Page 16 of December Wishes
“Sorry.” Karen took a deep breath. Didn’t help that breath brought with it hot, stale air from the fire.Maybe I should go out for some fresh and cool air.She could sure use it right now. “I’ve got a lot on my mind lately, you know. The Christmas Tree Lighting is the last event of the year, and it’s one of the few things residents look forward to during this season. Well, event that I have to oversee. You know what I mean.”
Dahlia nodded.
“I’ve got to coordinate the children’s choir from school singing those blasted songs.” Some of them sounded an awful like the ones Casper now played on the piano. “I have to make sure the lights are working without spoiling the fun for everyone coming to see it later. If It rains, we’re really screwed. We have to reschedule, and we’re already doing it right before Christmas as it is.” People always gave city hall crap for not having their lighting right after Thanksgiving, but it came down to money, like everything else. It cost a little too much to run that kind of electricity for too many weeks. They made up for it by leaving the tree up until New Year’s.Then again, the people qualified to take it down are all out of town.Nobody thought what it was like being the mayor of a tiny town. People thought it must be easier because there was less to look over, but all it really meant was that Karen bit off more than she could chew. Just because she was used to it now didn’t mean it didn’t take its toll.
“What’s going on in here, huh?”
Sunny stumbled back into the living room with her wife right behind her. Karen was close enough to smell the pot right away.
“Whoa,” Dahlia muttered. “Are they high?”
Karen looked Sunny up and down, a tad jealous that the flighty hostess looked calmer than a stoner enjoying the depths of her comfortable bed. “Yes.” Karen snapped her fingers in front of Sunny’s face. It took more than a few attempts to get her attention. “Where’d you get that stuff?” she hissed, although she doubted Sunny heard her over the piano music. “And where can we get some?”
“Whoa, we?” Dahlia asked.
Brandy took a step back, hands bidding Karen and Dahlia to follow her through the kitchen. “I’ve got mooooore,” she mouthed.
God, Karen had the best friends. And the best girlfriend, since Dahlia was the first one off the couch and following Brandy. It was up to Karen to take Sunny by the arm and lead her back out to the porch, where they lit up and never felt more alive than in the chilly December night.
Their worries could wait until tomorrow. That’s how it usually worked, anyway.
Chapter 10
SKYLAR
The only thing more out of place than the Christmas music last Thanksgiving was the gospel music now dispensing into Paradise Pizza.
At first, Skylar thought it must have been a variation of Christmas music.Gospel? Holidays? Obviously, they go together.Upon closer listening, however, she quickly realized that it was good ol’ fashioned church music.
Well… perhaps it still fit the theme of Christmas in a small town. Yet the mystery over who controlled the satellite radio station continued to plague the part-timers who came in, took a hard listen, and rolled their eyes before putting on their aprons.
Skylar had never heard such a joyful rendition of “Wade in the Water” as when she sat at one of the tables by the window for her lunch break. Employees were allowed to eat at one of the limited tables outside of the lunch rush, since nobody, and that meantnobody,ate there after the sun went down. It was takeout only from that point.
I used to sing this song for choir class…She had completely forgotten about it until that moment, when she found herself humming along to words that had lurked in her long-time memory.Back when I was a soprano.She was a respectable alto now. Then again, Skylar never pursued a choir life after a falling out with the school instructor, who always had it out for Skylar’s mom.
Those kinds of events made her relate to the small town life. A world where parents fought with teachers and the student felt the repercussions for years. Her friends in SoCal and Portland never knew what that was like.“Oh, sure, my mom fought with my teacher but it was over once I graduated that year!”That didn’t happen in smaller schools, like the one Skylar went to as a young tween. When you saw the same teacher every day for going on five, eight, or twelve years, those old grudges followed you beyond graduation day.
So. “Wade in the Water.” Skylar somehow still knew it.
Maybe she needed some divine intervention as she opened the note app on her phone and spelled out everything bothering her – and what she might do to improve her situation. Because Skylar was a firm believer in the power of positive thinking. Or something. It always sounded good. Those self-help books she flipped through in Powell’s always said something like that.
“Things Driving Me Nuts,”she typed at the top of her app.“1. Working this dead-end job five days a week. I am so bored. The money isn’t enough to get ahead. I’m in purgatory.”
She sipped soda through a straw and read that back to herself.
“2. No friends beyond Mik. This town is really cliquey. I thought Portland was bad, but at least you get a constant influx of new people there. Every time I meet someone new here, it turns out they’re somebody’s online girlfriend who is dropping by for a visit. Or they have questionable bumper stickers on their rig… I thought Oregon City was bad…”
Her dinner of leftover curry and rice Mik made the night before was growing cold in her Tupperware. She should have cooked it in the microwave a little longer.
“3. Everyone here is coupled. For real. I have yet to meet a single lesbian who stays single for long.”Was Skylar a lesbian? Hell, no, but that didn’t mean she escaped the pressure to be coupled. Didn’t matter that the pressure now came from queer women. Society was built around the pressure to be in a couple, right? Granted, Skylar didn’t knoweveryonein Paradise Valley. Surely, there were single people, both gay and straight. At least the single women here had a chance at dating when the tourism population swelled multiple times a year.
That brought her to point four.
“4. I feel so unfulfilled”
The hardest lesson Skylar learned that year was that she couldn’t run away from her demons. It was the same lesson she saw thousands of people learning in Portland. One of the reasons it was so hard to make friends in Portland didn’t only have to do with the PNW freeze or the cliquish nature of the residents. It was hard making friends with people when they always left after a few months! The transient nature of the Pacific Northwest was one of the hardest things for Skylar to get used to when she moved up from SoCal. People came and went from California, of course, but that was an area built for it. Portland – and the greater PNW area – were supposed to be homey. Expressive. Safe.Whatever. I fell for that trap like so many other people.After all, Skylar had left as well. She had broken a few acquaintances’ hearts when she left a year ago.
“5. Mik doesn’t need me after all.”
