As the first snowflake fell from that black, black sky, unique unto itself, singular in it’s moment until it graced softly across that heavy glass and melted away, I realized exactly how lost I was. And exactly how late, too. Again.
Suburbia is nothing if not a maze, row upon row of house after house, with tree lined streets to help you stay lost, and well-lit signs where Chestnut Lane crosses Chestnut Way on it’s merry way to Chestnut Court NE. I would ask for directions, but it’s late, like me, and really, I’m a guy. Typical.
The snowflake isn’t alone now, the streets snuggling up to a soft blanket of white, leaving that peculiar light falling in odd curves, giving depth to the macadam, a sensuality to once dead lawns. I think I’ve been down this street before, though it’s hard to tell. All the houses are dark at this hour, asleep in their worlds, quiet in their slumber. All the houses, save one. A single house on a single corner, a solitary silhouette backlit with that glow only Christmas lights can make. She’s waiting for something, for someone. But not me. I drive on. Later still.
“He’s passed this corner three times now, I wonder if he knows?” she mused to the fogging glass, the darkened room embracing her, the twinkle of lights ’round the tree tickling the walls and the soft cotton ribbing of her sweater with equal abandon. A thin smile slipped over her lips as he slowly passed again. “Men. Pffft.”
The mug in her hands had grown cold as she watched the snow fall, as she watched him, lost in the maze of her neighborhood. She’d seen him before, visiting friends, visiting someone around here. She thought about telling him he was on the wrong block, but that would be too easy, and besides, as silly as it was she kind of liked knowing he was out there, knowing someone was. The rude ding of the microwave announced the reheating of her chocolate, calling her from the icing window as he rounded the corner to pass a fifth time.
With each passing moment the world began to look more and more the same, white upon white, rooftops of snow, mailboxes jutting proudly from glistening hills, dark windows looking out on nothing. The corner felt familiar, the same curve, the same tree, more snow. So much more snow than he’d ever seen in this place. A right, then a left, the light in that lonely window again. A small sadness fell over him when he realized the girl in the glass was gone, leaving only the shimmer of holiday decorations to remind him how many times before he’d seen this place. “I am so freaking lost,” he said to the dashboard. The car didn’t listen, the snow didn’t care. His phone refused to work. He still couldn’t understand how he had gotten roped into this stupid scheme anyway. It wasn’t his fault his boss couldn’t keep his girlfriends straight and gave the wrong present to the wrong girl.
Somewhere, a block to the east, a fat man was sweating bullets, and frantically dialing and leaving voicemails with words like “fired” and “never show your face in this side of the country again.” He was sleeping alone tonight, but didn’t know it yet.
Hot chocolate warmed her, inside and out, leaving dancing patterns in white across the glass separating her from the world, from the perpetually lost man in the car who had just passed again, leaving the preternatural red glow of taillights in his wake. “It’s getting too dangerous to drive,” she sighed, the heat of her soft words joining the dancing across the pane. The chocolate was warm, slipping like sweet silk down inside, warming her belly, warming her soul. She smiled again as he pulled to the curb two houses down, a small glow like a tiny fire illuminating the rapidly disappearing windows.
“Good boy.”
“NO SERVICE” was all the display would say. He stared at the little electric words, mocking him in the chilly darkness and laughed. “I hate this job, anyway,” he mused, his heart hadn’t been in it, not for a long time. Shutting off the engine brought the cabin lights for a moment, a temporary reprieve from the dark, but not from the darkness that was filling him. He looked at the small, brightly wrapped package on the seat and laughed wryly again. He’d paid for it anyway.
The car door opened with a tiny protest, pushing the already piling snow into a soft mound in the street. Snow has the most amazing ability to steal sound, soft thumps die in the night a few feet from their sources, and no one hears a man standing quietly in the growing storm, letting the falling flakes wash away his darkness, letting the pure cold winter air cleanse his soul.
“Dumbass,” she murmured, watching him stand there in the middle of the night, snow accumulating on his shoulders, piling up to his knees. The small package in his red hands shimmered, capturing the light in it’s bright paper, breaking the frown from her mouth and repairing it with a smile. He was smiling now, too…perhaps he’d lost his mind. She laughed aloud at the silly thought, at the idea of this crazy man standing in the falling snow, smiling in the quiet like some fascinating character in an old silent movie. She wondered if he would start dancing in the street with an old umbrella, or perhaps lay down and make snow angels in the night. Anything seemed possible and the very thought of this tall man in his long coat on the ground flapping his arms and legs made her laugh again.
He watched as she laughed, joyously silent and yet terribly contagious behind the glass, obviously amused by something. “Now, what’s so funny?” he queried almost loudly, his question lost to the storm. Looking down, he realized he was standing knee-deep in the snow in the middle of the night in a strange neighborhood holding a present and smiling to himself. There was probably a pile of snow on his head, too. “Never mind,” he said and started laughing, too as he made his way through the snow.
She stopped laughing the moment he started walking toward her, and moved from the window to make sure the door was locked, but stayed by the glass to watch. It seemed silly, he was probably insane, but she didn’t think so. Something just felt safe, something told her it was ok. CSI would probably later say how safe she probably felt and the news would report how his neighbors all said he seemed like such a nice boy. She giggled as he trudged through the ever-deepening blanket and made his way to the porch, stopping almost reverently on the first step.
He could almost hear her giggling as he took the second step and promptly slipped on the ice and fell flat on his ass, nearly hidden in the deep cover of white. Her giggling broke to solid laughter as he stood once more, indignant for a moment then laughing so loudly she could hear now, too. She was almost crying, her face pressed gently against the cool window, shaking her head slowly at his clumsiness. He hadn’t really seen more than a shadow of her until now. Standing there, a giggle still keeping her from a straight face, she was just so incredibly beautiful, and he couldn’t help but smile, the way some people smile at the warm glow of a fire or the soft twinkle in the eye of a good department store Santa Claus. When she blushed, he smiled even more.
The warm flush filled her cheeks, and the realization made it worse. “How did he do that??” She looked away only for a moment, returning with a mock scowl for his impetuous gaze, but it only made him smile more and she couldn’t hold it. “Little fucker,” she muttered, half grinning, half smirking as his smile reached his eyes. Time seemed to stop for a moment as they stood there, on each side of some magical pane of glass, her in her warm quiet home, wrapped in a sweater, hot chocolate still in her hands, him in the icy winter, his long coat disappearing beneath the drift, the shiny package still in his. Both smiling.
Time began again, slowly, like children waking from a warm sleep, as his face took on a serious, but gentle look. He leaned forward over the icy steps and carefully set the package on the porch.
“Thank you,” he said. Somehow, she had taken the darkness from him, stolen it away to wherever people put such things, and replaced it with something warm and strong. “Thank you so much.” He smiled again, and turned to walk away.
The engine of the car came to life without protest and heat began to flood the cabin a moment later. It didn’t matter, he felt so warm inside the air conditioner could have been on, he wouldn’t have noticed. It had been a long time since he had felt this way. What he did notice however, was her…standing in red pajama pants with reindeer on them, thigh-deep in the snow outside his window.
The cold blast bit deeply as he opened the door, warm inside or not, but it separated and fell between them, a cool liquid washed away by the sudden motion of her moving forward, taking her Christmas stockinged feet from the wet ground and placing them atop his leather shoes, slightly dryer, making her slightly taller as he wrapped his coat around her in that warm embrace, holding each other in the dark snowy night, so still in the storm. The soft skin of her face nuzzled deeply into his neck, warm and slightly rough, the collar of his coat smooth against her cheek, the slightest hint of cologne and of him wrapped around her tightly, they stood…her toes upon his in the snow.
We stood there for an hour he would later tell people, she would just roll her eyes and smile, knowing it was only a few minutes, though it seemed like forever to her, too. They’d made love on a blanket beneath the Christmas tree that night, the tiny lights showering them in that peculiar and beautiful glow that only Christmas lights can make, the first kiss had been chocolate and tentative, the last, not a kiss but a hundred kisses, soft and simple, across each other’s necks and cheeks and any place they could reach, the time in between spent entwined, laughing, playing, exploring and pleasing. Tiny diamonds in a stream around her pale neck caught the light in the most beautiful way, adding to a gleam that seemed to be in his eyes no matter which way he turned, which way he looked. He learned fairly quickly that pretty much her entire body was an erogenous zone if he touched her the right way, pressing gently here, caressing softly there; she learned that he was ticklish as hell, absolutely everywhere, and the smirk on his face meant he was thinking naughty things about her…which meant he was always thinking them about her. He’d taken her three times that night, though she was pretty sure she had taken him that last time. Her dining table would never be the same! But neither would his skin where she’d bitten him. Oh well, she figured they’d both survive.
Sometime during the night as they slept there beneath the tree, wrapped in the warm glow of more than just lights, his phone chimed to tell him he had new voicemail.
He never checked it.