A Carol Christmas Read online

  “What’s on the back of Mom’s jacket?” I asked.

  “You don’t want to know. Ben said sorry he couldn’t come to meet you. He had band practice, then he had to hang the Christmas lights for Mom.”

  Ah, yes. My older brother the musician. By day he could be found at Carol Music, selling bass guitars to rising rock stars. By night he became a star himself, cranking out hot riffs on his guitar. Weekends, he played all over the county with his band, Fish Without Legs. There probably wasn’t a church kid within a fifty-mile radius who didn’t have one of the band’s autographed CDs. The band even had a manager now, which, I guess, finally made them legit for all the adults in the family. What had started out as Ben’s folly was now the pride of the Hartwells, and everyone was planning to attend their big concert with two other hot local bands, The Red Sea Pedestrians and Heaven Help Us, at the old Roxy theater.

  Now Keira was flashing her left hand in front of my face. “So, is that gorgeous or what?”

  I thought the rock on her finger was obscenely huge. I mean, it was so big most people would think it was cubic zirconia.

  “Wow,” I managed. “That must have set old Spencer back a few pennies.”

  “He can afford it, believe me.” Keira hugged my arm fiercely. “He’s such a great guy. I can hardly wait for you to meet him. He’s coming with us to Ben’s concert tomorrow night. Oh, and tomorrow I want you to go house hunting with me.”

  “House hunting. You’re not getting married until June. Why are you house hunting now?”

  “Spencer thinks we should buy now, before interest rates go up. Anyway, it takes time to find a house.”

  In Carol? Who was she kidding?

  "And you have to allow time for the deal to close." Speaking of closing deals, Keira had sure gotten a ring out of Spencer in a hurry. He went from being her gynecologist to her fiancé in just six months. Marrying your gynecologist. Why did that kind of creep me out?

  “So, you’ll look at houses with me tomorrow?” Keira pressed.

  “Doesn’t Spencer want to do that?”

  “Oh, I’ll send him pics, then bring him back later to see anything I really like.”

  “Okay then. Why not?” I enjoyed poking around houses, pretending I was rich and could actually afford one. And I had come home to see my family.

  We were at the baggage claim now, and Mom was turning around to look for my battered Samsonite with the pink ribbon, the ribbon that would match the jacket Mom was wearing with THE NEW MATH: WOMAN-MAN = NO PROBLEMS blazing across the back.

  “Is that the only jacket she had to wear?” I moaned.

  “It’s good business,” Keira said. She nudged me and nodded at the woman who had just tapped Mom on the shoulder. Now Mom was hauling a business card from her jacket pocket and giving it to the woman. “There. See?”

  “And Spencer knows what kind of a family he’s marrying into?” I asked.

  Keira shrugged. “He knows it’s just business, nothing personal. Well, at least not toward him.”

  “Heaven help him if he does anything to make Mom mad. She could put his face on a T-shirt with bull’s-eye rings drawn around it like she did with Dad,” I said.

  Keira waved that possibility away with a careless flick of her hand. “No, she wouldn’t. She knows Spencer would sue her. Oh, look. There’s your suitcase.”

  The ride home was quite chatty as everyone filled me in on the plans for my visit. There was, of course, Ben’s concert. And the whole family was planning on attending the Christmas Eve service at New Life Church. This, I learned, was because Ben was going to be singing a solo. And if Ben was singing, Mom said, we were going to be there to support him.

  My whole family in church, that would be a new experience. I hoped the members were ready for an entire Hartwell invasion. I wasn’t sure I was.

  Mom had other plans too. She and Aunt Chloe wanted to take me shopping and show me how well the latest Man Haters item was selling. And Grandma was expecting us for lunch later in the week.

  “She wanted to come meet you, but she wasn’t feeling good,” Mom explained, still playing the ailing grandmother card.

  Lunch at Gram’s. I couldn’t bring myself to think about it.

  Aunt Chloe was doing portraits now, and wanted to take some pictures of me so she could start painting mine immediately.

  “That way I can have your portrait done in time for Christmas,” she promised.

  I didn’t know you could do a painting in just a couple of days. Aunt Chloe must have really made progress as an artist.

  Now Mom was staking a claim on my first morning home. She wanted advertising advice. It seemed to me she was already doing too good of a job promoting her business.

  I said, “Sure,” trying to sound as enthusiastic as possible.

  “You don’t sound very enthusiastic,” Mom accused.

  “No, I am,” I said, trying to pump more energy into my voice.

  “You have to give her some time to get used to the idea of your business,” Aunt Chloe said.

  “Why?” Mom asked.

  “Because it’s slightly tacky,” said Keira the Bold. “I mean, you’re building a business on insulting half the human race.”

  “So? That leaves the whole other half to buy my products,” Mom reasoned.

  “Mom. Not everyone hates men,” Keira said. “In fact, it’s out of style to hate men. Everyone I know is obsessed with finding a good one.”

  “Which proves how few there are,” Mom crowed, making Keira roll her eyes. “Mark my words, girls,” Mom continued, “Man Haters, Inc. is going to make all our fortunes.”

  “I don’t need a fortune,” Keira said. “I’ve got Spencer. And Andie’s going to be a rich ad exec.”

  “Well, I’ll take the money,” said Aunt Chloe. “I’m just a starving artist.”

  That statement was questionable on two counts, but Keira and I kept our mouths shut.

  Downtown Carol was dressed for the holidays. Red bows ringed the old-fashioned lamp posts, and every storefront window was festooned with swags of greenery entwined with those old-fashioned, fat red Christmas lights. All we needed was some snow. Although the chances of that were rare. We got plenty of rain in Carol during the winter, but the temperatures rarely dipped low enough to turn it into snow.

  We moved on and headed for the outskirts where the housing developments lay. All two of them. The newer development consisted of bigger and better houses for bigger and better people. Our development, Pleasant View (which didn’t have a view of anything, but oh well), was a mishmash of houses built in the sixties and seventies. Our house was a typical tract rambler, complete with double car garage, one half of which my parents converted to a family room when we were kids. The house sat on a large corner lot, where First and Noel met. Besides the address, the house lent itself well to the holidays, with a huge holly tree in the front yard (great for Christmas, but a prickly pain to get a lawn mower around) and a low roof, perfect for stringing colored lights. At Christmas it always looked cheery and welcoming. Well, except that one Christmas I came home and found Dad moving out. No one had bothered to put up lights that year.

  No lights again this year, I noticed as we drove into the driveway. And, “Where’s the holly tree?”

  “I had it cut down,” Mom said. “I always hated it. I swear, I’m going to strangle your brother with that string of Christmas lights,” she added. “He promised he’d come home from band practice in time to get them up for your homecoming.”

  “He probably lost track of time,” I said in Ben’s defense.

  “He does that a lot,” Mom said, “especially when it involves coming over and helping me with something. Men,” she added in disgust.

  Oh, dear. Maybe Ben would be the next one to end up on a T-shirt with those bull’s-eye circles.

  “Well, his truck’s here,” said Keira.

  I looked at the dilapidated old Toyota parked by the curb. It looked like a wind-up toy that had been played w
ith one too many times. My brother, the successful musician.

  Mom aimed the garage door opener and the door lumbered up to reveal a tall, hunky guy with light brown hair standing in the garage, shielding his eyes from the glare of the headlights. At his feet sat a big box with a snakelike tangle of lights overflowing it.

  “Well, I guess I’ll have to let him live another day,” Mom decided as we got out of the car.

  Ben picked up the box and came ambling over to kiss Mom on the cheek. He smiled across the car roof at me. “Hey, Bruno. Welcome home.”

  Here was another reason not to come home—brothers who refused to abandon insulting childhood nicknames.

  “That’s Andie to you, Christmas turkey,” I told him.

  He just chuckled. Typical guy, I thought, clueless and irritating.

  Then I realized I was sounding like Mom. I was going to get that departure date changed first thing in the morning.

  Ben moved on with the lights, calling over his shoulder, “Save some eggnog for me.”

  At least the inside of the house looked unchanged. Nostalgia settled over me like a warm blanket as I took in the living room. There was the same burnt-orange couch splattered with flowers that looked like they’d been watered with steroids—and the matching chair. There was the Early American rocking chair, and the coffee table Mom had been threatening to refinish since I was twelve. Beyond the living room, I could see the dining room with its Early American dining table and china hutch. Mom had even put out the old Nativity set on the buffet. It had a cow with a broken horn and only one wise man, who was headless, and the baby Jesus was missing. Leave it to my family to have a Nativity set like that, and display it.

  All the other Christmas decorations were in place. The two-foot-tall Santa stood by the fireplace, turning this way and that, looking for good little girls and boys. At this house, he could be looking a long time. Mom’s lighted village glowed along the shelf Dad had put up for it years ago. On another wall hung the stocking with the big, Styrofoam candy cane and the scary clown doll sticking out of it. I still remember when Grandma first brought that family heirloom over for Mom.

  “Who’s Tim?” Ben had asked, looking at the embroidered name running down the stocking.

  “Tiny Tim, honey,” Grandma had explained.

  Ben was still looking confused, so Mom added, “As in, ‘God bless us, every one.’ ”

  Ben still looked blank.

  “Dickens,” Mom elaborated, “A Christmas Carol.”

  “Oh.” Then he got it. “The Disney cartoon.”

  “You’re raising Philistines,” Grandma had said.

  It turned out Mom had married one too. When he came home, Dad looked at the new decoration and asked, “Who’s Tim?”

  Mom gave up explaining, but she hung the stocking up every year.

  “Go ahead and put your things in your room,” she said to me as she slipped off her coat. “I’ve got Christmas cookies and eggnog waiting.”

  I hoped Aunt Chloe wasn’t driving home tonight, not with her history with that particular drink.

  By the time I came to the kitchen to help, everything was pretty much done, and Keira and Aunt Chloe were sitting on stools at the counter, watching Mom pour 7-Up into mugs of eggnog.

  “I like it better with rum,” Aunt Chloe said.

  “Well, it likes you better with 7-Up,” Mom told her. “This way I know you’ll get home in one piece.”

  Here was a good change, I thought, and took hope that my Christmas in Carol would be nostalgic, peaceful, and uneventful.

  That was right before I heard the strangled cry and saw the booted foot crash into the living room window.

  Chapter Two

  Aunt Chloe let out a scream that was almost as terrifying as seeing my brother crash into the window like some kind of movie stunt guy. Well, a bad movie stunt guy, because instead of coming all the way through the glass and landing gracefully on the floor, Ben smashed the window to smithereens, then fell backward into the azaleas.

  “Someone call 911,” Mom cried, and raced for the front door with all of us stampeding behind her in a panic.

  We stumbled into each other at the door, then regrouped long enough to get it open and rush outside.

  I had visions of finding my brother in the bushes and his severed leg in the flowerbeds. Poor Ben. Could the doctors get him a prosthetic in time for his big concert?

  Happily, we found Ben’s leg was still attached to the rest of him, but it was a bloody mess.

  “Oh, Ben!” Mom cried. She rushed over to him and tried to haul him out of the bushes.

  “Don’t move him,” Aunt Chloe commanded. “He could be in shock. Wait ’til the ambulance gets here.”

  “Did anyone call 911 yet?” Mom asked.

  Of course not. We’d all been busy freaking out.

  “I’ll call,” I said.

  As I went in the house to grab my phone I heard Ben moan, “Sorry, Mom. The ladder tipped.”

  Okay, I told myself. No need to panic anymore. He can talk and his foot is still attached. As I dialed, I felt a very nippy breeze coming into the house. I didn’t know anything about fixing broken windows. Maybe Mom would have to call Dad.

  He’d ride to the rescue and make the necessary repairs. Mom would take a look at him in his tool belt and get a zing. Maybe she’d talk to him in something other than a growl, and maybe they’d find their way back to, if not love, at least friendship. And maybe I was dreaming.

  I was giving the dispatcher our address when Aunt Chloe rushed into the house. “I need a blanket!”

  She disappeared down the hall and came back a moment later, dragging the handmade quilt Grandma gave Mom for Christmas five years ago. Oh, boy. If Ben bled on that and wrecked it, there’d really be trouble. Grandma would let Mom have it for not appreciating a family heirloom, and Mom would blame Aunt Chloe, who would burst into tears and claim that no one appreciated her, and it would all escalate from there.

  As soon as I got off the phone, I ran into my old room and snatched the spread off the bed. It was a mauve floral number. The blood would blend right in.

  When I got back outside, Ben was crashing out of the bushes and throwing off the quilt Aunt Chloe kept trying to drape over him. Okay, forget the spread. I opened the front door and tossed it inside.

  Some of our neighbors had come over to comment on the broken window, Ben’s stupidity, and his state of health. “I’ve got some plastic,” Mr. Winkler from down the street said to Mom. “I’ll cover that window for you.”

  “Thank you, Bill,” Mom said. “That’s very sweet of you.”

  “You know why he’s doing that, don’t you?” Aunt Chloe said as Mr. Winkler walked back across the street.

  “Don’t go there,” Mom warned.

  Bill Winkler—Aunt Chloe referred to him as Wee Willie Winkler—was single. He had the hots for Mom, and ever since Dad left he’d been trying to find ways to get into her good graces. He was a skinny, bow-legged chain-smoker who looked like a Marlboro Man reject, and Mom never did anything to encourage him, which, according to Aunt Chloe, was why he was so hot for her. “Bake him cookies,” Aunt Chloe advised. “That’ll make him think you’re husband hunting and scare him off.”

  I was glad Mom hadn’t gotten around to scaring him off yet. At least it meant tonight we’d be warm.

  Two aid cars and a fire engine pulled up at our curb, their lights circling the neighborhood, sporadically bathing everything and everyone in red light.

  The EMTs put Ben on a gurney, and one examined his leg.

  “Oh, I think I’m going to faint,” Aunt Chloe whimpered, clutching Grandma’s quilt.

  Keira put a hand on her head and bent her in half. “Put your head between your legs, Auntie.”

  That made quite a picture. Now I was going to faint.

  “Hanging Christmas lights, huh?” guessed the older EMT as they worked on Ben.

  “How’d you know?” he asked.

  Well, duh. There
was the tipped ladder and the dangling string of lights.

  The guy shrugged. “It happens a lot this time of year. Usually not this close to Christmas, though.”

  “It would have happened sooner if he’d done this when I first asked him,” Mom said, giving Ben one of those looks moms use on their kids when they’re bad. Now that the crisis was over, Ben had been taken off Mom’s critical list and moved to her doo-doo list. He’d have gotten a lot more sympathy if he’d chopped off his leg.

  “I think you’re probably going to need a few stitches,” said the EMT.

  Mom let out a faint moan at that.

  “It’s okay, Mom,” Ben said.

  Okay or not, we all trooped down to the hospital to wait while Ben got his leg stitched. Everyone had a reason why she needed to tag along. Aunt Chloe brought the quilt. After all, it was cold in those emergency operating rooms, and besides, something homemade would bring him comfort. Mom knew her son would need her by his side to comfort him with questions like, “How could the ladder have tipped?” and “Why didn’t you do this when it was daylight so you could see what you were doing?”

  Keira was the bearer of the clean jeans and tennis shoes. “They’ll probably have to cut his pants and boot off,” she predicted as she got into the car.

  And me, well, I thought maybe my brother would like someone who could hold his hand and keep her mouth shut.

  The doctor wouldn’t let us keep Ben company while he got his leg stitched, though, so the only thing that went into the nether regions of the hospital with him was his pants. And the shoes. We, his ministering angels, sat in the emergency room waiting area, the quilt keeping us company.

  As we waited, I drummed my fingers on the arm of the chair and tried to stave off boredom by people-watching.

  An old couple huddled together in one corner. I couldn’t tell which one was supposed to be sick. They both looked bad: pale, frail, and red-eyed. The man didn’t say anything, but every once in a while, the woman spoke. Loudly. Either he was deaf, or she was. Having to listen to her was enough to make the rest of us wish we were.