Big Cherry Holler - Adriana Trigiani [45]
The trick to the Kiwanis Club Annual Christmas Tree Sale is to find out when the truck is delivering the trees to town; if your husband is a Kiwanis member, you have an in. Then you must position yourself for the unloading, and there is a pecking order. Hospitals and churches first, then regular people. The Kiwanis Club owns the market; no one else in town sells trees. You would think that because we live in these lush mountains, Christmas trees wouldn’t have to be imported. Any reasonable person would assume that we’d just take an ax, go out into the woods, pick a tree, and cut it down. I don’t know why, but that is just not how it’s done. We don’t chop down trees in Big Stone Gap. We wait for the Kiwanians to bring them from Canada.
Otto and Worley dig holes in the ground where the trees stand until they are purchased. The empty corner lot across from the First Baptist Church became the outdoor showroom by process of elimination. The Club used to sell them up the street in front of Buckles Supermarket, but when the market needed additional parking space, they blacktopped the lot, and so went the Kiwanians. Otto swears that the trees stay fresher when they’re in the ground; the men water and groom them like fine racehorses. I always laugh when the trees are gone the day after Christmas. The lot is pitted with holes where the trees were, and it looks as though a team of killer groundhogs had a battle. It stays that way until Christmas comes around again.
My husband is a new member of the Kiwanis Club, because after years of working in the mines, he can finally attend their monthly lunches at Stringer’s. (Evidently, this is the backbone of membership in the Kiwanis Club—you have to be available for lunch.) Jack substitutes in the pit band at the Outdoor Drama, and when the crowds are big, he spends intermission selling popcorn and chili dogs in the Kiwanis Club concession stand (the proceeds go to the show fund), so many of the Kiwanians thought Jack was already a member. They were a little surprised to find his name on their new members list. He was elected treasurer immediately.
As we drive down Poplar Hill, cars are already parked all around the Christmas-tree lot. I pull in at the Baptist Church.
“Let’s pick our tree.”
“You go. I’m cold.”
“Come on. It’ll be fun.” I put on my lipstick in the rearview mirror. “Etta, don’t make me beg. I don’t need a sourball in my house ruining our Christmas spirit.” Etta laughs. “I’m not kidding. Come on. They have hot chocolate.”
Reluctantly, she gets out of the Jeep, then sees Jack. “Daddy!” Etta says, and runs to him.
“I sold three blue spruce and one Douglas fir,” Jack says, kissing me on the cheek.
“I’m impressed.”
“Who knew it took selling Christmas trees?” He smiles at me.
Since Iva Lou alerted me to the fact that I must put the romance back in my marriage, I listen carefully to everything my husband says. And now I notice Little Diggers. Like that one. He said it as a joke, but there’s a deeper meaning. He doesn’t think I admire him, so it’s my job, in this period of trying to win his heart again, to resist a funny retort and instead gently correct his misconception.
“I’m always impressed with you and everything you do.” I give him a hug. He looks at me like I’m crazy. (I guess my new technique needs some refining.) “Did you pick out a tree for us yet?”
“I waited for you.”
“What do you think?” I follow him into a row of fragrant Douglas firs. I stop and inhale deeply. The cold air and the clean sap make a fragrant mix of evergreen and sweet pine that sends me spinning.
“You look pretty,” my husband says to me. Instead of blurting, “What? Get your eyes checked,” as old, insecure