Fighting for the Edge (8 page)

“Hey, Mar.”

“Hey, what are you up to?”

“Just moving into the new place in Boston.”

“I thought you were waiting until after Christmas.”

“I was, but it’s supposed to snow this week, so I didn’t feel like driving back and forth in it. We start skating at the new rink tomorrow.”

“Did Chris move in yet?” Marley asked.

Aubrey peered over the half-wall in her bedroom that matched the one in the loft. Chris had gone downstairs and was headed toward the front door. She sat on the double bed and tucked one leg underneath her.

“Yeah, he just got here, too.”

“Are you doing anything fun for your first night in the city?”

“He wants to get a Christmas tree for the apartment.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. He loves everything about the holidays. His constant humming of ‘Jingle Bells’ will drive you nuts.” Marley laughed but sounded somewhat wistful.

“Do you miss him?”

Marley didn’t answer at first, and a strange feeling settled in Aubrey’s stomach. “We were together so long…” Marley finally said, and after another pause she added, “I made the right choice for my career. I needed to put skating first, and it’s paying off.”

It sure was. Until the current season, Marley and Zach had been firmly ranked behind Aubrey and Nick, but that fall they’d won gold and silver at their two Grand Prix events, just as Aubrey and Nick had. The gap that had previously existed between the two teams was gone.

“Nationals is going to be intense,” Aubrey said.

“I know. I just want us all to skate our best.”

Aubrey knew Marley meant it because that’s the type of person she was. It’s why she had to keep all her focus on Nick and herself, concentrate on their skating and nothing else. She couldn’t think about the fact that she needed to defeat one of her best friends to win the national title.

The front door slammed, and Aubrey looked over the wall to see Chris carrying two boxes through the living room.

“I should get back to unpacking. I still have to unload the rest of my car.”

“Have fun tree shopping.”

Aubrey thought she heard the melancholy tone again. She ended the call and went out to the stairs but had to wait for Chris to reach the top before she could move any further. There wasn’t enough room for both of them plus the wide boxes in Chris’s arms.

He aimed for his room and didn’t ask her about the call, so either he didn’t hear the ring or he really was finally moving on from Marley.
And that matters because…?

She quickly jogged down the stairs and made her way outside, zipping her fleece jacket closed. She’d found a spot for her Jeep right across Beacon Street, but she knew that wouldn’t always be the case. Street parking in the busy neighborhood was going to be a royal pain.

She began hauling her belongings inside the brownstone, and Chris ran back out to help her carry the piles of clothes and boxes of shoes and accessories. They had to make seven trips before they emptied the Jeep.

“You do realize you didn’t move to China.” Chris laughed at the stack of boxes filling Aubrey’s room. “It’s only an hour and a half to the Cape if you forgot something.”

“I’d rather have it all with me so I don’t need to keep running back there.”

“We can unpack later. Let’s go get the tree.” He slapped his hands together.

“Alright, alright. Keep your pants on.”

Chris coughed. “I could make a crude comment, but I’ll refrain in favor of politeness.”

She laughed. “Touché.”

Chris called Aunt Debbie as he and Aubrey climbed into his truck, and she rattled off directions to a tree lot in nearby Allston. Debbie was Em’s family, but Aubrey had known her so long that she called her aunt, too. Aunt Debbie and Uncle Joe owned the Beacon Street apartment, and they’d told Chris and herself to call them anytime they needed help. Of course, Chris considered finding a Christmas tree a dire situation.

They followed the easy directions and found themselves in a large lot with row after row of lush firs. Up and down each row they wandered, passing up what looked like perfectly fine trees to her. She bundled her knit scarf tighter around her neck and huddled her chin against it.

“What’s wrong with all these?” she asked as Chris led her past another batch of vibrant green firs.

“I’ll know the right one when I see it.”

They’d reached the back of the lot, which appeared to be the Island of Misfit Trees. Some were turning brown and losing needles, and some seemed to have stopped growing at an early age.

Chris pointed to a small one straight ahead. “That’s it!”

Aubrey stared at the sad tree dwarfed by the other ones around it. “That one? It looks like the Charlie Brown tree.”

“Exactly. That’s what makes it awesome.”

“I don’t know if it can even hold ornaments. The branches look tragically anemic.”

“You have to believe in Christmas magic.”

She wasn’t familiar with Christmas magic. Only Christmas lies and misery.

“Let’s get this baby home.” Chris signaled to one of the lot’s employees.

With the misfit tree in the back of his truck, they stopped at the first drugstore they saw and descended upon the aisle of holiday decorations. Aubrey folded her arms and tapped her foot as Chris deliberated between a set of
Looney Tunes
ornaments and one with
Star Wars
characters.

All the shimmering tinsel and trinkets on the shelves were obnoxiously bright, just like the decorations outside her parents’ house would be. Shiny and pretty to mask the unhappiness inside. Her neck grew tense just thinking about spending the holiday there.

“We should get both of these.” Chris showed her the two boxes of ornaments. “What’s better than Princess Leia hanging out with Yosemite Sam?”

He was such a goofball.
That’s right. Focus on the goofiness and forget the hotness.

Chris grabbed a pack of silver tinsel and a string of old-school colored lights and tossed them into his basket. She followed him quietly, noticing he indeed had begun to hum “Jingle Bells.” She thought about mentioning her call with Marley but remained silent. No reason to snap Chris out of his cheerful mood. He was liable to get all wistful on her, too.

When they returned to the apartment, Chris set up the tree between the two skinny windows in the living room. Aunt Debbie had given Aubrey a stack of take-out menus for area restaurants when she’d picked up the apartment keys, so she found one for a Chinese place and called in an order. An hour later, she and Chris sat on the living room carpet, eating from the take-out cartons and wrapping the tree with the tinsel and lights.

“So, what’s your beef with Christmas?” Chris asked. “Since I’ve known you, you’ve never been much into the holiday spirit.”

She poked at her vegetable dumplings and avoided eye contact with him. “It’s just too overblown. And the holidays with my family aren’t the most pleasant experience.”

“You said your parents don’t get along so well?”

“They’re not June and Ward Cleaver, let’s put it that way. Although they look the part when they’re out in the social scene.”

“My parents used to be like that. They’d barely talk to each other at home, but then they’d go to all these events my dad had to attend for the hospital board, and they’d look like the perfect Dr. and Mrs. Grayden. When I was in high school, my mom was close to leaving my dad because he was such a workaholic, but they went to a marriage counselor and it actually helped them.”

“I cannot see my dad talking to a counselor. He’s too tight to pay for something like that anyway.” She opened her bottle of water and took a sip. “They’re just going to keep bickering until they’re old and gray and can’t hear each other anymore.”

Chris bent his leg and rested his elbow on his knee. His eyebrows drew together as he chewed slowly. “If you had the option of not spending Christmas with your family, would you take it?”

“How would I have that option?”

“It would require bending the truth a little… telling them you have to practice on Christmas day and you’d rather stay in Boston and not drive to Orleans just for Christmas Eve.”

“Hmm…” She nibbled on one end of her chopsticks.

“And we could go skating at Frog Pond so you wouldn’t actually be lying. I’ll pretend to coach you. I can do a mean Russian accent.” He grinned.

Her lips twitched upward, and she tapped them with the chopstick. “It’s a very interesting idea.”

“We’ll go to Em’s family dinner, and the next day we can feast on the leftovers you know Mrs. Debbie’s gonna give us. And we can watch the
Christmas Story
marathon on TV all day.”

She gasped. “Don’t tell me you love that movie, too?”

“Uh, yeah. Who doesn’t?”

“Em hates it, so she would never watch it with me. It’s the one Christmas movie I love.”

“Then you have to stay in Boston so we can watch it on repeat for twelve hours straight.”

She bit her lip. “My mom won’t be happy.”

“But
you
won’t be happy if you go home, and you deserve to have a fun holiday.”

The sincere warmth in his eyes reached out to her like a virtual hug, one she didn’t want to leave. She realized she was staring at him, so she dropped her gaze to her food.

“I’ll call my mom later.” She looked back up at Chris and smiled. “Staying here definitely sounds like a much better plan.”

He whooped and jumped up. “This calls for some celebration music.”

“You’re not putting on Christmas carols, are you?” She moaned as he went over to his laptop on the coffee table.

“I’m gonna melt the Scrooge out of you, just you wait.” He clicked on the mouse a few times, and “Jingle Bell Rock” started playing. With his fingers snapping, he returned to sitting across from her.

“My ears are bleeding,” she said.

“This is a classic. You just have to embrace the cheesiness of it.” He sorted through the ornaments spread over the carpet and picked up two of them. “Tweety Bird and Chewbacca. Now that would be a fascinating encounter.”

She laughed and shook her head. Maybe Christmas didn’t have to be completely horrible.

****

“Mom, you don’t have to cook for us every night,” I said while turning on my parents’ dishwasher. “We can make our own meals.”

“I like having us all at the table together. It’s good family time I don’t get often enough with you.”

She was already pulling out the guilt card, and Sergei and I had only been in Boston a few hours. When we’d returned from Tokyo the day before, I’d had a long talk with her, making sure she’d give us space to breathe. But she had a tendency of falling back into old habits, such as smothering me.

“I just don’t want to feel obligated to be here for dinner at a certain time every night,” I said. “We have our own schedule, and you promised to respect it.”

“I will, I will. I just love seeing your face around here again.” Mom touched her hand to my cheek.

“I echo that,” Dad said as he entered the kitchen from the den. He kissed the top of my head on his way to the refrigerator.

I sat on the stool next to the island and listened to Mom and Dad discussing the projects they wanted to tackle while on winter break. They didn’t have to return to teaching at Boston University until after nationals.

While Mom prattled on about organizing the mess in the garage, Dad gave her a patient ear, quietly sipping from his cup of water. They’d always had such a solid, steady relationship, treating each other as equal partners. It was exactly how I hoped Sergei and I would be after thirty years of marriage.

Sergei came in from the dining room with his cell phone to his ear. “Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow. Drive safe.”

“What time is Elena dropping off Liza?” I asked as he snapped his phone shut.

“Around noon. She’ll meet us at the rink.”

“She could bring her here,” Mom said. “Jim and I will be home.”

Sergei leaned against the counter. “You know Liza – she wants to skate as soon as she gets here. After four hours in the car, she’ll be ready to jump on the ice.”

“It’ll be fun having a little girl in the house again for Christmas. Emily used to wake us up at five in the morning to open gifts.” Mom smiled and rubbed my shoulder.

“Liza doesn’t believe in Santa Claus anymore, but she’s still excited about the gifts,” Sergei said. “She’s been trying to guess for weeks what we’re giving her.”

“Does she like pancakes?” Mom asked. “I’ll be making my traditional pancakes and pancetta breakfast on Christmas morning.”

I glanced at Sergei and then looked reluctantly at Mom. “Umm… we’re not going to be here for breakfast. We’re driving back to the Cape after dinner on Christmas Eve.”

“You’re driving back that late? Just to spend one night there?”

“We want to wake up Christmas morning in our house. We have our tree there and all Liza’s presents…”

Mom’s mouth wrinkled downward. “Oh. Well, I just assumed you’d be here.”

“They’ll be here Christmas Eve,” Dad said.

Mom only sighed and made a quiet humming noise as she set about wiping the tile island with a dishrag. I could sense more of her guilt trips coming, so I hopped off the stool and turned to Sergei.

“Why don’t we go finish unpacking?”

We retreated to our bedroom upstairs, the room I’d slept in for eighteen years. Sleeping in my old bed, skating at my old rink… it was like going back in time to my teenaged self. Except I had a very handsome companion with me now.

Since the master bedroom and both Mom’s and Dad’s offices were downstairs, Sergei and I had the second floor to ourselves. Mom had already freshened up the guest room down the hall for Liza, adding a pink bean bag chair, a CD player, and a small TV she’d borrowed from Aunt Debbie. Our new digs were more than comfortable, but it still wasn’t the same as being in our own home.

After we transferred the contents of our suitcases to the walk-in closet and large oak dresser, I took a shower in the attached bathroom and then curled up on the window seat in the bedroom with my paperback of
The Good Earth
. The cushioned window seat had been my favorite spot in my room growing up. It was where I’d done all my reading and my daydreaming.