Chapter 22: Christmas Decorating

Tuesday, December 4th, 2007

After Hath left for work early on Tuesday, David got up and dressed, and went about exploring her town. He figured if he was going to spend any amount of time there, he should familiarize himself with the area. He drove through the “downtown” area, which was small and cute, and found the college Hath had attended. He roamed around campus for quite a while, stopping off at the campus store to buy a sweatshirt. He grabbed lunch to go from her friend’s barbecue place, and headed back to her house.

David stood in the living room, looking around at the boxes of decorations, and a plan started to form in his head. Heading for Hath’s office, he looked in her desk for her address book. He drummed his fingers on the desk as he dialed.

“Hello?” a voice said on the other side.

“Hi, Mrs. Gengras? It’s David. Hath’s – Jen’s friend?” he said.

Hath’s mother laughed. “It’s OK, you call her whatever she tells you to, and call me Mom. What can I do for you?”

“Well, er, Mom, Hath has all her decorations out, and I want to surprise her. Do you have any pictures of where all this stuff goes?”

Pauline smiled. “As a matter of fact, I do.” She paused for a minute. “Do you want some help?”

David thought a minute. “You know what, that would be great.”

Hath’s mother took 20 minutes to get to the house, armed with a photo album. Several in fact. They found photos with the decorations in them, and set to work. They got all the different village scenes set up on various shelves and tables, and set the table with Christmas dishes. The only thing they didn’t do was the tree decorations; the branches hadn’t completely fallen yet, and David wanted to do that with Hath. David did twine the lights around the roping he found on the back deck, and got it strung on the loft railing.

When they were done, Pauline went through the “bragging mom” phase and pored through every embarrassing moment in her daughter’s life. David was in heaven. David liked Hath’s mother. She was really a very nice lady who only wanted the best for her daughter. As she was gathering her things to leave, David gave her a hug. “Thank you for helping me,” he said.

Pauline gave him a kiss on the cheek and smiled. “Thank you for making my daughter happy.”

“She makes me happy too,” David said. He told Hath’s mother what he had planned for the rest of the evening, and when she heard what he was planning, she smiled.

“I saw the pie,” she said. “Do you need more help?”

David laughed, and the two schemed. Once they were in agreement, Pauline left and David moved on to the next part of his plan.

* * * * *

When I got home, I was in a major snit. The train was late, a car short, and crowded. On the drive home, I was stuck behind someone who thought it would be nice to let every blessed person in creation in front of him in line, and I hit every red light. I called David as he had asked, ten minutes before I expected to be home, and that was fifteen minutes ago. By the time I pulled into my driveway, I was ready to hit something. In deference to the cold, I pulled into the garage and shut the door. I smiled seeing David’s Nav in the bay next to mine, and started to feel better.

I went upstairs, and through the game room to the house. When I opened the door, I heard soft music playing, and found a note on the floor.

Hey Baby, close your eyes and call my name. I’ve got a surprise for you.

I smiled. God, this was wonderful. I put my bags down and hung my coat in the closet, closed my eyes and said, “David, baby, I’m home.”

I heard soft footsteps approach, and felt David take my hand and press a glass into it. I sipped at a lovely margarita, smiling at the memory of last time he handed me one. “Can I open my eyes now?” I asked.

“Nope,” David said. “Come with me, m’lady.” He put his arm around my waist, and led me out of the room. We turned toward the living room, and after a minute, he sat me down on the couch. He untied and removed my sneakers and socks, put my feet up on the ottoman, and sat next to them, his hand possessively on my calves. I took another sip of my drink and sank back into the soft cushions. “Now,” he said. “Open your eyes.”

I did and gasped. All my decorations, save for the ones for the tree, were up and pretty much where I always put them. The roping with its white twinkling lights ringed the balcony railing, and the matching lights were strung on the tree. The boxes of tree ornaments were stacked in one corner, but everything else was done. The table was set for two with my Spode Christmas dishes, and the candles in their silver holders were flickering delicately. I turned to look at David who looked wonderful, in black dress pants, and a white Oxford shirt with a conservative green pullover sweater over it.

“David, this is wonderful!” I put my drink down on the table, and leaned forward to kiss him. “How’d you know just where to put everything?”

“I called your Mom.”

I just gaped at him. “Voluntarily called my mother?” He just nodded. “Wow.”

“She came over with pictures that just about covered everything, and she helped me get everything set up.” David smiled. “And she invited me to call her ‘Mom’.”

“What a wonderful surpri – pictures? Calling her ‘Mom’? What?”

David nodded. “Yep, books and books of pictures, and you heard right.” He laughed at me because I pretty much looked like I’d swallowed a bug. “You should grow your hair long again,” he said. “Though the butch spiky ‘do from the 90’s was hot.” He was confusing the hell out of me. I was still hung up on the calling her ‘Mom’ thing.

I groaned and buried my head in my hands. “How far memory lane did she take you?” I asked, shaking the cobwebs from my head.

“All the way back to a little pinafore and black patent-leather shoes, up through dancing school and junior cheerleading, high school and college – I’m pretty much caught up.” He wagged his eyebrows at me. “Do you still have that cheerleader outfit?”

I laughed at him, and sat forward to kiss him again. “No, and even if I did, it would be insanely tight,” my breath hitched at the look on his face, and I finished, “but I do still have the pompoms somewhere…”

David took my drink from me and got up to put it on the table. He came back to sit next to me. “Do you want to do the tree first or have dinner first?”

“Dinner?” I was shocked. I remembered the pie, and winced at what the kitchen must look like. I did notice now, though a wonderful aroma coming from the kitchen.

“Yeah, dinner. We’re having lasagna, garlic bread, and a salad.” David smiled smugly at me.

“You made a lasagna?” I burst out laughing. I couldn’t help it. Not that it was hard to put one together, but the thought of him doing it was funny and sweet and did something twisty to my insides – but mostly it was funny.

David let me off the hook, and told me that my mom had brought it, and he did the salad and bread. “I just can’t believe you spent the afternoon with my mother,” I said, shaking my head.

“Believe it baby. She likes me; she even gave me a hug before she left.”

“Hmph. Well, let’s have dinner first,” I said. “Then we can finish decorating.”

David led me to the table and pulled out a chair for me. He took the plates into the kitchen and came back with them heaped with homemade lasagna, my all time favorite comfort food. I took an appreciative sniff. “Oh, she gave you a good one; this is one from my Grandmother’s house.”

“How can you tell?” David asked.

“Every Italian’s sauce smells unique,” I counseled him. “No matter how hard I try, I cannot duplicate the same smell or taste as Nanna’s sauce. I can even make it in her kitchen with her ingredients and cookery, and still it comes out different.” I took a small taste off the end of my fork. “Yep, this is Nanna’s. Mmmmm.”

David laughed and went back for the salad and bread, and we tucked into a great meal. We chatted about our days, and how we wanted to tackle the tree, and about his travel plans. He told me that when he drove out on Monday he had cancelled his flight for Canada so he could take his car home. He was planning to leave early to drive back home then fly out to Toronto.

I told him he was being ridiculous; to just leave his car at my place, and book his round-trip to Canada from here. I would pick him up at the airport in the Nav, and we could drive to New Jersey together for the start of our holiday break.

“Sounds good,” he said, his mouth full of pasta. “This is fantastic. My mother noticed I was putting on a few pounds, you know. Guess I need to start hitting the gym more often. So,” he said, “there’s no good way to ease into this; I talked to my mom and the kids and my ex about you and they’re all anxious to meet you.”

I had pretty much dropped my fork at “no good way to ease into this”; Jesus, didn’t that man have a clue? You don’t talk to your girlfriend like that unless you’re breaking up with her! “I’m anxious about meeting them; is that the same thing?” I laughed nervously.

David smiled. “There’s not anything to be anxious about. But, there’s something I need to tell you; the kids have been asking pretty pointed questions about whether we’re getting married.”

I was completely flabbergasted. “Wow. Even my mother doesn’t have us married yet. Do they have siblings’ names picked out yet?” I was falling back on GSA here; I didn’t know what else to do.

David narrowed his eyes at me. “Don’t do that,” he said. “I told them that it was too early to be talking about that, but I wanted you to be ready for the questions.”

“Thanks for the heads up.” I finished my margarita, and stood, completely ignoring the matter. “Shall we get cracking on the tree?” David nodded.

So we stacked our dishes in the sink for later (I don’t put the Spode through the Kenmore, thank-you-very-much) and we went into the living room.

My mind was spinning. I was going to have to ping the girls about this.

Tomorrow.