Excerpt

Return to Sender... From the anthology Christmas Cards from the Edge

Chapter One

Seattle, Washington

     A hand on my shoulder jolted me out of sleep, breaking my erotic dream of being forced into a steel-boned corset by five naked footmen with powdered wigs on their heads.  I squinted against the bright light, raised my head off the kitchen table and discovered that my right arm was dead to the world.  My mouth had that dry, fuzzy feel that tells you you’ve been sleeping with your mouth open.

     “It’s 2:00 a.m., Tessa,” my housemate Lauren said, her voice stabbing me through my fog of sleepy, drunken confusion.

     “Murrr,” I grunted, and swung my arm around, growing alarmed as my hand flopped and swayed as lifeless as a corpse.  The rubbery limb hit my wineglass, knocking it over and spilling its remnants of cheap merlot all over the Christmas cards I’d been writing.  I stumbled out of my chair a moment too late to keep the rivulets of red from running over the edge of the table and onto the lap of my bathrobe.  My blue chenille bathrobe sucked it in as eagerly as a sailor at a dockside bar, leaving no drop to hit the floor.

     “Oh jeez,” Lauren said, and grabbed a rag to mop up the spill on the table.

     Feeling marginally more awake, I dragged myself over to the kitchen sink and hoisted a wad of my robe over the rim, prepared to wring out the drippiest of it.

     “Don’t wring it!” a male voice ordered.

     I froze, not recognizing the voice, and knowing that my hoisted robe was giving the man a clear view of my granny panties and the pale thighs and butt that went with them. 

     “Pour white wine on it, or club soda, then soak it in cold water,” he continued, and I heard the lilt of a Scottish accent.

     “I know how to treat stains,” I said, embarrassed, dropping my robe back over my legs and turning to face the intruder.  “Of course I know better than to wring it, but does a girl have to do the right thing all the time?”

     The man grinned at me, his teeth white and straight in his handsome narrow face with its five o’clock shadow.  “I should hope to God not.”

     “Tessa, this is my cousin Ian, from London,” Lauren said.  “Well, from Scotland originally.  Never call a Scotsman an Englishman, if you value your life.  Ian, my housemate, Tessa.”

     “It’s a very real pleasure to meet you, Tessa,” he said, coming forward, his hand rising just enough from his side for me to realize that he was waiting - very properly - for me to extent my hand to him first.

     But I was staring at him like I was a squirrel in the middle of the road waiting for a delivery truck to squish me flat.  A blush burned my face and I hunched down into the sheltering thickness of my robe collar, stupidly hoping that the truck would veer off at the last moment.  I gaped and blinked and considered hiding under the kitchen sink.  It’s a pathological reaction I have to a good-looking man near my own age.  I’m not proud of it, but neither can I help it:  men like that scare the bejeebers out of me.

     “Pleased to meet you,” I finally mumbled, dropping my gaze from his roughly beautiful face and his gorgeous, dark blue eyes.  My shy gaze was now resting on the expanse of his chest, covered in a straight black leather jacket and a fine-gauge dark green sweater that looked to my expert eye suspiciously like cashmere.  Its slim lines flowed smoothly from broad chest to narrow hips, flattering his lithe frame.

     “Lauren tells me you know more about costume history than anyone she’s ever met,” he said, his warm hand gripping mine.  His skin was dry and thick, his strong hand engulfing my small, damp squirrel paw.  A hand like his promised protection and strength and pure, undiluted male.  A twinge of longing pierced my heart, and as he released my hand I scrunched even lower into my robe and tucked my freed hand into its sleeve, the fist closed tight as if holding onto the feel of his touch.

     “Lauren’s getting a Ph.D. in chemical engineering:  she doesn’t know any other costume historians,” I said, and then wanted to kick myself for sounding so ungracious.  It was the shyness doing it to me.

     Lauren made a rude noise.  “Don’t listen to her, Ian!  you should see the things she has in her workroom upstairs, and just get her started on a discussion of historic textiles -”

     “I’m going to bed,” I mumbled, embarrassed, and shuffled over to the table to scoop up my soggy Christmas cards.  Why on earth was she telling her cousin about my work?

     From the corner of my eye I saw Lauren shrug and make a helpless face, a silent communication with her cousin.  “I offered Ian the use of the futon tonight,” she said aloud.  “He’s only in town for the night, and I’m driving him to the airport in the morning.”

     “Okay.”  I risked another glance at the divine Ian and made myself smile, although I must have looked like a sickly stray dog begging for attention.  “Have a nice flight.  I hope you don’t have any delays heading home.”

     He laughed, the corners of his eyes crinkling.  “I’ll be out of your house before you know it.  Sleep well.”

     “I didn’t mean-” I started to say in alarm, but then thought discretion the better part of valor and scooted out of there.  I escaped through the dining room and down a short hall to the haven of the bathroom.  I could hear the murmur of their lowered voices and quiet laughter, and my face heated anew at the thought of what a terrible impression I must have made on Ian.  I dumped the ruined Christmas cards into the trash and looked at myself in the mirror.

     Oh lord.

     My long dark hair was flat and stringy, desperately in need of washing; my pale face was mottled with pink creases where I had lain on the table and cards; mascara was smudged under my bloodshot brown eyes; and worst of all, my chapped lips were stained purple by the wine I’d been drinking.  I smiled and saw that my teeth were tinted in the same creepy shade.

     I brushed my teeth and took a quick shower.  I thought better of filling the tub and soaking the robe since he might want a shower in the morning.  Instead, I sat on the lid of the toilet and ran water over the wine stain, grateful for the sound of the running water and the fan overhead, the white noise making me feel like I was in my own steamy little cocoon of privacy.  A girl could be herself in the bathroom.

     I picked a Christmas card out of the trash.  Not one of the cards I’d been writing, but one of the ones that my old college friend Rachel had sent, and to which I’d been responding.  The cover was a paper-framed photo of she and her husband cheek to cheek, arms around each other, grinning with delirious happiness.  They wore leis and bathing suits, the blue skies of Hawaii overhead.  The note said the photo was taken on their third anniversary, and my friend’s bare tummy showed the bulge of her first child growing inside.

     It had been this card that had encouraged me to open the bottle of wine.  I was happy for my friend - happy for all my friends who had sent me cards filled with husbands and young children to go with their degrees and careers - but it did remind me that my last relationship had expired eight months ago, turning slowly unhealthy like an aging tub of cottage cheese.  I still thought that my ex, Alan, had been the closest I’d ever gotten to Mr. Right, and there were many days when I wondered if I should have fought harder to keep the relationship going.

     The truth was, though, that I had a secret suspicion that I’d never really loved Alan.  Sadder still, I’d never been with any man I deeply loved, loved past reason or self-preservation.  I’d never been with anyone with whom I could joyfully, without doubt or a creeping sense of future unhappiness, contemplate spending the rest of my life.  I was thirty years old and losing hope that I would find that mythical he who could erase all the questions and fears from my mind. 

     Maybe I was too strange of a person to find a match, or maybe there was something wrong with me that made me incapable of loving.  Maybe it was my fate to end up the eccentric professor that students laughed at behind her back and told anecdotes about.  I’d tell my female students that you didn’t need a husband or a family to be happy; that books and travel and friends and creativity were more than enough.  I’d probably be happy, too, except for that part of me that still wept for the broken dream, and still looked to find it in the face of every man I met.

     I felt tears well in my eyes as I looked again at the photo of Rachel in the encompassing embrace of the man she’d married.

     I wanted my own husband to love, who would fold me in his arms at night as we slept, the warmth of his body sheltering me against the cold and promising his companionship until the end of our days.