“What about that? It’s got that frosted look from the bluish needles.” She shook one of the branches. “They still seem firmly attached.”
“You know, I think I’m actually going to go with an artificial tree. It won’t be a fire hazard and won’t be as messy, and I can keep it up longer.” I had always had a fear of fire, though I wasn’t sure where it came from. My mother had said it was past-life trauma, and she was probably right. Ever since childhood, I’d always worried about leaving on the stove, or that I’d forget to stamp out the last of bonfire embers.
“What, you don’t want sap all over your nice hardwood floors?” But Ari was grinning at me. “All right. Let’s go over to Maxwell’s.”
Ten minutes later at the department store, I found the perfect tree. It was eight feet tall, which would fit in my cathedral-ceilinged living room, and it looked lightly flocked, but shaking the branches showed that I wouldn’t have white dust all over the floor. I asked the nearest sales clerk to find a boxed one and to take it to the cashier while I bought decorations. He politely agreed, though he looked rushed, and I wished I could give him a tip.
“What kind of decorations do you want?” Ari asked.
I stared at the aisles of shining balls and tinsel and garland. My parents had beautiful decorations, but this year, I wanted something that was mine, alone. I wasn’t ready yet to bring out the family heirlooms, the ornaments that I had known and loved as a child.
“I get a fresh start, don’t I? I think…I want blue and silver and ivory. I’m going to need a buttload of them for that size of tree.”
I found a couple patterns I liked—dusky blue velveteen dangles, and creamy ivory balls, and glittered silver balls with cobalt blue trim that shimmered under the lights. I managed to find several boxes of crystal ornaments with delicate ceramic roses piped onto them.
As we pushed through the aisles, I added cobalt and silver tinsel garland, and strands of multicolored LED lights for the outside. The tree was pre-lit with multicolored faerie lights, though I made certain they were incandescent.
LED lights were fine outside, but inside? They hurt my eyes. I added two wreaths that would match my ornament choices—one for the door and one for inside, and then I went hog wild on the snow globe and the Santa aisles. I found the perfect Holly King, dressed in a long blue robe with all the forest animals around him.
“I love this!” I added him to the cart, which was in grave danger of spilling over the side. “I want outdoor decorations, too.”
“I’ll get two more carts. Wait here,” Ari said, heading back toward the front of the store.
I stared at the display, feeling like a kid in a candy shop. It had been so long since I’d been able to pick out what I wanted without getting bitched at when I got home that I had a mad urge to buy everything in sight.
“Slow down,” I whispered to myself. “Buy what you want, but make sure you’re not just buying in retaliation.”
Taking a deep breath, I let it out slowly. As I looked around, feeling calmer, I sorted through the decorations that appealed to me and replaced the ones that I had just tossed into my cart. By the time Ari returned with the other carts, I had enough to fill them up.
“That’s good for now,” I said, smiling at her. “I think I know what I’m doing tomorrow after work.”
“Why not tonight? We can at least put the tree up. We’ll put on a movie and spend a couple hours decorating and you’ll feel right at home.”
“I adore you,” I said, blowing her a kiss.
“I know.” She laughed. “I’m adorable.”
At home, we put on An Affair to Remember and began setting up the tree. It worked well in the corner my mother had always kept free for the holidays, and as we sorted out the ornaments and lights, I needled Ari to come clean.
“You told me you were ‘kind of’ seeing someone. What did you mean, kind of, and who is she?”
Ari blushed. “Fine, I’ll tell you. But don’t laugh.”
I frowned. “Why would I laugh?”
“Because…just wait, and you’ll know why I said that. Do you remember Meagan Lopez?”
I stared at her, almost dropping the delicate ornament I was holding. “Mean Meg? You have to be kidding.”
“I told you—”
“All right, all right!” But I couldn’t help but laugh. Mean Meg, or Meagan Lopez, had been one of the biggest bullies in high school. She was head cheerleader, and she was a shifter—a bear shifter from the North Cascades Bear Clan. They weren’t known for being all that nice, but then again…bears.
“Meagan’s changed.”
“I’ll say. Back in the day, she was dating Jim Franks, on the football team.” Franks was a puma shifter, and the two had fit together like eggs and bacon. Or at least, I thought they had.
“I mean she’s nicer now.”
“Well, that’s two incredible things for the day. The White Queen from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland would be proud of you. So, when did she come out?”
“The day before their sixteenth wedding anniversary. I thought you knew,” Ari said.
“How could I?” I shook my head. “Once I left Moonshadow Bay, I didn’t keep tabs on most of the people here except you, and a couple others. Weren’t Jim and Meagan engaged in high school?”
She nodded. “Yeah. She actually turned into a pretty decent person after you left for college, but I guess she never was happy. You know the bear clans—they’re even more conservative than the wolves, and they aren’t all that thrilled about same-sex relationships. With her father being leader of the clan, she had a reputation to keep up. Finally, though, she lost it. The day before their anniversary, she had a meltdown in the middle of the town square, told Jim that she was leaving him, threw her wedding ring in the fountain, and filed for divorce. Two months later, she showed up at one of the WA Rainbow Pride group’s events and announced she was out of the closet.”
The WA Rainbow Pride was an LBGTQ group of Otherkin, including those born to magic, shifters, and other sort of preternatural kinfolk. They joined in with the regular pride groups during the marches, but they were especially good for dealing with the challenges faced by those in the community.
“Wow,” I said, shaking my head. Meagan was the last one of our class I would have pegged as coming out. “So, when did you start dating her?”
“Three months ago. I had just broken up with Sharon.”
Ari and Sharon had been together for three years, but their relationship was turbulent and ran hot/cold…that was just rough. When she had told me they broke up, I was secretly relieved that she’d be out of the drama.
“Meagan and I went for coffee after a meeting one evening and we really hit it off. We started going out. We’re nowhere thinking about love or anything serious, but we have a lot of fun together. I don’t know what—if anything—will come of it, but she’s good for me, I think.” Ari gave a little shrug. “If you had told me in high school that I’d end up dating the head cheerleader, I would have laughed you out of town.”
I snorted. Ari had known she was gay from the time she was born. I hadn’t thought twice about it when we became friends. I wasn’t averse to the idea of a relationship with a woman, but it wasn’t my first inclination. On the Kinsey scale, I was probably 75 percent hetero, 25 percent bi-curious. I had never been involved with another woman, but I hadn’t ruled it out.