Page 3 of The Forever Christmas Tree

“Talk about kids and babies and yelling and laughing,” Hamr continued while Wendy’s mind had been wandering. “All one hundred of us Magnussons will be there, between my father, my stepmother, eleven sibs, their significant others, and a gazillion rugrats, no exaggeration.”

“I’ll be alone in Malibu and loving it. No tree. No jolly Christmas songs. No fruitcake or cookies,” Slick said. “Me and my friend Jack . . . Daniels.”

“Sounds lonely to me,” Wendy commented.

“Sometimes lonely is good,” Slick said enigmatically, holding her gaze for a long moment.

What does that mean? Is Slick hitting on me? Nah. He’s had plenty of chances to make a move over the years if he was interested in me that way. He must sense a fellow loner, which is what I’ve been, sort of, ever since . . . no, I am not going there. Not now. She shook her head to clear it and said, “I’m going home for Christmas . . . for the first time in twelve years.”

Everyone looked at her and waited for her to say more.

“I own a house on the Outer Banks, which my aunt Mildred has been taking care of since my father died. I’m hearing rumors that Aunt Millie has gone a bit bonkers, turning the place into some kind of B & B for swinging seniors. Well, ‘lively’ seniors, but you get the picture.” She revealed all this in a rush, already regretting having brought up the subject at all.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” K-4 said. “My wife and I honeymooned on the Outer Banks. Houses there run in the millions. I mean, oceanfront real estate. Flip? Wow!”

“My house isn’t oceanfront, and Bell Cove isn’t like other touristy towns along the Outer Banks.”

“What do you mean by banks?” Delphine asked, her brow furrowed with puzzlement. She and Diane would be grilling her for sure when they got back to the cottage.

With a heated face and wishing she could change the subject, Wendy inhaled deeply. Best to get it all out and over with. Well, not all. Some of it. “The Outer Banks is a string of barrier islands in North Carolina that separates the mainland from the Atlantic Ocean. It’s only about 200 miles long and three miles at most in width, but more often only a mile across. A ferry is needed to cross in several places, including to my town, near the southern edge of the OBX—that’s an acronym for the Outer Banks. While a lot of the Outer Banks is commercialized with open sea beaches and state parks and, yes, even shipwreck diving sites . . .” She addressed that last to Geek. “. . . Bell Cove has been waging the good fight to keep its character for a long, long time. They want visitors to spend their dollars there, but only if they’re passing through to Beaufort or the Crystal Coast. We’re like Mayberry at the Beach.”

“My parents used to vacation on Nags Head and Hatteras,” Geek said. “They liked to sail.”

“Tell us more about your house and your hometown,” Diane persisted.

“Like I said before, Bell Cove isn’t like those others. Built around an inlet off Bell Sound, it’s never catered to the tourist crowd, not because it isn’t attractive, but the beaches are too wild, and its deep-water harbor hasn’t been maintained enough over the years to bring in the boaters.”

“So, if there’s no tourist industry, how do the people there make a living? Do they travel to the other towns?” JAM asked.

She shook her head, and realized suddenly that the reason everyone was so interested in her hometown is that it had given them a subject to discuss, rather than the looming one . . . the death of their friend. For that reason, Wendy elaborated, “Some do, but mainly the town was founded around Bell Forge, a small factory. The Conti brothers, Italian immigrants, settled there back in the early 1900s. They were craftsmen who made incredible bells, the kind that hang in cathedrals and city towers, but they also made bells as musical instruments. A dying industry, like all things today that can be made cheaper in mass production.”

“Bells.” Diane sighed again. Diane had a tendency to romanticize everything.

“Anyhow, it’s a lovely place, built around a town square, with a Catholic church at one end and a Presbyterian one at the other, their bells often appearing to be in competition. The streetlights are in the form of bells and are adorned with red bows at Christmastime. It’s the kind of place where Christmas carolers walk down its streets in period costumes. Everybody knows everybody.”

“Does it snow there?” Diane asked, probably hoping for a warm climate with sunny beaches, a sharp contrast to her home state where snow lay on the ground throughout the winter, often neck-deep.

“Rarely, usually only an inch or two a couple times a year, but there are exceptions. When I was about six years old, we got twenty inches.” Wendy’s throat closed up for a moment as she recalled her mother, who had been alive then, out by the dunes, making a snowman with her. Her mother had been wearing a red coat, and her auburn hair had been powdered with snowflakes, and she’d been laughing. But then, there were other memories. When Wendy was sixteen, her hair a darker shade of auburn than her father’s Scottish ginger, she’d been walking on the snowy beach, hand in hand with Ethan. She’d been the one laughing then, with joy, and wearing her mother’s red coat, which she’d refused to give away. Wendy’s heart hurt at that mental image.

“Flip, you okay?” Diane asked under her breath as one of the guys called for another round.

“What? Oh, yeah,” she said. “Just caught back in time for a moment. Anyhow, there’s nothing prettier than snow on sand dunes, I can tell you that.”

“Tell us about your house,” Delphine encouraged.

“Oh, really, you guys don’t want to know all this stuff.”

“Yes, we do,” almost everyone at the table said, except F.U., who was eying a woman at a nearby table who was wearing a T-shirt that said, “Ask About My Tattoos.”

“It’s a big house, with eight bedrooms, most of which we never used. My parents wanted a big family, but it never happened after my mother got sick. Dad was a doctor, the old-fashioned kind, who had his office and surgery on one side of the ground floor. There are nice views of the ocean and bay from the second- and third-floor windows. Anyhow, that’s it. Big house, small town, a trip I’m not looking forward to. End of story.” She exhaled with relief and seeing some of the guys’ eyes glazing over at what must be as boring to them as a Home and Garden TV show, she asked, “So, anyone interested in ordering dinner, or should we go somewhere else?”

But not all of them were as bored as she’d thought or willing to let her go so easily.

“Sorry to be so nosy, Flip, but why haven’t you been back in twelve years?” Diane inquired.

Wendy’s face heated once again. “It’s not that I haven’t been back at all. I’ve made several short visits. Once when Aunt Millie was in the hospital. For my dad’s funeral. Anytime I was needed. Usually just overnight. The last time I went back was five years ago. My family visited me out here, though.”

She could tell that they had lots more questions.