Two

Jill

For a Hundred Bucks…

“Mom…” I sighed into the phone later that night after I’d spent a couple hours working on my own holiday décor then prepared my dinner. I’d just started eating when she’d called, and it hadn’t taken long for her to start in on the relationship nagging.

Annoyed by this conversation, I stared outside the window beside my table. My curtains were closed, but through the sheers, I could still see Jack’s light display signaling air traffic. Even without looking, I knew the snow was still pouring down, too, the lake effect turning it into cotton-ball sized clumps of flakes. It would be piled on us by morning.

Averting my eyes, I went back to pushing around the peas from my less-than-great freezer meal.

“I’m just saying, your sister is happily married. Your brother is…”

“Happily dating,” I supplied, thankful she couldn’t see my rolled eyes. My brother hadn’t been in an actual romantic relationship since college when he’d ended up as a single dad. I’d believe he was happily dating when I saw proof of female life at his side.

“It’s serious,” she defended.

“It’s not married,” I clarified since that was where she was going with this conversation.

“And you’re the oldest. When are you going to get married?” And there it was.

“Not soon.”

I’d been hearing this spiel since my sister had married her high school sweetheart eight years ago. My mom had gotten it into her head that since I was four years older, I should be settled, too. With anyone, from a man I ran into at the coffee shop to the guy who lived down the street from her, who happened to be ten years younger than me. Call me picky, but I just couldn’t see myself with someone I’d babysat for when he’d been a toddler. On the other hand, she wasn’t picky at all.

“What if I don’t want to get married? Maybe, that’s it,” I threw out.

“Don’t say that. You’ve wanted to get married since you were performing weddings for Barbie and Ken and all your stuffed animals, for years and years.”

“Mom…” I protested. I’d never told her I’d had planned to get married, that I’d found the right guy but he’d cheated on me. That would open a whole other can of worms with her and she’d redouble her efforts in a scheme to make it right . “Maybe, I just wanted to be a wedding planner back then.”

She was silent for a long moment, but before I could change the subject, she was at it again.

“You didn’t know what a wedding planner was back then. Anyway, you know, if you moved home, there’s a bigger dating pool here than in that tiny—”

“Geez, Mom!” I exclaimed. I had hoped we wouldn’t go here tonight, but the way things were going with my store, she might get her wish. Just a few hours ago, I’d been listing backup plans in my notebook—the main backup plan being to move back to St. Louis.

“I’m just saying, there are lots of nice boys where I work.”

“Boys? Mom, I’m thirty-two—”

“And I’m fifty-four. To me, they’re all boys. But they’re nice and your age—or around it, anyway—and they have jobs. When you come home for Christmas, I’ll set up something so you can meet them.”

“I don’t—”

“I know you’re not sure if you’ll make it back for the holidays, but I can keep hoping,” she interrupted. “And if you can make it, I can arrange for you to see one of them. Maybe, a couple of them. I just want to see you settled.”

She wanted me settled and moved back to Missouri. She didn’t need to say the words. I heard them, anyway.

Mom guilt. What was a Friday night without it?

I wasn’t sure what possessed me, but I had to nip her plans in the bud—even if I had been considering part of what she wanted. The going home part, anyway.

“I think my boyfriend would be upset if I went out on a blind date back home, Mom. Even if you’re the one to set it up,” I blurted.

“Boyfriend?” she gasped, practically squealing and sounding much younger than her age. “Who?”

Reindeer poop!

Me and my big mouth. That had been stupid to say, and I was screwed. I closed my eyes, praying for an alien abduction.

“What’s his name?” she demanded. “Tell me all about him! We should do a face-thingy with you two, so your dad and I can meet your guy.”

“Uh… Facetime isn’t really a good, um…” Thinking on my feet, I glanced back out the window. Struck speechless, I stared through the slight opening between the sheer curtains, my eyes wide and my mouth dropping open.

“Seriously, Jack?” I whispered. Even as I gaped at him, he was putting out more stuff. Couldn’t he leave well enough alone? Hadn’t he ever heard the saying Less is more? Obviously not.

“Jack?” she exclaimed. “Is he there with you? Put him on speaker, so we can talk to him.”

“What? No. No, he’s not here. He’s outside, doing…Christmas stuff. He’s on a ladder putting up lights. Besides, you already know Jack.”

I imagined her blinking several times as silence ensued. “Wait. Jack. Didn’t you two break up? He’s such a nice boy.”

Yeah, a nice boy who’d cheated on me. I’d never revealed that to my parents. It was just too…humiliating.

“No…” I hedged, dragging out the word. I’d broken up with him. He hadn’t broken up with me. “We’ve just been… Well, you know…” I trailed off as I picked up my glass of water, needing to soothe my suddenly parched throat.

“Sleeping together?”

I choked on the sip, spewing it. “Casual,” I sputtered. “Jesus, Mom. We’ve been casual .”

“Is that code for something? I don’t know all the cool lingo.”

“No, it’s not code. We’re just being…well… casual. That’s all.”

“Okay, well… When will he be around? We don’t live nearby, but we still want to meet the people in your life. Your father and I should at least have the peace of mind of knowing you’re seeing a nice man.”

Jack? Nice? I barely contained my snort. He’d be nicer buried under a snowbank. Naked, so his cheating dick could freeze off.

“It’s the least you can do for us,” she continued, “since you moved a million miles away.”

I made a face, suppressing a grown. “You know the moon is less than 250,000 miles from Earth, right? I live closer to you than the moon.” And they said the astronomy I’d taken in college wouldn’t come in handy.

“Don’t be a smartass.”

“Yes, ma’am. Look, I, um, need to go. It was a long day at the store, and I want to go to bed early. I think I might be getting a cold.”

And the lies, they just kept coming. This conversation was giving me a headache, though. And earning me a permanent place on Santa’s naughty list.

“Should I send you a get well care package? I can overnight it.”

“No. I promise I have everything I need. I just need to pop some vitamins, drink some tea, and get some sleep.”

She made a dithering sound, clearly on the fence about believing me. Fair. Still, I got off the phone as quickly as possible before I told even more lies or dug myself deeper into trouble. Lying, especially to people I loved, churned the acid in my stomach.

After we said goodbye, I turned back to my meal but soon gave up on it, since it was cold now and I didn’t have much of an appetite anyway. I carried the little cardboard tray into the kitchen and dumped it then shoved the fork into the dishwasher.

The basket of letters and bills above the machine reminded me I hadn’t picked up my mail from the box before coming inside that evening. Which gave me a valid excuse to check out the competition on my street so far. I totally was not spying on Jack. Not the decorations or the man himself.

I shrugged on my coat and headed outside.

Jack was working on something near the street when I approached the edge of my yard.

“Don’t you have a job?” I scoffed, waving at the setup he’d done sometime that day.

“Yeah, same as you. Right down the block from you. You look adorable today. Is that a new sweater? It’s the perfect color for you.”

And now, I’d have to burn it.

God, the man was a little too cheerful. That was Jack, though. Always fun-loving, with all the ladies flirting with him, and him being a bro to all the bros. If I were absolutely honest, though, flirting aside, I hadn’t actually seen him go on a date since we’d broken up. He’d probably driven over to Grand Rapids or Adrian Point to hook up—when he wasn’t running his bookstore, pranking me, or putting up over-the-top light displays, anyway.

Ignoring him, I headed for my mailbox. It was bursting with catalogs and junk again.

“So what do you think?” he asked when I turned around with the small pile of mail in my hand.

I toyed with the idea of pretending not to understand him. Instead, I scanned my gaze over his yard and house. For all that he was my competition, the synchronized lights were impressive…much to my dismay.

“It looks great,” I said without any enthusiasm.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“I appreciate that. Yours are always top notch.”

I glanced over at my yard. Besides the lights trimming my house, windows and trees, I’d crafted a winter wonderland of penguins, reindeer and polar bears cavorting through the snow. No one knew, but I’d started making the wire forms for them last January.

Looking back, I gave him a half smile. “It’s not synchronized lights and music. You must really want the prize.”

“Prize? Sure. Yeah.”

My brow furrowed, but I didn’t question his response. I knew Jack well enough to be aware he was keeping something unsaid.

“Oh.”

He grinned. “I just really want to beat you this year.”

My eyes narrowed, my fingers crushing my mail.

Annoying yeti!

Did he really just admit that?

I forced a smile. “Well, I guess we’ll see, then, won’t we? Good luck with that.”

With a dismissive wave over my shoulder, I headed back into the house. Pulling out my cellphone, I dialed Ewan Parker, one of the teenagers down the street, who mowed my lawn in the summer and worked for a landscaper year-round.

“Hey, Ms. Burke,” he answered. “You need your driveway shoveled?”

“No, but I do have something for you to do. There’s a hundred bucks in it for you.”

Yeah, I shouldn’t spend the money on this, especially since money was the center of all my worries, but this would be worth it. A merry Christmas present to me.

Jack wouldn’t know what hit him.