him. Not after what just happened at the farm.
“Oh, this weekend? Um. I’ll have to...I’m not so sure,” I fretted, wringing my hands as he opened my door to usher me out.
We stood in the cold on the sidewalk, awkwardly shuffling our feet.
“Well, check your schedule and let me know,” he finally replied. “If you decide to accompany me, I’ll make all the arrangements.”
“Arrangements?”
“Goodnight,” he sang out on his way back into the cab.
His door shut and the car took off, leaving me standing there like a stunned idiot. As if the kiss wasn’t bad enough, now we were supposed to pretend it never happened and keep attending big serious family functions together!?
My nose was so frozen I thought it might fall off by the time I snapped to and retreated into my apartment. An hour later I was back in my element with a nice bubble bath and a hefty bottle of wine. The hot water and bubbly buzz was either weakening my defenses, or allowing me to see things more clearly. I couldn’t quite be sure which it was.
I only knew that after obsessing over it until my skin was pruned, I realized it would be crazy not to accept Chris’s invite. For one thing, it was basically my job, right!? I had to get the guy on the Christmas train so I could rewrite my piece for both of our sakes. I was no psychiatrist or anything, but I was pretty positive that the best way to get to the root of a problem was to look at your childhood and find something to blame your parents for.
Plus...this was me...Hazel Malone, blogger and perfectionist and holiday lover extraordinaire, not to mention a romantic at heart, though I hadn’t had many personal opportunities in my life to really let it show. And here I was being invited to a Christmas ball by the very man who now owned the department stores I had been in love with since I was a child. How could I possibly say no!?
One more glass of wine was all it took to make me certain. It was late, but I didn’t want to give myself any chance to change my mind. I slipped into my robe, toweled off the ends of my hair, and pulled out my phone to text Chris, accepting his invite.
I was buzzing with nerves by the time I slipped into bed. He wouldn’t see the text until the next morning most likely, but it’s not like I could unsend it. My fate was sealed.
By mid-afternoon, I was worried he didn’t see the message at all. There was no response, but I didn’t want to seem like a crazy person and send it all over again if he was actually just ignoring it. Maybe he had too much spiked eggnog and regretted asking me at all!
Feeling thoroughly embarrassed for accepting an invite that the person was now wishing they never extended, I spent most of the afternoon bundled up on the couch, overthinking myself into a dark cave. But then…
A knock came to my door. I slowly opened the door to see no one was standing there. There was only an abandoned box left for me on the doormat. A big white box wrapped in a red bow. What the hell…
I carried it inside and sat it down gently on my kitchen table. With my fingers clamped on the silk ribbon, I started to pull. It cascaded down to the table top, and I lifted the lid. All I could see at first was green tissue paper with a little handwritten note card sitting on top.
Consider this your formal invitation to the annual Palmer Christmas Gala. It’s black tie formal, so please take the enclosed card and buy whatever you need. See you Saturday. -Chris, aka the Grinch
I blinked and read it three more times before it really sank in. He had seen my text, and his response was to send me his credit card to go buy myself a literal ball gown. What had my life become!?
I dug for the credit card in the tissue paper and immediately started dialing the emergency line for my sisters. We had a special group call setting saved on speed dial for situations just like that.
The next afternoon, they met me downtown to help me pick out a dress...and also to potentially help me figure out if I had slipped into a full blown delusional state when none of this was actually happening