A Christmas Arrangement by Annie Adams Page B

leave Alex’s parents with a modest impression.  The t-shirt was one Alex had given me with Dirk Benedict-Starbuck on the front.  One of my most cherished possessions.  Dirk’s gleaming teeth or gorgeous flowing hair didn’t peek above the line of the sweater so I didn’t look like a sci-fi geek—only felt it at heart.  I finished the look with dark denim jeans and knee-high black boots (quite a find for a five-foot-nine girl) with a half-inch heel.
    There was no more time and I still hadn’t done my hair.  It would’ve taken hours to curl, only to fall out an hour later.  I twisted it into a loose side chignon that fit quite perfectly between the collar and my neck.  I smelled something delicious, but fearing my luck with the oven, I ran in and checked the stuffing.  To my surprise it looked absolutely perfect to my untrained eye.  I spooned it into my grandma’s special dish, covered it and rushed out to Zombie Sue. 
    ***
    I was only fifteen minutes late.  Usually I’d be concerned about getting an earful from my mother about making everyone wait for dinner, but today, I had other concerns.  I didn’t see Alex’s Scout parked anywhere, but realized his parents had probably rented a car.  An unfamiliar light blue four-door was parked in front of the house. 
    The Coopers were already here.  That meant they were already inside with my family including Great Aunt Sadie, my father’s youngest aunt, who liked to regale us all with stories from her childhood.  She’d been an aspiring actress as a young woman and many times her autobiographical tales sounded an awful lot like Anne of Green Gables and Heidi .  Never mind that Sadie had never been to the Swiss Alps or Prince Edward Island, yet she spoke of both places with great fondness.  She’d also lost the edge on her sense of smell and often sat unawares in a cloud of her own gas, poor thing. 
    My mom’s twin sisters, Lynette and Jeanette, had both been invited.  Neither of them had ever married.  They shared a three bedroom condo in Salt Lake.  Their extra bedroom was used as a sewing room/yarn depository.  I feared one day we would hear from the authorities that they had been smothered to death under an avalanche of skeins.  Their younger brother LaDell and his wife Marie were also supposed to be in attendance.  They were coming all the way from Hurricane in southern Utah, pronounced hurricun , of course. 
    I went in through the garage so I could sneak into the kitchen in the back of the house.  I was in luck.  I could hear Dad down the hall talking about his band, The Salt Flat Lickers.
    I put the dish of stuffing on the counter then found a napkin to dab at the sweat which had accumulated on my forehead.  It wasn’t that my beautiful sweater was too hot.  I was in the same house as the woman whose recipe I had bastardized with water chestnuts.  A delicious box of StoveTop would have been perfect in my estimation for tonight’s party, but I was trying to please my boyfriend.  And pleasing him would require pleasing his mother.  And why did I want to please him so much?  Well…because…maybe I…was pretty sure I loved him. 
    Yes.  Me.  I, Quincy McKay was in…love.  Probably.  With an actual man!  I hadn’t said the words to him yet, and we’d only been together for a few months.  But lately, among other things, I’d felt the overwhelming need to do whatever it might take to make him happy.  Even if it was making a woman who obviously thought nobody was good enough for her son, tolerate me.  I didn’t say like me.  But if I could get her to tolerate me, I would consider that a point in the win column. 
    I reached for a mug and ladled some wassail spiked with Sprite out of the slow cooker.  The warm drink would help to calm my nerves.  I took a sip, burned my tongue and wondered why the slow cooker temperature had been set to Surface of the Sun.   I grabbed the nearest liquid, which happened to be cranberry