I tossed the paper and stones that I had peeled off of my cart onto the couch and dropped down into my favorite recliner, letting my head fall back against the cushion. I resisted the urge to pop the footrest up because I knew that if I did, I would be asleep within seconds.
That might not actually be the worst thing.
The picture of Willa and Josh on the screen of his absurd phone was still bothering me. It was ridiculous. There was no reason that seeing that picture should have had any impact on me at all, and yet, there I was, sitting in my living room, still dressed like a ghost and pissed off at a woman with whom I had exchanged less than 20 words in the entirety of the time that I had known of her existence and whose name I wasn’t totally convinced was her whole name.
Willa. Was that really it? Willa. Just…Willa. No ending to that at all? Not Willa—mina or Willa—fred. Just…Willa.
It didn’t make any sense for me to feel that way. I knew when I saw him with the others that there was something to his relationship with the family. He didn’t look anything like them, so unless Wilton had decided that he was completely disappointed in and tired of his children and that he was going to replace them by adopting a fully-grown man – which, honestly, I wouldn’t blame him for doing – he wasn’t one of the family. He had confirmed as much when he told me that he wasn’t a Sommers. It hadn't occurred to me, though, to consider that he might be involved with Willa to that extent. It bothered me, and I hated that it bothered me. He had caught my eye the first minute that I saw him, but I didn't want to admit to myself that I was actually attracted to him. Now that I had spent some time alone with him, as brief as it was, however, I knew that I couldn't deny it, and that made me feel almost sick to my stomach. It wasn't bad enough that I was attracted to my boss. I was attracted to the man romantically involved with my boss. Perfect.
I heard the front door slam and I glanced over the back of the recliner to see Matteo walking into the living room.
“Hi, honey,” I said. “Did you have a good night?”
He shrugged.
“It was alright. We listened to some music and handed out candy to the little kids that came to the door. Then we played some video games. James got that new system for his birthday. It's amazing.”
“That's nice,” I said.
I braced myself for the imploring look that I knew was coming, the hopeful eyes that told me that that video game was all that mattered to him, but it didn't come. Instead, he came over and leaned down to kiss me on my cheek.
“How was your night at work?”
I smiled and patted the corner of the recliner so that he could sit down beside me. Sometimes this boy really melted my heart. He made all of the long hours and hard work worth it, and reminded me even more of why the conversations about Black Friday meant so much to me this year. I had always used the sales to bulk up the Christmas tree, but this year it was more important than ever. He had definitely taken the turn toward caring about the more expensive gifts, but at the same time he was still such a child. The glimmer of Christmas magic was still in him and the thought of disappointing him after he had been disappointed so many times in his life broke my heart.
“It was good,” I told him. “I gave candy to my boss.”
Matteo laughed.
“Did he say trick-or-treat?”
I shook my head.
“He didn't even remember that it was Halloween. I think I might have scared him a little.”
He laughed.
“Great job, Mom.”
I patted him on the leg.
“I'm going to go take a shower and try to get this makeup off. You need to get ready for bed. School tomorrow.”
He groaned.
“They should let us have the day after a holiday off,” he said. “To recover.”
“Recover from what?” I asked.
“Candy hangover?”
I laughed, and he dragged himself reluctantly off of the recliner and toward his bedroom. The truth was he really did enjoy school, and he was good at it, but this year had been harder for him. I just hoped that the stress of all his hard work wasn’t getting to him. When he was safely tucked away into his room for the night, I went to mine and turned on the shower, filling the bathroom with steam to cut the chill before peeling myself out of my costume. I stood under the water for several minutes just letting it pound down on me, hoping it would wash away the thick paint and shimmer dust I had applied earlier. It had delighted the few trick-or-treaters I had encountered before leaving for work, and seemed to have amused Josh, but now it was becoming a slippery gray sludge beneath my feet. That seemed like the perfect analogy for Halloween in general. It was all shimmery and fun until you really looked at it at the end and realized that it was just a mess.
Halloween and relationships.
After my shower I stuffed myself into a terribly unflattering, but warm, sweat suit and tucked under the covers. I knew that when I woke up, the seasons would have magically changed. The Christmas creep had been happening for weeks already, but now it was serious. It was like a twisted version of Cinderella. When the clock struck midnight instead of the carriage turning into a pumpkin, pumpkins everywhere turned into ornaments and ghostly bare trees spontaneously transformed into evergreens. BAM. It was Christmas.
A week after Halloween I found the light in the office at the end of the hall on again, just as it had been. For the last week the table had been again filled with the Sommers crew, muttering and whispering over whatever dastardly plans they had for the coming sales season. I had purposely avoided talking to any of them, preferring to slip in and out with as little interaction as possible. The last thing I needed was to let myself spend any more time thinking about Josh.
That night I rapped on the nearly-closed door and heard his voice come toward me.
“Come on in, Cristina.”
My heart fluttered in spite of myself and I scolded my brain for allowing it to happen. I pushed through the door and found Josh sitting by himself at the table. A massive cup of coffee and a half-eaten container of Chinese food sat in front of him.
“Gearing up for a long night?” I asked.
He nodded.
“I'm not entirely sure that I left yesterday,” he said. “The final ad scans are due in just a few days and we can't seem to agree on some of the details.”
“Getting going a little late in the game,” I said. “Is that a strategy?”
What was I doing? I shouldn't even be standing here talking to this man, and now I'm criticizing his business moves?
“Not intentionally,” Josh said with a sigh. “I've been trying to get these finished, but Willa and Alvin have been arguing nonstop about pissy little details and it's delaying everything. Then they complain because they haven't seen any boost in customers in the last week.”
“What does Wilton have to say about all of this?”
He sighed again.
“That's another thing. It seems like he's totally checked out. He was really serious and determined this summer when he was telling us that we needed to get to work on these sales, but now it seems like has just removed himself from it all. He just kind of sits there and listens to the two of them argue and me try to stop them from arguing.”
“I haven't heard anything about the concept store,” I said, hoping to give him a boost talking about something that was going well.
He slid his eyes to me and I knew that that was not the topic that was going to give him any such boost.
“Also delayed. Willa just couldn't stand the idea of having just one store with all of the Black Friday sales concentrated on it. She wants all of the Sommers stores to have the big sales.”
“What about your stores?” I asked.
“They'll have their own sales, too. Just like last year.”
“So, what's the point of all of the work that all of you have been doing together?” I asked. “If you're just going to be doing separate sales, does what either of you do really matter?”
Josh looked up at me.
“At this point, I really don't know. I just want to get these ads out and get through the season.”
“So, stop worrying about them. Just be done. You've already worked and planned for months. You aren't going to do anything revolutionary in the next couple of days. Just accept what you've done and go with it. You'll be relieved when you do.” He continued to stare me, and I started to feel a bit awkward. “I'm sorry,” I said. “I shouldn't be telling you what to do.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I agree with you. I should just turn these in and call them done. I just needed to have somebody say it.”
I smiled.
“Well, Black Friday is kind of a big deal in my family.”
“It is?”
I nodded.
“Every year my family gets together for a huge Thanksgiving dinner. We spend days leading up to it getting the food ready and then we eat and play games and spend time together all day.”
“That sounds wonderful,” Josh said.
“It is. But then the real fun comes that night. The women bundle up and head out when it's still dark to hit the best sales. We shop until we can't stand up anymore or our budgets run out, usually the latter, and then we go home, have coffee and leftovers, and start wrapping. By the afternoon, presents are under the tree and the holidays have officially begun.”
“You're done just like that?” he asked.
He gestured toward the chair across from him and I sat down, accepting the plastic-wrapped fork he held out to me as he picked up his own.
“Not all the way done. I always hold aside a few presents to wrap later in the season and right up until Christmas Eve I keep looking for deals and picking up little things. I still love wrapping presents and filling stockings after my son has gone to sleep on Christmas Eve. It keeps it a little magical.”
“I remember feeling that kind of magic when I was younger,” he said with a hint of nostalgia in his voice. “I would check the tree before going to bed on Christmas Eve and was always so surprised the next morning when there were tons more presents. Even when I got old enough to know what was really going on, there was still that sense of wonder.”
I took a bite of the partially cooled Chinese food and withheld a look of distaste. He needed some real food.
“Do you miss your parents?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Especially at Christmas.”
“Me, too,” I said. “I still have my mother. She actually lives with me. But I lost my father and stepmother a little while back. It's still really hard during the holidays.”
“You're lucky to have your mother live with you.”
I thought about that for a few seconds. I knew that there were definitely times when I complained about having her there or joked that I was going to find the first old people home that served lime jello more than twice a week and had good craft circles and send her to it, but the truth was he was right. I was lucky that she was there with me and that she and Matteo had each other.
“I grew up with my grandmother living with my father and stepmother so when I visited them I had her, too. It meant so much to me to be able to spend so much time with her. I knew people who only saw their grandparents every couple of years and I loved that I knew I was never more than a week or two away from being with her.” I laughed. “You know, Christmas makes me think of her, too, but not in the same way. People always talk about how the presents from their grandmothers looked so perfect. Not my grandmother. She was the single worst present wrapper I have ever seen. It looked like she had just taken the presents and rolled them around in the paper until they were covered, then stuck them with tape. It was almost amazing in its awfulness. Then one year, all of a sudden, her presents were gorgeous. All of them were perfectly wrapped and color-coordinated and everything. The next year when she started putting presents under the tree, they were perfect, too. We just didn't believe what we were seeing, so my stepmother and I went spying. We followed her when she left to go Christmas shopping and then followed her around the store. You know what we found?”
“What?”
“She was using the professional gift wrappers at the store.”
Josh nearly choked on the mouthful of food he had taken as he laughed.
“Did you call her out for it?” he asked.
“Of course, not. We just kept telling her how wonderful they looked. It made her happy right to her grave.”
He laughed again, and I felt myself relaxing even more. We talked for a few more minutes about gift wrappers and his father's obsession with stocking stuffers, then I stood.
“I really should be finishing up my work,” I said. “And you, too. Get those ads to the marketing department. You don't want the competition to get ahead of you.”
“Thank you,” he said, though I wasn't entirely sure what he was thanking me for.
“Now that you're done with this, I guess I won't be seeing you spending your nights here anymore.”
“Well, I don't know. Black Friday is just the start of the shopping season. We still have to figure out what we're going to do for later in the season, too. And I'm sure that Willa and Alvin will want to closely monitor how the stores are doing.”
He let out a heavy sigh.
“Don't let them ruin your holidays,” I told him. “They might be important to you, but there's nobody who's that important.”