We Need a Little Christmas (15 page)

When Scott arrived at Nammy's a few days later, Liv almost let Rachel answer the door. But that would be cowardly. And obvious. So she answered it.
As long as I'm not alone with him, I'll be fine.

“Hi.” She stepped back to let him in, her smile firmly in place.

He returned her smile with an equally fixed one of his own, one that looked so inconsistent with his usual easy grin. After just a few days without seeing him, it was ridiculous that he should seem so much more three-dimensional than she remembered.

Then his eyes went past her as he stepped inside. “Wow.” His voice echoed.

They had been busy, and it showed.

By now the house was picked clean, except for the living room furniture they were leaving in place, the stacks of boxes, and the kitchen table in the room beyond. They'd even shrunk the to-keep pile down to a more manageable size.

“We're pretty much done,” Liv admitted.

It
was
hard to admit. As difficult as the job had been, it was even more painful to see it end. After today, there wouldn't be much reason to come back here, unless they brought a real estate agent to make arrangements to list the house. Liv wished her mom would let her help with the process of putting the place up for sale. But Mom didn't see any point in doing that until the Christmas season was over, and Liv couldn't argue with her logic.

“You guys have done a great job.” Scott's deep voice resonated as he walked through the nearly empty kitchen and into the hallway, the ladder still waiting under the trap door.

Liv hugged her arms against her ribs, feeling as hollow inside as the house was starting to feel. Eighty-three years on the planet, and soon the only evidence of Nammy would be the scattered mementos they'd kept. When Mom and Rachel greeted Scott as he passed through the kitchen, Liv heard that rare quaver in her mother's voice.

Mom really shouldn't be here anyway. With all the packing and sorting taken care of, there wasn't much left for her to do, and it was hard on her emotionally. Still, she was determined to see this through to the end.

Scott set up a system of handing the boxes down the ladder. He climbed the ladder, reaching up to get the boxes down from the attic floor; then he handed them down to Liv, standing at the base of the ladder. She set them on the kitchen table, pushed to the edge of the hallway so she wouldn't have to handle their weight for more than a moment. It took less than ten minutes. After that, he carted them to the truck.

When they got to the box of Liv's grandfather's painting supplies, Faye said, “Wait.”

Scott turned to her, questioning. He hadn't looked directly at Liv since he first arrived. The effort of not looking at her was starting to give him a crick in his neck.

“We might be able to use those,” Faye said.

Scott shifted the box in his arms. It wasn't very heavy, but it was cumbersome. “The to-keep pile, then?”

“I was thinking we could use them here.” The way the words rushed out of Faye, coupled with her suddenly straight posture despite the crutches, made Scott see Liv in her.

Faye turned to indicate the end of the hallway, where the mystery cabinet stood, still filled with Nammy's never-completed home improvement projects.

“Do you think—” Faye went on with that odd mix of tentativeness and determination that was so much like her daughter. “I'd want to pay you. But the house really could use a facelift after all these years. It'd be easier to sell.”

Her voice wavered faintly at the last words, and like a flash, her two daughters were flanking her, ready to offer support.

Rachel said, “I think it's a good idea.”

Liv said, “Mom, are you sure?”

She seemed to be trying to catch her mother's eye, and Scott could guess at her thoughts:
More Scotty Leroux in my life?

Scott leaned against the displaced kitchen table, waiting for the three women to kick this around before he weighed in. Maybe the decision would be taken out of his hands. It wasn't typical for him to turn down a job. It also wasn't in his nature to say no to a friend or neighbor in need. This proposition combined the two, with Liv thrown into the mix.

Liv, who was looking steadfastly at her mother, not at him.

Faye's voice remained just a touch unsteady. “It would be nice to have the house done the way she wanted it,” she said.

And Scott knew what this was really about, at least for Faye: she wasn't ready to let go. Closing up this house was like another funeral for her. But at some point, a person did have to let go.

“It's a nice idea.” He kept his voice as gentle as he could, trying not to disturb the delicate equilibrium of three sets of female emotions. “But you do know that whoever moves here next might want something entirely different anyway.”

“Yeah,” Rachel said, linking her arm through her mother's. “But right now people who come to see the house would probably walk away calling it ‘the one with the ducks in the living room.' It's probably a good idea to update it.”

“I
love
the ducks,” Liv protested.

Scott knew the answer to that one. “Actually, she wanted to keep the ducks as sort of a border across the top of the wall,” he said. “It'd look nice.”

Apparently he'd paid more attention to her decorating talk than he realized.

Faye nodded, her eyes shimmering. “That
would
be nice.”

Scott swallowed hard.

He knew what shimmering eyes meant. They meant there was no way he could bring himself to say no. He had no doubt that a home makeover project loomed in his future. But first, they had to decide they were going ahead with it.

Scott shoved his hands awkwardly into his pockets. “Why don't the three of you talk it over and give me a call,” he said. “If you want me to do the job, I'm in.”

Chapter 16

“His eyes are lopsided,” Rachel said in mild dismay.

Sitting next to Rachel at Mom's kitchen table, Liv leaned over to inspect the snowman cookie Rachel was decorating.

“One of the red hots is bigger than the other,” Liv said. “That's the problem.” Liv snatched the bigger of the snowman's two red-hot eyes off the cookie, leaving behind a smeared white dot of the icing Rachel had dabbed on to hold the red hot in place.

“Hey!” Rachel swatted Liv's hand and turned to their mother, who sat at the head of the table. “
Mom!
”

“I was
helping
,” Liv said innocently.

“Girls,” Mom said reflexively in the admonishing tone she'd used since Liv and Rachel were kids. Which they'd pretty much reverted to. Mom didn't miss a beat as she turned a wreath, with green sugar frosting and more red hots for berries, into a work of art.

This was what Christmas should be like. In the background, Dean Martin warbled on the living room stereo. And roughly two hundred wafer-thin sugar cookies sat in the center of the table in intimidating stacks, waiting to be decorated.

“Besides”—Mom set down her finished wreath cookie and glanced up at Rachel with a glint in her eye—“if one of them isn't perfect, you've got a dozen more tries to get it right.”

Mom had warned them that baking the cookies from her time-honored recipe was the easy part. But Rachel had seized on the idea, and Liv had taken it up. The cookie project brought a welcome relief after the sobering sight of Nammy's nearly empty house this morning. Trouble was, it looked like they'd be up until the wee hours decorating the cookies.

Liv welcomed the chance to keep busy. Sitting here with Mom and Rachel, this could be any Christmas from her teens. In the face of something so normal, those moments with Scott in the dark attic felt far away. Like someone else's out-of-body experience.

Liv watched her sister carefully position another red hot on the snowman's face. At the rate Rachel was going, it might take till New Year's. “Maybe you should concentrate on one-eyed critters.” Some of the animal shapes were done in profile; Liv looked over the stacks. “We've got camels, donkeys, Scottie dogs . . .”

She bit her tongue.

“That reminds me.” Mom picked up another wreath and began applying the white frosting with a butter knife and a deft hand. “You can take some cookies over to Scotty when he starts on the house tomorrow.”

Did Mom
really
not know? Or was she still trying to set Liv up?

Liv bit her tongue again and didn't comment until Mom left the table for a bathroom break.

She hissed to Rachel, “Can't you take the cookies instead?”

“I'm a married woman.” Rachel dotted frosting into place for a camel's eye. Her mouth had a smug set. “I have my reputation to think of.”

“Very funny.”

“She wants me to take her Christmas shopping for
you
tomorrow, nimrod,” Rachel whispered. “She's having a hard time coming up with ideas. She's not sure what you like anymore.”

Ouch.
“She doesn't have to get me anything.”

“Yeah, right. How many times has Mom said that to
us
? You know that's not how it works.”

“I know.” And shopping ideas or not, neither of them wanted Mom trying to trundle herself into a car and navigate the sidewalks of Evergreen Lane alone on her crutches.

Avoiding Scott was silly. She could handle it. She was only here another week and a half. Resolutely, she seized her next cookie to decorate. A Scottie dog. They'd always been a favorite, decorated with long, chocolatey sprinkles that simulated a dog's shaggy coat.

What did Scottie dogs have to do with Christmas, anyway?

* * *

It felt strange to knock on Nammy's door when Nammy wouldn't be the one answering it. But Liv had her hands full. She had to do the knocking with her foot.

In addition to the big platter of Christmas cookies, she'd picked up a bag of fried chicken from the Pine 'n' Dine, since she was getting here around lunchtime. She wasn't sure which would be the bigger loss if she fumbled, the platter or the cookies on top of it. They'd taken until nearly three
AM
to complete.

Scott opened the door and looked down at her burden. “I was going to say
we don't want any
,” he said. “But if that bag has what I think it has . . .”

His tone sounded nearly normal. Nearly.
See?
Liv told herself.
No problem.

Scott took the bag of chicken with one hand and tried to relieve her of the cookie platter with the other. He seemed surprised when she wouldn't let go.

“Sorry.” Liv kept the plastic-wrapped plate gripped in both hands. “If either of us drops these, I'll cry.”

Scott stepped aside to let her pass by. She walked in and looked for a place to set the platter. An end table still stood at the end of the living room next to the doorway leading into the kitchen. Just beyond, the kitchen was already turning into a new type of chaos. The big stepladder had taken up residence near the dining room wall, tarps were spread on sections of the floor, and the room had a scent of wet paper and—was it glue? Wallpaper paste, she realized.

She set the cookies down. “So you're starting with the wallpaper?”

“I figured I'd tackle the ugliest job first. That way it's all downhill from there.” Scotty bent to inspect the cookies through the clear plastic wrap. “You guys made these? They're too pretty to eat.”

“The wreaths are really good. You get the sugar frosting and you get four red hots. And I like the chocolate-sprinkled ones: the donkeys, the teddy bears . . .”

He squinted at the array of cookies in front of him. “Scottie dogs? For Christmas?” He looked up, crooked smile in place, and her heart flip-flopped.

Liv took a step back. It wasn't a good idea to get
too
comfortable. “Don't ask me why. We've had all those cookie cutters since I was a little kid.”

“Your grandmother's recipe?”

“I don't think so. She was more into store-bought pfeffernuss.”

Scott gestured with the Pine 'n' Dine bag, still in his hand. “I don't suppose you threw in a drumstick for yourself?”

She fought the urge to edge toward the door. “No, I have to go. But there's something I wanted to cover first.” She fished a folded sheet of paper out of her purse and tried not to sound too officious. “Mom thought it would be a good idea to get a rundown from you of what you'll be charging for this, so I made a list.”

She held the sheet out to him awkwardly, meeting his eyes with an effort. She knew eyes couldn't really change color, but Scott's seemed to shift from their usual warm blue to a lighter shade of polar frost. He made no move to take the paper.

Liv took a deep breath. “Scott, you know you can't do this for nothing. So let's get an agreement up front. We're worried about you short-changing yourself, not the other way around.”

He still didn't take the paper from her hand. “This doesn't sound like your mother.”

She hesitated. “She agreed it was a good idea.”

That is, if you counted
I guess so
and
if you really think we need to.

Scott leaned against the frame of the kitchen doorway, his stare unyielding.

Liv fumbled for language he'd understand: a joke. “I think her exact words were, ‘I don't want that dirty rotten snake in the grass to bilk us for everything we've got.'”

That helped. Small crinkles appeared at the corners of his eyes, and some of the tension in Liv's stomach eased.

“Money between friends is always awkward,” she said. “And you've done so much for us already, without asking for anything. I thought it would be a good idea to . . .”

Now she was rambling. But maybe Scott knew what she meant, because his eyes softened.

“All right,” he said. “I'll look it over. But fair warning: I reserve the right to make deductions for fried chicken and free cookies. Can I get it back to you tomorrow?”

“Deal.” Liv stepped back. “But if you don't give it back by tomorrow,
we
reserve the right to lock you out of this house.”

“And how are you going to pull that off? Hire me to change the locks to keep me out?”

She grinned and took another step toward the door. Something was going on, because while her head was telling her feet to leave, another part of her kept pulling in the other direction. Heaven help her, she didn't want to go. “Thanks, Scott.”

As she forced herself to turn away, a thud sounded from the kitchen.

Scott turned toward the noise, and Liv joined him in the jumble of chaos that used to be her grandmother's dining area. At the foot of the ladder, several feet from where Scott had been standing, was an overturned bucket. It had neatly missed the tarp, and thick goo was slowly spreading over the floor's aging linoleum.

Reaching the bucket before Liv, Scott righted it and set it on the floor underneath the ladder. Liv grabbed a stray rag, dropped to the floor, and tried to mop up the mess. The rag promptly stuck to the goo, which was already stuck to the floor.

“I think that's a lost cause,” Scott said. “It's wallpaper paste. Good thing we're replacing the linoleum anyway.”

Liv pulled up at the rag, trying to end its marriage to the floor. It brought up a thick stretch of paste along with it. “Hot water might help.”

When he didn't answer, she looked up to find him grinning with amusement. “You're like a dog with a bone,” he said. “Don't worry about it. Remember, the flooring's a goner anyway.”

“But in the meantime, if you step here by accident, you could end up attached to the floor.”

Scott bent and took the rag from her. “I'll cover it up with newspaper.”

Liv gave up and stood. “Why did it fall, anyway?”

Scott shrugged. “Gravity?”

Spontaneous gravity, then. Because neither of them had been anywhere near the ladder.

Robbed of her last purpose for being here, Liv surveyed the nearly unrecognizable dining area. The living room, still untouched, retained Nammy's personality. This room, stripped of Nammy's belongings, had turned into a construction zone. Only the long Shaker table remained, and Scott had pushed it into the cooking area, away from all the tarps.

The old wallpaper was down, which explained the wet-paper smell Liv had noticed when she entered the house. In its place, Scott had covered the wall with sheets of some sort of plain white backing. It reminded her of primer on a car. Rolls of the new wallpaper were propped against the adjoining wall. Stripped of the old wallpaper, the plaster showed remnants of the glue that had held it in place. For how many decades?

Getting used to the idea that this was no longer Nammy's home—well, she probably still wasn't there yet. Getting used to the idea that this would become someone else's home—that was a thought she hadn't fully gotten around to.

Liv went to the wall and fingered the edges of the wallpaper backing, joined neatly against each other. She knew there were stages of grief. But she wondered when all the new adjustments would stop coming along and taking her by surprise. When she got back to Dallas, she supposed.

“That's the backing,” Scott explained, as if he thought she was trying to fathom the paper's purpose. “It's thicker and smoother. It makes it easier for the new wallpaper to stick, and there won't be the irregularities you'd have from the surface of the wall.”

She nodded.

“It's also a lot easier to hang than the wallpaper,” he went on. “It's so thick it almost slides into place. The actual wallpaper is thinner, and it's a lot less forgiving. Getting that to hang without wrinkling or tearing is the toughest part of the job.”

She raised her eyebrows. “How do you manage that all by yourself?”

He responded with the usual lopsided grin. “Very, very carefully.”

The sensible thing, she supposed, would have been to just have him repaint. A little late to suggest it now. Plus, that wasn't what her mother had in mind.

Liv eyed the new wallpaper. It didn't look like Nammy's taste, but it was cute. “I like the apples,” she said. “I hope it's worth it.”

“I'll make it work.”

“Thanks.”
And we'll pay you for your trouble. Like it or not.

She started to leave again, something like
good luck
trying to form on her lips. Instead, she turned back, and what came out of her mouth was, “Could you use any help?”

His smile wavered. “What, seriously?”

“Mom and Rachel are off doing super-secret Christmas shopping.” Liv made herself shrug. “If you could walk me through what to do, it looks like you could use another pair of hands.”

After all, helping with Nammy's old house served more purpose than waiting at home for Mom and Rachel.

Scott's smile faded almost completely, and he regarded her seriously, as if he were sizing her up as a deckhand for a long sea voyage.

“It might help the job go faster,” she heard herself say.

“Okay.” Scott's grin tipped back up. “But I'm deducting it off your bill. If you're any good.”

* * *

Scott honestly hadn't been looking forward to wallpapering the dining area by himself. He really should have recruited a friend in exchange for a share of the take. He certainly hadn't planned on Liv volunteering.