Page 10 of December Wishes
“I’m sayingwecan tell when you’re mad, but you’re good at hiding it from others.”
“Whatever.” Frankie headed toward the bathroom. “Let it be known that I’m never throwing a wallet across the street again.”
Her brother’s voice followed her into the bathroom. “You never did it to begin with! To throw something across the street, it has to actually end upon the other side,not on the yellow line!” Elaine’s laughter punctuated those final words as Frankie latched the door.
There were better things to do that night, anyway. Before coming home to make dinner, Frankie and Elaine had closed up their respective shops and went out to pick up a small tree from the farm outside of town. The place was already picked pretty clean, but they found a nice little tree that wasn’t too hard to strap to the roof of the car and get home before the frost settled on the highway. Dominic had already brought the two boxes of ornaments out of the closet, and jumped in to help his sister and future sister-in-law set up the tree in the corner of the living room. It required relocating a coat rack to the hallway, where Frankie almost knocked it over every time she tried to go to her bedroom, but whatever. They went through this every year!
Elaine admitted she hadn’t decorated a tree in a few years, which was sacrilege to Frankie, who annually put aside her Grinchy Grumpiness for the privilege of decorating her home and deli. The deli got the usual snowflakes on the windows and some plastic garlands around the interior, but her house? Besides the tree, she put out a nativity set, brought out the Christmas themed dishes, and hung tinsel from every window. When Dominic came along, so did the colorful lights around the front of the house. Frankie cut herself short of putting a fat Santa and some reindeer in her yard, much to Dominic’s relief.Who am I kidding? He’d love that now, but when he was in high school? Never!
“What in the…” Elaine held up a giant gold star cut out of construction paper. The glitter had fallen off over the years, but a respectable sheen remained. Inside the middle of the star was a large, Polaroid picture of a young boy with a giant fro and a gap in his front teeth. He was apparently so proud of losing his two front teeth that he stuck the gap right up in the camera. “Dare I ask?”
She said that to Dominic, who grinned to see his first grade creation. “You have to put that up toward the top! Spot of honor! I mean,lookhow cute I was!”
“He brought that down from Olympia when he moved here,” Frankie muttered to her girlfriend. “He straight up raided our parents’ Christmas box to bringthatornament down when we moved.”
“I can hear you!” Dominic waved his arms behind them. “Why wouldn’t I bring it? Like I said, I’m a beautiful young man in that picture! So cute. So full of childhood vigor. You can look through the gap and see my pure soul. Besides.” He stuck his hand deep into the box. It didn’t come back up again until he had a hold on what he searched for, which was a white ornament bigger than his. Sure enough, in the center of a circle, was an old photo of a five-year-old Frankie staring wide-eyed into the camera. “I had to bring this down, too. We have to go down together. It’s the way of the world.”
“Awww!” Elaine grabbed the ornament and held it above her head. “Look at you, Fran! You’re the cutest girl I’ve ever seen!”
Frankie gritted her teeth. “I should kick your butt,” she said to her brother. “This is inhumane.”
“Fun fact,” Dominic said, ignoring her. “Same set of genetics.” He slung his arm around his sister’s shoulders. “Can you tell we’re related? Because I sure can’t.”
Giggling, Elaine said, “I can tell! You both have the same nose!”
“Ah, yes, the French noses.” Dominic pushed his up like a pig’s and did a stereotypically French laugh. Frankie hated to admit it, but it always made her chuckle.
They were only halfway through decorating the tree when Dominic not-so-subtly hung up a sprig of mistletoe in the hallway entrance. He winked at his sister and shot two finger-guns in her direction before retreating to his room. Frankie wanted to die, but only because her brother continued to know things that were none of his business.
In this case, he knew that Frankie and Elaine still had yet to kiss.
“What’s up?” Elaine asked, after coming out from behind the tree.Does she know she has needles on her front?A more daring girlfriend would go over and brush them off her, but Frankie wasn’t comfortable with that quite yet. It took more than a month of kinda-sorta dating to have her comfortable with Elaine showing up at the door with dinner in her hand. Sometimes, it was planned!
“My brother went and put up some mistletoe. Don’t know who he thinks is coming over to kiss him.”
“I didn’t realize he was the only person around here worth kissing.”
“Are you saying you want to kiss my brother? He’s a bit young for you.”
Elaine placed her hands on her hips. “Yes, that istotallywhat I said. Yup.”
Frankie insisted on putting the star up by herself. When she hopped off the step stool and turned around to take it to the kitchen, she encountered a sight she should have anticipated – but could have never, not in a million years, realistically expected.
There was Elaine, holding the sprig of mistletoe over her head.
“Oh, no,” Frankie said with an awkward laugh. “What are you doing? We need to finish putting up the decorations, so I know which to take to the deli in the…”
Elaine stepped forward, mistletoe still above her head. “You don’t have to kiss me on the lips. You could, like, kiss me on the cheek.”
Frankie hadn’t donethatyet. “I’m not really good at the whole kissing thing,” she admitted. “You know how nerve wracking it is?”
The mistletoe appeared over Frankie’s head. “I’ve got a pretty good idea. I’ve been around you long enough, anyway.”
“So what are you…”
Frankie didn’t have the chance to think about mistletoe when Elaine went ahead and ripped off their mutual Band-Aid. Boom. Lips on Frankie’s. While there was no chance for tongue in that tight-lipped embrace, Frankie definitely felt the brunt of Elaine’s intentions.
Kiss me already…
