Chapter Seven
Four Months Later
Reunion Romance—a romance plot that centers on past lovers reuniting.
Rebuilding is not a quick process. I know this emotionally. I’m learning how true it is in the context of an actual town as well.
FEMA helped initially. But there are still fields of motor homes, and no completed apartment complexes. Insurance payments have been slow, and most of the businesses haven’t begun rebuilding at all. Funding for the school is even more complex, and for now the students are doing classes in the old Walmart, with cubicle dividers acting as insufficient classroom walls.
In the immediate aftermath, Sylvia had considered canceling A Very Desert Christmas.
Until we’d gotten the idea to make it a fundraiser.
The townspeople had come on board in a big way. Donating time and resources to making this the absolute best festival the town has ever seen.
I’m in charge of the Festival of Trees, which will be a display and an auction, where people in town decorate trees in different elaborate themes and then auction them off to the highest bidders.
There is a planned performance that Reigna, the longtime director of all the local community theater productions, has promised will be the greatest of all time.
The mid-November meeting is especially full, with more and more people in town coming up with ideas to make this event as big as possible.
I get out of my car, balancing several plates of cookies on top of each other. The best part of Christmas gatherings, in my opinion, is the endless variety of sweets that can be taken away from events on paper plates, so the holiday traditions mix and mingle and you get to try different recipes. I love it.
It might not be December yet, but the event is Christmas themed, and that means Christmassy sweets are happening.
It’s the kind of thing I used to see in heartwarming movies. Which my life had never particularly resembled.
Now I’ve made it.
I take purposeful steps through the cracked parking lot and into the small sun-bleached building that also serves as a visitors’ center. It has a rattlesnake painted boldly on the side of it.
I’m still upset there are no armadillos.
I’d prefer them over the snakes.
As long as our world isn’t on fire anymore, I’ll even take the snakes.
I open the door by leading with my knee, then turn sideways, pushing with my shoulder and granting myself entrance.
“Amelia!” Sylvia is there already, looking bright and chipper and wearing what everyone I know in LA would have called an ugly Christmas sweater as a title, not an insult. Sylvia just calls them sweaters.
She’s the epitome of type-A efficiency. The sort of woman you’d expect to see in tailored suits, not in preschool-teacher chic. But she loves a chunky wooden necklace and a seasonal jumper.
“Hi, Sylvia,” I say, setting my cookies down on the table next to the fanned-out array of holly-festooned napkins. There’s a Crock-Pot filled with cider and some clear plastic cups next to it. Sylvia has brought fudge.
This year’s planning meetings have felt deliberately, intensely warm. Like we’re all determined to make magic wherever we can.
It’s been such a tough few months. Every time I smell smoke, I break out in a cold sweat.
I know I’m not alone.
Doing this, doing something ... at least that makes me feel active.
“Ticket sales are at a record high,” Sylvia says, smiling brightly. “The Festival of Trees has never seen presales like this. The fundraiser getting picked up by the news in LA was such a huge thing for us. Thank you.”
I try to hold back my smile. Let it go just half-mast, as I don’t want to seem too pleased or too eager for her praise. But I am. Sylvia is like the supportive mom I never had, but I have the feeling if I told her that, she’d have to put four walls of reserve back up between us. She’s lovely, kind, and warm, but only after you get to know her.
I’ve experienced the kind of sadness that drives people apart. I’ve never experienced something like what happened in Rancho Encanto after the fires. People came together. They supported each other. They’re still doing it.
I hate contacting people back in LA, but I did it for Rancho Encanto. An old friend of mine is a producer on one of the local news channels, and I got her to feature the festival—and Sylvia—as a local interest piece, to try to draw people out of the city and into the desert for a little bit of fun ... and to support a good cause.
So, I did do a good job, and I feel pleased with myself for it.
I’m feeling pleased in general.
Other people begin to arrive. Mary Thomas, who owns Get Your Kicks Diner and is wholly committed to her beehive hairdo and swing skirts. Bob Riker, owner of the local antique store—always with a pocket watch in his vest pocket. I can put a name to every face now, even if we’ve only spoken in passing, and I do as they all file in and take their seats.
I’m in the front row, like always, ready to bring my enthusiasm to the discussion, though all the planning is done.
“We’re getting closer and closer to our special fundraising edition of A Very Desert Christmas!” That earns Sylvia a smattering of applause. “Big thanks to Amelia for organizing the news spot.”
I didn’t need the recognition for that, but I beam with pride all the same. I receive some applause, and my beaming intensifies.
“All assignments have now been allocated,” Sylvia says. “If anyone is wanting to change their assigned position, they will have to take it up with their team leaders. If any teams need more volunteers, you can let me know. As for presentations ... up first, we have Reigna giving an update on the carol concert and performance art piece.”
Reigna Marsters gathers herself from her position in the row across from me. Gathering herself is a considerable job, as she’s all flowing layers of fabric and wild box-dyed red hair. Every movement Reigna makes is an event, and it’s not by accident.
She claims to have been deeply embedded in the entertainment industry some thirty years ago, though I never heard her name during my time in it, minimal though it was.
Maybe she was an essential and integral part of the industry thirty years ago and no one remembers her name now. Deeply on brand for Hollywood, if I’m honest.
Given her past life in entertainment, Reigna is the obvious choice for talent coordinator for the program, and she managed to get Macaulay Culkin to do the reading, which is a boon the likes of which Rancho Encanto has never seen. She claims it’s because she was his acting coach when he was a child, but it’s impossible to tell which of Reigna’s stories have a grain of truth and which are lies made of glitter and enthusiasm. I like that about her, actually.
Because while her life might be embellished, she isn’t boring. I appreciate that more than the unvarnished truth. I guess because I’m here making my own life out of pieces of truth and omission.
Reigna’s posture as she approaches the front of the room is affected and dramatic, and it alarms me for some reason. Likely, I realize, because she’s trying to alarm us.
“This is an announcement in two acts,” Reigna says, her voice deep and theatrical as she holds up her finger. “First, a tragedy.”
“Dear God,” I hear Sylvia whisper as she pinches the bridge of her nose.
I can’t tell if that’s a response to the potential tragedy or just the overwrought drama of it all. I like a little drama. Sylvia does not.
“Macaulay is unable to make the event.”
A ripple of noise moves through the room, and I make a sound of genuine disappointment. Getting him was a Christmas miracle that was unsurpassed. We’d gone through lists of possibilities based on Reigna’s connections to people in the Christmas Movie Industrial Complex. Will Ferrell was too busy. Arnold was too political.
“What happened?” comes a distressed-sounding voice from behind me.
“He’s involved in a franchise reboot,” she says. “Very hush-hush, but it’s now conflicting with the event, and apparently the studio’s contract is more ironclad than ours. But he sends not only his regrets but a donation to our cause.”
There’s a smattering of disappointed applause.
“Well, what now?” Sylvia asks.
“Never fear!” says Reigna. “Act two.” She holds two fingers up. “I have a replacement.”
The response to that is a somewhat mollified rumble.
Reigna looks out at the crowd as if she’s about to deliver a winning monologue. “Christopher Weaver.”
My world tips over onto its side.
Chris.
Chris, who was struggling to land parts most of our time together, but who is now the undisputed king of Christmas rom-coms. He’s had no less than three a year every year since our breakup. While that hasn’t made him a household name by any stretch, he’s wholly recognizable and will be a special draw to the kind of people who want to go to a holiday festival in the desert.
I have no idea what to do or say.
I’m lost in a memory from three years ago, and I can’t get out of it.
Chris in our whitewashed house looking grim, me wondering why he’s bothering to look grim when I know this is what he’s wanted all along. He was just waiting for a chance to do it when it was far enough out that he didn’t look callous.
“I’m so sorry, Amelia. You never should have found out like this.”
I never saw it coming, and I can’t speak. I had thought we might break up, but I never imagined that while I was coming apart inside, he was putting himself back together in the arms of another woman.
I’m back in the visitors’ center, thankfully no longer beset by my memories, but sadly, my memories are more relevant to my present than I’d like.
Half the people in the room don’t know him by name, and Reigna is explaining. The ladies are particularly excited, and I’m just unable to understand how I’m suddenly sitting in the impending doom of my past life.
He doesn’t know where I moved to. Unless someone told him, and I’m pretty sure our split was neat enough that no one who knows where I am still speaks to him.
I don’t do social media as myself.
I pretend it’s because of the romance writing and motel, that maintaining an author presence under my pen name and a page for the Pink Flamingo is enough to keep me far too busy online as it is. That isn’t why. I don’t want handy Facebook memories reminding me where I was almost three years ago.
I don’t want old friends to track me down with a long time no see, girly, what are you up to?
I don’t want to feel obligated to friend my mother. Or anyone who knew me in high school.
I don’t want people to know where I am, because Rancho Encanto is my sanctuary, and this is not the point of it.
So if I say something to Reigna, I’m breaking the spell. Worse, if I make it about my issues, it could impact the fundraising for the festival.
But then Chris will know I’m here.
He won’t care.
That is the truth. Chris won’t care.
I need to make him think I don’t care either. I can let him come and be surprised by me, then act like it never occurred to me to reach out to him because our history is ancient and I don’t care. I’m certainly not still hurt over the way he left me to isolate in my pain. Not hurt over having to split our lives in half and having to let go of all my dreams because that place—and him—became too painful to ever have to deal with.
This was ... this was supposed to be amazing. Christmas is supposed to be a time for miracles, and this is what the universe gives me?
The universe can absolutely suck it.
I can feel Sylvia looking at me, and I’m sure I’ve done a terrible job hiding my reaction to the news, so I make sure to smile, but unlike my ex, I’m no actor.
I have no idea how believable it is.
We get through the rest of the meeting with no hiccups, and I even manage to say my piece about the Festival of Trees and give everyone instructions on how we’ll be receiving their trees the day before the event, and I think I possibly even sparkle and look like I’m fine.
Afterward, everyone mingles and takes plates of cookies, and I’m angry because I can’t enjoy my little Christmas fantasy come to life.
Sylvia heads to her car at the same time I do and surprises me by defying the conventions I’ve set for her in my head.
“Are you okay, Amelia? You seemed upset when Reigna made her announcement.”
This is my moment. I can lean in and be honest. I can tell Sylvia I’ve been running away from my past for three years and I’m not ready for it to catch up with me. I can tell her that Chris is the last thing on earth I want to see, behind both Ted Bundy and the Microsoft Word paper clip.
But I don’t. Instead, I shrug. “What nineties kid wouldn’t be disappointed by the loss of the Home Alone guy? I was looking forward to it, and more practically, of course, I felt like it would be a huge draw when we unveiled it next week. I’m sure ... I’m sure the alternative will be good, but it’s not Macaulay Culkin good.”
“I don’t think you have anything to worry about. The ticket sales were great even without the announcement, so I’m sure that once ... whatever-his-name-is gets announced, it will be a draw and no one will be disappointed because they won’t have known.”
I appreciate that she can’t remember Chris’s name, and I’m also very aware that she might be lying for my benefit because she might know I’m lying.
The thing about Rancho Encanto is very few people who live here are from here. Which means they left whole lives behind in places that don’t get hot enough to scorch your soul from the inside out on a summer Tuesday. All have reasons for not necessarily wanting to drag that life out into the open for all and sundry to see.
We respect each other’s baggage.
“As long as you think it’s fine,” I say.
“I do.” She doesn’t seem convinced of the whole thing, and I give the world’s most half-hearted wave as I slip into my car, several plates of goodies piled high in the passenger seat, and head back toward the Pink Flamingo.
The neon sign greets me, along with the Christmas lights around the palm trees and Joshua trees in front of the place. It’s pink and glorious and welcoming. I’m going to put the goodies in the lobby.
I know that Wilma, Gladys, and Lydia will be by for treats. They’ll scent them like a small pack of dachshunds. I like that about them.
We’ll chat, and I’ll forget about Chris and fires for a while. About the real, shocking truth that no matter how nice a life I’ve made for myself here, it hasn’t erased the one I left behind.
Even worse, it isn’t staying behind me. It’s coming right for my new life, and I’m not sure what to do about that.
It is the season of miracles.
And I got my ex.
If this were one of his Christmas movies, it would be a reunion romance.
That thought hits me when I’m alone in my unit.
It makes me laugh and laugh and laugh.