Something Old - Dianne L. Christner [5]
Katy swept up two identically wrapped gifts, stepped into the bright gray night, and slammed her car door. With her face bowed against the wet onslaught, she watched her shoes cut into freshly laid powder. She climbed the porch steps, giving her black oxfords a tap against each riser. Before she could knock, however, the front door opened.
Megan stood in the doorway, her straight blond hair shimmering down the back of her black sweater, and her blue eyes brilliant and round as the balls on the Beverlys’ Christmas tree. Katy stepped into her friend’s hug. “Hi, green bean. Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas, Katy.”
After being stirred in the same pot for so many years, Katy and her two friends resembled Bean Salad more than any particular bean. Yet of the three girls, Megan’s nickname stuck, because it suited her style, tall and beautiful and prone to type term papers on world peace or ecology.
“Look. Lil’s here, too.”
Sure enough, Katy recognized the cough of Lil’s old clunker, a thorn in her friend’s pride and due for a trade-in as soon as she could afford it.
Katy followed the aroma of gingerbread and ham through the house to the country-style kitchen. She hugged Megan’s mom, Anita, and removed her wool coat. “So where’s the blues man?” It was Bill Weaver’s nickname because he restored Chevy Novas for a little extra income. But the unusual thing was that he painted them all his favorite color, midnight blue. Some Conservatives drove plain cars, and although they weren’t supposed to idolize their vehicles, his lucrative hobby fell within what the church permitted. Anita Weaver started calling him the blues man, and Katy had picked up on it. Since Bill Weaver was a good sport and loved jokes, she never felt she was being disrespectful.
“Bill’s at an elders’ meeting at church,” Anita explained.
“Oh yeah. I think my dad mentioned that.”
“Since Bills’ gone and you girls are spending the evening together, I thought I’d get a jump on Christmas dinner. We’re having all the relatives over.” She swiped at a wisp of hair that had escaped her crisp white covering. Anita Weaver spoiled Katy and Lil like they were her own daughters. Fun at heart, she was the most lenient of all their parents, and she didn’t sport dark circles under her eyes like Lil’s mom.
“Smells good. We’re hosting all our relatives Christmas Day, too.” It was a marvel that Lil, Megan, and Katy were in no way related, as many from their congregation were in the small farming community. Their family trees might intersect in the old country since they shared the same European Anabaptist roots, but they’d never dug into the matter.
Megan swept into the kitchen with Lil, whose snowy-lashed eyes sparkled when she spotted the plate of gingerbread men. Katy bit back a smile, watching her friend pull up her mental calorie calculator and consider her options.
“Hi, Lil.” Katy squeezed her friend. “You can diet tomorrow.”
“Nope.” She flipped the hood of her coat back, revealing shiny, nut-colored hair pulled back at the temples and fastened with a silver barrette beneath her covering. “Not a day until January.”
Megan picked up the plate of temptations and motioned for them to follow her up to her room. “Not the whole tray,” Lil moaned, shrugging out of her coat, but Katy knew she didn’t mean a word of it.
“I’ll bring up hot chocolate,” Anita Weaver called up the stairwell after them.
When they’d sprawled across the Dahlia coverlet Megan’s grandmother had quilted, Katy felt the butterflies in her stomach again. A night purposed for celebration, set aside for exchanging simple gifts and planning their future in Miller’s doddy house, now pressed her secret heavily against her heart.
“Let’s open our gifts,” Megan suggested. They shifted and jostled until they each sat cross-legged with two gifts in front of them. Lil tore into hers first.
Shedding the dignity due her age—she was the oldest of the three by a