Green Beans and Reminiscent Things

As I reached up the small distance to pluck the mistletoe from its hiding place, I caught the whiff of casserole in the oven. Just the scent of the veggies and crunchy toppings was enough to get me to forget what had happened earlier today. Not to mention the memories. The reminiscent smell of the food reminded me of the last time I had casserole from Temperance’s house around Christmas.

I was home, preparing to leave for the tour to promote our EP, packing clothes, toiletries, CDs, and my acoustic guitar. Temp had come over that freezing late afternoon to help me with washing my mounds of dirty clothes and packing my clean items. We had just been signed a couple of months previous and Temp had gone off to college at New Mexico State, majoring in physics, for her second year. She’d always try to visit during the weekends once a month, but it was a long drive and lots of gas money for her stick-shift pickup, so she rarely ever made it.

We were in my room, sorting out the different colors and fabric of clothes for washing: Jeans together, cotton shirts of light colors in one pile, dark shirts in another. A local radio station was cranking out nostalgic Christmas tunes and I would sing along to the ones we both knew. She had a cold that’d been pestering her throat for the last couple of weeks, so out of concern for my vocal cords, she forbade me from visiting her in person. That night she said she’d felt better, but I knew she could barely talk and just wanted to hang out before I left.

“John! They’re playing the Drummer Boy duet!” she exclaimed with excitement, raspy and barely above a whisper, as the song changed. Her parents always played some special from back in the 60’s around Christmastime, and this specific duet by David Bowie and Bing Crosby was one of Temperance’s favorites. She got up from the floor to turn up the radio and sat back down next to me, reaching over my lap to grab a few dirty shirts.

“I think the only reason you like this song is because you think David Bowie is good looking,” I teased, mumbling my statement just the slightest with a smirk on my face.

“John O’Callaghan!” she exasperatingly rasped as she lightly shoved my head. I just laughed and brushed away my bangs, exposing my growing acne. “So what? I mean, he’s like, what? Fifty-five? And he can pull off skinny jeans better than I can. Or even you, for that matter,” she added, reaching behind her for some clean jeans to fold.

“Thanks, I guess…?” I replied, raising a confused eyebrow in her direction. She copied my expression while folding the jeans, holding her muscles in a spur-of-the-moment staring contest. We both let out laughs at the same time, not being able to keep straight faces while ridiculously staring at each other.

“No, you can pull tight pants off well. It’s just… it’s like, my dad’s his age, and…” She let out a snort. “You know. It’s just weird,” she explained, shuddering and shaking her head in disbelief.

As I hummed along to the song, my stomach grumbled loudly, provoking me to look down at it and frown at its interruption.

“I’m guessing you’re hungry.”

“Yup,” I singularly replied, keeping my eyes on my tummy.

“Anything in particular?”

“Yup.”

“Let me guess – green bean casserole.”

“Yup.” Of course, I had to mention how I was dying to have some earlier.

“Right now.”

“Yeah.”

“You know what?”

“What?” I asked, getting up from the floor myself and grabbing a small box wrapped in red, snow-flake sprinkled paper.

“I brought some…” she mentioned in a sing-song ganter, re-folding a shirt I'd just set down in the pile.

I walked back to my spot and collapsed my legs, dropping down right by Tempe. “Okay, let me guess. Kitchen, right?”

“I’ll go and warm it up,” she announced, patting my knee.

“Then what am I supposed to do?” I nudged her arm with my elbow.

“Fold clothes, separate your colors,” she suggested, standing up once more and opening my door. “You leave tomorrow,” she called over her shoulder, her voice cracking from her cold.

I stayed in the room to fold clean clothes and to separate my reds from my whites. About five minutes later, I heard the washer beep from my first-floor room and gathered some underwear and wife beaters, piled them into the basket near my open door, and walked towards the kitchen to get to the garage and the washer and dryer.

As I came closer to the kitchen, I could smell leftover casserole heating in the oven. Tempe must have brought it wrapped in foil or something and stuck it in her backpack so I couldn’t see it. My stomach gave a slight rumble upon entering the kitchen, causing Temperance to look up from her library book. She smirked at me as I quickly ran into the garage to put my clean shirts in the dryer and my basketful into the washer.

When I came back out, Temp was taking the glass pan out from the oven, two large cuts of slightly burnt casserole in the middle. As she set it on the circular table and took the Halloween-themed oven mitts off, I walked up next to her and gave her a side hug.

“Thanks, Temp.” I reached inside of my hoodie pocket and handed her the small, crudely wrapped box. “Merry Christmas.”

As I expected, Temperance gasped when she saw the long, thin box. She looked back up at me with her small, slender lips slightly separated. “Oh, John-“ She looked back down to the box. “You can’t be serious.”

“I’m as serious as Sirius Black right now,” I verified. I gave a chuckle at my own joke and squeezed her near me. “Open it, Tempe.”

Her hands were warm as I grabbed them to leave the present in her fingers. As she slowly and meticulously tore off the red and white wrapping paper, she turned out of my arms and sat on the table. Once she got all the paper off, she opened the slim, dark-blue velvet box to reveal a simple necklace with a single petite pearl hanging from the middle. “John… it’s wonderful,” she whispered as she delicately lifted it out of its container.

“Here, let me help you put it on,” I offered in a small voice. I took it from her fingers and offered my hand to help her off the table. She took it, quickly jumped off, and turned around. Her hair was in a tiny pointy tail, so I didn’t have to disturb it to get the tiny ends clasped together around her neck.

My heart rate sped up as I reached in front of her and brought the clasps together. Daring my nerves, I angled my head downward and gave her a kiss on the cheek, letting my hands rest on her shoulders. “You really do look beautiful, Temperance.”

But what I didn’t expect was her to grab my hands off her shoulders into her own and hold them under her chin, letting the slight brush of air from her nose tickle my fingers. She turned herself around and wrapped her arms around my waist, resting her head on my chest. “Merry Christmas, Shrimp.” I embraced her just as tight around her shoulders and kissed her hair, making sure to rest my cheek atop her head.

“Why don’t we eat some casserole now?” she asked after embracing for a few seconds. “And Diet Coke doesn’t sound bad either.” She gave a couple of coughs into my chest, looking up to face me sheepishly. “Uh… I’ve been meaning to ask: Do you have any medicine?”

“Why don’t you just drink Dr. Pepper? I heard one of those twenty-three flavors is cough syrup,” I joked, feeling her shiver in her sweater.

“Oh, so funny John. You know, if this whole music thing doesn’t work out, you could become a comedian.” She cleared her throat again and sniffled.

“Eh, let’s go get you something.” I grabbed her hand and brought her with me to look for anything that could help her feel even the slightest bit more comfortable in her exposed state.

After we found some old children’s cough syrup hiding in the back of a bathroom cabinet, we ate our food and watched an old, black-and-white Christmas movie; I forget which one it was. We went back up to my room to fold the last of my clothes, but we weren’t able to finish; five minutes in, Tempe walked over to my bed and laid face down next to the crumpled Lion King sheets stuffed near the wall.

“You tired, Temp?”

“Meh.” She turned her head from the pillows to face me. “No, I’m not going to sleep. I just needed -” She yawned, stretching her arms and scratching her head. “-something soft to sit on, not your carpeted floor.”

When I finished folding my clothes and put everything into the duffel bags, I looked towards Temperance’s body sprawled over my twin bed, her fists lightly clenched, and shivering subtly in her dark grey cardigan and jeans. She still had her horse socks on, all of the bays, duns, and dapple grays staring back at me. I quietly opened my door and headed for the hallway closet to grab a quilt or two. I found two matching thick, yarn-spun quilts, and brought them back to my bed, nudging her awake. She opened her eyes and let out a yawn, wincing at the pain in her throat.

“What?” she quietly asked. She was rasping and obviously losing her voice.

“Scoot over.”

She nodded and shrunk her limbs back to her body, curling up in the corner with my crumpled sheets. I gathered the quilts into one arm and slid onto the tight-fitting twin mattress. Once I was situated, ankles hanging over the end of the bed and my back to the wall, I patted my leg and opened my arm to let Temp stretch out. She scooted over, resting her head on my shoulder and her cold, bright red nose snuggled into the crevice my collar bones made. I let out a small laugh from the sudden chilly sensation that came to my neck. She grabbed one of the blankets and tossed it on our legs; I took the other and draped it across our torsos.

“You warmer now?” I asked, rubbing her arm and pulling her close.

“Almost there,” she whispered, looking down at her early Christmas present. “John…”

“Yeah.”

“Thanks,” she whispered again, looking up and biting back her lip. She gave me a lingering kiss on the cheek and snuggled deeper into my chest. She sniffled and let out a small cough, but fell asleep a few minutes later.

“I love you,” I whispered, not even the slightest bit tired.

I stood in place for what seemed like two minutes, keeping my eyes on the small bit of mistletoe between my fingers. I thought back to the last half-hour or so: Temp was still wearing the necklace I’d bought with some of the signing bonus I received from Fearless when we recorded The Way We Talk. It was a small fortune, but I didn’t mind.

I made up my mind and stuffed the leaves into the pocket of my jeans, nervously licking my lips and brushing away my bangs. A subtle thought entered my head about getting a hair cut as I found myself walking into the living room to watch the Grinch and his futile attempts to ruin Christmas.