24. Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy
twenty-four
Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy
H elen’s droning on and on about the auction, and as much as I enjoy her company and am glad we came together, I—something feels empty or as if I left one of my belongings behind.
My purse, keys, wallet, or that favorite tube of lipstick deserted on the public restroom sink.
There’s a small vacancy in my chest that I can’t seem to dismiss or get to the bottom of.
The auction couldn’t have been more successful.
I just one upped Kourt a second time, and I’m in great company.
Why is there a small part of me looking back toward that gym wondering where he is right now, if he’s already driving home—wanting to be in that truck with him. My stomach sinks a little at the thought and the vacant spot in my chest pulses like a highlighted section on a map, marking the spot.
“I have to admit, the first date I thought you’d go on in Blitzen was not with Ellis Andrews.” Helen scrunches her nose up as she turns on the road that leads to my street.
“It’s not a date. It’s an auction bid for the cause. And just who would you have me go on a date with, in Blitzen?”
“Don’t play coy with me, Erika with a K. I’ll call your damn aunt! First of all, this is a very small town. It is a date, because the head case asked you to one of Kourt’s games the first week you got here.”
“It was canceled.”
She rolls her eyes and turns her brights on as we head further up the dark mountain road.
“It was meant to be a date all the same. And you know perfectly well who I thought you’d go out with.
It’s why you bid for Ellis in the first place.
A warning—if you play games with Kourt, you better know what you’re getting yourself into.
Especially with how invested you two are. ”
She’s right. Only it’s not the challenge she’s warning me of that scares me… maybe I wish I hadn’t won tonight. Maybe I wish…
“Wait. Invested?” I can’t help but look sideways at my crazy friend.
“Yes, Erika. Invested. Careful there. Ellis is an ass and Kourt’s not a fan. There’s history there. He’s the last guy your friends would want to see you with.”
“Helen. He’s the only one in town who has asked me on a date, and again, this is nothing. It’s for the auction.” I try to use reason to get through to her.
Helen’s dark eyes pierce my side of the car. “And just what is it you think you’ve been doing with my best friend all this time?” She looks at me as if she needs to get something through my head.
However, and on the contrary, Helen— I let it rip.
“Your best friend is someone I see almost daily pulling together the town’s Christmas festival.
And talk about ‘ all bark and no bite, ’” I force myself not to use air quotes, “On the day you assumed nature took its course and we slept together, the truth is, he was so uncomfortable having my bra and panties in his possession, that he couldn’t wait to give them back to me.
I sat alone in a dark cave with the man with his hard on pressing against my ass—forgive me, TMI — only to find he couldn’t wait to get the hell away from me.
He is clearly not interested. So no, Helen.
I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.
” I take a deep breath and turn, hoping my house is in view.
Hot tears threaten to spew. The humiliation I didn’t know I had bottled up is ready to pour out onto one of the few friends I have. I’m so embarrassed. Damn that vacant spot on the map of my heart, and damn Helen’s intuition.
A lengthy pause mirrors my thoughts.
“I don’t know whether to be offended you dropped your first F-bomb in Blitzen on me or thankful I didn’t have to hear fish sticks out of context again,” Helen chirps in her delightfully upbeat voice.
“Erika, I would love to get in-depth here and tell you the very obvious that you’re missing, but he’s my best friend. It’s not mine to tell.”
Helen pulls up to my carport and puts her Lexus SUV in park. “What I can do is make you aware of your own part in this. It’s what you’ve both been participating in since the day you met—foreplay.”
My jaw drops.
“You two aren’t just playing games with each other. This is foreplay for something much bigger, and I have a hunch it’s not one accidental roll in the hay.”
Helen looks down for a second at her leather driving gloves fastened in her lap.
“You’re a big girl, Erika. You don’t need me.
Josie said you wouldn’t. I just liked you so much I had to meddle.
It feels good to have another girl around, especially since Josie left.
You don’t owe anybody anything, not in this town where you’ve been so generous.
You do, however, owe it to yourself to realize what’s right in front of you. ”
Helen yawns daintily as if she didn’t just drop a grenade in my lap. “I’ve got to go. Early morning again and I’ve said too much.” She pats my arm and unlocks my passenger side. “That, and Kourt’s tried to FaceTime me seven times during this car ride. You two are ludicrous.”
“Text me when you get home.” I grab my purse and close the door.
Baffled. I walk away. Totally baffled.
Tossing my keys on the counter, I bypass my laptop and race up the spiral staircase to my room. I shed my heels and coat, and I dive into my bed to bury my face in pillows.
I’m so exhausted. I can’t believe Ellis called me up on stage… Kourt… the look on his face… Everything Helen said. I don’t know if she’s right, and I’m a fool for not knowing, or if I’m right and I’ve acted like a fool around someone who has no real interest in me.
My eyes flutter closed and I contemplate forcing them open to talk to Archer about it all, but I can’t.
This is Archer 101. He’d be so disappointed in me.
‘ See, Erika, this is why you don’t date well.
You show all your colors too fast and right away.
’ I can hear him now. Translation, you’re misguided enough to think a guy like that would go for you, just like you were ignorant enough to think that pitch was a home run for the Harmon account.
And was I thinking that? Do I want Kourt? Were we playing games, or was it all about the festival the entire time?
I’m half asleep in seconds with my mind racing to the very telling click of the mixtape. I hear it. Or maybe I’m dreaming.
In truth, I think I almost embrace riding with Kourt because the mixtape scares me. Not the fact the cassette deck has a mind of its own, but the songs it plays and what they lead me to… who , they led me to every single time…
“Look, I know there was a work thing or whatever Helen hinted at, but why Christmas, why all this?” Kourt looks at me in earnest. “I mean, I’ve never seen someone care so much who’s not from Blitzen .
” His voice pleads loudly to be heard in my head and I see his face by the sled, marveling at it, marveling at me.
It’s the same look of pride and anticipation he has when he lifts the heavy boxes of canned goods.
Every time, he smiles like he’s excited that it’s heavy, and it’s his pleasure to carry such a gift.
Kourt stops in front of me, his eyes racing back and forth across mine.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing. I’m just looking at you Erika with a K.
” He looked at me that night like I was a gift.
I dismissed it and ran freezing to the truck.
The tape deck clicks on again and plays Sleigh Ride, and I hear dogs barking in the background.
So many dogs. I feel Kourt’s hand take my chin.
He was so mad at me, but when he lifted my face to meet his…
Dark hazel eyes fall to my lips. He was going to kiss me before we fell in that water— I shake my head so hard it hurts, and I feel smothered in my pillow.
I didn’t know.
I toss and turn.
The mixtape clicks again and George Michael’s Last Christmas plays. I can hear Archer screaming, “Hello? Hellooooooo?” From my laptop, and we must be late to the firm’s holiday party. I’ve changed my dress three times and Archer tells me to put on something different.
The music stops. The tape deck clicks. There’s a long sad pause, and I feel like crying. Please Celebrate Me Home by Kenny Logins plays, and familiar hazel eyes are back dancing on mine, there’s snow somewhere in the distance and I feel so warm inside.
He’s holding me so tight, and I don’t want him to let go.
The mixtape switches, and the music cuts off entirely.
All I can see is a homemade label with ‘track 3’ written all blurry and flashing at me.
Bing Crosby’s voice rings through my ears acapella, as he croons ‘I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas…
’ I’m still in Kourt’s arms. He hasn’t let go, and his eyes plead with mine as they have so many times before.
Kicking my covers off the bed, I roll to the other side, and hear Kourt’s voice loud and clear from the banks of Blitzen Manor— “I want you to get to do this the way you want to.”
My eyes pop open. Fully awake and seated upright in bed, I stare through my dark bedroom.
The only light visible is the glow of outside streetlamps streaming through Josie’s lavish satin curtains.
The ice blue-silvery fabric hangs from ceiling to floor and my weary eyes dart up and down it, establishing where I am.
My heart gallops out of my chest. There are no covers on the bed.
He did this for me.
Not for the town or his firetruck, but because of what I told him about my Christmas memory. But why didn’t he say so? He never—I sigh, and I slam back into my pillows.
What if Helen’s totally misgauged the situation? I know my gauge can’t be trusted when it comes to Kourt.
Or can it? He believes in me. He has from the start. The man stood up for me in the town meeting, and that was before Helen solicited him to help. Even when Kourt disagrees with me—even when we argue and he’s mad as hell… ‘just do what you do, Erika, it’s working.’
Heat coils through me like an electric blanking warming me from the inside when those words replay in my head.
The visual of his face above mine, honey green eyes dancing at me.
I roll to a different side of the bed to try and fall back asleep.
My lips tremble at the words I say out loud to myself with shaky breaths, He believes in me.
Closing my eyes, I drift back to sleep with the click of the cassette player in Aunt Josie’s VW haunting me the rest of the night.