Carats and Coconuts (5 page)

And finally, number three. There it
was. Just a tad bit down the tree and to the right.

The little elf that looked just like
Wanda Lu.

My mother had everything that meant
the most to me, now in ornament form, on my tree.

“
Shall we hang Vinnie’s
ornament together?” Roman asked, his eyes full of a warm twinkling
of light, probably a reflection of the bedazzled tree.

I suspected, however, that his glow
also radiated from the happiness inside him. My parents had a way
of making that kind of joy just appear in people.

“
That would be great,” I
said, so enjoying this moment with him.

“
How about right here next
to Minnie Mouse?” he suggested, holding Vinnie, in blown-glass
form, up to the spot he had in mind.

“
Perfect.”

I opened up the drawer in the
child-sized play table next to the tree where I kept extra ornament
hooks.

Roman held Vinnie’s look-alike while I
slipped a hook through the shiny gold-threaded loop my mother had
attached to the ornamental rendition of our little pot-bellied
sidekick.

Roman closed his hand around mine. We
lifted our arms toward the branch he’d chosen.

With Vinnie now on the tree, we
stepped back and made our way to the edge of my bed where we both
settled into a neatly stacked pile of hand-made
blankets.

“
All these ornaments mean
something about your life, don’t they?” Roman asked. “It’s as if,
by studying this tree, I can learn all about you.”

I looked down and pretended to press
the top blanket, which totally didn’t need it.

Roman gently put his hand under my
chin and lifted my face even with his.

Just by looking into his eyes, I swear
I caught a glimpse of his wonderful heart and soul.

“
I want to know everything
about you. Everything,” he said, his eyes begging me to make his
wish come true.

I didn’t know what to say.

For the first time in my life, I
really wanted to share all that I was and all that I came from. And
also for the first time, I wasn’t afraid to let it all
out.

My childhood, and my wishes and dreams
too, were safe with Roman.

“
Let’s start with Minnie
Mouse,” he said, causing us both to laugh.

It was one of those laughs that just
feels sooo good, not because it’s lightened an unexpectedly serious
moment, but also because it’s a laugh full of genuine interest and
care.

“
Minnie Mouse,” I began,
gazing at the snow globe my mom made from a Minnie Mouse head she’d
secured to a pink glittered base, “is there because my mother never
wanted me to forget that no one ever believed in Walt Disney. In
fact, he was once fired from a newspaper job because they said he
never had any good ideas. Anyhoo…good ol’ Walt made it because he
never failed to believe in himself and his little mouse
too.”

“
Wow. What a story,” Roman
said. “Tell me about the rest of the ornaments and what they mean
to you.”

He motioned for me to lean back in the
bed, then propped us both up using all my pillows pressed against
the backboard.

Covered with all the extra blankets
from the end of my bed, we snuggled close together.

As a winter storm blew in from the
lake in perfect view, thanks to the beautiful bay window behind my
tree, I told Roman the story behind every ornament on that
tree.

While the snowflakes tapping against
the window got bigger and bigger, so did my love for my
prince.

I
’m
not sure what time we finally drifted off to sleep. But after a
fairytale night with my prince, I woke up to a Winter Wonderland
outside the Witherspoon North Pole.

It was the best night I’d ever had,
surrounded by the Christmas tree of all trees and the love of my
new life.

And damn! Now a blizzard too! It
doesn’t get much better than this. I couldn’t wait to get out in
that snow!

Sometime during the night, Roman must
have tucked me in, then put on his sleep apnea mask. Yep, my prince
still suffers from sleep apnea and uses a C-Pap Machine.

But you know what? Now that
I’m used to the soft hisses and gurgles the machine makes, it
almost lulls
me
to
sleep too. And at least I don’t have to worry about Roman and
whether or not he’s getting enough oxygen.

In fact, now that he’s about to
experience a Witherspoon Family Christmas, I should probably crank
up the oxygen setting on his machine. In order to deal with all of
my family’s hullabaloo and holly-fodder too, he’s gonna need all
the straight O2 he can get.

Speaking of my family, I suppose we
should get up, get going and head out to my dad’s workshop. We’ve
got to figure out what the hell is up between him and Father Time
and their cell phones.

At this point, I’m not sure who’s
hacking who. But what I do know is that something’s gotta be done.
Those boys don’t play nice when they’re not getting along, which is
now becoming more and more the norm.

How a reindeer diet food formula could
be their final undoing is beyond me.

Following one of Wanda Lu’s wonderful
breakfasts of green eggs and ham – yes, meals in the Witherspoon
house always had a dramatic and very artsy Dr. Seuss flair – we
were just about set to venture out into the blizzard and
beyond.

Mom and Wanda Lu not only raised me on
Dr. Seuss books, but also basically made my life one giant Whoville
extravaganza after another.

Roman and I headed out into the snow
white wonderland towards my dad’s workshop.

“
God, isn’t this great?” I
asked, happily plodding through snow that reached clear up to the
tops of my knee-high Ugg boots.

“
Indeed it is,” Roman said,
looking so darn cute blowing on his red wool mittens.

He wrapped his matching scarf higher
around his neck. I’m sure he was hoping to block the gusty winds
coming off the lake. Good luck with that around here. When Mother
Nature decided to blow some deep freeze fury in this neck of the
woods and dunes, she didn’t hold back anything.

As we traipsed through the backyard
then down the snow-packed path leading to dad’s workshop, I
couldn’t help but get lost in the big-snow magic covering every
exposed surface. Tree-tops and branches, trunks and fence posts
too, all sparkled with loads of heavy fresh crystals stacked upon
them in substantive inches.

The forecast was calling for two feet
by nightfall, and I’d say we already had at least a good foot start
on that total accumulation.

“
Do you have any good hills
on your property?” Roman asked. “I’ve always wanted to go
sledding.”

“
You haven’t seen good hills
till you try out snow-covered dunes. Now that’s one helluva ride I
can’t wait to take you on,” I said, making a mental note to grab
two of my favorite toboggans from the workshop.

Reaching Dad’s shop, Roman, ever the
gentleman, pulled open the heavy wooden door. We quickly ducked
into the heated paradise before a deluge of drifts, dangling
precariously over the door-frame, had us buried.

I never got tired of hanging out in
Dad’s workshop. The place was full of whimsical delights for little
boys and girls and us big ones too.

Each wooden workbench had been
handcrafted by my dad’s elves and was covered with whatever
wonderful toys, tools, paints and supplies were necessary to create
the item that table was used for.

We passed toy train tables, gorgeous
stations where hand-painted wooden blocks were created, wagon and
sled tables and more.

Next were the china, cloth and fancy
chatty doll tables. Seeing the doll parts all laid out and ready to
assemble took me back to the year my dad first invented the chatty
dolls. He had me record tons of funny sayings like “Can I have some
applesauce?”, “Oopsy, I made a mess,” and “I love Santa Claus and
Mrs. Claus too.”

And, oh my gosh, how I’d missed
working side-by-side with my mom and her crew at the gift wrapping
stations.

Piled as high as possible toward the
ceiling were stacks and stacks of gorgeous packages, wrapped in
glossy paper in all the colors of the rainbow and beyond, each with
hand-made bows and ribbons and faux jewels adorning
them.

In fact, somewhere behind those
pillars of packages, my dad was hard at work on who only knew
what.

“
Zoey, is that you, my
dear?”

“
It is, Pops. I brought
Roman to check out your workshop.”

“
Oh good, good. Very good.
Give me a minute here to mix up this latest batch of holly fodder
and I’ll be right with you.”

Oh boy. More reindeer food. If Rudolph
and Company didn’t asphyxiate themselves on their cabbage-based
emissions, they’d for sure OD on holly fodder by the time Dad had
perfected his formula.

No more than a minute later, Dad
appeared from behind the towers of wrapped boxes. He was a
completely loveable mess, with holly branches, leaves and berries
stuck in his snow white, Albert Einstein-wild hair and
beard.

“
Can you hold onto these
pieces for just a minute while I clean-up a bit?” He asked, not
waiting for my reply before handing me his cell phone, battery
removed, along with other pieces of the dismantled
device.

“
Dad?”

“
I know what I’m doing,
Sugar. There’s a program, you know, that can pick-up your cell
phone conversations even when you’re not on a live call. If you’re
battery is in and the phone is on, your conversations can be
monitored.”

I looked at Roman, who shrugged his
shoulders and made a face in a way that led me to believe this
might or might not be possible.

“
I do know there’s a program
and device R developed that can actually determine if you have been
hacked,” Roman said, his eyes sparkling like the pillars of
packages reflecting the workshop lights, but with
much
more
mischief.

“
That’s it. That’s exactly
what we need to do. I knew you were the perfect man for the job,”
my dad said, holly still caught in his beard, despite his clean-up
attempt.

“
Yeah. Unfortunately, I am
the perfect guy for this,” Roman said, the mischief vanishing from
his eyes and tone almost as soon as it had appeared.

I felt horrible for bringing
phone-hacking back into Roman’s life. He’d told me the stories of
how he and his brother Ross had been two of the first victims of
tabloid-directed cell phone hacking in Europe, primarily from
London-based tabloids run by the Murtledoch Multi-Media
Empire.

The Murtledochs had made a cozy cash
fortune printing tabloid news they’d obtained by hacking into Roman
and Ross’s voice mails, as well as the accounts of many
celebrities. They’d also paid private investigators to hack into
all kinds of live calls. Then, once they were busted, they paid off
police to hide the evidence for years.

“
I’m sorry to have to bother
you kids with this, but that crazy-ass Father Time is out of
control,” my dad said. “The bastard may claim he’s never directed
anyone to do any specific hacking, but the ethos he’s established
for his workers guarantees they will resort to any and all methods
to get the scoop on all my inventions.”

“
I don’t get it. Why you?
Why are you his target?” Roman asked.

“
The jack-ass is always in a
hurry to find the next big thing. I think he feels left out because
time flies so fast and all he’s remembered for is his passing on of
each new year to Baby New Year. People never take time to stop and
appreciate the time they have the rest of the year,” my dad said, a
faraway look glazing over his normally animated eyes.

Not a bad philosophical argument. I
had to give him that, although, I know my dad. He was worried about
much more than the philosophical aspects of Father Time’s
actions.

Roman cleared his throat.

I’m sure he was concerned not just
about getting himself into another phone-hacking frenzy, but also
now fully realizing that his fake wife comes from a bunch of
schizoid-crazy paranoia.

“
Don’t you worry about a
thing, um, Dad,” Roman said, again clearing his throat before
continuing. “I know just what to do to save your holly fodder from
Father Time.”

Before I could respond, I heard a
knock on the workshop’s door.

That’s odd. No one ever knocks around
here. They just come on in.

We all went to the door
together.

When I opened it, Dad, Roman and I
were blasted back by the ice cold, powdery residue of a huge snow
drift falling from the shop’s gabled roof.

And guess who was peeking out from
underneath the snow heap?

I counted at least three Mom Squad
Members, and I had the feeling Grams was also buried under there
somewhere.

Why would I think that?