4. Help to Make the Season Bright
four
Help to Make the Season Bright
I ’m on my ninth row of boxes in my great aunt’s attic when I think I hear pounding on the front door. It’s faint, intermittent beneath “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire” wafting from the record player in the loft, but someone’s definitely trying to get my attention.
I rise from a pool of Christmas tree garland coiled around me like a beaded snake made of tinsel, red ribbons, glitter sprayed wooden cranberries and snow-dusted pinecones.
“Coming!” I scream in vain from above the top story of the house, trying not to trip over piles of ornaments I’ve categorized.
A sleek black glove drops a set of keys onto the kitchen counter as I tumble down the spiral staircase to come face to face with Helen.
“Woah!” We both practically shout in unison.
She takes a step toward the great room dodging newly labeled boxes and a set of large toy soldier statues almost as tall as she is.
“You look incredible. Do you wake up like that?” I have to ask.
She looks like an Yves Saint Laurent winter ad out of a page in Vogue.
Just add a fur muff and a three-stringed leash of little black Scottie dogs with charcoal, red and grey plaid ascots around their necks.
I envision them hopping around the hem of her black pencil skirt as she stares at a blow mold of a waving Santa.
Maybe that’s more of a vintage Ralph Lauren look.
I’d have to ask Archer. He surpasses my fashion knowledge in both men’s and women’s clothing.
“What?” Helen screams, her hands still covering her ears.
“I said you look great! Sorry. It’s Nat King Cole.”
“Yeah. Is he here? Like upstairs singing with a full band?”
I purse my lips together and race back up to the loft to turn down the music. “Sorry. I found a record player,” I call from the loft, as I head back down.
“Of course you did. Did the thing have ‘before-it’s-time’ Bose speakers attached to the needle?” Helen’s face settles into a smile, and she slips off her long black gloves revealing short, immaculately painted red nails.
“I guess I got a little excited. You see, it’s also track two on the mix tape and totally a sign.”
“Wait. Back up. I just came by thinking you might want a coffee, and after yesterday’s ordeal, might need a ride to the coffee shop where our near-death incident took place. Or I don’t know—moral support walking in to order.”
“Handled. I’ve been up since five a.m. Or maybe I didn’t go to bed, apart from a nap at four-thirty. Who cares. I’ve already apologized to the coffee shop owner for my runaway Beetle and I have our coffee.” I reach in the massive stainless-steel fridge and pull out Helen’s iced cold brew.
Her jaw drops and she gives me a concerned side eye as she removes the paper from the straw for a taste. “How did you know?”
“You may be the only person in town who drinks cold brew in winter. Your local barista was happy to send me away with your dose they apparently make just for you.”
“I’m impressed. I misjudged you for one of those holiday hot chocolate freaks.”
“It’s Christmas. I’m sure I’ll consume my fair share, but nothing replaces the amount of caffeine I require from my iced triple espresso.”
“Ah ha. That’s how you found me out.”
“Takes a cold coffee drinker to know one. Anyway, as I pulled away from the coffee shop, track two just automatically started playing on my way back home. It was the Christmas song, you know “Chestnuts Roasting”… Nat King Cole. Then I find this record player in the middle of all this stuff. I plug it in, and simply drop the needle on the record that’s already on it—and guess what’s playing? ”
“Right. I got it. Loud and clear.” Helen points to her ears.
“It’s a sign. Don’t you think? Kismet or something? Just like the first track on the tape was playing when I bumped into your friend.”
“Kourt.” Helen offers.
“I truly am sorry, by the way. I can’t apologize enough, but even with that unfortunate mistake, I think it was fate.
When I hit… Kourt’s box of cans for the Christmas food drive, It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas was playing on my tape.
It was also playing in the coffee shop he just stepped out of, with the box of donated cans. ”
“So, you’re saying, no good deed goes unpunished. Not even at Christmas.” Helen’s eyes drift to the Christmas explosion that surrounds us. “Let’s go back to ‘all this stuff’ you mentioned. Did you buy all of this? This morning? And, why?”
“Oh, gosh no. I... um. Well, I found the attic, and you know… It’s Josie.
I full-on expected mannequins with one arm, a dusty Italian vase from Florence or a painting of Lake Como from a century that makes it worth more than this house.
Or a headless horseman statue she bought from the real-life village of Sleepy Hollow after an impromptu visit to Westchester or Tarrytown.
” I watch Helen zone out as her gaze lands on the Christmas tree in the corner.
“Last night and this morning, to answer your question. I opened one box and the addiction began. There’s still more upstairs.”
“All of this, and you had time to put up a Christmas tree?” Helen carves a path through the Christmas decor and looks over my large silver tinsel tree.
“Not my real tree. I’ll have to go chop or buy one. That’s yet to come. I was just so taken by this one when I found it standing alone and shining upstairs. It’s from the sixties, I think.”
“Yeah. It is. It’s a popular vintage thing.” She twists a branch of silver foiled glitter through her fingers. “Wow. In the town that Christmas forgot, I now know two people who already have their trees up.”
“That right there. That’s what I’m getting at with all this stuff. This place is named Blitzen. Yet, there are no holiday decorations lining the streets or the courthouse. I kind of drove around on the way to coffee. Apart from the Christmas flea market on the outskirts of town, and your friend—”
“Kourt.” She says his name with a dynamic intensity. The same intensity as the space he takes up when he speaks or looks at me. He looked at me like I was lost.
“Other than Kourt , and his Christmas can drive, I don’t see much Christmas spirit.”
“It’s barely December 1st…”
“Look. I’m not one of those freaks who decorates before Halloween or anything, I… Well, I took a leap of faith to come here, and it just seems like the obvious place for—”
“A Christmas miracle? A Hallmark Christmas movie? A Christmas romance…”
I feel my smile fade as I look down sheepishly. Maybe it’s the lack of sleep and the mountain altitude, but with Helen’s familiar voice of reason seemingly matching Archer’s general logic, I’m starting to feel the way I felt at the office.
My eyes drift to the red and green explosion taking over the trendy contemporary home. Maybe it’s all too much. I’m beginning to think I’m too much.
“Okay. Erika. I’m not going to lie to you. It is a town named Blitzen. Of course we had a big to-do about Christmas. The town was known for it when Kourt and I were kids. But, things change, stuff happens, people get old, tired and disillusioned.”
“Should I get out a walker for you, Helen? I think I saw one in the attic.”
“You know what I mean. Right now, it’s that damn fire truck and the property insurance fiasco.
It’s all they can focus on. And it is important.
It’s potentially debilitating to our town.
I don’t do that kind of law, but I’ve looked into it, and I know enough to understand it’s paramount for the town’s economic livelihood for them to settle on a plan. ”
“So, it’s not me. It’s them…” I quirk a half-hearted smile her direction to let her know I get it. On to something else.
“No. If you tell me all this shit you drug out is to decorate this insanely gorgeous home you’re already lucky to inherit, then it is you… but if you’re thinking bigger, and you stayed up all night digging through boxes for—”
“Yessss. Exactly. I mean, these people don’t know me from Adam, but enough of them participate in the flea market, and look at your buddy—”
“Kourt.”
Would she please stop saying his name that way?
“Right. He cares enough to do the can drive.”
“Hmmm. Yes. I suppose Kourt does care enough.” Helen’s eyes widen and she looks at me suspiciously.
“I’m just saying. I have all these decorations of Josie’s.
I can’t imagine she’d want them to go to waste, tucked away in boxes in the attic.
I guess I feel like it’s all part of either her grand scheme or some master plan that I’m here and I found them…
So in lieu of sounding like a TV movie—let’s decorate the town? ”
A toothy, but reluctant smile attacks my cheeks.
“Come on, Helen. I’m your client by default. You have to entertain this. If you don’t, I’m back to feeling like a screw-up who flew the office coup after being kicked out of my firm.”
“You were kicked off a pitch, not out of your firm. Speaking of which, I have to go. I’ve got an in-person this morning. Hence the digs. No. You were right the first time. I do wake up like this.”
“You have to work on a Saturday?”
“I’m an exceptional attorney, with very wealthy, eccentric clients, who hide out in a small town. Of course I work on Saturday.”
I give her a pressing look as she grabs her keys off the counter to head out.
“Hey, do I get that copy of keys you have to this place or—”
“Nope. They’re mine. I’ve had my own set of keys to this place since Josie moved in.
One of my best friends in the world gave them to me.
Tough luck getting them back.” Helen winks over her shoulder as she moves to the door with her briefcase and cold brew.
“Plus, you’ll want me to have them in case I’m the one that has to find you buried under all this Christmas décor. ”
“I’ll let it slide in exchange for where I can get a million extension cords?”
“Blitzen Hardware. It’s on Main Street.”