Christmas at the Hummingbird House Read online

  “The hummingbird ornaments from Hungary,” Paul said excitedly, juggling the box to tug one of the exquisite little cut-glass birds from its wrapping. “They’re magnificent!”

  Paul Slater, the former syndicated style columnist for the Washington Post and best-selling author of several books on the same subject, was a tall, elegantly kept man in his sixties who managed to look flawlessly put together even in a rustic plaid shirt and deep green corduroy trousers. While the two men shared most of the general duties of running the B &B equally—only occasionally deferring to the opinion of their self-appointed general manager, Harmony—when it came to matters of decorating and style, Paul almost always had the last word. The handblown glass hummingbirds for the parlor Christmas tree were, according to Paul, an absolute must-have for their first Christmas at the Hummingbird House.

  Derrick regarded them both with a triumphant, superior smile for a moment before declaring, “Our insurance check has arrived.” And he brandished it in the air like a magician pulling a row of colorful scarves from his hat.

  Paul’s eyes grew big and he quickly—although very carefully—set the box of glass ornaments on the turned-leg table outside the office door. “Let me see that. Is it real?”

  “Every last hard-earned penny,” Derrick assured him.

  Paul put on the glasses he wore on a chain around his neck, read the numbers and sank back against the wall in relief. “It’s here,” he said. “Our insurance check is here.”

  Before purchasing the Hummingbird House, Paul and Derrick had had a disastrous encounter with an unscrupulous contractor that resulted in their unfinished dream house falling into the unfinished pit of their dream swimming pool. While there was nothing to do about the parcel of land for which they now had no use, or about the contractor who had taken advantage of them and fled the state, it turned out that their insurance policy actually covered their losses on the unfinished house. Nonetheless, because the entire experience had been such a nightmare, neither of them had dared to believe they might ever recover anything … until now.

  Peering over Paul’s shoulder, Harmony smiled beneficently, looking far too pleased with herself. “There now, didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I say you would come into money before Christmas? When will you ever stop doubting me?”

  Harmony was a dramatic-looking woman somewhere beyond the point of middle-age, tall, broad shouldered and big busted, with goldilocks curls, coarse skin and a flair for brightly colored caftans and outrageous jewelry. She liked to think of herself as “spiritually gifted,” and in fact claimed it was her spirit guides who had led her to move semi-permanently into the Hummingbird House’s fuchsia room. Paul and Derrick were still not entirely sure how they felt about this, but her idiosyncrasies were made a lot more palatable by the fact that she not only paid in full and on time every month, but had also assigned herself the role of part-time general manager of the B&B, freeing Paul and Derrick to do what they did best—provide their guests with a memorable vacation experience, complete in every detail. The fact that Harmony happened to be heiress to one of the largest hotel fortunes in the US did a great deal to plump up her credibility, of course. On the other hand, her tendency to fly off to Greece or Sri Lanka or Dubai on a moment’s notice and be gone for weeks made her something less than a reliable GM.

  She gave Paul’s shoulder an affectionate pat and added, “And you were worried about building the spa! Everything comes together in perfect harmony when you listen to your inner truth.”

  Paul and Derrick exchanged a look and each of them decided, with the wisdom of experience, not to respond to that. The spa had been a point of contention between them since they’d bought the place, Derrick having envisioned something along the lines of the Golden Door Spa and Resort in Escondido, and Paul preferring more of a Roman Baths theme. As it turned out, none of the local builders were capable of executing either vision, and, having learned their lesson about hiring contractors from out of town, they compromised by extending one of the back rooms of the Hummingbird House and outfitting it with a hot tub, a steam room, and a massage room that overlooked the blissful serenity of the Appalachian mountains. Still, the cost was exorbitant, and none of their friends believed they could recoup their investment in a rural area like this.

  As luck would have it, Harmony was also a licensed massage therapist. Without her insistence, it was unlikely they would have gone through with the project. But they had to admit, the offer of a spa with couples massage had been the piece de resistance in their Christmas package.

  Both men momentarily gave their attention to Harmony. “Booked up,” Paul said, and a slow and satisfied gleam lit his eyes. “We’re booked up!”

  He took the reservation form from Harmony’s hand and admired it as he led the way to the office. “Dr. and Mrs. Bryce Phipps from Seattle, Washington,” he read out loud. “They sound like a perfectly lovely people.”

  “They’re in what?” Derrick said, edging around Paul to study the reservation board that was mounted on the east wall of the office. “The plum room?”

  Each room of the Hummingbird House was characterized by a brightly colored exterior door, each door a different color. The overall effect of those playfully painted doors on the rugged timber-frame lodge was both whimsical and ridiculous, and it was the most distinguishing visual feature of the inn—which, as Harmony pointed out, the camera loved. They had gotten more than one magazine feature already based on nothing but the doors.

  The color theme of each door was carried into the room with tasteful decorative touches, and each room was named for its color. Derrick took a plum-colored magnet from his desk drawer, neatly printed the name “Phipps” on it, and placed it on the magnetic board in the column labeled “December 21–26.” The row, filled with red, yellow, orange, emerald, blue, and chartreuse magnets, now was complete. Derrick gave a satisfied nod as he stepped back to admire it.

  “A beautiful sight, isn’t it?” he said.

  “Oh dear, I keep telling you, you need to put Geoffery Allen Windsor in the blue room,” Harmony said. “It’s much more spiritual.”

  “But that would mean the Bartlett girls would be separated from their parents,” Paul pointed out.

  Harmony waved it away, her bracelets jangling. “They’re fourteen and sixteen,” she said. “They want to be separated from their parents.”

  “Mr. Bartlett specifically asked for a suite, and the melon and turquoise rooms are the only ones with a connecting door to accommodate them. We’re doing their tree in magnolia blossoms and renaming it the Magnolia Suite for the duration.” At Harmony’s puzzled look he explained, rather annoyed, “Well, we could hardly decorate with melons, now could we? It was the best compromise we could come up with.”

  “We could move Mr. Windsor to the plum room,” Derrick offered, “and put the Phipps in the yellow room. Purple is a spiritual color, isn’t it?”

  “No, no,” Harmony said. “Plum is not the same energy at all, not at all.”

  “Too much red, I suppose,” Derrick agreed thoughtfully. “I can see that.”

  “Mr. Windsor stays in the yellow room,” Paul said firmly. “It has the best morning light, and he likes to write in the morning. And …” He finished entering the last of the reservation information into the computer and straightened up. “We’ve gone to far too much trouble designing the holiday themes for each room to start switching them around now.”

  “Very true.” Derrick gave an adamant nod of his head. “Plum it is for the Phipps. Although …” He tilted his head toward Paul. “We have got to come up with better nomenclature for the yellow room. It’s really more canary, don’t you think?”

  Paul shook his head. “No birds. We’re not naming a room after a bird.”

  “Lemon?”

  “Seriously?”

  “Sunflower,” declared Harmony. “The color is sunflower.”

  Paul and Derrick gave one another a considering look, but Harmony’s attention was on the reservation
board, her expression dreamy, as it often was. “Hildebrand, Matheson, Phipps, Bartlett, Windsor, Canon … Just names on a board, but they’re going to be part of your family for the holidays. Don’t you wonder who they are? What their stories are?”

  “Oh, we know most of them already,” Paul assured her cheerily. “Bryce Phipps is a rather prominent surgeon, according to his online bio, and his wife is in interior design, although it seems to be mostly a hobby these days.” He glanced back at the computer, scrolled down a page, and added, “They’ve been married almost forty years, no children. She was on the board of the San Francisco Symphony 2005 to 2008, and they’re both major sponsors of the theater, which will certainly give them something to talk about with Mr. Canon, who’s retired from Pinnacle Records. His wife is a fanatical gardener—second wife, I understand—and mad about specialty roses, which is why, you understand, they must be in the rose room.”

  “We’re decorating their tree with living roses,” explained Derrick. “Exquisite.”

  “And of course,” Paul went on, “everyone knows Mr. Windsor, who is one of only two of our single guests. One might dare hope for a little holiday romance to blossom, except the other single guest is well past eighty years old, Mrs. Hildebrand.”

  “Delightful to talk to on the phone,” Derrick put in, “very spry, a world traveler. She was the executive editor of Seasons Magazine until she retired last year. Starts every morning with a shot of espresso, ends every day with scotch on the rocks.”

  “The Mathesons are on their honeymoon, although I gather this is only one of many stops. Carl Bartlett is a senior vice president with Apricot Foods, and his wife Leona is an attorney with a non-profit in Richmond, mostly part time, I believe, just to keep her hand in. They both are quite well known in the Richmond social scene, I understand. I can’t say I know much more about them, but the gentleman seemed quite nice on the phone, wants to give his girls an old-fashioned Christmas, which is exactly what we’re offering. As for everything else, we’ll know soon enough, won’t we? And of course, we already know they all have one thing in common—they all have excellent taste.”

  “As demonstrated by the fact that they’re spending their holidays with us,” agreed Derrick.

  Harmony looked from one to the other of them in bemusement. “How on earth do you know all of this?”

  “Well,” replied Paul as though the answer should be obvious, “that’s our job, isn’t it?”

  Harmony laughed and looped an arm through each of theirs as they moved back out into the hallway. “Well, congratulations, boys! You’re booked up for your first holiday in the business! Quite an accomplishment.”

  “That ad we placed in Travel and Leisure was pure genius,” agreed Derrick, “if I do say do myself.”

  “Disguising it as an invitation was beyond brilliant,” pointed out Paul, eyebrow raised, “if I do say so myself.”

  “And don’t forget all the free publicity you got with your grand opening,” added Harmony, “which was nothing but the spirits at work.”

  Paul and Derrick exchanged another look. “Harmony,” said Paul, who, generally speaking, was known to manage Harmony with a much firmer hand than Derrick, “if you’re building up to that whole issue of painting cherubs on the ceiling of the massage room again, I’m afraid our decision on that is final.”

  “Not,” Derrick added quickly, “that it isn’t a perfectly lovely idea.” He ignored the warning look Paul cast him and plunged on, “It’s just that, seriously, who would see them? I mean, one’s eyes are generally facing the floor during a massage, or closed entirely, am I right? Not to mention that finding a competent muralist this far from civilization is next to impossible.”

  “Angels, my darlings, angels, not cherubs.” Harmony slipped an arm through each of theirs with a confident smile on her face; never a good sign. “And don’t you worry about a thing. I’ll take care of it all when I return.”

  Derrick said, “Return from where?”

  And Paul added suspiciously, “When you return from town, right? When you return from Christmas shopping? When …”

  “When I return from India in the new year!” she announced triumphantly, her eyes shining. “When I return transformed by six weeks of meditation with one of the most acclaimed spiritual teachers of our time! I leave tomorrow. Aren’t you thrilled for me?”

  As one, the two men stepped away from her, regarding her with identical expressions of shock and disbelief. “You can’t be serious,” Paul said.

  “But our Christmas extravaganza!” Derrick cried.

  “We’ve promised massages to fourteen extremely well-paying guests …”

  “We only built the spa because you assured us you could accommodate the traffic …”

  “All right,” Paul said, drawing a deep and pained breath. “I know we never talked about compensation, but we’re willing to pay …” He darted a quick glance at Derrick for confirmation. “Once and again the hourly rate. For the holiday season only,” he was quick to add.

  Harmony was, to put it bluntly, a rather homely woman, but when she laughed that light, tinkling laugh of hers, as she did now, her face was transformed into something almost lovely. “Boys, boys, I don’t want your money,” she said with a wave of her arm that sent two dozen silver bracelets jangling. “I’ve got plenty of my own. But a place at the ashram? There’s a waiting list two years long! Why, if that poor old professor from Illinois hadn’t had a heart attack—may God rest his soul—I’d still be waiting!”

  “And we’d have a massage therapist,” Derrick pointed out, a little desperately.

  Again she waved it away, bracelets tinkling like jingle bells. “Not to worry, I’ve already arranged for a perfectly marvelous couple to take over for me. They do amazing chakra work, and he’s board-certified in reflexology. Our guests will adore them.”

  Cautiously, Derrick relaxed. “Well, I suppose if you’ve made the arrangements …”

  But Paul was less forgiving. “Honestly, Harmony, this is most inconsiderate,” he said, exasperated. “We were counting on you.”

  She beamed at him and gave his arm a reassuring pat. “You can always count on me, darling. I’ve checked off everything on my project board, haven’t I? Horse-drawn sleighs and drivers are all lined up, the window van for the tour of lights will be here promptly at six on the twenty-third, chamber music, boys’ choir, carolers all set to perform. Now I’m off to pack. And don’t you worry about those angels,” she added over her shoulder. “I’ll get it all taken care of.”

  She turned down the corridor that led to her room, caftan fluttering.

  Purline approached from the opposite hallway, ponytail swinging, gum snapping, vacuum cleaner clattering behind her. She was somewhere between eighteen and thirty—neither man had ever had the courage to ask her age—dressed today in bright red leggings, shearling-lined moccasins and a green “Go Elf Yourself” tee shirt. She was something of a challenge, it was true, but she went through the place like a cleaning tornado, and was more than just a little competent in the kitchen. For a good cook and someone who sprinkled the sheets with orange water before ironing them, the men could put up with a lot.

  “Y’all ain’t planning on holing up in that office, are you?” she called out. “I need to get in there and clean.”

  Paul protectively picked up the box of glass ornaments from the hall table. “Not now, Purline,” he said. “We have all our plans and samples set out just where we want them, and if you move anything we’ll never find them again.”

  “You’ve been saying that for two weeks,” she replied. “You’re gonna get mice if you’re not careful.”

  Derrick looked alarmed, but Paul assured him, “We won’t get mice.” For a moment he looked a little unsure of himself, and then recovered his composure with a frown. “Why don’t you finish the guest rooms first and come back this afternoon, Purline?” he said. “We have a lot to take care of this morning.”

  Purline craned her neck to peer a
round him into the office. “My cousin left a cheese sandwich on her desk one night,” she said. “Got up the next morning to find a mouse’d had babies in her top drawer, right on top of her income tax forms.”

  Derrick’s eyes flew wide, but Paul said, “Not now, Purline. We have a full house for Christmas, and we just found out Harmony isn’t even going to be here.”

  Purline returned a skeptical look. “You boys don’t know when to count your blessings, do you?” She made no secret of the fact that there was no love lost between Harmony and herself. Then she frowned, her expression turning suspicious. “Full house, huh? I hope that don’t mean you expect me to work on Christmas Day.”

  Paul looked insulted. “Purline, don’t be ridiculous! We know you have little ones at home. The magic of Christmas morning, and all of that.”

  “We’d never dream of asking you to come in on Christmas,” Derrick added earnestly, “until after noon.”

  “At time and a half,” added Paul quickly.

  The corners of her mouth turned down as she regarded them. “Well, I guess I can’t leave you with a full house,” she decided at last. “I’ll come in and change the sheets and clean the bathrooms, but that’s it.”

  “Thank you, Purline,” Derrick said.

  “Our guests deserve clean sheets on Christmas Day,” Paul insisted gravely, and she considered this.

  “I guess,” she agreed, and then added, “but I’m not staying more than an hour or two. We’re all going over to my granny’s for Christmas dinner and more present-opening, and my husband Bill always plays Santa Claus.” She paused and glanced around. “Kinda sad, though, when you think about it, ain’t it?”

  Paul’s expression clearly showed he was having trouble following her thoughts. “What is?”

  She said, “All these people, coming in from all over the country, with nothing better to do than spend Christmas with you-all. Makes you wonder where their grannies are, don’t it?”

  Paul and Derrick looked equally startled and confused, clearly having never considered this before. But before either of them could form an answer, or even think of one, Purline shrugged it off with a snap of her gum.