Lakeshore Christmas

“Maybe I’m a slow learner. Getting dumped at Christmas kind of became a thing with me.”

“You know what I think?” she asked, then went on without waiting for his answer. “I think you keep trying to sabotage Christmas for yourself.”

“Hey—”

“And guess what? This year, you’re not going to get away with it. This year, you’re going to have a great Christmas.”

“Because I get to spend it with you?” Oops, he thought, watching her face go stiff with humiliation. Wrong thing to say. “I’m teasing,” he said.

“No, you’re being mean. There’s a difference.”

“I’m sorry, okay? I really didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

The frames of her glasses were probably made of titanium; they looked tough as armor. “All right,” she said.

He wasn’t sure what she meant by all right. “Listen, I promise—”

“What?” she asked, every pore of her body exuding skepticism.

Good question, he thought. It had been so long since he’d promised anything to anyone. “That it’ll snow,” he said, noticing the barely detectable early flurries. “Now, there’s something I can promise.”

“The weather report said—”

“Forget the weather report. Look up, Maureen. Look at the sky.”

Maureen was about to march off to her car, eager to escape him, when she felt a shimmer of magic in the air. No, not magic. Snow. Contrary to the weather reports, the first snow of the year arrived when Eddie Haven said it would. It started with tiny, sparse crystals that thickened fast. Soon the night was filled with flakes as big as flower petals.

“Glad the snow held off until we finished,” said Eddie.

“No ‘I told you so’?” she asked him.

“Nah, you’re already annoyed at me.”

She scowled at him. “I’m not annoyed.”

“Right. Hand me that package of zip ties, will you?” He was still tweaking the light display. For someone who couldn’t stand Christmas, he sure had worked hard on the display. She wondered if he considered it a kind of redemption.

She gave him a hand, in no hurry to get home. Franklin and Eloise, her cats, had each other for company. She wondered if Eddie had any pets. Or a roommate, back in New York. She also wondered if he’d really gone dashing off for a date the other night, or if that was just her overactive imagination. She warned herself that she was far too inquisitive about this man, but couldn’t manage to stop herself from speculating about him.

As the minutes passed, the snowstorm kicked into higher gear. Thick flakes bombarded them. It was a classic lake effect storm, a sudden unleashing of pent-up pre-cipitation. The church parking lot, empty now except for their cars, was soon completely covered. The landscape became a sculpture of soft ridges, sparkling in the amber glow of the parking lot lights.

They walked toward their cars, sounds now muffled by the snow. She slowed her steps, then stopped. “I love the first snow of the year,” she said. “Everything is so quiet and clean.” Taking off her glasses, she tilted back her head to feel the weightless flakes on her face. Snow always reminded her of fun and exhilaration, safety and laughter. When she and her brother and sisters were little, their father used to be very quick to urge the school district to declare a snow day when the first big snow of the season came. The whole family would go to Oak Hill Cemetery, where they would make snow angels, engage in snowball fights or go sledding if there was enough of a base on the ground. No one ever remarked that celebrating the first snow in a graveyard might not be appropriate. It was Stan Davenport’s way of bringing his five kids closer to their late mother. People tended not to argue with him.

Having lost her mother at age five, Maureen was considered too young to remember, but she did. Sometimes, like when the snow was coming down in a thick and silent fury, a perfect moment would come over her. In a flash of clarity, she could remember everything—the warmth of her mother’s hands, and the way they smelled of flowery soap, the sound of her laughter, the way she liked to collapse like a rag doll in the middle of the bed Maureen shared with Renée, where she would lie with them reading Horton Hatches the Egg and The Poky Little Puppy and Each Peach Pear Plum, always letting them beg for one more story before snuggling them under the covers and kissing them softly.

Maureen shook off the memory to find Eddie staring at her. And although it was entirely possible that she was mistaken, she sensed a new interest in the way he was looking at her, through half-lidded eyes, with what appeared to be desire. It was the way a man regarded a woman just before he kissed her. Which either meant she was a wildly poor reader of facial expressions, or he had unexpected taste in women.