Liz had to bypass her house and its billboard before reaching a turnpike exit that would take her in the direction of Gravesend Street. As she approached the billboard, she wondered for the umpteenth time why the company that handled renting it did not arrange for messages to be hung on both sides. Surely that would bring everyone involved double the income. But this was not the time to inquire.
As the structure came into sight, Liz was taken by surprise. The ad-free side of the billboard was strung with lights forming the letters, MERRY XMAS LIZ.
The message in Christmas lights was not the only thing Tom Horton had arranged to brighten Liz’s holiday. Walking up to her house, Liz noticed a fresh-cut Christmas tree leaning against her front door. And beside her stoop, she found a cardboard box wrapped in a garbage bag. A note was taped to this package: “Tom Horton, at your service.” A Christmas tree with a star on top was sketched beside the message.
Laughing with pleasure, Liz moved the tree aside and leaned it against her house. She and Tom had never celebrated any occasion before this one. Not only had they never been on a date, they’d not even shared coffee together anywhere but at Liz’s house. Overcome with surprise at Tom’s attention now, Liz picked up the box, unlocked her door, and entered her small abode. Even before taking off her coat, Liz tore open the box. It was packed with five strings of lights, a multisocket adapter to plug them into, and four more gift-wrapped items of varying shapes and sizes. Intrigued, Prudence climbed into the large box and purred contentedly while Liz looked up Tom’s phone number. The address listed was Tip Top St., Brighton. Now Liz realized why that street name had seemed familiar to her. Tom must have mentioned it at some point. Smiling, she dialed his number.
“I’m on my way,” he said, with unguarded warmth, when she invited him over.
“Wait!” she said, and heard herself giggling. “You have to wait an hour before setting out. There’s something I need to do.”
“Please, don’t feel like you have to give me a present!” Tom said. “I know I surprised you with mine.”
“Well, I want to surprise you, too,” Liz said.
Hanging up the phone, she found a foil pie plate, some scissors, and an ice pick. Then she cut the plate into a star shape, used the ice pick to poke holes parallel with the star’s edges, and, after a moment’s hesitation, poked more holes in the shape of a heart at the center of the star. Then, she took out a bottle of champagne and set it in the snow pile beside her doorstep, tucked her travel bag under her bed, and changed into a bright green, tunic-length sweater and some black velvet leggings. Finally, she took out red tissue paper and used some to wrap the homemade gift.
Liz was rummaging in her freezer for something to cook when Tom rang her doorbell. Before opening the door to him, Liz turned on her fireplace switch and ran her fingers through her hair. Tom stood on the doorstep grinning, but even as he picked up the tree to carry it indoors, he remembered to wipe his feet on the mat.
As Tom carried the tree into the room, trunk end first, so as not to snap any of its branches against the doorjamb, Liz said, “Oh, but I don’t have a tree stand.”
“Maybe you do,” Tom winked. “I think it’s time to open the present wrapped in the reindeer paper.”
Sure enough, the package contained a tree stand. While Tom cut off the bottom of the trunk with a saw he’d thought to bring, Liz went back to her freezer and examined it with disappointing results. But she did have the makings of crêpes, so she made up a batch of crêpe batter and set it in the refrigerator to settle. Then she steadied the tree while Tom locked it into the stand.
Crawling out from under the tree, Tom said, “I’ll bet you’re wondering what you’ll use to decorate it, aren’t you? Don’t worry. If you put enough lights on the tree, you almost don’t need any ornaments. But if you’ve got a needle and thread, I’ve got the makings of a garland. You’d better open present number two, in the snowman paper.”
Liz opened the cylindrical package and found it was a jar of popcorn kernels.
“I’ll be right back,” Tom said, pulling on his jacket and running out to his truck.
By the time Tom returned with a perforated metal popping box on a long handle, Liz had set about peeling four apples, which she sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon and set to simmer in a pot on the stove.
“I could have brought microwaveable popcorn but I knew you had the fireplace and I thought this would be more fun,” Tom said, pouring kernels into the boxy popper.
“Where did you get that thing?”
“Scouts. I bet I never told you I’m a Boy Scout leader. I got this to take on our Camporees. Here,” Tom said, “you hold it over the heat while I get the lights on the tree.”
“What’s a ‘Camporee’?”
“It’s when a bunch of troops get together and camp in one place. We always have a big campfire with all the boys together.”
While the aroma of apples mixed with the fragrance of fresh popcorn in the little house by the turnpike, Tom attached lights to the tree in a slapdash manner.
“Doesn’t matter how evenly you place them if you’ve got enough of them,” he explained.
Any doubts Liz might have had about the wisdom of his words were erased when he turned out the table lamps and the two stood together gazing at the illuminated tree.
“It’s beautiful,” Liz said, “and even more lovely for the surprise of it all,” she said, placing her gift for him under the tree. “Maybe you’d better open the gift I made for you.”
“Let’s wait,” Tom said. “If you don’t mind, that is. I don’t want this all to be over too soon.”
“Neither do I,” Liz agreed. Feeling slightly overwhelmed by Tom’s smile, she returned to the stove to stir the apples and make the crêpes. Meanwhile, Tom arranged his two remaining gifts under the tree and then, opening the sewing box Liz pointed out to him, he set about stringing popcorn on thread.
When the crêpes were ready, Liz spread a tablecloth on the floor in front of the tree, set a votive candle in a glass globe between herself and her friend, and asked Tom to bring in the champagne. After he’d popped the cork and filled two glasses, Liz produced the plates of apple-filled crêpes. Sitting cross-legged on the old tablecloth, facing one another, the reporter and the billboard hanger raised their glasses in a toast.
“God bless us every one!” Tom said, smiling broadly. “The two of us in particular.”
“If you haven’t got a penny a ha’penny will do. When I haven’t got a Christmas tree, I’ll call on you!” Liz sang, laughing.
It was such a delicious experience, sitting in the glow of the Christmas tree, that Liz was loath to go to the door in answer to an unexpected knock. But she did get up and looked through the small windowpane to see who was on her doorstep. Partially hidden behind a lavish bouquet of white chrysanthemums, deep red roses, and holly, she saw Cormac Kinnaird.
Staggered, she nonetheless gathered together some vestige of poise and opened the door to him.
“I know I behaved appallingly the other night,” the doctor said. “I’m like that sometimes. But I wanted you to have these.”