direction.
He sipped at his wine, winced only slightly, then smiled appreciatively.
“Not mine,” she said. “My… boyfriend’s.”
She felt funny saying the word, wondered why, then looked quickly to see if he’d been hurt; then wondered why about that, as well.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” she thought. “A dude that fine, he must be fighting off the ladies in Snowflake!”
He sipped his wine without comment; so did she.
Then she said, “I told Chad it was moving too fast, but he wouldn’t listen. I said ‘two months isn’t enough time for me to meet your family.’ He insisted on it, wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”
“Really?” he asked, long, lean body clinging to the open doorway as if it had been designed just for him. “You don’t strike me as the ‘shrinking violet’ type, Dana.”
“I’m not,” she insisted after a quick slug of wine. “Usually, but what was I going to do? Sit around campus all week?”
“You could have gone home to see your family,” he said pointedly.
She arched one eyebrow and said, “Yeah, I could have, but… that’s a whole other kettle of fish. Instead I caved, said ‘yes’ to Chad and now… and now…”
He waited her out, patiently sipping his wine with a bemused look on his face until she spit it out.
“And now I hate his family,” she finally confessed, “and him kind of a little, and I don’t know how to tell him it’s over.”
“Hate?” Cliff said, arching one thick eyebrow while running those long fingers through his dirty blond curls. “That’s a little strong, isn’t it? I mean, considering the season?”
She thought about it, noticing the smooth jazz Christmas carols had somehow followed them outside.
“Not really,” she finally decided. “For three whole days we’ve done nothing but play charades and pick boysenberries and bake cookies and piece together puzzles and watch sickeningly sweet ‘family’ movies and listen to cats screeching ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’ and decorate the tree and… and…”
Her voice trailed off again; she wondered where she was going with this.
What she wasn’t telling Cliff, what she hadn’t told Chad, and what she was suddenly was just realizing was that the reason she hadn’t wanted to meet Chad’s family for Christmas was that because she’d pretty much decided to break it off after Thanksgiving.
She just hadn’t gotten around to it.
And then suddenly it was December, and then came finals week, and Chad had been so insistent, so persistent and… here she was, alone in some Laundromat finally realizing the relationship was over.
Dead; kaput.
“Sounds kind of… nice,” he said suddenly, voice warm and deep in the dark, staring over her head into the inky night beyond. “The whole family gathered around the tree, lots of kids and activity, cookies baking and whatnot.”
“I hear you,” she said, nodding and wondering if he’d think her a lush if she raced inside for two more quick fingers of wine. “But… it’s nonstop. And he never gets a hint. Even when I say, ‘Chad, let’s go for a hike’ and everyone else is more than willing to leave us alone for 10 minutes, he asks his brother along, or his sister, or his niece, or his 12-year old cousin.
“The two of them talked about that Alien Battle Station 3 for 2-hours nonstop? I can understand a 12-year-old geeking out like that but… do you know what it’s like to hear your 23-year-old boyfriend speak alien for 120 straight minutes?”
Cliff chuckled loudly, lazily, eyes closing to half-slits as if imagining the scene for himself and finding it highly amusing.
She felt a slight tingle, suddenly wondering what that chuckle might sound like tomorrow morning as they cuddled in his single bed.
(Wow, Dana, where did that come from?!?)
“I’ve been setting my alarm clock earlier and earlier every morning,” she confessed, “but someone is always up. This morning I got up at 4 a.m., figuring for sure I’d get at least half an hour of down time ALONE. But oh no, his sister was up, making coffee, and trapped me on the front porch for an hour asking me if two years old was too old to breast feed! I don’t know the answer to that, and even if I did, I’m pretty sure I couldn’t find it at 4 in the morning!”
In between chuckling, Cliff reached inside the Laundromat and grabbed the bottle of wine, pouring them both healthy glugs that found the bottle mostly empty.
“Family’s hard,” he said after a long pause, almost making her forget what she’d said to prompt his statement.
There was a wistfulness to his voice that made her suddenly remember what the dreadlock dude in the convenience store had said.
Here she was, running off at the mouth about college and exams and boyfriends and family, and he was working the graveyard shift at the family Laundromat on Christmas Eve!
“What about you?” she asked quickly, earnestly, feeling suddenly stupid for gushing non-stop about her non-problems. “Your wife can’t be too happy about you running this place on Christmas Eve?”
“Wife?” he asked over the lip of his red plastic cup. “Not likely. Everyone in Snowflake is either 16 or 66. Not a lot of dating potential around these parts.”
“So why do you stay?” she asked, knowing a hunk like Cliff would get eaten alive the minute he set one darling foot on her small college campus.
He shrugged and looked over her head again, as if asking himself that very question.
“Family,” he said at last. “Mom’s never been the same since Dad passed, and my brother took off right after high school; same with my sister, so… someone’s got to stick around and man the fort.”
She looked up at him, leaning casually against the doorframe of the Snowflake Suds & Duds, looking dashing in his snug fisherman’s sweater and wheat-colored chords, no socks and weathered deck shoes.
Dana didn’t have much to say to that; she who had cut out of her own small South Carolina town the minute she graduated high school, entered SCU the first semester she could and had never looked back.
They were so different, she and Cliff, and yet she felt almost… intimately… close to him.
He was one of those guys you just felt like you’d known forever, and wished you could know a lot better – a lot sooner.
Still, when she was with someone, she was with someone.
Random encounters with hot business owners on Christmas Eve or no, she was with Chad and, until she broke it off, with Chad she’d stay.
And what then?
She still had three days left with Chad and his family, and then there was New Year’s… would there ever be a good time to let Chad down easy?
And what if she did?
Was she going to come running to Snowflake every weekend to seduce Cliff on top of some random washing machine?
And even if she did, what of it?
Where could she use her marketing degree in tiny Snowflake?
Would she give it all up to run the Laundromat?
Or sell cigarettes at the convenience store?
Or slice onions at the sub shop?
She lit another cigarette to smoke away the regret, the fantasy, the frustration of Cliff standing so close and she not being able to do a single thing about it; she handed him one without being asked.
He lit theirs both and said, “That’s it for me; two’s my limit.”
She snorted white smoke, and he did two.
Three cigarettes and the last of the red wine later, he was sitting next to her on the bench outside of the Suds & Duds, a space between them as the city of Snowflake settled around them.
Behind them oozed the smooth jazz, in front of them Christmas approached amidst a tiny city of twinkling lights.
Dana suddenly thought that there must be something special about who you spend Christmas with; not the morning of and all the presents, or even the dinner and the tree, but the minute Christmas dawns, that priceless, precious moment.
Special because it only happ
ens once a year, and you’re only aware of it so often.
Maybe she’d been wrong to tear off out of the house and flee Chad’s family that way, but whatever it had cost her, whatever the future might hold (or not hold) for she and Chad, she knew that she was spending Christmas with the right person this year.
Even if they had only just met.
Dana reached over tentatively, but quickly, before she could chicken out.
She found his hand lying chastely in the space between them; it was hot and flushed and gripped hers – tightly, almost urgently – the moment their fingers touched.
Neither of them moved beyond that simple gesture, but it was enough; for now, at least, it was enough.
The moment passed and he turned to her with a bashful smile and said, simply, “Thank you.”
In his eyes she saw gratitude his words couldn’t convey; she only hoped he saw the same in hers.
Just then bright lights illuminated the bench and they both flinched, hands peeling apart to cover their eyes as a clatter of sneakers launched from the side door and jangled into the sub shop, the cowbell over the door announcing their presence.
The lights went off, the driver’s door opened and Dana heard a familiar voice call her name.
“Chad?” she said, rising out of the seat to distance herself from Cliff, who wisely stayed put.
In her peripheral vision she caught him slide the empty wine bottle out of view behind the bench with a single heel, even as he slid the pack of cigarettes toward his own lap.
“What’s going on Cliff?” Chad asked brusquely, dark hair gleaming in the harsh light under the Laundromat awning.
For the first time all evening it occurred to Dana that Cliff might actually know Chad from growing up in Snowflake together, not to mention his family.
Suddenly she felt raw and exposed.
“Still hanging around Snowflake?” Chad asked in a way that indicated he was glad that he wasn’t.
Dana cut Chad a look, but relaxed as Cliff said merely, “Sure, why not?”
Like Dana, Cliff knew it was no sense explaining to a hot shot MBA overachiever like Chad – he of the ascots and riding gloves and expensive watch collection – what it meant to give up your own dreams to run the family business, humble as it might have been.
“Still smoking, too, I see?” Chad scoffed.
Dana knew he hated the habit, which is why she’d gone three whole days without a single puff.
Cliff willingly took one for the team, chuckling, “You know us townies, Chad; always sitting around on park benches and smoking the day away—”
“What got into you?” Chad asked Dana, cutting Cliff off and turning with his back to the Suds and Duds owner.
Cliff took the hint and stood, inching inside the Laundromat and sliding behind the counter to switch CDs yet again.
Dana was confused, surprised to see Chad hunting her down, yet startled by the lack of understanding in his cold, blue eyes.
“I needed a break, Chad,” she hissed, trying to keep her voice down as Kenny G oozed from Cliff’s boom box. “Don’t you understand?”
“I understand my family is extremely upset,” he huffed, clearly missing her point. “I understand you left me in a very awkward position back there just now, having to explain why you’d want to come use some townie Laundromat when Mom has a perfectly good washing machine back–”
“That reminds me,” she said, turning on a heel to see Cliff smiling back at her. “My blouse!”
All that time with Cliff, the wine, the music, the conversation – the hand-holding – she’d forgotten why she’d left Chad’s house in the first place.
“You wrap that up,” said Chad, either ignoring or simply not caring about the smoldering glances sparking between she and Cliff, “and I’ll go grab the kids.”
Dana breathed a sigh of relief, glad Chad wouldn’t be insisting on following her into the Laundromat at least.
“I’m so sorry,” she told Cliff breathlessly, who was already drifting toward her washing machine.
“Why?” said Cliff, rattling some change in his palm and sliding some of it into a nearby dryer.
“Just, it’s so dramatic,” she sighed.
She looked at him, reached out and touched his sleeve, “And because I was having a really nice time.”
“Me too,” he said, looking slightly down at her.
They were hip to hip now, standing over her washing machine, so close she could smell his cologne and feel the warmth from his skin.
How she longed to touch him again, even if it was just to hold his hand; to sit quietly and hold his hand and wile the holiday away, doing nothing more than listening to long sax solos and staring into those dreamy green eyes.
“Thank you,” she said, and he shrugged, thinking it was about the coins in the dryer. “No, I mean, for tonight.”
“I know what you meant,” he lied, fixing her with those eyes.
They both jumped when the van horn honked again, inching away as the headlights flickered on and flooded the Suds & Duds with white, impatient light.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said quietly, opening the lid to her now silent washing machine as a way to keep her by his side, if only for just another moment longer. “I’ll finish this up and, if you feel like setting your alarm clock early again, well, I’ll still be working when you get up and you can come by and pick it up then.”
Warmth rushed through her stomach as her senses flooded with sweet anticipation.
Quickly she mouthed a silent, “Thank you” before squeezing his forearm tenderly and slipping out the door.
“I can’t believe you’d run out on the family like that,” Chad scolded, nostrils flared, as he backed out savagely into the empty street before peeling forward.
He hadn’t even waited for her to click her seatbelt in tight.
(She half-wondered if the five gangly kids in the back were belted in as well.)
“I can’t believe you’d chase me down like some… some… prized heifer that’s strayed from the pasture,” she said, keeping her voice down. “And I can’t believe you’d bring all your nieces and nephews along for the ride.”
“They wanted ice cream,” he blurted, nodding toward their dripping cones as he drove. “Snowflake Subs is the only place in town open this late.”
Her jaw dropped.
“So, you mean, this was just a… a… fluke? The kids wanted ice cream so you just happened to pull up to the only sub shop open this late, which just so happens to be next to the only Laundromat open this late?”
Chad nodded, then stopped himself just in time and said, “Of course not.”
But even so, she caught the quick look he sent to the rearview mirror, warning his gaggle of nieces and nephews in the backseat not to spill the beans.
She sat back in her chair, suddenly feeling… at peace.
It was over with Chad, that much was clear.
Whatever goodwill she’d had in her heart for him had bolted the minute she realized he hadn’t thought twice about where she’d gone – or felt the slightest indication to come looking for her.
“What are you doing?” he asked as he heard the telltale beep from her cell phone.
“Just setting my alarm,” she said. “I want to get a quick run in before the Christmas festivities start.”
“Good idea,” he said, patting his non-existent belly. “I’ll get up with you. What time so I can set my own cell?”
“5:30,” she lied sweetly, as he began beeping and blurping his way through setting his own alarm.
Only when she locked her alarm onto 4:45 a.m. did she finally relax.
The town of Snowflake blurred past the passenger window, all quaint cottages and sweet chalets, all decked out in twinkling white holiday trim.
For the first time, the town looked picturesque and quaint, and she couldn’t wait to see it in a few hours; alone, for the first time all trip.
Well, alone that is until she walked back th
rough the door of Suds & Duds, and into Cliff’s arms…
* * * * *
About the Author:
Rusty Fischer
Rusty Fischer is a full-time freelance writer and the author of several published novels, including Zombies Don’t Cry (Medallion Press) and A Town Called Snowflake (Musa Publishing). For more FREE romantic holiday stories, visit him at www.storiesoftheseason.com.
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