“Maybe y
ou hit your head last night. You seemed fine after dinner.”
Urgency pulsated in January’s veins and she prompted Deckard again to answer how they met.
“Well, you came in the shop with your friend, and you were looking for a gift for your parents for the winter solstice celebration. You chose a beautiful gold star.”
“Wow. Okay. So how we met is exactly the same, but the reasoning is different. Winter solstice is on December twenty-first, right?”
“Yes. And we went to dinner last night, and you unloaded on me your reasons for hating the winter solstice because it overshadowed your birthday on the twenty-fourth.”
“Damn,” January mumbled as she looked around her living room in despair. Everything was lining up the same, but she knew with complete certainty that it was all wrong.
“Do you think I’m crazy, Deckard?” she whispered as she looked over to him. Without pause, he replied, “Not at all. You seem really shaken up over this and I can see the honesty in your eyes. Tell me what happened.”
January sighed in relief. He believed her, or at least, wanted to believe her.
Taking a deep breath, she launched into the last two days, not leaving out a single detail. She told Deckard about the snowflake and how she had stupidly made a wish on it, and hung it on her Christmas tree that sat in the corner, then went to bed. His eyes widened with each sentence and she was almost afraid he was going to have her committed to an asylum at any moment.
“Wow, that’s. . .uh. . .something.”
“I’m not lying, Deckard. It happened, I swear to you. People have been celebrating Christmas for eons.”
Placing his hand on top of hers, his touch instantly calmed her hysterics. “Don’t get worked up again, I believe you. Let me help you. Maybe we can figure out what is going on. You’re a reporter, right? Do you think we can look through some old papers or something.”
“Oh my gosh, you’re a genius!” she exclaimed, placing her hands on the sides of his face and pulling him close. She smacked a quick kiss on his lips before jumping up from the couch.
“I’m going to take a quick shower and then we can get to work,” January shouted as she began to back away, but then turned to look over her shoulder at Deckard, who had started to slouch back against the couch. “Thank you, Deckard. For trusting me.”
“January, I really like you. Even if we are only ever friends, I will always trust you.”
Nodding her head, January made her way back to her bathroom praying that she doesn’t let either of them down. And she wasn’t just thinking about Christmas.
In record speed, January finished her shower and dressed. By the time she stepped back out into the hallway, only ten minutes had elapsed. As her soft steps carried her into the living room, she found Deckard no longer on the couch but sitting on one of her barstools sipping one of the cups he brought with him. He was speaking on the phone, and January didn’t want to interrupt or eavesdrop, but she couldn’t help herself.
“No, Gram. I’m really worried. Something’s happened and it’s really affecting her. I’m going to spend the day helping her figure it out. I’ll be back to work tomorrow, Gram, but maybe keep my evenings free. Yeah, I really like her. I love you too.”
As he ended the call, January stepped into the kitchen and snatched the other cup Deckard had brought.
“So. . .”
“I knew you were there, I could smell your perfume.”
Dang. So much for incognito.
“Where are we headed first?” he asked as he took a final sip from his cup and placed it in the trash can at the end of the island.
“The archives. They’ll have everything I can search through.”
“Sounds good. Let’s go.”
The wind swirled around them as they stepped outside, kicking up the ends of January’s scarf, tickling her nose. Deckard pressed his key fob, and January didn’t want to argue about who was going to drive, so she wordlessly followed him toward his car.
They drove in silence and as they approached the newspaper’s building. Grabbing her badge from her bag, January scanned it at the front desk, while taking note that the lobby wasn’t covered head-to-toe in holiday decorations. Instead, stars dangled from the two-story ceiling in celebration of the solstice. Deckard followed her down the steps toward the basement where they kept the old published papers and January prayed that many of them had been scanned into the electronic database. If not, that made their task much more difficult.
There was a line of computers against the furthest wall and January headed in that direction first, Deckard trailing on her heels.
“Here, you run a search on the word Christmas,” she typed on the screen in front of him, “and I’ll search for some of the other lingoes regarding the holiday. We’re bound to come up with something.”