“I think they spray the
branches with something,” said a skeptical voice from behind. Alex
quickly turned. She’d been lost in the story and didn’t hear Brian
approaching. “You know, like that stuff that melts car locks in the
winter. It’s the only thing that makes sense,” he added with a
comforting smile in that nonchalant way he had.
“Brian, thank God!”
Alex turned to him and threw her arms around her friend and confidant,
thumping him a little hard with her cast across the back of his
shoulders. She knew tonight that he was the only one she could call
on Christmas Eve and have him be there for her, without question.
Brian was always taking things in stride; fixing them as simply as
though they were comprised of auto parts that were misconnected or
worn out, as he did daily in his work at the mechanic’s shop he owned.
“I’m parked on the
other side,” he said as he pulled her back from him and wiped the hair
from her usually delicate face. “But there’s nobody on the path from
there to here,” he added. “I just walked it and it’s not how we
should go out. So, I don’t want you to go anywhere. I’ll bring the
car around to you – to this entrance. I want to keep us where there
are - ” he broke off with a deep breath.
“Witnesses. I know,”
Alex shakily nodded.
“I don’t want to scare
you.”
“It’s okay. You’re
right. You’re always right. You’re just telling it like it is. I
understand. It’s what I love about you,” she added sincerely.
“Don’t move,” Brian
added with a gentle squeeze to her good arm and a kiss on the top of
her head.
“I’ll be right here,”
she said as she attempted a smile with her scarred mouth.
Alex watched Brian walk
away down the tree-lined path and her heart began thumping heavily in
her chest again. She should be comforted that she wasn’t alone, now.
These couple of minutes waiting for him to circle the park, though,
felt like hours. A panic settled in her like poison, wrenching at her
heart and stomach and throat.
The crowds around the
tree that had first provided calm now made her feel claustrophobic.
As she looked from face to face that was now closing in on the trunk
of The Tree of Love to collect hot cocoa and small bags of roasted
nuts, she was unsure of whom she could trust in this cluster of
unknown people. She stepped away from the festive families and began
to walk cautiously around to the back side of the enchanted
evergreen. She stopped at a spot that seemed to be slightly obscured
from the listening audience but from where she could still see around
most of the park and to the road where she was sure Brian would appear
at any moment.
Alex took deep breaths
of the cold, winter air and looked up at the peaceful glow flooding
from the pinecone atop the town Christmas tree in search of the
inner-quiet she so desperately desired and longingly needed at that
moment. The air only froze her from the inside out and her heartbeat
was so rapid, she was sure its pattering was visible even through her
thick, hooded sweatshirt.
“Who are you trying to
ensnare?” came a light voice from beside her. Alex jumped. A young
man in a woolen winter coat had approached her. Her first thought,
based on the random question, was to look around herself for some
other intended person, but she was standing quite alone.
“Excuse me?” she asked
the man.
“Usually it’s the guy
that pulls this sort of trick.”
“What sort of trick?”
“Oh, please,” he
sarcastically drawled. “The Pinecone Legend? One half of a couple
comes to the tree with two of their own pinecones, puts them near the
tree and gives one to the other half as if they were the pinecones
from The Tree of Love. They tell their significant other that they’re
destined to be soul mates and the next thing you know – it’s to the
mistletoe in the Park Pavilion and who knows where from there.”
“I’m so sorry. But,
I’m still lost,” Alex shook her head at him as he spoke. She was
quite certain he somehow had her mistaken for somebody else.
“Well, you can play the
girl next-door role if you like, but I think you dropped these,” he
said as he pointed toward her feet at two pinecones. He bent to pick
them up and Alex instinctively jumped back from the man once again.
“I’m not going to hurt
you,” he said reassuringly before he picked the two fruit off of the
ground. She hadn’t noticed them when she had first moved around the
tree.
“I have to admit it,
though. You did well,” he smiled up at her while turning the
pinecones over in his hands, feeling them and looking at them.
“What do you mean?”
“These are
extraordinary. I’ve never seen pinecones like these before. And,
what did you do, put them by a heating vent? Microwave them?”
“I’m sorry?”
“They’re actually
warm. Nice touch,” he nodded impressively. “Here, they’re yours,” he
held them out to Alex. “You’d better take them back before my
girlfriend over there thinks I’m trying to pull a Pinecone Legend
pick-up on you, Miss…what’s your name?” The man nodded to indicate a
woman next to an open car on the small lane where Alex was expecting
to see Brian soon and then he looked encouragingly back to her and
directly into her eyes, waiting for a name.
“Alex,” she responded
after a moment and a careful glance at this stranger and at her
surroundings.
She stared down at the
pinecones, but didn’t chance reaching for them. Then, she peered
about for Brian, but couldn’t spot him. Her pulse, she had noticed
though, was no longer racing. She felt unafraid of this man.
“On you, Miss...Alex.”
Her name sounded like warm cider coming from his lips and the sounds
around her seemed to die down. She felt calm. “Nice to meet you.
I’m Dominick. Here,” he added as he again held out the two cones...
