Page 19 of We Wish You a Messy Christmas

Jane wasn’t so sure.

Lulu held up her phone, and its bejeweled case sparkled in the pendant light above the breakfast bar. “How about I call for pizza. Do you have a place that delivers?”

“I don’t really know. I don’t eat pizza.”

Lulu set down her phone. “Chinese?” she asked.

“Let me see if I can find something here,” Jane told her. “I was going to make chicken for dinner, but I think I have some leftover green salad.”

Lulu’s smile faded. “Green salad?” She got up from the stool and went to the fridge. Opening it, she let out a dismal sigh. “Good grief, Moon—I mean, Jane. This looks like the cooler in an understocked health food store. Not that I don’t appreciate healthy food. But don’t you have anything hearty?” She pulled out a wedge of cheese, some deli turkey slices, and a couple other things. “Maybe some of this will brighten up a salad.” She set some blue cheese out. “Can I make you something too?”

Jane shook her head, then watched in numb shock as Lulu rummaged through the fridge, pulling out all kinds of miscellaneous items and spreading the mess across the counter, chatting the whole time as if this was just another day and not a totally startling and unnerving event that was making Jane feel slightly sick to her stomach. All she could do was sit down and watch with morbid fascination. Sort of like watching a train wreck. When Lulu finished assembling a rather massive chef’s salad in a small mixing bowl, Jane stood and began putting away her mom’s debris.

“No, no, darling. Let me get that,” Lulu insisted.

“It’s okay. I’ll get it.”

“Well, whatever floats your boat.” Lulu laughed. “Speaking of floating a boat, I don’t think I told you about going rafting down the Colorado River a couple years ago.” And although Jane had no interest, her mother launched into a detailed tale of a bunch of old people on a guided rafting trip and all the exciting things that went wrong. It was like Lulu relished the drama, but the whole thing made Jane feel even more on edge. Finally, as she was wiping the counters for the second time, her mother appeared to be done with her oversized chef salad. But instead of carrying her bowl to the sink and rinsing it, she left it where it was and began to walk about, seeming to thoroughly inspect Jane’s remodeled kitchen. Was she going to offer a compliment?

“My goodness, Moonbeam, your kitchen certainly has everything, doesn’t it!”

Cringing at the old name, Jane just shrugged. “As long as we were enlarging it . . .”

“And I mean everything times two.” She shook her head in wonder. “Double ovens.” She pulled out the top dishwasher drawer and then the bottom one. “And two dishwashers too? Goodness, you could probably prepare a royal feast in here. Do you entertain a lot?”

“Not a lot.” Jane reached for her mom’s salad bowl, rinsing it carefully before putting it in the dishwasher. She ignored her mother poking around and washed her hands with antiseptic soap. Just in case the fork and bowl were contaminated with germs. After all, her mother had just flown from San Diego, and everyone knew what a petri dish an airport could be. And her mother hadn’t even washed her hands yet.

“How about having a big shindig for Christmas, Moon—I mean Jane,” her mom caught herself. “I could help with the cooking. I’ve got some great recipes for the holidays and—”

“No, thank you.” Jane put her used paper towel in the garbage compacter and leaned against the breakfast bar with her arms crossed. “We never have a big crowd at Christmas.”

“What a shame, when you have such a perfectly lovely place to do it.” She opened an upper cabinet. “And all these dishes too. I could never have glass doors on my cabinets. Too many mismatched and chipped dishes. But my guests never complain. I guess that’s because they come for the fun of it. Not to admire how fancy things are.” She ran a finger over the top of the quartz countertop. “Or how clean.” She got closer to Jane, locking eyes with her. “Really, sweetheart, you should loosen up and have some friends over. Christmas is the perfect time for an open house.”

Jane stepped back, nervously grabbing a spray bottle from beneath the sink and busying herself with cleaning her shiny countertops. “Well, uh, I don’t think Rob likes a crowd of people in the house.” Of course, this was a flat-out fib, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “But Olivia will be here for Christmas.”

Lulu clapped her hands. “Oh, the darling. I can’t wait to see her. It’s been too long since I’ve been here to see all of you.”

Not long enough, Jane thought. And Christmas was still more than a week off. Did this mean she really had to endure her eccentric mother that entire time? What on earth had Rob been thinking when he’d invited her? And why hadn’t he given her some warning? Perhaps she could’ve pretended to be gone or sick or something. Just wait until she got her hands on that man! Although she’d never been a violent person, Jane felt like that could change come six o’clock tonight. Rob had some explaining to do!

ten

Olivia had never considered herself handy in the kitchen. She could’ve blamed it on her mother, and it wouldn’t be untrue since Mom was always too persnickety in the kitchen to make culinary experimentation any fun. But in all fairness, she’d been on her own for long enough to have given it a try. So, really it was a personal choice. She just didn’t really enjoy cooking. But maybe baking would be different.

She pulled out the sugar cookie recipe she’d googled on her phone and then carefully written out on the back of an envelope this morning. It seemed fairly simple and straightforward.

Olivia washed her hands and then stared at the ingredients she’d gotten on her way home from work. She’d left early with the intent to work at home, although she might have to catch up on that this weekend. But, all lined up on the small kitchen counter, the various baking items gave the impression that she knew what she was doing. Relieved that Tracie was still at work and planned to be late due to a holiday party, Olivia got out a mixing bowl. Fortunately, Tracie loved to cook and had a fully equipped albeit compact kitchen, complete with Christmas cookie cutters. Which was where Olivia had gotten the idea to make cookies in the first place.

With cheerful Christmas music playing on her phone, Olivia began to sing along as she followed the recipe’s steps. Creaming the butter, eggs, and vanilla together, she thought about Malcolm. And, okay, she knew it was probably premature, but she was imagining herself in their kitchen, happily concocting yummy dishes. Perhaps doing the prep tasks together along with a glass of wine. It was a lovely image.

As she measured flour and other dry ingredients into a separate bowl, she wondered if her pipe dreams were just that—puffs of smoke. After all, she hadn’t heard from Malcolm in almost a week. Although he had warned her when dropping her off after their uncomfortably quiet ride home that he’d be working long hours to compensate for the holiday vacation days he planned to take. So she’d been trying not to obsess over it.

Still, as she stirred the dry and wet ingredients together, she wasn’t so sure. Despite her high hopes that Malcolm was the one, she knew that something about the past weekend had disturbed him. And she was pretty sure that something was her mom. But in the past few days, and after some good conversations with Tracie, who was going to make a terrific therapist when she got her license, Olivia had decided to convince Malcolm that she was not her mom—and that she never would be. Like Tracie had said, a future husband might assume that a girl would grow up to be her mother.

“It was a popular theory—that is, back in the Dark Ages,” she’d assured Olivia. “And sure, I suppose there could be cases like that, but it’s unfair to think it’s a diehard rule.”

And so Olivia had decided to make a pretty and hopefully tasty platter of Christmas cookies to take to Malcolm while he was at work at the vet clinic. She would casually say it was to share with coworkers or pet owners or whatever. But hopefully it would give her an opportunity to (1) show him that she was not her mom, since her mom had never made Christmas cookies like this, claiming they were too messy, (2) show him that she still cared about him, and (3) ask him about sharing a ride home for Christmas. It seemed a perfect plan. No, no, not perfect! She hated that word. It was simply an idea that she hoped would remind him she was still around. And hopefully he hadn’t written her off.

By the time the cookies were done and colorfully frosted and arranged on the platter she’d gotten just for this purpose, she knew they looked a little sloppy. The Santas were a blur of red and white, which started to resemble pink, the angels looked less than angelic, and the Christmas trees looked more like mossy trolls than trees. But as she put them in her car, she decided this could work in her favor since they were clearly not perfect. At least they were tasty.