Page 2 of Smoky Mountain Dreams
Just then, Gareth appeared at the forge entrance, visiblytensing as he spotted Christopher. Cheeks hot, Christopher hurried away. Thesedays Gareth seemed to interpret every interaction or casual glance asChristopher trying to initiate a second encounter. He’d been pretty uncoolabout it a few times, going so far as to corner Christopher in the cast members’dressing room to tell him to stop thinking it was going to happen again.Nothing Christopher said about how Gareth was misinterpreting things made anydifference.
After that,Christopherwished it’dnever happened.
Once he turned the corner, he strolled with his hands in hisjacket pockets toward the small haunted house recently erected in Smoky VillageSquare. It was the middle of September and the entire park was decked out forHalloween—orange and black lights strung everywhere, ghosts, ghouls, andgoblins decorating the windows, and scarecrows lining the walkways.
On November first at the stroke of midnight, the work crewswould pull an all-nighter to prepare the park for Christmas. Multi-coloredlights would replace the orange and black, a Christmas tree would stand wherethe haunted house was, and poinsettias would be carted in by the truckload tofill in around the flower beds.
Christopher could just hear his Gran tsking over “rushingthe season.”
Christmas isn’t about business. It’sabout Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Somehow it never sounded offensive to him whenshesaid it, unlike when his parents said the same thing.
After the walk out to the employee parking lots, Christopherclimbed into his red Toyota Yaris, purchased with a down payment consisting ofthe prior year’s Christmas bonus. He still felt proud to have finally reached afinancial position to buy a new car, which was probably sad since he wastwenty-eight, but making a living as a performer was no easy feat.
As he pulled onto the parkway, cutting through the heart ofSevierville and Pigeon Forge, the autumn dusk fell hard into the soft, gray,and fuzzy curves of the mountains around him. The temperature gauge on the dashread seventy-one, and he wondered how much longer the good weather would hold.A cold snap could come on any day now.
The climb up the mountain toward Gatlinburg was slow goingdue to the tourists clogging the parkway as they headed away from SmokyMountain Dreams Park and into the welcoming arms of hotels, restaurants, andstores. By the time Christopher turned off the main road to take the shortcut,he was tired and his feet ached from standing on the outdoor stage off and onall day. He was more than ready to get home, put on some honky-tonk music, anddig the chili out of the slow cooker for dinner.
As he mounted the hill toward his small house, he noticedthe bright white twinkle lights outlining the windows of Jesse Birch’s JewelryStudio. Christopher braked gently, craning his head to read the sign on thedoor.Custom Design By Appointment Only. He repeatedthe digits listed after over and over as he continued on. Once he made it homeand shuffled his feet against his welcome mat, he dashed in to jot down thenumber on the Post-It pad on the kitchen counter.
He’d wanted to make the call for a while, but the moneysimply hadn’t been there. His next Christmas bonus from SMD would be a tidy sumnow that he’d been there three years. He’d be able to pay another chunk on theYaris to get his monthly payment down and still have some left for the gift he’dplanned for Gran. Even though he wouldn’t actually get the bonus until thefirst paycheck in January, in the meantime he could put it on his credit card.Now was as good a time as any to get the ball rolling.
Christopher pressed play on the ancient answering machineand sighed as his mother’s voice filled the room.
“Christopher, I really wish you’d get a cell phone, darlin’.I can’t reach you when I need you. Gran’s birthday’s tomorrow. Your sister’sagreed to be at our house with the kids by four o’clock. Can you pick up Grannyfrom the nursing home and make it by then? Bless us, there’re so many people tocoordinate now that Jackie’s married Joe. We gotta take into account hischildren’s mother’s plans too. It’s so complicated.”
“And so okay, because it’s so heterosexual,” Christophermuttered, getting a bowl out for the chili as he listened.
“Let me know if you can’t get Gran, because we’ll have tomake other arrangements. Oh—and…Christopher, honey, if there’s someone you’reseeing it’s probably best if they don’t come, okay? Bob and I…well, we love youand…you know how much we look forward to seeing you. I know you wouldn’t wantanything to ruin Gran’s party. And please, darlin’, get a cell phone.”
Christopher grabbed a pack of saltine crackers from the cupboard,tucked them under his arm, and cracked open a bottle of water from the pantry.As he laid the food on the coffee table, his mother’s message weighed on him.Glancing around his little house, which had seemed so cozy and warm when hefirst walked in, he now felt the emptiness of the old walls. It was nothingmore than a hollow bachelor pad carved from his Gran’s old home.
He put on a vinyl album of Knuckles O’Toole to let thehonky-tonk piano fill the space with the verve and life his mother’s messagehad sucked from the room.Bob and I love you.Christophersnorted. Sometimes he wondered what his teen years would have been like if hisfather hadn’t had an affair that led to them all attending Christ Light in adesperate bid to “save the family” through a strict adherence to religiousfaith.
Of course it hadn’t worked out like they’d planned. Shortlyafter they joined, his father splintered off to start another family with awoman he’d met at church. A year later, his mother got remarried to Bob Jenkins,the church’s very own asshole preacher of hellfire and damnation. Christopherdreaded seeing Bob, but he’d suck it up for Gran.
He leaned back against his soft sofa, kicked his feet uponto the coffee table, and broke crackers into his chili with determination. Hewouldgrab his satisfaction back from the jaws ofshame. His mother and her hateful husband didn’t deserve to have power overhim.
And yet as he ate, his attention slid over the thick browncurtains he kept closed over the south-facing windows and landed on the giantpin board by the fireplace. It was a mish-mash of mementos from his life:pictures of Jackie and Gran at the top of the Gatlinburg Sky Lift, Christmas1997 when he got his first guitar, him in a tux with his arm around Gran at Jackie’swedding to Joe the year before, and several fliers from shows he’d played inNashville once upon a time. There was also a slew of prior years’ Christmascards.
He ate his chili slowly as he gazed on the grinning faces ofhis step-niece and step-nephews, his cousins’ happy families, and all thepretty little families of his co-workers. They smiled beside homey-lookingChristmas trees or posed in white clothes on gorgeous beaches. He’d bought hiscards in a pack of twenty at Hallmark.
He put down the chili and rubbed his face. It wasn’t thewhole heteronormative package he wanted, but he just wantedsomeoneto hold and be held by. He wanted a man who wouldwillingly brave a Ryder-Jenkins family event with him even if it gotChristopher disowned. He wanted a guy to introduce to Gran before she died, soshe’d know he was happy. So she’d see she’d been right to support him againsthis parents’ wishes for all these years.
He wanted someone strong, with green eyes, or blue, orbrown, or hazel. He didn’t care. But if wishes counted for anything, he’d lovea man with a dark afternoon-shadow to scratch along Christopher’s neck whenthey kissed. And he wanted arguments, and complications, and shared vacations,and shared bills.
When you’re happy, that’s when the flies’llstart to buzz, Christopher. They’ll smell your honey.
He rolled his eyes and wondered if he’d ever stop hearingGran in his head, always trying to show him some kind of light. He hoped not,because once she was gone from the earthly plane, he’d still need her with himto keep him sane.
“Honey, huh?” he asked out loud. “I’m not so sure the kindof men I’m interested in are looking for that.”
It was stupid how much his mother’s message missed its mark.She’d wanted to needle him with a reminder that what he was and who he wantedwas wrong. Instead, it just made him long for the man she imagined he mightalready be with. The man who was everything he’d sworn so many times he wasn’tgoing to fixate on anymore. The truth was the right guy wasn’t out there. Or ifhe was, he was probably in Canada, or Argentina, or China. Christopher wasn’tleaving Tennessee any time soon, so it was time to face reality.
“It’s time to get a cat,” he said to himself, and that madehim laugh. He knew just what Gran would say to that too.
You don’t find a cat, Christopher—a catfinds you.
