Rachel spent all the remaining days leading up to Christmas trying to deny its existence altogether.
Just because she’d come home for the holidays didn’t mean she had to participate in the holidays, did it? No! That’s why she did her best to block out Christmas carols, turn a blind eye to decorations, and ignore the bell-ringing Santas on the Kismet street corners, all of whom reminded her (painfully) of Reno.
Instead Rachel spent her days watching Made reruns on TV, morosely munching through her depleted stock of protein bars, washing down their sawdusty nutrition with Diet Coke, and occasionally calling Mimi for support.
She kept the curtains closed—the better to block out the colorful sight of her parents’ and their neighbors’ holiday yard decorations. She wore her pilled, droopy, security-blanket cardigan almost exclusively and didn’t even bat an eyelash when the mail carrier saw her in all its saggy-butted glory one day.
Rachel knew things were truly dire when she received a phone call from Tiana Zane, former member of the pop group Goddess, with an offer to dress her for a charity gala, and she could barely muster the energy to discuss Tiana’s offer.
“It’s a tiny event, Rachel. So I can’t pay you much. In fact, I probably won’t be able to give you credit—my new manager advises against it. But there will be photographers there—”
“I’ll do it,” Rachel croaked. Why not? There was nothing left for her in Kismet. She had to rebuild her life somehow.
“You don’t sound well. Do you have another cold?”
“A cold?” That’s right. She’d been plagued with constant sniffles in L.A., Rachel recalled—as if her time there had been decades ago. It was sweet that someone still cared enough to ask about her health. Buoyed by a rush of fondness for Alayna’s onetime singing partner, Rachel summoned up an uneven smile. “Maybe a little one. I have been feeling sort of—”
“Just make sure you don’t sneeze on my gown. I have a part in the next Shyamalan film, and I don’t want to get sick.”
Oh. Dispiritedly, Rachel agreed to meet Tiana in L.A. in two weeks, then made a few more calls (because those weren’t Christmas-related either, she told herself in bald defiance). She managed to line up two postholiday stylist jobs—one for a One Life to Live guest star and one for a director’s nanny.
“She’s applying for citizenship,” the director’s assistant barked over the phone. “So she has to look très American.”
“I’ll dress her in red, white, and blue,” Rachel joked.
“Excellent idea. See you in one month.” Click.
Disconnecting her call, Rachel frowned at her ancient cell phone—which had performed pretty well, come to think of it. Then she glanced at her bedroom’s inspiration board, still sporting the fabric scraps and other items she’d pinned to it in preparation for her new “collection.” Everything still looked amazing. It still looked…It looked as if all her lost hopes had been set askew and stabbed through the heart with pushpins.
Feeling queasy, Rachel got up—and almost tripped over her dad, who was passing through the hallway.
“Rachel! You’re up.” His gaze met hers, skimmed over her security-blanket cardigan, then softened. “I was just coming to get you. I need some help with my train set. How about it?”
If he’d asked her at any other time, Rachel would have refused. After all, her father’s train set was arranged beneath the Christmas tree right beside her mother’s mini Christmas village—the one she’d painted and fired herself in ceramics class years ago. There was no avoiding Christmas when you were hunched under a fully decorated tree beside an Olde Sweet Shoppe replica tinkering with the caboose of the SantaLand Express.
But today she didn’t refuse. Maybe she was tired of feeling embarrassed that her L.A. failures were so widely known. Or maybe she just wanted a little old-fashioned paternal affection after all her setbacks. Because Rachel took one look at her turtleneck-wearing father and caved. “Okay, Dad. Let’s go.”
But she regretted her moment of weakness immediately, as her first step into the living room almost made her stumble. “Please Come Home for Christmas” was playing on the stereo—the same song she and Reno had danced to after decorating his Christmas tree together. A Christmas Story was flickering on the TV—the same movie she and Reno had laughed to together. It was almost too much to bear…especially when her gaze fell on the fireplace mantel, where four hand-knitted stockings hung, each with a first name embroidered on its turned-down cuff.
Stomping toward them, Rachel grabbed the nearest. Reno winked up at her in green embroidery floss. “What’s this?”
“Oh, that’s just something I made.” Airily, her mother bustled in, her hands full of wrapped gifts. She added them to the mountain piled beneath the Christmas tree, then straightened with one hand to her aching back. She surveyed the tableau with pride. “We invited Reno to drop by on Christmas Day—”
“You what?”
“—and we needed someplace to put his gifts, didn’t we?”
“No, you didn’t!” Rachel fisted the Reno stocking, her heart aching at the thought of him. She ripped it from its holder.
“Rachel!” her dad boomed. “Put that back.”
“Reno doesn’t deserve a stocking,” Rachel protested.
“Your mother put a lot of work into that. Put it back.”
She threw it on the floor instead. With relish, Rachel stomped it. She ground it beneath her boot. “There!”
Her parents both gawked at her.
“You need a timeout,” her mother announced.
“You, young lady, are going to your room,” her father said.
“I hate it here. I’m leaving!” Rachel cried. Feeling a sob well inside her, she ran to her bedroom and slammed the door.
By the time she emerged, toting a suitcase and making plans to come back for her nonessential luggage later, her mom and dad were nowhere to be seen. The living room stood glittering with Christmas lights and the humble-looking tree. A new Christmas carol played for an audience of no one. The foyer waited, empty except for its avalanche of holiday cards. The dining room was silent, outfitted with special green and red placemats and a mistletoe and holly centerpiece with fat scented candles that bore the unmistakable stamp of her mother’s crafty side.
Frustrated, Rachel dragged her suitcase from room to room. It was no good leaving in a dramatic huff if no one saw you.
You need the applause, she remembered telling Reno.
And you don’t? he’d shot back.
It turned out that both of them were right—and more alike than they’d wanted to admit. But that didn’t matter now. Nothing did. Just like her spectacular exit wouldn’t matter if she couldn’t track down her parents. Miserable but with her head held high, Rachel stomped through a couple more rooms.
She finally located her parents outside in the snow, making last-minute adjustments to their holiday yard display. It wasn’t dark yet, so the display didn’t look like much, but her mom and dad fussed over the location and angle of each object anyway.
Rachel thumped her suitcase onto the porch, then regarded the scene through jaded eyes. There wasn’t anything here for her. She’d turned into a laughingstock. Even her parents hadn’t been truthful with her, and they were the least duplicitous people she knew. Her father had once driven fifteen miles to pay for an item he hadn’t been charged for at the Bargain Hut.
“That looks exactly the same as it does every year.”
Her mother glanced up. “Of course it does!”
“Why do you think we fuss with it?” her father asked.
Momentarily deterred from her drama-queen exit, Rachel shook her head. “You’re making it look boring on purpose?”
“Not boring.” Her dad spoke, but it was her mom who gazed at her with sympathy. “Traditional.” He gestured at the yard. “Blow-up balloon snowmen are boring. Real handmade snowmen are traditional. All white lights are boring. Multicolored lights are traditional. Huge plastic snowflakes are boring. White paper scissor-cut snowflakes are traditional. Get it?”
“No. Do you have this many rules for everything?”
Hmmm. That sounded familiar to her…
Oh yeah. Reno. He’d asked her that once, when she’d explained the difference between a classical and a traditional Christmas. Apparently she’d learned to spot the dividing lines from her parents—who watched her now with distinct wariness.
Wariness because…she was stomping off in a huff. Right.
“Rachel.” Her mom stepped forward, bundled up in her old blue coat and the boots Rachel had borrowed to cut down Christmas trees with Reno and Kayla. “I know you’re hurting—”
“But don’t be so hasty this time!” her dad butted in. “You’re always flying off the handle, Rachel. That’s probably what got you in trouble with whatshername: Alayna Panagakos.”
That did it. For a second, Rachel had almost buckled.
Instead she jerked up her chin. “Well, I hope you both have a”—Merry Christmas, her stupid sappy heart volunteered, but she ruthlessly squashed the sentiment—“happy week. I’m leaving.”
Then she hauled her suitcase off the porch and headed down the street, her satisfaction slightly punctured by the fact that in Podunk Kismet, cabs didn’t operate in the off-season. She’d have to walk, then take a Greyhound bus to the airport.
At the thought, Rachel shuddered. But she strode onward relentlessly. If there was one thing she’d learned as a self-proclaimed rebel, it was never to back down. And never to admit being wrong. Even if, it occurred to her as she rounded the corner and lost sight of her perplexed parents, she had been.
She had been wrong, because she never should have come home for the holidays in the first place. Everything that had happened here had been a mistake—starting with the moment she’d fallen for Reno…and ending with the realization that, no matter how much she’d wanted him to, he’d never loved her back.