A Chance This Christmas(2)
Her mother had dealt with the worst of the town’s fury after the Chris Chambers’ embezzlement scandal. Rachel had tried to convince her mom to put the house on the market and get out of Yuletide for good, but there’d been no budging her. This was her home, no matter that her husband had betrayed her and all their friends, too.
“Rachel? Is that you?” Her mother’s voice—tentative, anxious—floated from the front of the sprawling, Swiss-style chalet.
“… Rachel?” A second feminine voice sounded. Louder. Belligerent.
Uh-oh.
Since when did her mother have company? Rachel’s steps halted just outside the living room.
Before she could plot an escape, two figures emerged into the hallway, both dressed in green felt elf attire, minus the pointy shoes and hats. Anywhere else in the world, that might have seemed unusual. But her mother and Mrs. Garrett must have put in hours on the gift shop registers or for the town tour today, jobs that had always rotated through the residents who benefited the most from Yuletide tourism.
The two of them stood side by side in their striped red and white socks. Her mother was biting her lip, her dark hair in a neat, hair-sprayed bob, while Mrs. Garrett’s overgrown blonde frizz barely fit in a ponytail holder. The woman had been a friend of her mother’s once, and perhaps they’d healed their rift. Rachel had certainly smoothed over things with Mrs. Garrett’s daughter, Kiersten, the town’s bride-to-be.
“How dare you.” Mrs. Garrett’s red pom-pom collar shook with wobbly indignation where it fit too tight around her neck, setting the decorative jingle bells into a discordant clang. “What on earth possessed you to show your face in this town the week before my daughter marries?”
Eyes narrowing, she took a step closer in the dim hallway, bringing as much menace as a fifty-something elf can muster.
Rachel’s mother sidled past her, stepping between them. “Katie, be reasonable. My daughter hasn’t been here in eight years. I sure don’t want to scare her away.” She spared a glance over her shoulder at Rachel, maintaining the “good cheer disposition” that was requisite at all times for wearing the elf costume around town. “Welcome home, darling. I’m so glad to see you.”
Katie Garrett fumed visibly, shoulders rising and falling with her huffing. “Is it any wonder she chose this week to come back? She’s here to break up the wedding!”
“No, Mrs. Garrett.” Rachel shook her head, wishing she’d called her mother to warn her about the visit. She was too tired to do battle with anyone tonight after the long trip from Brooklyn that involved a train, a bus and an Uber since Rachel didn’t own a car. Instead of being on the road for five hours, it had been closer to nine. “I’m here for quite the opposite reason. Kiersten told me point-blank she would like me to attend the ceremony—”
“It wasn’t enough for you to break poor Luke’s heart the first time?” Mrs. Garrett pointed a shaking finger in Rachel’s face. “Now you need to ruin Kiersten’s chance with him? I’m going home to talk to her this minute.” Stomping around Rachel and her mother toward the staircase, she didn’t even look back. “Molly, we’ll have to speak another time. I’m shocked you would let your daughter just waltz back into town after what she did.”
What she’d done was make out with Gavin Blake behind the Candy Cane Slide in Santa’s Playground on the day Luke Harris proposed to her in the most public way possible. She’d been oblivious since she’d ditched the town’s “Christmas in July” parade to watch Gavin skateboard.
But it got worse, since the whole drama had coincided with her father’s disappearance and the discovery of his embezzlement. There had been an ongoing suspicion that Rachel had helped her father to escape, even though she’d been cleared by a police investigation long ago.
Still, Mrs. Garrett’s grumbling diatribe continued as she gathered her elf shoes and hat from a bench near the stairs and headed down into the public portion of the chalet.
“Well that wasn’t the Christmas welcome home I would have chosen for you, sweetheart,” her mother murmured as she snaked an arm around Rachel’s waist. “I’m sorry you had to hear that.”
Tipping her head onto her mother’s shoulder, Rachel allowed herself a moment to soak up the unconditional maternal love.
“I should have warned you I was coming.”
“This is your home.” Her mother kissed the top of her head. “You never have to call first.” Edging away from Rachel, she hooked their arms and headed toward the kitchen. “Come have tea with me and tell me all about this idea of Kiersten’s. She really wants you to attend the wedding?”
The kitchen hadn’t changed much other than a few missing photos on the shelves over the table. But then, this had always been her mother’s domain so there wouldn’t be many traces of her father in here. Her mother’s grandfather had built the house as one of the original members of the village of Harristown, and Molly’s mother had cooked in this kitchen before her. Decorated in soothing Nordic style with lots of white and just a few hints of blue, she still displayed her Delft plates in a china cabinet while the day-to-day, pure white dishes sat on open shelves over the counter.
Rachel passed her mom a mug from one of the hooks while the water heated. She’d always found the all-white room a soothing retreat from the aggressive green and red of the rest of this holiday-crazed town.