Five Years of Fame [COMPLETE]

9. Christmas Night

Winter, Year 2, Month 11

Except for the soft sounds of an old familiar Christmas CD stuck on repeat in the stereo, the house was quiet. Reeve let it play on to keep the house from falling into complete silence.

The Christmas tree glowed in the corner of her mother's family room, the white, red, and green lights reflected up onto the low ceiling only inches from the angel perched precariously on the top. She was leaning to one side, the tree slowly leaning with her, after too many weeks in place. The red velvet tree skirt was sprinkled with fallen pine needles, rectangular outlines marking where wrapped presents had sat until only a few hours before.

Reeve found her head leaning with the angel, trying to straighten it in her mind, too tired to get up from the couch and straighten it for real. Her limbs were tired, weighing her down to the old worn couch. Her ears still rang with the sound of excited and animated chatter despite the fact that her mother's last guest had left over an hour ago.

The house looked as if it hadn't just hosted dozens of people for Christmas dinner. Everything was in its place and the dining room table had long ago been cleared. Reeve had seen to the dishes herself as a refuge from the constant interactions.

She had woken up that morning with a sigh of relief at the thought of a quiet day at home, with nowhere to go, no need to even change out of her pj's. She spent the morning sitting around the tree with her mom and Dani, drinking coffee, eating cereal, and exchanging gifts.

Dani had gone silent when she ripped open the envelope containing Reeve's gift. It was the highest compliment Dani could bestow, silent shock and awe. Inside the envelope was a piece of paper with a few hastily scrawled words, the result of a short exchange with an old friend. And yet Dani looked as though Reeve had just handed her the moon.

"No way," she finally uttered. "You can't be serious. Is this real?"

Reeve nodded while Dani shook her head.

"No. This show has been sold out for weeks! And they don't even do meet and greets anymore! How did you get this?"

Reeve didn't have the heart to explain to Dani how easy it had been to shoot Tommy Shepherd, the lead singer of 7 Ships, a text message, and ask for a favor.

"I have my ways."

Dani lunged across and wrapped her arms around Reeve's neck, cutting off her air supply, making it harder for her to laugh.

"You'll go with me right?"

"Yeah. I mean, sure. If you want. Or you could invite some of your other friends."

"No. I don't want to go with anyone else."

"Okay then. We'll go."

Reeve did not make her promise flippantly and made a mental note to tell Kelly to block out the date of the show. She felt in Dani's debt and would make sure that she never missed another event Dani invited her to. She had missed Dani's college graduation and that would be the last thing she missed.

Her mom had loved her scarf, the one Reeve had picked up the day before while walking from her car to the studio. She had seen it in the window of a shop on Newbury Street and thought of the bright green in her mom's eyes. With it wrapped around her neck, the soft medley of tones brought out the light in her eyes.

Molly whispered thank you in Reeve's ear when it was her turn to wrap her arms around Reeve. And yet Reeve still felt like she was lacking in her gifts. Both had been thought of the day before, wrapped hastily in old wrapping paper she had found in a spare closet, sure that it was wrapping paper from when she was a kid, not sure if it was even Christmas-specific wrapping paper.