The Man Under The Mistletoe

Rosie nodded. The company had been considering a move to Maple Hill from Boston two years ago, but circumstances had conspired to defeat the plan.

“I spoke to the new president of the company yesterday,” Rosie told her. “They’d moved to a temporary space in an old mill on the Charles River when the last deal fell apart. He’s anxious to get out of there, but we both agreed that the holiday season is a bad time to talk about it. Everyone is too busy. He’s coming to Maple Hill right after the new year to talk to us in person.”

“And we have a new location for him to consider,” Molly said. She was a full-figured blonde in her mid-fifties who, not surprisingly, always smelled of flowers. “There won’t be any environmental surprises like the last time when we discovered a heron rookery that was missed on the impact statement. I wish Dennis Sorrento could join us again, but he’s had a few health problems and he’s trying to scale back.”

Dennis was a pharmacist who’d been an important part of the committee’s first incarnation.

“That’s too bad,” Jackie replied. “But you sound as though you have a good handle on what you’re doing, Rosie. Maple Hill has a reputation for sound business while maintaining its beautiful surroundings. Just keep that in mind.”

Rosie nodded. “Haley’s joined the committee, but she can’t meet with us until January. She has her hands full with the special holiday-shopping edition. A good thing for the publisher of the Maple Hill Mirror, but not necessarily for the wife of a busy lawyer and the mother of a toddler.”

Jackie rolled her eyes. “My niece is a wild child.” Jackie was Haley Megrath’s sister-in-law, and little Henrietta’s aunt and godmother.

“I’ve seen her in action.” Rosie reached into her purse for her wallet. “But my point was that with Haley on board, we’ll be secure in the knowledge that our every move will be monitored.” Haley was famous for taking on anything or anyone she considered a threat to Maple Hill financially, ecologically or in any way at all.

“Well.” Jackie consulted the bill and took out her own wallet. “Your committee has my blessing. Keep me informed.”

“We will.” Rosie glanced at her watch, then smiled at her companions. “I’ve got to go back to my shop. Last fitting on my sister’s wedding dress this afternoon.”

As the group stood to go their separate ways, the lone occupant of a corner booth watched in angry disappointment and thought, So Rosie chose to ignore my warning. Something will have to be done….

CHAPTER ONE

ROSIE FLUFFED the tea-length hem of her younger sister’s wedding dress and stepped back to get the full effect. One hand on the louvered door of the dressing room, she assessed the lace draped over Francie’s impressive bosom, cinching her slender arms and tiny waist, fluttering around her ankles as she did a turn.

With Francie’s blue hair and pierced eyebrow, she was hardly an ad for Vera Wang, but she did sparkle. And she looked happy.

“The alterations are perfect,” Rosie said. “The dress is as beautiful on you as we knew it would be. What do you think of the muff?” A soft, faux-fur material, it matched the band of the hat she’d chosen. “Gives it all a Christmassy look, don’t you think?”

Francie nodded at Rosie’s reflection in the mirror. “I love it. Mom?”

Sonja Erickson, “Sonny” to friends and family, squeezed into a corner of the built-in bench, looked as though she had an appointment for cocktails at the Polo Lounge even though she was three thousand miles away in a tiny dressing room in snowy Maple Hill, Massachusetts.

The light blue gaze she cast over the dress revealed nothing. Then she sighed—a sign that she knew her opinion wouldn’t be well received so she would keep it to herself. “It’s very pretty,” she said. “Very pretty.”

Francie closed her eyes—a sign that after twenty-three years of dealing with her mother’s criticism, she still let it get to her.

Rosie tried to distract Francie by reaching for the veiled hat she’d selected to go with the dress, but she was too late.

“It’s the hair, isn’t it?” Francie demanded, turning with a swoosh of taffeta to glare at her mother. “I told you it’s staying blue. Deal with it, Mom!”

“I’m dealing,” Sonny replied with a calm smile.

Rosie had always admired that her mother could do that—react to shrieks of anger and frustration like an amused goddess. She was the composite of a fifties up-bringing that forbade expressing displeasure, and a talent for making everyone around her somehow pay for what she was feeling but couldn’t show.

At last she heaved a long-suffering sigh. That meant all bets were off. Her mother would say what was on her mind.

“It’s the eyebrow ring I’m worried about.” She stood gracefully, still fashionable at fifty-seven in a classic suit. “What if your veil gets caught in it? Will there be blood everywhere? Will you need plastic surgery? What personal statement is worth ruining your wedding day?”

“It’s not a statement of anything!” Francie screamed. Blue hair did not flatter a purple face. In the little room, the sound of Francie’s voice ricocheting back and forth took on a physical force. “It’s who I am, that’s all. It’s me!”

“Mom, Francie,” Rosie pleaded quietly. “I have other customers…”

“You were not born with an eyebrow ring!” Sonny shouted back. “Believe me! I’d have noticed during my thirty-seven hours of labor!”

“Oh, God.” Francie put both hands to her ears. “If you regret having me so much, why did you do it? You already had two beautiful overachievers!”

“I do not regret having you!” Sonny said heatedly. “But there are moments when I regret letting you live! I’ll be in the car.” She handed Rosie her Visa card.

Rosie pushed it back at her. “Mom, I told you. The dress is my gift to Francie.”

Her mother took her hand and forced the card into it. “Don’t be ridiculous. You know Happily Ever After will be out of business before spring. You’re going to need the money.”

That salvo delivered, she left the dressing room. Seconds later the bells over the front door tinkled. Her daughters knew she wasn’t going far—she’d brought Francie to the shop, after all, and would be taking her home.

Rosie sank onto the bench.

“Why does she hate us?” Francie demanded.

“Try this.” Rosie handed Francie a veiled bowler hat. “She doesn’t hate us. She just doesn’t know how to love us.”

Francie put on the hat, then tugged the veil carefully down to her chin.

Rosie knew she’d been right about the choice. A standard headpiece and veil would have accentuated Francie’s nontraditional hair and piercing. The hat and muff worked with them.

Francie nodded at her reflection, her expression softening. She looked at Rosie in the mirror as she played with the veil. “I don’t understand. What’s so hard about it?”

“I’ve been working on that for a long time.”

“I thought being willing to die for your children was supposed to be instinctive to all mothers.”

“Oh, I think she’d die for us. She just finds it really hard to live with us.”

Francie handed back the hat, then reached behind her to unzip the dress. Rosie stood to help her. “You and I,” Francie said moodily, “are never going to make her happy. How do you stand it? She always makes me feel like the last kid picked for the baseball team.”

Rosie held the dress with one hand and helped Francie step out of it with the other. “You have to get over the idea that you’re responsible for her happiness.” She eased the dress onto a hanger. “She’s had a rough time, you know? She always looks as though she’s got it together, so we expect her to behave that way. But inside, she’s more at a loss than she’ll let us believe.”

Francie made a scornful noise as she slipped into jeans and a red, crushed-velvet sweater. “You’re saying she wasn’t like this before Jay and Daddy died? I don’t remember. Seems like she’s been on my case forever.”

She watched as Rosie stuffed the skirt into the plastic cover, smoothed it neatly and pulled up the zipper, then asked, “Do you ever wonder about Dad?”

The confines of the tiny room made avoiding eye contact difficult. Besides, Rosie found it hard to lie to the sister to whom she’d explained menstruation, sex and geometry.

Still, she hedged. “About what, particularly?”

Francie shifted impatiently. “About not loving us enough to want to live.”

God. Only her family could take an afternoon in a bridal shop and turn it into a Faulkner novel.