Chapter 24
Amy was still in her studio and had just responded to Jonah’s latest text.
I’m out of underwear
What did that even mean? How was someone “out”?
Do some laundry.
No, I mean like I can’t find them.
“Hey,” Kevin said, walking in. He was dripping sleet and holding a beer.
“Hey.” Amy put her phone down. Jonah was seventeen. He was going to have to figure out the underwear conundrum on his own.
Kevin looked at her easel. “What’s that supposed to be?” He stepped closer, leaning forward. “Is that Mom?” he asked, pointing the neck of his beer bottle at her canvas.
Amy looked at the painting of four ladies in red hats on a sleigh.
Duchess was riding shotgun, her tail high, her nose in the air.
They were barreling down a snowy hill toward an enormous, silver-tinsel Christmas tree, arms and legs flailing.
“How did you get Mom from this? You can’t see their faces because of the hats. ”
“What do you mean? It looks just like her. Why are they wearing bathing suits?”
“I wanted it to be unusual,” Amy said.
Kevin glanced sidelong at her. “Ladies in bathing suits and red hats sleighing down a hill is not only unusual, it’s weird.”
Amy felt herself blush. “And whimsical.”
“Nope. Weird is what it is,” Kevin said.
“Thanks for the boost in confidence.”
He ignored her and looked around the studio. “So that’s what you’ve been doing here? Why couldn’t you do this at home?”
Amy almost bit clean through her tongue in an effort to keep from punching her brother.
Obviously, this was what she’d been doing here.
She had explained this to him before. And she couldn’t do this at home because of him and two boys, both of whom had texted her this morning.
Ethan’s text had been one long whine about how it wasn’t fair that Dad wouldn’t get him a new video game, and would she?
She was doing this here because at home someone was always invading her space.
Needing a ride. Wanting food. Looking for underwear.
She had made some art that amused her and made her happy.
She didn’t know if she was completely satisfied with them yet, and she didn’t know if anyone would want them, and it was entirely possible that they might laugh her right out of the contest…
but she wanted to continue. At last, the Bossy Posse had a purpose in her life—as her muse. Who knew?
“I have been doing this here because I have the chance to do it here, Kevin. Alone. Without interference. Or opinions. I don’t have that at home, as you well know. Or should know.”
“Well excuse me,” Kevin said. “But I wouldn’t have gone in this direction,” he said, gesturing with his beer bottle at the canvas again.
“Okay! I look forward to seeing the direction you go when you are invited to submit to an art show.”
“You don’t have to be mean.”
“And you don’t have to pretend to have any understanding of art,” she shot back.
“Hey, I understand art. I happen to love the painting of the dogs playing pool. You know, the one on velvet?”
Amy gaped at her ridiculous brother with a mix of hopelessness and despair.
He suddenly grinned and playfully shoved her shoulder. “I’m kidding, doofus.”
She sighed. “You’re a riot, Kev. What are you doing here?”
“You mean at the lake? Or here, in this shed?”
“It’s a studio, but I mean here, at the lake. I thought you were just dropping things off.”
“I am. I did. Dad is ready to go, but he wants you to come inside first.”
“Why?”
Kevin shrugged. “Actually, I think he’s hoping that golfer guy will come in with you.”
Amy felt her face flame. Did they all know he’d been out here with her? “I don’t know where the golfer guy is, but I’ll go if that’s what it takes to get you to both leave.”
“So hostile,” Kevin said, grinning. He gestured to the door. “After you.”
Amy grabbed Duchess and darted up the stairs to the mudroom door.
Inside, she put Duchess down and shook the sleet off herself.
Kevin, who came in right behind her, didn’t bother.
She carried on to the kitchen, but she drew up short.
Something had happened in the few hours Amy had been painting and avoiding the family drama of her parents’ meltdown.
For some reason, the elf suits had been donned by the Posse, and Dad was filming them.
“What the hell is happening now?” she exclaimed.
“Hi, Ames,” her mother called out in her singsong voice she used when she knew Amy would be annoyed. “We’re doing our annual Christmas-cookie bake wars. Would you like to join us?”
Join them? Had her mother completely lost her mind?
Hillary turned from the stove. Her elf suit was very tight and very short, so much so that Amy had a hard time looking away from what was obviously a near-perfect body.
Her mother noticed her looking and said, “Oh, we had a couple of extras in the bags. It was a child’s costume, but when you’ve got a body like Hillary, you can make it work.”
“I think it’s really cute,” Hillary said, looking down at herself.
Sure, it was cute if you were a perfect ten and didn’t mind parading around in elf costumes.
“We have one more, don’t we, Melissa?” her mother continued. “Amy could—”
“Nope. No thank you,” Amy said quickly. “Here’s a question—why are you wearing them?”
“I told you—we’re making our cookie wars video for TikTok.”
“TikTok?” Amy cried.
“Or Instagram,” June added. Her elf suit was straining at the seams, and Amy feared with one wrong move, the whole thing would come apart.
“For both, I guess,” Barb said.
“What are you saying?” Amy asked, feeling herself almost on the verge of tears. “Please tell me you’re not on TikTok.”
“I’m not going to tell you that, because we are. The Bossy Posse is a thing so why not?” Her mother was sounding less sing-songy.
Amy looked to her dad for help, but he was studying the phone camera. “Dad, I thought that you and Mom…” She stopped herself before she gave too much away, although it was obvious her mother had been filling the Posse in on every detail of her marriage.
“I’m trying to do better, honey,” he said, as if that explained it all. It explained exactly nothing. What did filming them dressed as elves fix, exactly?
“Hey, what happened to H?” Carol asked. “I think it would be fun if he could join us. Too bad we don’t have a Santa suit for him. I mean, we don’t, do we?” she asked hopefully, looking at June.
“Absolutely not,” Amy said. She could not allow him to put on a Santa suit and ruin her fantasy of falling in love with him. But her emphatic answer had everyone looking at her. She lifted her chin a little. “He’s not here to be in elf videos, trust me.”
“It’s not an elf video, it’s a Bossy Posse video. We’re a thing now. And we’re just dressed like elves. That’s not the same.”
“I think it is, Mom,” Kevin weighed in.
Carol looked set to argue, but just then, they heard the door to the garage open. A moment later, Harrison came into their midst. He made a full stop just inside the kitchen and looked around at all of them, startled.
“There you are, H,” Hillary said. “Would you like to be in an elf video?”
“A Bossy Posse video,” Carol corrected firmly.
“No,” he said instantly, even sounding slightly appalled, and Amy breathed a sigh of relief that she could go ahead and fall in love with him after all, as he’d just passed a very crucial test.
“What…what is going on?” he asked, gesturing at the ladies.
“Why does everyone keep asking?” Amy’s mother complained. “Isn’t it obvious that we are making our Christmas-cookie video dressed as elves? It is Christmas, people! It’s supposed to be festive.”
Harrison glanced at Amy, who tried to smile reassuringly, but she just couldn’t muster it—there was nothing sane or reassuring about this scene.
“Well…in that case, it looks like you have it all under control,” he said. “So I’m sure you won’t mind if I borrow Amy?”
“For what?” Kevin asked.
“Kevin,” Amy started, “don’t—”
“For a quick trip,” Harrison interjected. He shifted his gaze to Amy. “Can you be ready in, like, thirty?”
Thirty? She thought it might be better if they walked out the door this instant and never looked back. “Fifteen. Duchess, come!”
“I’m confused,” her mother said. “Ready for what?”
“For a quick trip,” Amy said, repeating Harrison, and left them, darting to her room.
She found one of the bags she’d brought and threw it open. She began tossing in clothes and toiletries without thought. She couldn’t say what she’d grabbed, other than she had enough. Next, she picked up Duchess’s bed and favorite toy. Where was Duchess?
She was still stuffing things into her bag when Harrison appeared at her door. “What do you need?”
Amy shoved Duchess’s bed and food at him. “We’ll take my minivan. It’s bigger. I have to grab my art. And food for Duchess. What about food for us?”
“Already taken care of. I’ll put this in your car and come help you.”
He went out with the dog’s things, and Amy raced down the hall to the living room, through the kitchen, where she was met with a barrage of questions and wide-eyed looks.
“No time!” she cried, and just as quickly ran out the mudroom door as if a wildfire was spreading down the hill toward them.
She grabbed everything she would need. Harrison came for the easel, and together, they took her things and loaded them in the minivan.
“Ready?” Harrison asked.
“Ready. I just need to get Duchess.”
She went back to the house. Duchess had already sensed an impending departure and was frantically sniffing around the front door, whimpering, thinking she’d been left behind. Amy scooped her up and carried her like a shield as she went to face the interlopers.
They’d gathered in the living room, save June, who, just as Amy entered, heard the oven bell ding and hurried back to the kitchen to take the cookies out. “Is no one going to film this?” June shouted at the rest of them.
“We’ll reenact it,” Amy’s mother called back, then turned her attention to her daughter. “Amy? What on earth?”
“Harrison and I are taking a break,” Amy said.
“A break from what?” her mother asked.
“You guys.”
Her mother blinked. “Why?” she cried, and then everyone was talking at once.
“Let her talk, let her talk!” her father bellowed.
Everyone quieted. “Because,” Amy said, with a calmness she didn’t know she could reach without the aid of a pill, “we both came here to do something and we’ve been hijacked. So we’re getting off the crazy train.”
“I think I’m offended,” said Melissa.
“Oh, Amy, please don’t say that,” her mother pleaded. “We haven’t caused you any harm. We’re family!”
“Yes. But you’re making videos while I am trying to finish my painting and Harrison is trying to make some decisions. We both feel it’s gotten a little crowded and a little crazy here,” Amy said, gesturing to their elf costumes.
“You don’t have to judge us.” Melissa sniffed.
“Don’t go, honey,” her father said. “Kevin and I are leaving soon. That should help.”
“Before dinner?” Kevin asked.
It didn’t help. “Dad, stay for dinner. We’ve made up our mind. We’ll be in touch.”
“Amy!” Her mother sounded a little frantic and tried to laugh. “Please don’t leave like this. I’m sorry if we’ve bothered you. That was certainly never our intent. We were just saying this morning that it seemed to be working out well, what with you in the studio and us in here.”
“I know it was not your intent, Mom,” Amy said.
It was never any of their intent to bother her when they came to her.
She had invited their calls, had invited them into her life.
She had been their rock, the one who Got Things Done.
But she needed a change, and it was too late to stop her now.
“I’m going now.” And go she did, walking out the door with Duchess.
Harrison was behind the wheel of her minivan, already had the engine revved.
The moment she strapped in, he threw the minivan into gear and hit the gas. They rocketed up the drive to the gate, and once they turned onto the road, they looked at each other. They burst out laughing.
“Did we really just do that?” Amy asked between gasps of laughter.
“Girl, we just made a break from the asylum,” Harrison said.
He took her hand and held it against his thigh as he drove down the road, toward the lake.
They laughed about the elves, about the insanity of having Christmas music piped in every waking hour.
They laughed about the giant nutcrackers.
At the shoreline, he turned onto a dirt road.
Her minivan, which they called “the Buffalo,” took the pits in the road like a champ.
He turned onto another, rockier drive, up a cliff, then coasted into a single carport where icicles had begun to form.
Amy figured they couldn’t be more than a couple of miles from the house.
Harrison killed the engine. “Okay. Don’t freak out.”
“Why would I freak out?”
“I couldn’t get us luxury accommodations.”
She laughed. “That’s okay,” she said, and put her hand on the door handle. “I like rustic.”
“Wait. It’s a little rougher than rustic.”
Amy’s smile faded just a little. “How rough are we talking?”
“Rough. But it defies description. You’ll have to see for yourself. Ready?”
“Ready.” She got out of the car with Duchess and turned around to get a good look at the cabin.
The first thing she noticed was that it was beginning to snow.
Fat little flakes drifted silently down, surrounding a small, Craftsman-style cabin with a wide front porch.
Two rocking chairs, with pads that looked suspiciously flat and stained, were facing the lake.
The roof looked like a good hailstorm would obliterate it, and the chimney was crumbling at the top.
One of the stairs to the porch was missing a slat.
The paint was faded, and one window on the side of the house had been boarded up.
“Are you disappointed?” Harrison asked.
Amy looked at him, then at the sad little cabin again. The perfect, cozy, crazy old cabin. “Are you kidding? I think this might be the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.” She smiled. “It’s perfect.”
Harrison grinned with relief. He took Duchess from her and tucked her under his arm. Then he took Amy’s hand. “That is exactly what I said.”
Together, they went into the cabin to make sure there were no snakes, rats, or unwanted campers in their perfectly imperfect getaway.