Page 12 of December Wishes
“No, thanks, I really shouldn’t.” Skylar peered over Sunny’s shoulder. The lower floor of Waterlily House was packed with guests, some of them easily recognizable from around town, and others total strangers to Sunny. Although a couple of men came and went from the kitchen, the party was mostly women. Sunny’s wife, Dr. Brandelyn Meyer, carried out a two liter of Diet Coke to the cheers of appreciative fans. The mayor and her girlfriend sat by the fire, snuggling like this was their one chance that month to have a proper cuddle before they separated again. Carrie’s girlfriend, Leigh-Ann Hardy, sat cross-legged on the carpet and nursed an apple cider. She spared one look for Skylar, realized she wasn’t Carrie, and looked away again.I bet she’s eaten enough of this pizza to ruin her appetite forever.Yet Leigh-Ann was one of the first to leap up and grab a paper plate when the pizzas landed on the dining table.
“You shouldn’t, but you will!” Sunny took Skylar by the arm and hauled her inside. The door slammed shut behind her. “Someone get this hardworking woman some cocoa!”
The honors went to Dr. Meyer, who whipped up a cup, slapped a lid on it, and brought the hot drink over to Skylar, who stood awkwardly in the entryway still bundled in her coat, hat, and mittens. A few people looked up from their conversations and said hello. After a myriad of glances came her way, Skylar finally had a reason to say her thanks for the tip and hot cocoa.
She was both anxious to get back out into the cold and dreading every second of it. The cold was where she belonged right now. That warmth was as foreign as the concept of having someone to go home to that night.
You know… looking at all those happy women really makes you think.Skylar wasn’t sure what she thought about. All she knew was that when she started the car, The Indigo Girls were playing, and it felt like another sign.
She backed out of the driveway, careful to avoid hitting the mayor’s car, which was distinguishable from the others because of the HONOR STUDENT bumper stickers on the back. Skylar sped down the driveway, her heart racing and the panic to pull over claiming her before she made it back to the highway.
She idled in the dark, the strange sensation that she should be anywhere but there,right there,overwhelming her.
If only she knew where “right there” was. Her car? The road? Paradise Valley?
The world?
I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what will make me feel better. All I know is that I’m trapped here now. I have nowhere to go, and no one else wants me.That was the harsh truth, wasn’t it? One of the reasons she was so amicable to moving away with Mik was because there was nothing for her in Portland. There was nothing for her in SoCal, either. What friends hadn’t disappeared and family died were now replaced with shells who didn’t care if she ever called again.
Unlike every person in that big, warm house, she had no one to hold her and tell her she’d be all right. She didn’t care if they were a man or a woman. All Skylar knew was that she was alone.
So insurmountably alone.
Chapter 8
SUNNY & BRANDELYN
A chill came over the entryway when Sunny shut the door after Skylar’s departure. At least the chill was quickly wiped out by the heat from the fire cracking in the grand living room, where over a dozen guests lounged on couches and sat in each other’s laps. Of course, that tranquility was quickly ruined once they smelled the pizza. Brandelyn had disappeared into the kitchen to bring out paper plates, but the guests descended on the pizza boxes so quickly that Sunny was lucky to get napkins in their hands before they sat back down in the living room.
As much as she enjoyed her annual parties like these, Sunny was always in hostess mode. A role she was used to, thanks to half of a life’s worth of playing hospitality and taking care of guests’ needs. She didn’t know how to turn it off, whether she was at a cousin’s wedding or a nonprofit fundraiser in downtown Portland.Thanks, Brandy, for dragging me to those things.Sunny thought that with dripping sarcasm. Right before Thanksgiving, she was subjected to some cancer research fundraiser that had her fretting over everyone’s champagne and wondering why nobody thought to supply all the guests with their own personal cloth napkins. Hadn’t the hotel learnedanything?
She caught Brandy’s eye while hovering over the guests on the couch. Sunny’s wife motioned for a rendezvous in the kitchen.
“Something wrong?” That was the first thing out of Sunny’s mouth when she met Brandy by the sink. Sound carried from the other rooms, but it was difficult for the guests to hear this whispered conversation in the kitchen. “Are we out of paper plates? God, this is worse than the oven going out…” At least they had discovered that little detail before taking the food out of the fridge. The only reason the kitchen looked spotless was because they never had the chance to heat up that pot roast. The decision to order pizza had been easy – what else was there to do in a place like Paradise Valley? – but Sunny didn’t like it. She had planned on pot roast, complete with vegetables and baked potatoes.A meal big enough to feed a dozen people!Instead, they had to spring for mediocre pizza. A party to go down in the books.
“Sunny.” Brandy put both hands on her wife’s shoulders. “Calm down. Everyone’s happy and having a good time.”
“The roast!”
“We’ll take it back to my house tomorrow and cook it there. I know there will be a ton of leftovers, but we’ll figure something out.” Brandelyn pulled her wife into a hug, but Sunny was so stiff with anxiety that she didn’t know how to hug Brandy back. “Relax, okay, hun? You should be enjoying your Christmas party!”
Sighing, Sunny shrugged Brandy off her and rubbed her closed eyelids. “I know. It’s not a big deal. You know how I am, though. When it comes to events here at Waterlily House, I need to know that things are going right and people enjoy it enough to…”
“…Tell all their friends, so they’ll come stay here and keep you in business. I know.” Brandy offered a wan smile, her dark curls bouncier than the step in Sunny’s feet. “I get it. You feel like this is an official event people will review on Yelp and Google.”
“It’s been a hard year, you know. Next year isn’t gonna be much better.” While Sunny wasn’t totally in the red, guest visitation was down, and she almost always had half of her rooms available. She was carried by the regulars who came every other month to get out of the city. Occasionally, there were wedding guests who needed a place to stay. There were also the big tourist draws through the year that filled the house, but they weren’t frequent. Sunny couldn’t pay the rising property taxes on Waterlily House through folks staying for Pride. The more she talked to her accountant, the more she realized she needed to up her marketing game. Part of that was fueling the word of mouth bus.
“For one night,” Brandy began, “I want you to pretend that you’re at somebodyelse’sparty… and you’ve smoked some pot. Because, let’s be real, that’s the only time I’ve seen you chill at a party.”
Sunny scoffed. “Are you kidding me? Anyway, I appreciate all your help tonight, but I’ve gotta get back out there and make sure we haven’t already run out of pizza.”
“Make sure you eat something too, okay? I worry about you and that cute butt of yours.”
Sunny had picked the wrong time to turn around. She had worn her nicest jeans for the party, and that meant her ass looked pretty great, as Brandelyn enjoyed pointing out like they were in college or something.
Without bothering to respond, Sunny donned her smile and joined the party once more.
Most of the guests were her and Brandy’s closest friends who happened to be in town, but there were also a couple of acquaintances who were the occasional guests. Those were the people Sunny was concerned with the most, since they had the power to spread some decent word of mouth about her and Waterlily House. Yet Sunny remained a consummate hostess. She checked on everyone, from her best friend Anita and her partner Bonnie, to teenaged Leigh-Ann who ate more pizza than most of the kids in Paradise Valley.I’m kinda shocked she came here to hang out with all these way older adults, never mind her English teacher…There was a reason Anita and Leigh-Ann sat on opposite sides of the house, not that it ever bothered them when they were volunteering during the summer.
