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“Almost where?”
“At the tree lot where I’ve been getting my Christmas tree since I was a kid.”
“That’s a really long time. Wouldn’t it be easier just to buy an artificial tree?”
She scrunched up her nose. “I know it works for some people. And that’s great for them. But I love having a live tree. There’s just something about the pine scent and the look of it that really sets off the holiday.”
He actually never heard of anyone so enthusiastic about a Christmas tree before. He couldn’t help but wonder if she got this excited about everything in her life.
She glanced over at him. “I know you don’t celebrate Christmas now but what was it like when you were a kid?”
“My father thought the holiday was a waste of time, but my mother insisted we at least have a small artificial tree. It wasn’t much. It sat on a table in our living room. My father sighed every time he looked at it.” Graham remembered those days and how he didn’t understand how his friends would have these big fancy trees with all of the lights but they only had an itty-bitty tree. “The day after Christmas it went back into storage and life went back to normal.”
“Is that what you wanted?”
He didn’t want to answer. He didn’t like to think about the past. “It doesn’t matter. We’re here to get you a tree.”
She stopped just outside of the tree lot and turned to him. “But it does matter because unless you’ve decided to give in on our deal, we’ll be sharing the holiday season.”
Give in? Him? Never. He was in it to win it. Everything was riding on him lowering Toliver’s financial obligations and creating space for their growing workforce—something his father put off for far too long.
“Fine,” Graham said, “if you must know, back then I wanted a real tree—a tall tree—like my friends had. But it doesn’t matter anymore.”
“It matters,” she said with an understanding tone as though she could see right through him.
He wanted to argue the point but decided it was better not to. He followed her into the tree lot. With it still being early in the season, the lot was filled with trees—to the point where it was difficult to walk down many of the paths.
There were short chubby trees, tall slender ones, short needles, long needles, some greener, some bluer. He honestly never stopped and paid enough attention to realize just how many different types of Christmas trees were available.
He followed Alina around the lot. She paused to give some a closer inspection before moving on. He wondered what she was inspecting but he didn’t ask. He didn’t want her to get the impression he cared all that much.
Christmas was just another day. Or at least it should be. Instead it was a day where no work got done. A day where his plans to prove himself to his mother, to his board, to the world, were put on hold. If anything, Christmas should be for the children, but let the adults get on with business.
* * *
Alina carried the top of the tree.
Graham held the trunk.
With a light snow falling, they walked home. Not that the tree was heavy. Graham offered a couple of times to carry it all by himself, but she wouldn’t hear of it. After a bit of back and forth, they agreed to share the task.
However, now that they were back in her apartment and had the tree set up, Alina realized she might have been a bit overly ambitious when it came to the size. The top of the tree touched the ceiling. It hadn’t looked that big in the tree lot. There were lots of other trees that were so much bigger.
And it was wide—very wide. The corner she’d cleared, next to the window, wasn’t big enough. The couch had to be moved. Again. And an end table had to be put into her bedroom in order for people to be able to move about the room.
Still, it was a pretty tree. She stopped and stared up at it. It was going to take her stepstool to reach the top. Then again, she might have to borrow the stepladder from the building manager’s office, erm, from Graham.
“Do you want me to cut the top off so it fits better?” Graham’s deep voice drew her from her thoughts.
She turned to him. “Definitely not. You really don’t know anything about Christmas trees, do you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That you never cut the top of a tree. If you want to shorten it, you do it from the bottom.”
He shrugged. “Same difference.”
“No, it isn’t. If you cut off the top, it’ll look funny. And you won’t be able to add the angel.”
