“What is that, Mama?” Max asked, coming into the living room and bouncing on the sofa.
“I don’t know.” She picked at the tape on the edge of the brown freight box until she had enough to grab on to. Then, she pulled it off the seam and opened the flaps. Sitting on top of a mass of tissue paper was an envelope. She pulled out the card and read the inside. It read, For tomorrow night. Love, Nick
She pulled back the tissue paper as Max leaned over the edge of the box. “Is that for me?” he asked with an excited bounce. It was a perfectly sized tuxedo. She laughed out loud at how small it was.
“You get to dress like Nick tomorrow,” she said, pulling out the black shiny shoes to match and checking the size. He’d gotten it right. He must have somehow noticed Max’s size. Perhaps it was when he’d taken his shoes off at the door.
Max ran around the room whooping and laughing. “I get to match Nick! I get to wear a big man’s outfit!”
She laughed again at his enthusiasm. There were more sheets of tissue paper in the box. She pulled them back and stopped. Then a smile spread across her face. Underneath a lining of wrinkle-care plastic was the green dress and matching high heels. There was another note in Nick’s handwriting that said, Don’t overlook the tiny box at the bottom.
She pulled the dress out and hung the hanger over the top of the kitchen door. Then she set the shoes underneath it. A small green clutch with beaded accents was in the box too. She set it on the side table. At the very bottom of the box was a smaller gift box. She pulled it out carefully, noticing an unfamiliar jeweler’s insignia on the top. She opened it and gasped out loud.
“What is it, Mama?” Max came over to her to see. “Oh, that’s so pretty.”
It was a necklace with emeralds and diamonds that went all the way around it. There was another note peeking out below it, and she smiled through her astonishment over the jewels and picked it out of the box. It said, Don’t lose it. It’s on loan. See you tomorrow. Nick
* * *
Abbey had known she had to sleep last night. Nick had given her the night off to get everything together for Christmas Eve, and Max had mentioned that he missed his bedroom, so they’d stayed in her apartment. Being in her own comfortable bed, she’d thought for sure she’d have slept better.
She and Max had made the cookies and packed them in a Christmas tin. They’d worked to clean the kitchen. They’d watched a Christmas special on TV, and they’d read all of Max’s Christmas stories before bed—the books were still in a pile on his floor. The whole afternoon and evening had been relaxing, uneventful, but that dress hanging on the door kept sending thoughts of complete excitement through her mind.
All night, she’d thought about Nick and her life. She no longer had to help financially with Gramps. She’d been offered a decorating job in New York. She’d make a lot of money. She might even stay with Nick. The problem was, she knew that she couldn’t live that far away from her mom and Gramps indefinitely. They only had each other. They certainly couldn’t afford to live in Manhattan on her mom’s retirement, and for that matter, Abbey probably couldn’t afford it either, even with the decorating job. Rent would eat up all her profits. Not to mention that she didn’t want to live in New York. It wasn’t her at all.
And Nick had tried to run his business from Richmond—it didn’t work. He had nothing tying him here except her and a few friends and family members to whom he didn’t seem terribly close. Their lives just didn’t fit.
But she was falling in love with him. The woman who had always been so independent found herself wishing he was there sitting beside her, to talk to her. She wanted to hear more of the music he’d written. She wanted to show him what a baseball game was like. She wanted to do everything and anything with him—it didn’t matter what it was. And the excitement of seeing him on Christmas Eve was almost more than she could bear. It had kept her up most of the night and occupied her thoughts all day.
They’d spent the day at her mom’s and Max and Gramps played card games while she and her mother baked a pie for Christmas Day. She was glad for the distraction, although Nick still made his way into her thoughts most of the day. Her mom had come back to her apartment that evening to help them get ready.
While her mom was in the other room getting Max all put together for her, Abbey slipped the green dress over her head and let it shimmy down her body. It was amazing—low cut in the back, scoop in the front with a fitted waist that gave way to a free-flowing skirt. It ended above her knees, showing more leg than she was used to, but drawing the eye to the matching high heels. With nervous hands, she clasped the necklace around her neck and then let down her hair. Her blonde curls fell softly over her shoulders.