Page 47 of OMG Christmas Tree
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Nick
I’d made a mess ofeverything. What a doozy.Ugh, dude, who says doozy?No wonder Megan thought of me as some country bumpkin.
Christmas Day in the Bennington household included my brother home from college, three aunts, four uncles, five cousins, an infant and a toddler, grandparents, an old family friend, and of course my parents.
I was assigned potato peeling duty, which about summed up my standing at the moment.
I should have gone after Megan last night. Instead, I let her leave believing she’d hurt us. Well, she had—especially my mom. But I’d watched Stu pull the associate dean from Boone College over to Megan. Her stiff response as the conversation played out across the room from me signaled she might need support. I’d tried to get to her, but arrived at the worst possible time bringing with me the worst possible audience.
I wanted to tell Megan I’d never take a job in the mayor’s office. Only I couldn’t. I hadn’t told my parents what I needed. That I didn’t want life handed to me and I didn’t want to stay trapped in a town that had my future planned out. Until I did that, how could I say anything to Megan?
Now here I was stuck in a house with every Bennington in the tri-county area.
“I heard your girlfriend made quite an impression.” My grandma came up beside me at the kitchen counter. My Mom’s mother. She gently released my hand from the potato peeler and took it from me. She grabbed a scrubbed-clean potato and flitted the tool across the skin with precision. “You never were good at this.”
“She’s not my girlfriend. She didn’t mean to offend—it’s complicated.” I swept peel debris into the can for our compost. We were religious in our family about using food scraps for enriching soil. For winter, we kept a compost bin in the insulated pole barn.
“I’d like to meet her. I was sorry to miss the benefit last night. Believe me, I’ve heard an earful already.”
My stomach sank. “About Megan?”
“Mmhmm. And about not going.” Grandma smirked. At nearly eighty, the woman barely had wrinkles. Her steel-gray hair made her look commanding, like a soldier. “Your mother gets worked up about social appearances. When I told her I was driving my friend Olga to our seniors’ club party instead, she had a royal fit.”
I kept my mouth shut. Mom and Grandma had some pretty famous feuds over the years, but they always turned out okay in the end. I’d learned to stay out of it.
“Here.” She handed back the peeler. “Now do a better job. And tell me, why isn’t this girl your girlfriend?”
I stumbled over a response and laughed instead. “Grandma, I know you want to see me fixed up, but she’s only in town for the holiday. Her mom married Stu Krueger.”
“Oh, how lovely. I recall his former wife working at the old florist shop on Main. The one the dry cleaners bought out.”
Small towns. Everybody knew everyone and everything. “Sure.”
“I don’t want you fixed up with any trollop who comes your way.”
Trollop? “Grandma, that word—”
She held up a finger. “Your mother seems riled-up about this girl helping with the event and bad-mouthing the town. I’m intrigued.”
I clenched the peeler. “I’m sorry she put you in the middle. It’s not like that.”
Grandma washed more potatoes, silently placing them in the bowl to be peeled.
“See,” I went on, “I got in over my head and Megan...” I told grandma everything. Finding Megan on the side of the road, trying to convince her to give me the tree, how inept I was at decorating fancy houses, and how we connected at Checkers. I skipped the kissing part, but sensed Grandma filled in those details. The lady had real power. I hadn’t planned on telling her any of that.
