent and useless in her purse. That night as she readied herself for bed, she averted her eyes whenever she passed the snow globe. It wasn't that she'd lost faith, she told herself. But there was no sense getting her hopes up.

Who was she kidding? She
had
lost faith.

The next day fell into the same familiar pattern. Go for a run. Feel great. Come home and check messages. Lose some of the great feeling. Job hunt, send out résumés, check e-mail, do the tweet 'n' meet thing. Clean some more. Listen for the phone.

Maybe she should call him. They had talked about her designing his Web site. Time was money. Every day he went without a Web site he went without business. She picked up her cell, started to thumb in the number, and then set it down again. She didn't want to look pushy. Or desperate.

She heaved a sigh. What else needed to get done? She'd clean out her closet and take some things to the Goodwill. Perfect.
They could always use donations before Christmas.

She not only found items in her closet to donate, she added several paperbacks she'd finished and knew she'd never read again. That was two bags' full now. It felt good to get rid of the clutter, made her feel efficient and organized, like she was clearing the deck for new opportunties. Now, what else could go?

Her eyes fell on the snow globe.