Cream of the Crop Read online

  He left that night, driving back upstate. He didn’t tell me he loved me. He didn’t need to.

  I knew.

  Chapter 20

  But I didn’t know what would happen next. Was it over? Were we over? Did it have to be all or nothing?

  I didn’t know these rules. I knew men, but I didn’t know what happened when people were invested. This was beyond me.

  I didn’t talk to Oscar for three days. No texts, no calls, no contact of any kind. In the past few weeks, we’d chatted almost every day. Sometimes it was a quick call to confirm what train I was on. Sometimes it was a stolen moment to tell him about something funny that had happened at work. Sometimes he’d call right before he went to sleep. And though he didn’t use flowery words, when he said, “Sweet dreams, Pinup,” it was better than almost anything.

  When I woke up Thursday morning still with no call or text, I felt . . . alone. Really alone.

  I was usually surrounded by laughing, smiling, chatting people—at work, after-work cocktails, nights out on the town, weekends filled with brunches and lunches and clubs and parties. And this week had been no exception. I’d worked my ass off, spent time with friends I hadn’t seen in weeks, and kept my social calendar full.

  So why was I feeling so alone?

  No Oscar.

  And I didn’t like it one bit.

  Thursday afternoon I bit the bullet and called him myself, no longer waiting for his call.

  “Hey,” was his answer when he picked up.

  “Hey to you,” I said, my voice already tense. “How’ve you been?”

  “Good. Busy but good. You?”

  “Good,” I said, twisting a lock of hair around my finger. “I haven’t heard from you once this week.”

  He sighed. “I haven’t heard from you, either.” He had a point. “I was meaning to call, it’s just been—”

  “Busy, I know. I’ve been busy, too.”

  More silence. I’d never felt the need to fill the silence before, but this felt awful. “I got a rough cut of the first Bailey Falls commercial; it’s looking pretty good. Still needs a lot of work and the music will be different, but it’s going in the right direction.”

  “That’s great,” he said softly.

  “Yeah. I can show you this weekend, if you want. You can get the gist of it from—”

  “This weekend?”

  “Well, yeah. I mean, I figured I’d see you,” I replied, my voice getting higher than I would have liked it. “At the market, at least.”

  “I won’t be there this weekend.”

  “You’re not coming to the market?” I asked, disbelieving.

  “Now that it’s winter we only come in once a month, and we’re not scheduled again until after Thanksgiving.”

  “Oh,” I whispered, my finger twisting in my hair so hard it was starting to hurt. “So, when will I see you?”

  “It’s a busy time right now, even though it seems like it would slow down when winter comes. I’ve got repairs I put off all summer; the cows are getting ready to come indoors for longer than they’re used to, and lots of prep needs to happen for that; it’s just—”

  “Busy.” I deliberately lightened my tone. “Yeah, I’ve got tons of work blowing up, too. I’ve got some new campaigns I’ll be working on soon, with the Bailey Falls job winding down. Yeah. Lots to do.”

  “Yeah,” he said. He sounded a little . . . sad? “Anyway, I’ve got to go to football practice now. The kids have been winning all their games, and now’s the time to put a little more pressure on them so they don’t slack off.”

  “Oh, sure. Well—”

  “Talk to you later, Natalie,” he said, and hung up.

  I had chosen this. I had made this decision. I couldn’t be the woman he needed. He needed a muffin maker, a clothes washer, an all-in kind of girl who would be willing to give up a part of herself to be there for him. I could not, would not, do that.

  Willing myself not to cry, I flicked on the fan in the corner, drying my eyeballs until I could go back to work.

  I talked to Oscar two more times that week, twice the week after that, and then it was an entire week before I spoke to him again. Not once did he mention trying to get together.

  When I talked to Roxie one night, she told me he was crankier than ever, barely speaking when he was in town.

  That’s how it goes, I suppose.

  I worked back into my routine; well, part of my routine. I didn’t go out nearly as much, but that was okay. I couldn’t conceive of meeting anyone new. Flirting with a guy seemed unappealing at best, gross at worst, and the last thing I wanted was to pick up a random guy. I worked a lot. I talked to Roxie, I talked to Clara, and I spent more and more of the weekend at my parents’, needing some familiarity while I worked myself over.

  Did I make the right decision? Could I have considered, just considered, the idea of trying to make things work with Oscar?

  “You sure as hell could have tried,” a voice said, and I blinked, confused.

  “Huh?” I turned around on my perch in the window to see my mother standing there, holding a teacup.

  “Should you have considered the idea of making things work with Oscar? Yes. The answer to that is yes.” She shook her head at me, handing me the cup. “Drink this. It’s green tea, you need the antioxidants.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t know I—”

  “Said it out loud? You did; you’ve always said things out loud when you’re working yourself over.”

  “I do?” I’d never heard this before.

  “Sure; your father’s the same way. When he’s in a pickle, he poses questions to the wall sometimes, trying to work his head around a problem. Me, I just throw some paint at a canvas and work it out that way.”

  I sipped at the tea. It was December, and I was spending a Saturday night at my parents’, watching the first snow fall outside on Perry Street.

  Saturday night with my parents. How the mighty have fallen.

  “He wanted me to think about moving.”

  “I figured.”

  “To Bailey Falls.”

  “I figured.”

  “To the country, Ma.”

  “I know where Bailey Falls is. The question is, do you want to go?”

  “And sacrifice my career and life for a man? You always told me that was the worst thing a woman could do.”

  “Wrong.”

  I exploded from my chair. “What? Are you trying to make me crazy?”

  “I think you’re halfway there already, dear daughter. Now drink your tea and listen to me.”

  I sat.

  “I always told you that the worst thing a woman could do was sacrifice her career for a man—”

  “Exactly.”

  “—but I don’t think you’d have to sacrifice your career to have this man.”

  “He’s got cows.”

  “Sure, and they’re just ninety minutes from where you’re sitting right now. You don’t think you can make it work when you’re only ninety minutes from the man you love?”

  “The man I love, I—” I sputtered.

  She laid a hand on my knee, patting gently. “Now listen up good, Natalie. You’ve been in love once in your life.”

  “And we know how that ended.”

  She shook her head. “You were never really in love with Thomas. You thought you loved him, because back then you thought you were unlovable. And a good-looking man came along, saw a possible weakness, and he preyed on that and on you. I don’t blame you for thinking you were in love with him, but I’m here to tell you that it wasn’t love. What you feel for Oscar is the real thing.”

  “But I can’t give up my job! I love my job!”

  “And you’re great at it. You know that, and the people at MCG know it, too. You don’t think they’d work with y
ou if you wanted to work from a home office a few days a week? And maybe Oscar could spend some time in the city every now and again?”

  My heart started racing. I could see the possibilities, the maybes. “But wouldn’t I be sacrificing too much for someone else?”

  “Do you love him?”

  Oh sweet Christ on a cracker, I think I really do.

  Now I just had to find out if he still loved me.

  Chapter 21

  It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas . . .

  No shit.

  Everywhere you go . . .

  Nothing wrong with your eyeballs.

  Take a look in the five-and-ten . . .

  Done.

  Glistening once again . . .

  You’re darn tootin’.

  With candy canes and silver lanes aglow.

  There were, in fact, candy canes at the five-and-ten. And though I didn’t see any silver lanes aglow, I did see an oddly compelling display of silvery chain saws hanging in the window of the hardware store.

  Ever seen It’s a Wonderful Life? Remember the part when George Bailey runs screaming down Main Street, tossing out Merry Christmases to everything that would stand still?

  Main Street in Bailey Falls during the Christmas season looks just like it. Maybe Frank Capra had this little town in mind when he created Bedford Falls . . .

  Though my heart will always skip a beat when I see the holiday windows at Bloomingdale’s, the tree at Rockefeller Center, and the wreaths in every window at Bergdorf’s . . .

  There is nothing prettier than this damn Hudson Valley town at Christmas. There, I said it.

  Roxie picked me up at the train station in Poughkeepsie, and when we hit Main Street in Bailey Falls, I fell silent. It was still two weeks until Santa popped down the chimneys, but the town was ready. Each storefront was ringed with tiny white twinkle lights, each lamppost wrapped in red-and-white ribbon, looking like a legion of candy canes marching down the main drag. Beautiful evergreen wreaths, studded with pinecones and deep-red bows, hung from the signpost that hung out over the sidewalk over each store, and big old-fashioned globe lights, the outdoor kind with all the colored lights, were strewn across Main Street every twenty feet or so, supporting equally as bright signs that proclaimed Merry Christmas, Season’s Greetings, and Happy Holidays.

  The town common was dressed with a large Christmas tree, thirty feet tall and bedecked with tinsel and ribbon and crowned with an enormous gold star that you could see twinkling from all over town. And as we drove past, as though cued by some kind of celestial production designer, it began to snow.

  “Oh,” I breathed, marveling at the beauty taking place just outside my car door.

  “I know,” Roxie echoed, her own face glued to the window as we took in the winter wonderland around us. “I can’t believe how long it took me to realize it.”

  “Yeah,” I said back, in equally as dreamy a voice. “The hot farmer you’re banging had nothing to do with it.”

  She laughed. “Okay, you got me there. Of course, you know something about that, too.”

  “This town has some kind of pull. Did you hear Clara is heading up to Bryant Mountain House?” Knowing how much trouble the resort was having keeping the rooms full, Roxie and I had dropped Clara’s name several times and the family had finally bitten, calling her firm in Boston and hiring her to come up and help them figure out how to turn the place around.

  “I know! I can’t wait!” She flipped on her wipers, because the snow was really starting to come down. “Archie isn’t too happy about it.”

  “Archie Bryant? He seemed nice enough, why would he be opposed to Clara coming in to help out?”

  “Eh, he’s a bit of a stickler for how things used to be, how they’ve always done things up on the mountain.” She air-quoted. “I’m sure it’ll be fine; Clara can charm the pants off anyone.”

  I thought about Archie. Good-looking yes, but there was something a bit remote about him, maybe not standoffish, but with an edge of that trademark East Coast Cool.

  Then I thought about Clara. A tiny little spitfire, she was used to kicking ass and taking names, bringing everything up to code and shipshape as quickly as humanly possible, all the while looking like six feet of woman scrunched into five feet of awesome.

  I chuckled to myself, thinking about those two rattling around the old Mountain House. My chuckle quickly faded when Roxie pulled into a parking spot half a block from the old barn at the edge of town, where the party was being held tonight for the new commercial viewing.

  I swallowed the lump that had unexpectedly shown up to the party as well. “Here we go.”

  The snow dusted everything with fluffy powder by the time we made it to the barn. There were cars parked everywhere, and from the noise inside, it sounded like the entire town was there. Roxie had some cakes to drop off, so she waved me on in while she went in search of a rolling cart to bring everything in from the car.

  Tonight we screened the Bailey Falls commercials I’d created. In all the years I’d been in advertising, I’d never actually been to a “premiere” party for one of my campaigns. Usually they took place in a very dry and boring conference room, the clients screening it while we explained the buy-in and the target markets.

  Not in Bailey Falls. As I walked into the barn, it was like walking into a wintry wonderland. Combining the premiere with the annual holiday party, they had gone all out. Roxie once told me that her hometown would hang bunting from “every fucking place you can think to hang bunting.” I think the same can safely be said about twinkle lights.

  Soaring overhead high into the rafters, each beam was wrapped entirely in white twinkle lights. Lighted stars, lighted wreaths, even a few lighted balls were hanging from the ceiling, bathing everything in rich, warm, sparkly gold.

  And across the entire back wall, interspersed with the seven (count them, seven) Christmas trees, were the photographs from the campaign. I grinned when I saw them, feeling pride at what we’d created.

  Each picture showed a different slice of Bailey Falls life. Swimming in one of the beautiful mountain lakes. Fishing in one of the cold, clear streams. Walking down the same Main Street I’d just been on, covered in fall leaves and soaking up the sunshine. Eating at one of the locally owned restaurants, white-water rafting, dancing under the stars.

  And the last few pictures featured some of the best scenery around. There was Leo, filling farmshare boxes while laughing. I remember that shot: Roxie was standing just off to the side and promising to harvest honey if he’d just make this easy and smile for the camera. And there were Chad and Logan, holding hands as they took their own walk down Main Street, making it a truly family-friendly town for all. And the last picture?

  Oscar. With his cows. Not smiling, because come on, it’s Oscar. But almost smiling. One corner of his mouth was curved up, like he was in on something no one else was. Arm slung around one of his pretty cows, with the enormous barn behind him. The Hudson Valley. Where the food is pretty, and so are the farmers.

  I stared at his picture, remembering.

  The first time I’d met his cows, how I’d tried to run away.

  The first time I’d visited that barn, how he’d made me shiver.

  The first time I’d traced his tattoos, run my fingers over them and then later my tongue.

  The first time I’d fulfilled my secret dream of making cheese . . . and realized it was much harder than it seemed. And stinkier.

  The first time I’d realized I was falling for that stupid farmer.

  I was smiling, looking at these pictures, thinking about the possible life I could have here . . . if he wanted it, too.

  I needed Oscar. I wanted Oscar. And I also . . . you know what? I really missed him. Beyond the sex, beyond the obsession over my ass and watching it bounce, beyond the showers and the barns and the swee
t, sweet love on the stairs, the man made me laugh. I missed him.

  Where the hell was that man?

  “Hey, Natalie! The pictures look great; we can’t wait to see the commercial!” Roxie’s mom, Trudy, and her boyfriend, Wayne Tuesday, danced by, literally rocking around the Christmas tree.

  “Good to see you! Have you seen Oscar?” I replied, trying to act like a normal person, though I was all butterflies inside.

  “Haven’t seen him, sweetie; I’m sure he’ll be around. The whole town is here!” Trudy waved as she danced past.

  Good lord, when did the dancing start? While I was going inside myself for a feelings check, the Christmas party hop had officially begun.

  I smiled and nodded at people I’d actually gotten to know on my weekend trips up here, people who smiled and nodded back, welcoming me, accepting me as one of their own, even though I’d only been here for a short time.

  A couple danced past, seeming lost in each other, dreamy happy and—holy shit, was that Missy?

  It was. She caught my eye around the same time I realized it was her. I watched her face change, working through surprise, acceptance, and then . . . hope?

  It was hope. She offered me a cautious smile, one that I returned. That done, she returned her gaze to the man she was dancing with, and I took a deep breath.

  “Hey, pretty girl!” Chad called out as he and Logan danced past. “Why so glum? Your pictures look gorgeous!”

  “Not glum, just, have you seen Oscar?”

  They exchanged knowing glances.

  “No, but if he’s not here yet, he’ll turn up soon. Get yourself a drink; try the eggnog. Mr. Peabody made it and it’s filled with hooch,” Chad said.