Chapter 17
Noah
“What is Ms. Fleming doing?” I ask Archie as I lean against the wooden beam in the dining room, looking through the archway to the living room. Archie’s sitting at my side and he takes one paw to scratch the side of his nose.
“I know, Archie, I can barely stand to watch it either,” I say, chuckling to myself.
Ms. Fleming lives on our street and is in her fifties with gray-silver shoulder-length hair.
She’s never been married but is the town flirt.
Watching her sit on the arm of the couch, leaning around Gary, trying to flirt with him is painful. So painful I can no longer watch.
Although I’d rather Ms. Fleming and Gary be occupied with each other than come over to my side of the house and interrogate me again.
“Oh shit, Archie, I spoke too soon, here they come,” I mumble looking down at my best friend of a pup, who is about to run away before Ms. Fleming squeezes his cheeks and flaps his ears back and forth.
“Noah! It's so good to see you home,” Ms. Fleming calls as she walks through the archway into the dining room.
“You too, Ms. Fleming. Gary, I hope all is well,” I reply as politely as possible.
“A little birdy told us you’re sticking around this time around?” Ms. Fleming asks with a sense of attitude I’m not ready for.
This is a topic of contention with the people who live on this dead-end wooded street, worsening after Dad died.
“True, signed the papers yesterday,” I answer, hopeful that not feeding into her nonsense will at least put it to rest for the night and avoid causing a scene.
“It's about time you stay home to take care of your family. Maybe you can convince the Bennett girls to move back since you already got behind one of them,” she says with more aggression in her tone this time.
It's one thing to be angry with me for leaving, but to bring Ollie and Penelope into this conversation is a whole other thing. And not one I tolerate well at all.
“Doris, leave the boy alone; it's not his fault the girls left town.” Gary steps in quickly. “Noah, we’re so happy to have you home, are grateful for your service, and lucky to have you on the local fire squad,” he finishes.
“Noah, there you are, I’ve been looking for you everywhere. I need your help with some ice.” Mom swoops in out of nowhere, and I don’t know if I’ve ever been more grateful to be freed from a conversation.
I'm a mix of emotions, primarily confused and angry. I haven’t told anyone about the fire squad, aside from Cole and a few of the other guys on the squad who would have the same shift as me and that’s only because they see me every shift.
The pleasure of living in a small town is that your business is no longer your business, it's everyone else’s business.
And that’s going to take some time to get used to again.
“Thanks, Mom,” I say as we head from the dining room into the hallway by the front door, genuinely grateful she saved me from that dreadful conversation.
I wouldn’t say I have anger problems, but insulting my family is a really fast way to tick me off.
Ms. Fleming is not only the town flirt, but the town gossip who might as well be a reporter because she’ll use any means necessary to get the story. Any story that can be shared with her book club to get her some extra brownie points.
“We all know Ms. Fleming, but after that comment about the Bennetts', she’s lucky I didn’t throw her into the snowbank outside,” Mom replies with the hint of a smile at the end.
I can’t help but laugh, imagining my mother, the small, former pole vaulter, politician's wife, throwing the frumpy Ms. Fleming over her shoulder and into the four-foot-tall snow mountain in the driveway.
“Well, I appreciate it,” I reply. “I'm guessing you mean the ice in the driveway, so all these idiots can leave.”
She nods. “They need to leave at some point.”
“The sand mixture is right below the deck. I’ll get right to it, if you start rounding up the troops to leave,” I say.
Looking at the clock as Mom walks away before I head outside, I see it's well past seven and I start to think it’s weird I haven’t heard back from Ollie after my last text.
But I also don’t want to bother her, since she’s with her family.
I miss being able to just pop over there when this shit show of a party gets to be too much to handle.
Ollie’s family always spends Christmas Eve with her grandparents at their house, having dinner, doing gifts, and playing games.
This is the first year without Miss. Sharon and it's going to be weird for everyone. I can only imagine the state Ollie is in. They were the best of friends, and I hate that I couldn’t be there for her during that time.
We used to split our Christmas Eves, starting at our familial events and then either I would go spend time with her and Cole, or she and Cole would come here.
We would play board games, watch Christmas movies deep into the night, eat holiday cookies, and drink spiked hot chocolate, hiding it from our parents’ every time they came to check on us.
Now that Penelope has two kids herself, I imagine someone is dressing up as Santa, and setting out snacks for the reindeer, which was always a favorite activity.
I can just imagine everyone sitting downstairs near the giant, chaotic, but full of life and love Christmas tree, laughing as the boys open cars, trains, and fake power tools.
Then Carter would take one of them outside to pretend to cut branches off the snow-covered trees.
Our Christmas’ looked vastly different as children, Ollie’s was full of life and family, whereas mine was full of egocentric community members pretending to be family.
My father was a very well-known community member, and even ran for mayor once, so all of our big holidays were centered around the community and bringing the community together.
I remember the parties being lively as a child.
I would dress in green corduroy pants, with a white button-up and a Christmas sweater over it so that the collar of the shirt was sticking through.
Bec would always fight Mom on her black, red, and green plaid dress she wore because she hated to wear dresses. But back then, everything was for show.
Once Dad passed, the parties changed. Mom does everything she could to continue the legacy of Dad’s festivities but also gives us more leeway in expressing ourselves.
Tonight I’m wearing very dark wash jeans with a red holiday sweater on top, whereas Bec’s wearing leggings and knee-high riding boots, dressed up with a long green sweater that’s shorter in the front.
We both know Mom isn’t ready to let these parties go, even if we no longer want to participate in them, because it means letting go of a piece of the love of her life.
But these parties are getting old, attendee numbers are down, and usually, there’s at least one person at the event who becomes the story of the night, and never a good story at that.
It’s a conversation Bec and I need to have with Mom since Bec’s graduating and moving out soon enough. And with me moving into my new house, there won’t be anyone here to support her.
I realize I haven’t seen Bec in at least twenty minutes and while our house is big, these parties are not that big where she could go missing.
I begin to meander through the remaining people and down the hall toward our bedrooms. I can hear the television in Bec’s room and know she somehow managed to escape into her bedroom.
This means I'm going to retreat into mine to hide for the remainder of the night. I'm all peopled out for the evening.
My phone buzzes as I waltz into my room and plop on the bed, Archie sneaking in right behind me.
Ollie: so so sorry it's been so long! I was playing with the boys and put my phone down and lost it and all the things. But I'm really excited for our friendship.