Unstuck (33 page)

“Leaving your NY apartment,” I shook my head while looking down at the boxes around me “there’s no way we could convince anyone that we aren’t involved now. They saw us leaving together your apartment,” I shrugged.

“Does it bother you?” he asked and I looked at him shaking my head.

“No, you?” I asked and he smiled.

“You should know by now that it doesn’t. Not at all,” I nodded and went on with the decorating. When I was done with the whole half bottom part of the tree I realized that I was going to need a ladder to get the top part decorated. I found one in the garden’s supply closet.

“What the hell are you doing?” Patrick asked while carried the ladder to the living room. I could hear a smile forming on his lips.

“How am I supposed to decorate the top part of the tree?” I asked as I placed the ladder in front of the tree.

“Ok, let me do it,” he said getting up from the couch “Do what?” I asked confused

“I’ll get on the ladder and put the decorations on the tree,” he said going up a few steps in the ladder. I had to laugh at the sight “What’s so funny?” he asked not getting why I was laughing so much.

“Patrick, never, in your 35 years of life, have you ever done anything that involved house work. I don’t think this is a job for you,” I said laughing again.

“Funny, Lucinda,” he said trying to sound serious “Pass me the damn ornaments,” he said extending his hand.

“Ok, if we are going to do this you need to follow my instructions. I don’t want you to mess with my tree,” I said as I looked for a solid red ornament.

“Fine. Tell me what to do,” he said and I gave him the ornament. The process of guiding Patrick through the decoration of the tree was exhausting but funny as hell. We laughed for hours but he got pretty exasperated at times and I got frustrated. I thought I excelled at giving directions; it was him who didn’t get what I was trying to say!

“Please, Patrick, just put the damn bow straight,” we had been at least 20 minutes in the bow that topped the tree. It was beautiful it was stripped in black and white. Patrick had a hard time placing the bow the way I wanted it.

“Look, Lucinda, it’s there, straight,” he said gesturing towards the bow with both hands.

“I think it looks straight,” I heard Brian’s voice and let out an audible squeal “what are you doing here?” I asked. That came out really wrong.

“Thank you for the love,” he said giving me a hug and then crossing his arms “I came here to witness with my own eyes what my ears couldn’t believe,” he said looking up at Patrick struggling with the bow.

“I told him that I was cancelling our work meeting today because we were decorating,” he said coming down the ladder “It’s straight,” he said looking at the bow.

“I decorated, you watched,” I scrunched my nose at the sight of, as I saw, the crooked bow.

“C’mon, Pepper, what was I doing for the past 30 minutes?” Patrick asked as I walked towards the tree.

“Placing a bow in all the wrong possible ways,” I said giving up on the bow. It wasn’t that crooked was it?

“Christmas Nazi,” said Patrick to Brian and he laughed.

“Straight or not, I can’t believe you got him in the Christmas spirit,” said Brian sitting down in a couch that wasn’t invaded with ornaments.

“She did, we even took a picture with Santa,” said Patrick grinning.

“Don’t you dare,” I said as he took his phone out of his jeans pocket.

“Let me see,” said Brian once he saw my face and grabbed Patrick’s phone. As soon as he saw the picture he laughed out loud. Brian was actually turning red.

“This is hilarious,” he said between laughs while he wiped a tear.

“It’sn’t that funny,” I said with my arms crossed.

“It’s Lucy. I am looking at one of the most important business men IN THE WORLD,” he accentuated “and his assistant in picture with Santa. It’s damn funny,” he gave back the phone to Patrick who shook his head with laughter.

“She even told him her Christmas wishes,” I heard Patrick as I busied myself placing the Chevron Christmas tree skirt I had picked. It was the perfect last touch. Brian kept on laughing like it was a stand up show what he was witnessing. I shook my head.

“Why do I have so many extra ornaments?” I said exasperated. I knew I had some extra but not so many boxes. I had at least 3 big boxes filled with ornaments.

“And what the hell is this?” I said as I opened a large box. “What?” I whispered.

“I ordered another set of everything for your house, Lucinda,” said Patrick and I looked at him. “I knew you probably want it decorated so I asked the girl to send two of everything. The tree is smaller, though. It wouldn’t fit in there,” he said with a smile. I know I was looking at him wide eyed. I nodded and looked back at the ornaments. I got up and went to the kitchen to collect myself because I knew I was going to cry. Why the hell did he have to be so thoughtful? I wiped a couple of tears, gave a deep breath and went out and hugged him.

“Thank you,” I said and he hugged me back.

“You are very welcome, Pepper,” I quickly went back to my decorations because it was weird we were exchanging touching moments in front of Brian. Brian that was there because Patrick had told him about us decorating, probably the night before when I saw Patrick on the phone. I knew it was Brian!  Brian, who hadn’t stopped by the house since the day we broke up. Brian who seemed pretty ok with the hug or the fact that the three of us were hanging out pre-Halloween style. I was happy, I decided.

The guys saw me decorate the rest of the living room and then the foyer with garlands that had red twinkling lights and black and white striped tiny bows like the one in the tree. It looked beautiful. Once I was done with the decoration of the living room, foyer and dining room we realized we were starving and ordered some Thai food that we ate in the library while we talked a bit about MBU. It seemed we were all quite excited about the project; Brian seemed so happy to be preparing new profiles for the teachers, he said he was tired of having the same businessman profile repeated over and over again in front of him. “No offense,” he said. “None Taken,” we both reassured him.

The afternoon went by so quickly and Brian decided to stay for munchies instead of dinner since we had eaten lunch so late. Patrick immediately asked for Miranda’s Panini and Brian decided that he was going for the same since I was cooking for the three of us. Obviously, I ate the same. Once it was ready Patrick announced that the meal qualified as midnight munchies, therefore it was supposed to be held in front of the Christmas tree.

“This house needed a bit of warmth,” said Patrick as the three of us sat on the floor and stared at the tree. We had turned the lights off and the only lights came from the tree. Even though the colors I had picked were cold, the lights did give away certain warmth.

“This house needed a woman,” said Brian still staring at the tree. I turned to look at both of them and they both looked at me. Awkward. I wasn’t going to allow awkwardness ruin my perfect moment with my perfect tree.

“This house needed Christmas. It’s perfectly fine every other season,” I said “Well, kids, I’m leaving. I had enough Christmas decorations for at least a week,” said Brian getting up and taking his plates to the kitchen.

“Don’t you decorate?” I asked going after him.

“Dude, save yourself…,” said Patrick that was right behind me.

“I do decorate, Lucy. Not myself, but my apartment is decorated,” he smiled and I was disappointed. I truly wanted to decorate his place too. I could come up with another color scheme for another space. Oh! The possibilities.

“You broke her heart,” said Patrick hugging me and I smiled. “You still have the pool house,” said Patrick and I light up again. He was right!

“Anyway, I’ll see you both tomorrow,” Brian said.

“Wait,” I said running after him “I’ll go with you,” I grabbed the wreath I had chosen for the front door and went with Brian.

“Here,” I gave him the wreath “help,” I signaled the door. He shook his head and smiled “There,” he said and I smiled looking at the wreath. It was beautiful. It had solid black and red ornaments with a checkered ribbon that ended in a bow in the very center. “Looks good,” he said and I nodded. “The porch looks amazing,” he said again. I had the feeling he wanted to say something but didn’t dare to. I took the chance to admire the porch. The arch of the porch was decorated in garlands with white lights as well as the two tiny pines that were to the right and left of the porch. It was amazing indeed.

“I’m glad we left it all behind,” crap! He wanted to have the Glad-we-can-be-friends talk.

“Me too,” I nodded.

“I just wanted to let you know that I get it now. We are not supposed to be together,” He smiled as if he knew something I didn’t. So, I just nodded.

“Anyway,” he went on, “I gotta go. I still have one hour of road ahead of me,” He hugged me and gave a kiss in the top of my head. “I’m glad we are friends. You can talk to me about anything, ok?” Again I just nodded. He was acting weird, happy weird. Maybe he was relieved that we could be in the same place and act like nothing had happened. I had to admit that I was a bit relieved myself. I realized that I missed Brian as a friend, and only friend, and it was great to have him back.

“Look! It’s snowing,” Brian said as he got in the car.

“It’s,” I extended my hand to touch the first flakes of snow. I waved him goodbye as he left and when I turned around Patrick was right behind me.

“Patrick, your stalker tendencies are really worrying me,” I said as we both walked into the house and he laughed.

“I just wanted to admire the porch at night. It really looks nice and classy,” He said closing the doors as I went straight to the kitchen and placed all the dishes in the sink “I always thought of Christmas decorations as tacky,” he shrugged “Maybe my mother used too much gold or the 80´s décor wasn’t very classy but I have to admit that I love the way the house looks,” I looked at him and he was leaned against the breakfast bar.

“I’m glad you like it,” I smiled and turned to do the dishes “Leave those, Sarah is back tomorrow morning,” he had a point and I was too tired.

“Are you going to work?” I asked and he shook his head.

“I am going to work out a bit,” I nodded and we both walked out the kitchen “Thank you for decorating,” he said smiling

“Thank you for letting me,” I smiled back and with that he went towards the gym and I went to the pool house.

I was so tired but I decided that I was going to decorate because I knew that I wasn’t having time for the rest of the week or month.

Eighteen

The weeks to come work seemed to come in waves and waves of unaltered stress. We had the MBU pilot that had to be up and running on the first week of January and Patrick was getting ready to sign a couple of big deals with some companies for the telecommunications branch and that required a lot of running from me and a lot of screaming from him. 8 out of 10 times that the door in Patrick’s office opened I heard my name increasing in decibels every time. Most of the times it was for me to help him get unstuck, which was something we did very often during the stressful times, but other times it was for me to make reservations, go to NY or run after someone to meet deadlines. It was delightful because in addition of dealing with stressed Patrick, the office’s Christmas party (Patrick knew decorating could un-stress me), his family Christmas dinner (yes everyone voted for me to be the planner, yay)  I dealt with excited Regina that didn’t stop one second her party planning, we were already wondering who was designing her dress. We were holding a small competition between pretty well known designers. Every designer house wanted to be the one giving her a dress to wear on her especial day.

Midnight munchies increased considerably during the following weeks, especially because we usually worked very late every single day. We ate the munchies in front of the tree every night as I promised. We found that during the holidays my guru had a especial sorbet: Eggnog sorbet! We stuffed our mouths with it every day. We were so shameless that we ate it in his office during office hours when he screamed for me to help him get unstuck. Seems sugar helps with the unstucking.

By mid December I thought I was going to die of exhaustion but there’s something in being extremely tired that makes you keep going and going and going. It was around that time that I ran into Brian’s office and cried of tiredness after Patrick announced we were going to London for a 2 day trip. I was too tired and now I was going to experience jet lag. Of course, the damn trip was unplanned, a last minute thing and didn’t allow me to get my bag ready. I went on a 12 hour flight, signed a contract and had dinner with some big business men with the same clothes. It was awful. The only good thing about this is that we ate eggnog sorbet in our way there and in our way back.

My relationship with Patrick was comfortable but we were so busy that we barely had time to think about anything else like the kisses he gave for example ( note that I say that he kissed me like I’d never kissed him back or enjoyed it)  so everything was pretty uneventful. However, I did think a lot about the kisses. A LOT. Too much. I would find myself missing his kisses from time to time and I would kick myself for letting me feel that way because we had gone back, finally, to a stage where we were friends and co-workers, nothing more. Nick didn’t think so. He thought I was kidding myself and thought that if I went ahead and slept with Patrick we would have better results at work (we had outstanding results already, we didn’t need sex) and we would be less stressed (maybe that was true). I was fine, I just needed some rest. But rest wasn’t something I could foresee in the horizon for me because here I was on Christmas Eve running around the office, giving the final touches to the party decoration and finalizing some confidentiality contracts.