Here is a story for Christmas, rather than my usual blog. Curl up in a cozy place with a cup of coffee or glass of wine, and enjoy!
“Of course you’re
coming home for dinner, Porter. It’s Christmas Day today.”
Porter Collier moved
the phone away from his ear and sighed.
“I heard that,”
his mother said.
Porter removed his
horn-rimmed spectacles and pinched the bridge of his nose to stave off the
inevitable headache resulting from a conversation with his mother.
“Mom, Christmas is
just another day. An expensive one for many people, which is why I prefer to
stay here and work to make sure that my business, my staff and I, and
subsequently you and Aunt Min, can look forward to a prosperous New Year.”
“Don’t be so
snippy,” his mother sniffed, “and it’s unfair to bring your aunt into this.”
Porter replaced
his spectacles, knowing that he could not escape the mandatory dinner. “I have
to go. I’ll see you this afternoon.”
He replaced the receiver
in its cradle and stared gloomily out of his third-floor office window. Christmas
was his least favourite time of year. He wished he could avoid it all. His
mother, with every reason to not like the season, insisted on celebrating it.
Suddenly restless,
he got to his feet, grabbed his jacket and headed for the main office. He knew
he wasn’t the only one of his staff with issues on the whole Holly, Jolly,
Jingle-jingle holiday. Even today, there might be someone with whom he could
chat over a coffee.
He paused at the entrance
to the hub of his company, the workspace usually inhabited by more than thirty computer
wizards employed by IT Inc. Today the desks and cubicles were empty with not a
soul in sight. About to leave, a sudden movement caught his eye. He peered
through the glass pane, and his forehead creased into a frown as a blonde head
emerged from beneath a desk, followed by a petite, decidedly feminine form.
Who was that?
Porter pushed the
door open a little and heard her muttering. He pushed the door all the way open
and walked in.
“Can I help?” he
asked.
The girl looked up,
regarding him with a pair of cornflower blue eyes. Porter’s breath caught in
his throat. He prided himself on knowing all his staff but had never seen this
girl before.
“No, thank you,”
she said. “I just dropped my phone.”
“Is it okay?”
“I think so. At
least the screen isn’t cracked.”
“Well, if you have
any problems with it, let the office manager know after the holiday. There’s
usually a couple of spare phones around if you need one.”
“Great, thanks for
the tip.” She grinned at him. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at
home with your family?”
“Shouldn’t you?”
he said, his voice rasping a little.
She laughed at
that, a laugh that made him want to laugh, too. “Touché. Have you worked here
for long?”
Porter cleared his
throat. Was she unaware of his identity? If so, maybe that was a good thing. “A few years now.”
“You must like it
then.”
“Yes, I suppose I
do,” he said, nodding his head. “How about you?”
“I’ve only been
here a couple of months and love the flexibility of it. It’s awesome being able
to come and work at midnight if I can’t sleep or on a weekend if I have a
sudden breakthrough in fixing a problem.”
“Are you fixing
problems today?” He would find things to do if that were the case and stay with
her.
There was that
grin again, the grin that transformed her and made him think of a cheeky,
adorable pixie. “No, I’m only killing time until I go and take my girls out.”
“Forgive me for
saying so, but you seem very young to have children.”
The grin turned
into a laugh. “There’s nothing to forgive, and it’s not kids, it’s dogs. Mollie
and Sheba. Would you like to come with us?”
Porter was
inexplicably drawn to this girl and didn’t want to part company with her. He’d never
had a pet of any kind but would walk a dinosaur to stay with her. “Do you think
they’d mind?”
“I can’t imagine
they would, but I’ll warn you they’re a bit different.” She busied herself with
stashing things in her purse, then took her coat from the back of her chair and
shrugged it on.
“Different how?”
Porter asked as he caught her collar and helped settle the coat into place on
her shoulders. He couldn’t help noticing the garment was somewhat threadbare.
“They’re both
old,” she said, “and some would say they’re not attractive dogs. It’s unlikely they’ll
be adopted even though the shelter does its best. I like to visit them and take
them for walks.”
“On Christmas
Day,” Porter mused.
“On any day. Come
on, there’s only one car in the lot, and it’s mine.”
Her small stature
belied the speed of her walk, and Porter hurried to keep up with her. The car
was a beat-up old Chevrolet Malibu. As she unlocked it, a thought struck him.
“Before I drive
off with a stranger, shouldn’t I at least know your name?”
Again that laugh
that made him want to laugh with her. “You’ll be quite safe with me, I promise.
I’m Juliet Pym. And you?”
Porter thought fast.
If he told her his real name, she might be embarrassed and drive off alone. He
couldn’t let that happen. “It’s Brad, Brad Carpenter.”
He offered his
hand across the hood of her car, and she took it. Her fingers, soft and warm,
curled around his. She might as well have thrown chains around his heart.
“Then hop in, Mr.
Carpenter, and I’ll take you away on my magic carpet.”
She put the key in
the ignition, and the engine fired on the first turn. The bodywork might be a
bit iffy, but there was nothing wrong with the motor. She headed out of the
southern California town of Chula Vista, taking streets Porter didn’t recognize
in a part of town he didn’t know existed. He opened the window, smelled salt in
the air and knew they were heading towards the beach. The buildings they passed
were older, run-down strip malls and single storey homes. Then she turned in to
a dusty parking lot in front of a long, low building with a sign above the door
advertising the Costa Animal Shelter.
Beyond the
crumbling adobe brick wall, a cacophony of barking assaulted Porter’s ears.
“How many dogs do
they have here?”
“At the moment
about sixty, give or take. Monica updates the website every day, so chances are
one or two might have been adopted out or fostered. Come on.”
She breezed
through the double doors into a tiled lobby with a long reception desk at the
back of it. Behind the counter, an open door revealed a yard shaded by olive
trees.
Juliet rang the
bell on the counter. “Yo, Monica,” she called. “I’ve come for my girls, and
I’ve brought a friend.”
Instantly a sturdy
figure darkened the doorway. As the woman came into the office, Porter took in her
muscular brown arms and tanned face. A red bandana corralled her mop of long,
curly toffee-coloured hair. As she set eyes on Porter, she smiled, revealing a
set of healthy white teeth.
“This is Brad,”
Juliet said. “He’s going to walk with us today.”
“No problem. Don’t
forget to sign out. You know where the leashes are. Nice to meet you, Brad.
You’ll have to excuse me. I’ve got half a dozen puppies on the go out here.”
She waved and
ducked back out the door.
“Hello, to you
too, Monica,” Porter said to her retreating back.
Juliet laughed.
“There’s usually at least four on staff. As it’s Christmas, Monica lets the
others go home after the morning feeding and cleaning routine.”
“I take it she’s
the owner?”
Juliet took two
leashes from a rack on the wall and walked along a corridor with kennels on
each side. “Yes, and lives onsite here. She bought the property when she left
the military. She’s one tough cookie, let me tell you. Here we are.”
Porter heard the dog
before he saw it. A snuffling and snorting came from behind the security screen
covering the lower half of the chain-link gate, then whining and scratching.
“It’s okay,
Mollie,” Juliet said. “I can’t wait to see you either. Just give me a minute
here.”
She set the screen
against the wall and opened the gate. A brindle and white body came barreling
out right into Juliet’s open arms. Porter stepped back. He hadn’t known what to
expect, certainly not this awkward, misaligned creature with a broad, scarred
head, gaping jaws, and misshapen front legs.
“Good Lord, what
is it? And why hasn’t it got any ears?”
“I told you that she
was different,” Juliet said. “This is Mollie, who is mostly pit bull. She was a
stray and we think she was turned out of a fighting ring. That’s the most
likely reason for her ears to have been cropped. Her front legs have both been
broken and healed on their own, which is why she is so bandy. But look at her,
she’s all smiles and happiness despite everything that may have happened to
her.”
Juliet bent down
and cuddled the dog, getting a slurpy tongue all over her face in return. She
clipped a leash onto Mollie’s collar and handed it to Porter. Mollie looked up
at him expectantly, her tongue lolling out the side of her mouth. He slowly
sank into a crouch, touched when the dog put its paw on his arm. He reached out
and rubbed behind Mollie’s battered ear.
“Who could have
done such a thing to you, hmm?” he queried softly.
In answer, Mollie
reached up and swiped her tongue across his face.
“It looks like you
have made a friend,” Juliet said.
Porter looked up. She
came towards him, holding the leash of a rough-haired, sad-looking dog. While
Mollie bounced up and down, her tail wagging, this dog stood beside Juliet, quietly
waiting for what might come next.
“What’s her story?”
Porter asked.
“Sheba was
orphaned,” Juliet told him.
“Orphaned?” Porter
raised an eyebrow.
“Yes, her person
passed away. She’s still mourning. No one has seen her wag her tail since she
came to us, and she’s been here six months already.”
“What about
Mollie? How long has she been in the shelter?”
“Eighteen months.”
Juliet sighed. “I wish people could see how beautiful these dogs are, inside
and out. Anyway, shall we go? It’s only a couple of blocks to the beach.”
On their way
through the office, Juliet stopped and filled in the book on the counter,
leaving the date, her name, the dogs’ names, and the time she checked them out.
“Security,” she
said in answer to Porter’s unspoken question.
They headed
towards the beach, Mollie knowing where she was going and charging ahead as
much as she was able. Sheba shuffled along between them. Porter looked at the
dog’s low-slung head and the slouch of her shoulders.
“She looks like a
German Shepherd,” he said.
“Mm, Shepherd
Labrador mix, Monica thinks,” Juliet agreed. “Here we are. You can let Mollie
off the leash. She’s got an excellent recall response and never goes far, so we
don’t need to worry about any of the other beach walkers.”
“What about
Sheba?”
“I think she wants
to make sure nothing happens to us so she won’t go too far, either.”
Juliet unclipped Sheba’s
leash and the dog wandered a few feet ahead of them, frequently looking over
her shoulder to see where they were.
“I see what you
mean,” Porter said after watching her for a few moments. “That’s plain sad. You
said they were old, so how old are they?”
“Best we can tell,
Mollie is ten, maybe eleven and Sheba a little older. The neighbours said she
was fully grown when she and her owner moved in and they lived in that house
for ten years, so that might make her twelve or thirteen.”
“And people don’t
want older dogs?”
Juliet shook her
head. “There’s always the risk of medical problems and then the expense of
medications and end of life arrangements. Most people want at least a few years
of fun with a dog before they have to deal with that, and some never do. They
give their dogs up anyway or dump them.”
Porter shook his
head. “I can’t even begin to understand how people can do that.”
Juliet shrugged.
“Me neither, but it happens. Some of the reasons make me sad, some make me mad,
but I’ve learned to ignore that and concentrate on the dogs to make them as
happy as I can.”
“Mollie’s
certainly happy,” Porter said, nodding to where Mollie wrestled with a long
strand of kelp that had washed ashore.
Juliet laughed and
then whistled. Mollie hustled towards them, dragging her prize with her. They
walked in silence for a while, their feet leaving prints in the wet sand and
the breeze coming off the ocean misting them with salt-laden spray.
“So tell me,”
Juliet began, “why were you in the office today?”
“I don’t like
Christmas,” Porter said bluntly. “I treat it like any other day.”
“May I ask why?”
Porter stopped
walking and stared towards the horizon where the blanket-blue bowl of the sky
masked the birth of white-tipped rollers.
“Eight years ago
today,” he said, watching the surf tumble onto the shore like a visitor on the
doorstep, “my father didn’t wake up. Every Christmas since, Mom tries to make
it a regular, everyday celebration, just like she always did when he was alive.
But it’s not.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Juliet slipped her hand into his. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
Porter looked down
at their entwined fingers. “I should be used to it by now, but I’m not.”
“No.” Juliet shook
her head. “Grieving takes as much time as it needs. I lost both my parents when
I was eight, and my grandma brought me up, but she’s gone now. I haven’t got
anyone to love, so I love the critters at the shelter instead.”
“And you’re
happy?” Porter stopped walking and looked down at her.
“Yes,” Juliet said
without hesitation. “But then, happiness is a choice, don’t you think?”
“I can’t say I’ve
ever considered it.” He looked into Juliet’s eyes and saw a glow there, a glow
enhanced by her wind-blown pink cheeks. She looked fresh and innocent and made
him feel old and careworn. “Were you born wise, or did that come with the
territory?”
Her shoulders rose
and fell in a movement that seemed as natural to her as blinking. “A bit of
both, I think. I certainly had my fair share of counsellors.”
“And now you have
the dogs.”
She nodded in
agreement and stopped to watch them.
“That’s my mom
before dad died,” Porter said, nodding towards Mollie, who, with the kelp
clamped between her jaws, ran in exuberant circles. “and that’s what she’s like
now.” He pointed towards Sheba, who stood with her face into the wind, her nose
twitching as if searching for a familiar scent.
A tremor ran
through Juliet’s hand. Porter turned to her. “Are you cold?”
“A little bit,” she
admitted. Porter slipped his jacket off and slung it around her shoulders,
surreptitiously checking his watch as he did so.
Juliet did not
miss the motion. “Have you got to be somewhere?”
“No,” he began,
but then hesitated. “Uh, make that a yes. But just a minute.”
He pulled his
phone out of his jacket pocket, hit a number on his speed dial and waited for
the call to connect.
“Hi, Mom,” he
said. “Would you mind if I bring guests for dinner? One two-legged, and two
four-legged?” He paused and listened. Juliet waved a hand in front of his face,
mouthing “you can’t do that,” but Porter took no notice, only catching her hand
and kissing her fingers. “Okay, we’ll be there in half an hour.”
“Brad, I cannot
intrude on your family Christmas,” Juliet insisted.
“Tell me you have
somewhere better to be,” Porter said and grinned at her. “By the way, will
Monica let you bring the dogs?”
“Probably,” Juliet
said. She whistled for Mollie, who lolloped towards her like a drunken sailor,
and clipped the leashes onto the dogs’ collars for the short walk back to the
Shelter.
Monica agreed to
them taking the dogs but insisted they be back by nine o’clock for the final
night check.
“We’ll probably be
earlier than that,” Juliet said as she turned towards the door and joined
Porter. “You’ll have to give me directions.”
They bundled the
dogs into the back seat and Porter slid into the passenger seat. “Go back to
the office, and I’ll direct you from there.”
Juliet did as he
asked and then followed his directions from the old warehouse that housed IT
Inc’s premises. From time to time she glanced curiously at him as they headed
towards a more upmarket side of town. She began to frown as they turned into a two-lane,
palm-lined avenue leading to closed gates with a security station in their
centre.
“You live here?”
she breathed, ducking her head to peer at the estate-style houses beyond the
gate.
“No, my mother
does. Can you open your window, please?”
She did as he
asked. He leaned across her and waved at the security guard. “Hi, Frank. We’re
just on the way to see Mom.”
“Do you want me to
call her for you, Mr. Collier?”
“No, thanks,”
Porter responded, “She knows we’re coming.”
Juliet sat still,
staring straight ahead of her.
“Um, you can drive
on now,” Porter said. “The gate’s open.”
“Yes, I see that,”
Juliet snapped and put her foot down. The Malibu shot forward, slamming Porter
back in his seat and shifting the dogs. Mollie huffed, and Sheba’s wet nose
connected with his neck.
Porter could
barely contain a chuckle at the furious expression on Juliet’s tight little
face. “Mom’s house is the next drive on the right.”
Juliet swung into
it with a maneuver that might have impressed a movie stunt-driver but brought a
shout of laughter from Porter. She jerked to a stop and turned to face him, her
eyes flashing daggers. She took a deep breath as if struggling to form words,
and then, “ohmygodyouaremyboss,” rolled out of her perfect little mouth on a
single exhale.
“I’m sorry,”
Porter said, “but if I had told you who I was back in the office, would you
have invited me to go for a walk with you and the dogs?”
“No, of course
not,” she stammered.
“And so we would
not have had a perfect day, at least it’s been perfect for me. How about you?”
Juliet dropped her
head but put her hand over his. “The best in a long time,” she whispered.
“Come on then,”
Porter said, squeezing her hand. “Mom and Aunt Min are waiting for us.”
He opened the back
door of the car and Mollie and Sheba jumped out. Sheba looked around, her nose
twitching. Then she headed up the front steps with Mollie and Porter in her
wake. As they approached the front door, it swung open, and Porter’s mother
stepped onto the porch with a welcoming smile on her face. Sheba stopped, her
ears pricked.
“Well, hello,
sweet girl,” Mrs. Collier said. “And how are you?”
Sheba pushed her
nose into Mrs. Collier’s outstretched hand and wagged her tail, leaving Juliet
speechless.
“That’s the first
time Mom has smiled in ages,” Porter told her quietly, then leaned in and
kissed his mother on the cheek. “Thanks for having us all, Mom.”
Mollie charged
through the open doorway. They heard her claws skittering on the tiled hall
floor and a strident voice yelling, “what the hell is that thing?”
“That’s Mollie,
Aunt Min,” Porter called. “Don’t worry. She grows on you.”
Porter held out
his hand to Juliet.
“Come on,” he
said. “Mom and Aunt Min are anxious to meet you, so now it’s time to introduce
them to my Christmas Angel.”
The End
Victoria Chatham
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