Christmas Box Set Read online

  Jackson smiled. “Bring me a real challenge next time.”

  I smiled too. “Will do.” I closed and secured the trailer, got into the truck, and got going, beeping the horn as I drove off. Jackson lifted his hand once before going back inside the garage. I tracked his movements in the side mirror before turning at the stop sign at the end of the street.

  I drove to my parent’s somewhat palatial estate—they had 15 bedrooms, stables in the back without horses in them, gardens for miles, bathrooms hand over fist, and a mega garage that I used to store the cars I just couldn’t stand to part with. I pulled into the enormous circular driveway and laid on the horn twice.

  Dad came out of the house shortly thereafter, dressed in jeans and a light blue cashmere sweater that had Mom’s name written all over it. He’d been retired for well over a year, but after a lifetime spent in a parade of finely-tailored three-piece suits, he was relying rather heavily on Mom’s judgment where his newly casual wardrobe was concerned. It was actually pretty funny to watch. He had a lot of polo shirts and khaki pants at first. Now he was venturing into denim and cashmere.

  “Morning,” he said as he settled into the passenger side and buckled his belt, laying a light jacket over his lap. “Everything go well with picking up the Series 60?”

  “Yeah, she’s prettier than anything I’ve ever seen.”

  He laughed at that, but he and Mom knew how much I loved cars.

  We drove the hour to the fall classic car show that we’d been looking forward to for months. There was a big one every quarter, but this show was by far the best. All of the country’s biggest dealers and collectors would be there. We were lucky to have it so close to where we lived. I’d made great money off car sales at this show in past years.

  We arrived with 30 minutes to spare to make registration. I got us signed in and then Dad and I got the Series 60 off the trailer and into the show arena, parking it with the other cars that would be getting top billing in the showcase. Once the car was taken care of, we strolled the arena. There were thousands of square feet of space, all of it filled with classic cars and trucks from all over the country. It was one of the best parts of the year for me.

  We walked through the row of cars, chatting and taking pictures on our cell phones. There was so much to see. It was my idea of heaven. I’d look at old cars all day every day if I could. We were standing in front of a restored ’54 Chevy pickup—dark maroon with chrome sparkling from the grille to the side mirrors—when a woman sidled up next to me.

  “Like what you’re looking at?” she asked, a slight southern drawl to her voice that you didn’t hear very often up north.

  I gave her a brief glance before returning my gaze to the stunning truck. “The pickup’s a beauty,” was all I said.

  “You from around here?” she asked, leaning a little closer. I could smell her vanilla perfume. It was cloying.

  “Not really,” I said. “Excuse me.” I didn’t wait for her to answer, just walked around the side of the truck, wanting to see how they’d restored the bed. Dad followed me, his eyes on me instead of the truck.

  “That young lady seemed quite taken with you,” he said.

  “Did she?” I asked, eyes scanning every inch of the back of the truck. “I didn’t really notice.”

  “You don’t seem to notice many women since high school. You’re mother’s getting worried she’ll never have grandchildren.”

  I smiled, but not kindly, and kept my eyes safely on the truck. “It probably would’ve been a good idea to have more than one kid.” I kept my tone light, but this kept coming up. I was only newly 30. I still had all the time in the world. Of course, that was what BJ thought too, and look how that turned out. But the chilling reality of my mortality was no reason to jump into a relationship and fatherhood with the first woman who seemed interested.

  “I’m starting to come around to your mother’s way of thinking on the issue,” Dad continued, following me around to the other side of the truck and completely ignoring my snide comment. “Are you interested in finding the right girl and settling down one day?”

  I shrugged again, shifting uncomfortably under my dad’s persistent gaze. “Yeah, one day. I just haven’t found the right woman yet. I’m sure she’s out there somewhere.”

  Dad didn’t push the issue any further, and instead turned to discussing the truck. After a few more hours of walking around, the announcers came over the loudspeaker, urging attendees to congregate in front of the stage as the judges announced the winners of each category and overall best in show. From what I’d seen, I thought we had a good chance of getting one of the top awards. I waited patiently until all the categories had been given out, but my nerves were building up, too. There’d been so much intricate work on the Caddy. I’d helped out where I could, but I was limited by my lack of experience and skill. BJ had been the mechanic. I was the visionary and money man. It had worked well for us until last year. Now, everything had changed.

  They called third place—the sweet Chevy pickup I’d admired for more than 10 full minutes. When second was called, it took a second before I realized they were talking about our Series 60. I went up to the stage to collect the check—the ribbon had already been placed on the car.

  Dad clapped me on the back when I came down from the stage.

  “Good work, son,” he said, grinning, his dark eyes meeting mine.

  “Thanks.” I hadn’t helped out as much as I’d have liked on this project, but I was proud just the same. We waded through the crowd, heading towards the Series 60. As soon as I got to it, three dealers approached me, each one making a solid offer on my beautiful girl. I grinned and handed out my business cards, urging them to give me a call, but that I couldn’t make a decision at the moment. They each promised to reach out before the end of the weekend and walked off in search of more lovely cars and trucks.

  Dad gave me a sideways look, his bushy eyebrows raised. “Are you thinking about keeping this one for yourself?”

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure. I just broke her out of the shop this morning, so I think I want to drive her around for a few weeks before I make any rash decisions. But those offers were promising.”

  “What are your plans for the check?” Dad asked.

  “It’s only a few thousand dollars. I’ll probably donate it like always.” I wasn’t in this for the money. I liked the game—finding old cars in worse and worse shape, and bringing them back to sparkling life. I’d do with this money what I’d done to all the rest—deposit it into the shop account BJ set up that I had access to. All my winnings were in there, serving as a nice rainy day fund for BJ and Maggie. Now just Maggie. I didn’t think he’d told her about it, but maybe she knew by now. She’d never mentioned it. I didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable. I just wanted to be able to keep helping her the way BJ would’ve wanted. I had no reason to stop now.

  Maggie

  Monday

  The last thing I felt like doing was Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving—I’d always been a last-minute kind of girl—but here I was walking through the mall with Mom at my side. She wanted to get a jump on her list and insisted on dragging me out with her. She kept pouting at the limited selection at the Danbury Fashion Square Mall because she’d rather be in New York City finding expensive items at random boutique stores where a pair of shoes was likely to cost you three or four thousand dollars. We had expensive stores here too, but not expensive enough, apparently. I just kept deflecting her comments dripping with her displeasure. I hadn’t been back to the city since BJ’s accident. I just didn’t trust myself to drive the distance. He’d died on that road. I wasn’t ready to go out there. Not yet.

  As usual, Mom had a list of about 300 people to buy for—she was insanely generous and would buy a gift for a nice person she’d had a few conversations with. We’d already been out for three hours with no sign of stopping in sight except for food. We had to finish at the mall first, as Mom wanted to go by her favorite Italian place
here in Danbury—she, of course, used that as an opportunity to complain again about not being able to visit her favorite Italian place in Manhattan. Still, it was good to be with her, even if I had to hang 20 shopping bags from each arm.

  “You haven’t bought a thing, Maggie,” Mom said, not looking up from the rack of Hermes scarves on display. She wanted to get one for each of the women who worked for her at the house. She was drowning in money after the death of her last husband—not my father, who had died many years earlier—and she’d had more than enough money before that. She employed dozens of people at her house between maids, cooks, gardeners, a butler, and a part-time personal assistant who was more like a Jill of all trades. She paid well, provided comprehensive medical insurance, and gave gifts often. Christmas was really her time to shine, though.

  “My list is pretty small,” I replied. I didn’t really have many people to buy for. Just Mom, Brian Sr., and Eliza. I’d get Jackson and the rest of the crew at the shop something too, but BJ had always just given them a bonus. I planned to do the same—we’d done well this year—and just attach a small gift for them to put under their trees at home.

  Mom made a disagreeable noise but didn’t answer. She settled on three scarves and we continued deeper into the department store. It, like everywhere else in the mall, was fully decked out in red and green decorations, silver bells, and holly. The area in the middle had been commandeered by Santa’s elves, though the big man wouldn’t show up until the mall opened well before the butt crack of dawn on Black Friday. It was overwhelming to say the least. I wasn’t really in the mood to celebrate a second Christmas without the man I loved, but I also didn’t want to bring Mom down. She cherished her Christmas shopping rituals. I usually did too, but this year was even harder than the previous one. Last year at this time, I was still in shock over losing BJ so suddenly. Now, I was so oversensitive and in tune with my feelings that the hurt seemed amplified.

  “What are you planning to do for Thanksgiving?” Mom asked. We were standing over a display of expensive perfume. She liked to buy large bottles of Chanel No. 5 for every woman on her list, despite the fact that a year wasn’t long enough to get through the last bottle. It was the only thing Mom wore. Growing up as a young girl in France before moving to the United States right before high school, Coco Chanel was one of her lifelong role models. She’d worked in the fashion industry herself before meeting my father.

  “Are you going over to Brian’s house or do you want to go out with me?” she asked.

  “I’m not entirely sure,” I said. Since Mom was born in France, she didn’t grow up celebrating Thanksgiving. After marrying her second husband, she began to celebrate it, but when he died, she stopped and instead chose to book a table at an upscale steakhouse here in Danbury every year. I’d spent the holiday with Brian Sr. last year—BJ and I had always gone over to his house while we were dating and even after we were married; the man could cook a mean turkey—and it would be good to spend it with him this year too. We didn’t talk much about our grief, but he was the only person besides Banks who understood exactly what I was going through. BJ’s love for both of us had forced an unbreakable link between us. I felt more at peace in Brian Sr.’s company than I did anyone else’s.

  “I’ll give Brian a call after I get home to see what he has planned for the holiday. I should probably go over there if he’s available. The accident was a little over a year ago. It’s been really hard.”

  Mom turned to look at me, her green eyes appraising but full of so much warmth, too. I didn’t doubt that she loved me more than anything in this world, even if she couldn’t always make it come across without a value judgment. I never knew my maternal grandparents, but I understood their constant criticisms had shaped the kind of woman Mom grew to become.

  She reached to take my hand, which was tingling painfully from the many bags hanging from my wrists and cutting off the blood flow, and squeezed.

  “I can have them add a chair to my table at the steakhouse. Just let me know, ma cherie.” She still had a French accent softening most of her words, but since she’d learned English at her expensive private schools in France, she’d been able to beat back the majority of it. She had been deeply ashamed of her accent when she moved to this country—she had many stories about asshole kids being cruel to her in high school—and worked to assimilate fully, even refusing to teach me French when I was growing up. I took it in high school, but never reached fluency. She was a complicated woman, my mother.

  “Thanks, Mom, I will.” We went back to shopping with ferocity. It was a kind of sport to Mom, who was still just as spry and athletically gifted as she’d been 20 years earlier. By the time we left the mall and were on the way to the restaurant, I felt like I’d run a marathon. My legs were aching, my feet sore, and my shoulders throbbing after lugging around so many bags.

  After lunch of freshly made polenta with a rich, savory sauce and a bottle of wine split between us, Mom’s chauffeur drove us to the boutiques in downtown Danbury, where we spent another few hours browsing and buying anything that struck Mom’s fancy. I even found a few things to get for Eliza, who loved quirky, one of a kind jewelry. I never found anything quite right for the crew at the shop, but that was what Amazon was for. I hadn’t been able to sleep more than three or four hours a night since BJ died, which left a lot of time for surfing the internet. I’d started learning French too, refreshing my rusty memory on conjugations and all the fun stuff I’d forgotten since high school. There was a lot to do on the internet in the middle of the night.

  Mom’s chauffeur drove us by my place on the way back home and dropped me off.

  “Anytime you want to spend the night at chez moi, let me know, cherie,” Mom said, leaning to give me a hug and a light kiss on the cheek.

  “Thanks, Mom. I’ll talk to you later.” I got out of the car with my small bag of jewelry for Eliza. The rest of the boxes and bags packed into the trunk were Mom’s purchases.

  I went inside and turned on the light in the foyer to cast out the darkness. Mom’s question about Thanksgiving was troubling me. I had no idea what I was doing. It had really just slipped my mind that I even needed to make plans. I could always stay at home, but I needed to see what Brian Sr. was doing first. We always spent the holiday with him. I couldn’t leave him alone now that BJ was gone.

  I gave him a call as I walked deeper into the house, headed for the bedroom so I could slip off my boots, freeing my aching feet, and get changed into flannel pajamas.

  “Hey, Maggie,” Brian Sr. said. “How are you?”

  “I’m okay. I spent the day shopping with Mom, which was fun for the most part. How are you?”

  “Hanging in. What’s up?”

  He sounded cheerful enough, but I’d also made a habit of putting on a good face so that I wouldn’t make everyone else uncomfortable. It just seemed like what I needed to do, especially now that it had been a year since I’d lost BJ. Everyone else had gone back to their regular lives. It wasn’t their fault that my regular life was no longer there to go back to. Moving on was healthy, I knew, even if it felt like I was leaving BJ behind, even if it hurt.

  “I was wondering what you’re doing for Thanksgiving this year. It’s only a little over a week away.”

  “I actually have great news on that front,” he said, sounding downright cheerful, which made my heart sink a little, because if he had plans, I was shit out of luck. “I talked to Judy yesterday, and she invited me out there since her husband just deployed three months ago.”

  Judy was BJ’s younger sister. She and her husband lived in Maine. He was in the Reserves, but his unit had activated and was now overseas in Afghanistan. He’d told me, but I completely forgot that she would be alone for the holiday with two kids under three. It definitely made more sense for Brian to go up there than it did for her to travel down here with her little ones.

  “So, I’m going to drive out there the day after tomorrow and stay until the Saturday after the holida
y. It’ll be nice to get out of Danbury for a bit and see Judy and the kids. She’s having a tough time with Andy being down range. I’m really excited to go.”

  “That’s great, Brian!” I said, laying the excitement on thick. This man had been through the ringer, same as I had. If this was going to make him happy, I was happy for him, even though that meant I was now without a plan for the holiday. “I haven’t seen Judy in months.” Not since the funeral, but I didn’t say that. We both knew the last time we’d all been together. “Give her my love.”

  “Will do.”

  We spoke for another 10 minutes about the odds and ends of our lives before bidding each other goodnight and hanging up.

  “Well, shit,” I murmured, and sat down heavily on my bed to take off my shoes, exhausted all over again. I could always go to the steakhouse with Mom. If they had pumpkin pie on the menu, I’d be okay with missing out on the turkey. It beat sitting at home by myself running up and down the digital aisles of Amazon.com.

  Banks

  Wednesday

  I was working from home today after a morning meeting with a potential investor here in Danbury that Dad knew from the country club. It went well, and I returned home to work for a few hours before meeting Mom and Dad for our standing Wednesday lunch. Since we weren’t in the city for once, we didn’t have to go to their favorite restaurant. This time, they actually agreed to let me pick the venue. I knew better than to take them to some greasy burger joint, but I wanted to try something more adventurous than the upscale place in Manhattan that they’d been visiting since before I was born. I’d been in the mood for Thai food for the last week of running between here and New York, and we had a great little place right down the street from my condo.