Cold Snap

Jeremy and I had been friends since childhood. After my younger brother Eric died when I was eleven, I spent more time with Jeremy than I did with my mom and daddy. My mother, comatose, stayed in her bedroom and my father spent his evening hours in the barn after work fixing machinery or anything that would keep him away from my brother’s empty spot at the dinner table.

I’ve always thought that getting to know someone was similar to going to the hair salon: everyone is either cultivating the perfect facade or coming in as a hot mess not wanting anything they can’t handle. For me, I knew the importance of maintaining a calm image. Not perfect. Perfection doesn’t exist because it means so many different things to different people. But cold, placid, calm. That has gotten me through the last 15 years since the last secret day we met amongst our trees.

****

“I’m just glad it’s you and not your mom”, Amanda said while throwing her bags in the bed of my ‘96 Ford F-150. The hard thump of her suitcase, guitar case and backpack knocked the icicles from the wheel wells and scattered them into the street.

“Well I’m glad I’m not my mom too for what that’s worth.”

Amanda’s mother and my mother haven’t spoken in years. Amanda and I, however, have remained as close as cousins could be under the circumstances.

“Everything can be inherited except for drama” we’d say.

Our family is one of the oldest in Rushport and we’re everywhere. I run the one salon in town, my dad owns the hardware store and my grandmother, in her day, opened the first bed and breakfast of it’s kind complete with electric lighting. Despite also being one of the first outfitted with WiFi, we were still lost out to home rentals closer to Portland.

“Alright that’s all of it. Let’s get out of here, it’s colder than a rain barrel in February out here,” she said.

Our breath filled the air as we sat in the truck, waiting for it to warm up. Amanda opened and closed her mouth in a wide “O” shape and pretended to blow smoke rings like we did when we were kids. Despite our eight year age gap, Amanda always felt like a friend and was the closest thing I had to one.

“How’s Jeremy?” Amanda asked, watching her breath rings disappear in the cold winter twilight.

“What do you mean?”

She paused and looked at me with her fierce blue eyes.

“What the hell do you mean ‘what do I mean’? You’ve been mooning over him since high school. You know, the one reason why you’re 32 and haven’t tried to leave this town?”

“Oh now that you’re coming home off the bus from Portland, you think you’re so smart?”

I yanked the gearshift and started roaring out of the parking lot.

“Come on don’t be pissed Trisha. Please-I just want to make sure you’re happy and that, that you’re not wasting your time. He’s married.”

“I know he’s married, Amanda. For Christ’s sake I was there.”

We took the access road along the Willamette River back to my house. It was Amanda’s favorite drive throughout the year and was the only real treat for her being home. In the summer, you could see the sand barges going down the river for miles. In the winter, it was frozen solid with trees sticking out of the ice in the flood plains. The river was vast and deep enough that you couldn’t see very much in it if anything at all. Amanda loved how it “kept secrets”.

“How’s Mikayla?” I asked as we took the final turn down towards my house.

I was surprised to glance over and see Amanda’s eyes piercing into the side of my face again. She took after her mom mostly but she had her daddy’s blue eyes. It was the only thing that kept her from looking completely plain.

“We’re not talking right now. That is Mikayla isn’t talking to me right now.”

“I was wondering when I didn’t see her get off the bus with you. What happened?”

“Well I mean she’s pissed that I didn’t tell her about the family reunion for grandma’s birthday this weekend. That I didn’t invite her. She said that if we were going to be together then we need to be together all the way and not just in the 503 area code.”

“You haven’t told your mom yet?”

“No, of course not. I don’t know how to even tell her that my favorite color isn’t pink anymore. You know how big her emotions get. Mikayla and I just started dating this semester. I was waiting until the new year to tell her so we can all just, you know, get through the holidays.”

“Do you know how you might tell her? I’m surprised she hasn’t thought to talk to you about this before.”

“You know my mom, she wouldn’t even think of it. It’s like my life in Portland doesn’t matter since she’s not in the daily living of it. I have it under control, Trisha. Look I don’t want to talk about it now, it looks like someone is at your house.”

I felt my throat close and my heart beat drop an octave. The white sedan gleamed amongst the dirty snow in the driveway. I saw Jeremy pop out of the car as we rolled up the gravel driveway.

“You’re in my spot.” I called out while smiling. Jeremy smiled back and walked over to the truck.

Amanda slumped down in her seat. “For heaven’s sake Trish, I just want to go inside.”

“Relax, please.” I glanced at myself in the rearview mirror. I’ve never been attractive but in the setting sun, I looked warmer and less plain than I normally do.

“Hey Trisha, I’ve just come by to drop something off for your grandmother’s birthday. I was driving home and wanted to stop by on the way.”

Amanda sat up in her seat.

“On your way home? Since when is your house on the end of this one-house street?”

“Hey Amanda, I didn’t see you in there. Good to see you.” Jeremy gave a friendly wave and Amanda rolled her eyes and slouched back down.

“Thank you Jeremey, I appreciate it. I know she will too.”

I looked held the large gift bag and turned it around to see that the floral design went around the whole bag and matched the tissue paper.

“It’s beautiful, but you could’ve brought it to the party yourself tomorrow. You didn’t have to go out of your way today.”

“It’s no problem,” Jeremey said with a slight sigh that I can only assume that I imagined.

The setting sun glittered across the frozen grove of pear trees next to the house. I caught my breath seeing it shining in the sunlight, even though I’ve seen it like this so many times before. I wasn’t going to bring it up, so I surprised myself when I did.

“Do you remember running through the pear trees as kids?” I asked, not knowing how I would feel if he said no.

“Of course I remember! I also remember the time we ran through them with brooms to knock the snow off the branches when that early snow in October hit,” Jeremey said while smiling. He then laughed and said, “You were running through there, tripping over mounds of snow while yelling ‘We must save the trees! We need to save the trees!’.”

I tried to hide my smile of being so pleased that he remembered so well.

“I did have to save the trees though, they weren’t ready for snow and if the branches were broken. Where would we have hung out?”

Jeremy smiled and tapped the door softly with his index finger.

“I don’t spend too much time outside these days. Maureen always prefers being indoors if we’re not going to the beach. It’s good to see these trees again though.”

Jeremy squinted his eyes looking over the gleaming snow which shone with all of the power that clean, untouched snow can.

“Alright I’ll see you tomorrow night,” he said before sticking his head in through the window towards Amanda. “Have a good night!”

“Yeah you too sir.”

Jeremy winced at “sir” before giving Trisha a little smile for goodbye and walked towards his car.

“You know Jeremy is a douchebag name right?”

“Shut it Amanda.”

****

Jeremy and I knew each other in school and were in the same class throughout elementary. I was never allowed over to his house though. His mom was a homemaker and his daddy was a doctor. As his mom said, we were both blue but I was the wrong kind: he was blue blooded and I was blue collar. He was there though, each day after school, ready to read, run, or talk amongst the trees. We would be there until after dinner and closer to bedtime so that I was never alone.

As a child, I was convinced that I loved him, that he and I were somehow special in this wasteland. When it was extra cold, he would walk me back to my house and help peel my socks off. He would then hold my red chapped hands and warm them with his breath. When his face was so close to mine, I could feel his breath on my lips. One day, I went to the grove and he wasn’t there. He never came back again.

****

The day of the party came and with it, the usual headaches of trying to get out of the house in time.

“Trisha, we need to get there early so that Aunt Marsha doesn’t try to take control and stress everyone out,” said Amanda as she squeezed herself into a jade colored sweater dress, black leggings and furry boots.

I held the gift bag that Jeremy had delivered yesterday. I peeked inside and saw a quilt with blue snowflakes embroidered on the patches. He never had forgotten how much my grandmother liked snowflakes. My smile turned into a frown. I looked out of the dining room window towards the grove of trees. I wanted the winter sun to thaw them out and make them disappear.

“You’re going to be ready soon right?” I asked Amanda. “I want to get there early to speak to Jeremy.”

“About what?” She asked, throwing on her coat.

“Everything.”

Amanda stumbled over the upturned carpet and caught herself on the piano in the middle of the room. At that distance she paused and looked me in my eyes.

“What for?”

“Because I hate it when my heart skips a beat when I see him. I’m disgusted that there have been times when I’ve imagined, almost pretended, that he would show up here again and that he and I would have a life together. And I’m tired I hate”, I drew my breath and flung my arm towards the window, “those damn trees!”

I could barely see Amanda’s expression. Hot tears fell and I stood stock-still until I realized I had never cried in front of Amanda before. I wiped my tears away as she came over and held my shoulders, close enough to a hug that she knew I was comfortable with.

“I’ve always wanted to crack that cold exterior,” she said and smiled. “Listen, I know I don’t have a lot of room to say anything about the importance of divulging secrets or even feelings, but I think you can do this. You should do this. Discreetly or not,” she paused. “As long as we don’t stress granny out.”

We both laughed and I put my hands on the back of my neck before I brought them down swiftly with more determination than I had felt before.

“Yes, let’s go,” I said and grabbed the keys.