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Authors: Rachel Maldonado

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BOOK: Christmas Retreat
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              “I'm Baxter and these are my roommates Dorothy and Sidney.”

              “I'm Karen and these three ladies are my roommates.” She pointed to the other women on the couch.

              “Hi. I'm Justine,” said a young brunette with tears in her eyes. “Nice to meet you.”

              “Likewise,” said Baxter.

              “Nice to meet you, too,” said Sidney and Dorothy almost in unison.

              “I'm Elaine,” said a portly woman with large dark curls. She was eating a bag of cookies and had several other small bags of chips and crackers beside her. “I couldn't wait for breakfast, so I had to hit the vending machines. Don't mind me.”

              “I don't blame you at all,” said Dorothy. “I'm starving myself.”

              “Here, have yourself a bag of chips,” said Elaine, handing her a bag of Lays.

              “Oh, no, thanks. I can wait for breakfast,” said Dorothy, shaking her hand.

              “Nice to meet you all,” said a thin woman with long dark hair. “I'm Felicia.” She seemed to cower into herself shyly. If she had been a chameleon she would have blended into the couch pattern to hide.

              A few minutes passed before the two facilitators came down. “Hello, everyone. Good morning. I'm Olivia and this is Patty. We're in charge of activities. Is everyone here?”

              “It looks like we're missing some people,” said Patty, looking around.

              “We've already started introductions,” said Dorothy.

              “That's great,” said Olivia. “We're just waiting on the last few women then.”

              Cherry came downstairs and sat beside Sidney. Baxter and Dorothy scooted away, and Sidney shot Baxter a mean look. Baxter looked back towards Sidney and grinned.

              “Hello, everyone. I'm Cherry. I'm not good at introductions, but if you have any questions, just ask me.”

              “Welcome, Cherry,” said Olivia.

              “Thank you, Ophelia,” said Cherry with a big smile. Olivia looked confused as to why Cherry called her Ophelia, but said nothing.

              “We'll wait a few more minutes,” said Olivia. Just as she spoke, the four other women came walking down the stairs. “Oh, look. Here they come now.”

              “Sorry to keep you waiting,” said an older woman with glasses. “We got busy chatting and lost track of time.”

              “You're fine,” said Patty. “Right on time.”

              “Yes, it looks like everyone's already introduced themselves. Who out of you four wants to go first?” asked Olivia, looking at them curiously as they sat down and made themselves comfortable.

              “I'll go first,” said the woman with glasses. “My name's Lara. I'm a lesbian author. I wanted to come on this retreat to meet other like-minded women, but also to have some quiet time to write.”

              “Okay, sounds great. Welcome,” said Olivia. “Who's next?”

              A short, spunky brunette jumped up from her seat and stood. She rambled her introduction as if she was in a hurry to get it all out or she'd explode. “I'll go next. I'm Nora! I work as a flight attendant and I just absolutely positively love to fly. I love to meet new people, I love talking to my passengers, and most of all I love the woods. Don't you all love the woods? I'm seeing this therapist and he thinks that I'm all together too hyper and that it might conflict with my job, so the airline paid for my retreat. I guess they thought I needed a getaway, or some quiet, or maybe I just needed to make new friends...”

              “Wow, honey. Did you take a breath somewhere in there?” asked Patty. All the other women giggled.

              Baxter looked over at Sidney and smiled. Sidney wondered if she had made a mistake in deciding to come. She could have stayed home with Baxter and her cat Mittens. He was a gorgeous black cat with white front paws. She had contemplated calling him Socks, but Baxter had insisted that he was wearing mittens since his front paws were white and not his back paws.

              “Okay, that just leaves you two,” said Olivia, pointing to the last two women that hadn't yet introduced themselves. The one that couldn't stop smiling spoke up first.

              “Hello, everyone,” she said as she waved. “I'm Millicent. I heard about this retreat from a friend and this year I'm single and I didn't want to spend the holiday alone, so here I am. It's nice to meet everybody.”

              “Nice to meet you,” said everyone in unison.

              “Looks likes it's all you,” said Patty, pointing to the last woman.

              “Hello. I'm Angel. I'm here because my ex Carla told me about this place. She said that she came here once and she had a blast. I did talk to one of my other exes, Diedra, and she said she had fun here one year, too. I looked it up online and saw that there was one spot left, so I signed up and here I am.”

              “Nice to meet you, Angel, and welcome to the Seventh Annual Christmas Holiday Singles Retreat. We're glad to have you. I'm Olivia and I own this cabin and this is my roommate Patty. She lives and works here and helps out with the retreat activities.”

              “After breakfast, we're all going on a little hike, so everyone is welcome to run up to their rooms to change clothes or get into some comfortable walking shoes. Breakfast is biscuits and gravy and some warm oatmeal. You also have your choice of orange juice, apple juice, or coffee. Join me in the cafe.” Patty motioned with her hands for everyone to follow and all twelve women got up from where they were seated and proceeded to follow Olivia and Patty to where the warm aroma of coffee, oatmeal, and biscuits and gravy was coming from.

              Elaine was the first in line and she piled her plate high with biscuits and then drowned them in gravy. She had a large bowl of oatmeal and helped herself to a giant bowl of fruit that was on the counter. “You girls want fruit? You having fruit?” she asked before shoving the contents of the bowl in her large purse. Baxter turned to look at Sidney in disbelief. She hadn't even had a chance to respond. Sidney and Baxter sat quietly eating biscuits without gravy and Dorothy joined them eating a steaming bowl of oatmeal.

              Cherry sat down at a table with Justine, who was quietly sobbing into her bowl of oatmeal. “You okay, honey?” asked Cherry. She patted her on the back as Justine nodded. “It will be okay, whatever it is.”

              Lara grabbed her breakfast and vanished from sight. No doubt she had hurried off to her room to write an award-winning lesbian novel. Nora made the mistake of sitting with Cherry and Justine, the overly emotional sobbing woman. Sidney, Baxter, and Dorothy had the joy of overhearing their conversation.

              “I don't know why Geraldine is so upset,” said Cherry to Nora about Justine. “I asked her if she was okay, but she won't talk to me.”

              “Are you okay?” asked Nora. “Why are you crying? Is it an ex? Is it a dog? Is that it? Did you lose your dog? Or was it a cat? I had a goldfish once that I won at a carnival and it died right away, too. I had it one night and would you believe that it was dead by morning?”

              Cherry decided to chime in her two cents. “Yes, I had a pet rock once when I was a child that I found in the driveway, but my mom came over and saw it on the table and tossed it outside in the gravel. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. I never did find that rock. But at least it was with all the other rocks. It was reunited with its family. It will be okay, Clementine.”

              Baxter couldn't help but burst into laughter. The women looked over at her, and Baxter hid her face behind Sidney and ate her breakfast biscuit silently trying to wipe the smile from her face. Sidney downed her coffee hurriedly. “Why don't we go outside and wait for the hike to begin?” said Sidney as she stood up.

              “Good idea,” said Baxter trying not to laugh. She and Dorothy returned their trays and tossed their disposable dishes in the trash. They stepped out into the cool, hill country air. It was a crisp morning of about fifty-five degrees. They sat at an outdoor table and waited patiently for the rest of the women to join them.

              “Is that woman for real?” asked Dorothy as she suddenly started laughing. Baxter felt that she could no longer contain herself any longer either and began to laugh.

              Baxter tried to keep her voice down, but she was still talking loud. “Oh, I know! What the heck was she talking about? She got a pet rock from the driveway and then it got tossed back out and she couldn't find it! How does that compare to a lost goldfish?”

              Dorothy held the sides of her stomach as she laughed. “Yes! And Justine never did say what was wrong. They were rambling on about lost girlfriends, pets, and rocks like she wasn't even there!”

              Sidney clearly felt bad. “Maybe we should go in there and rescue Justine and ask her why she's so sad. Don't you think we should get her away from those two?”

              “Nu uh,” said Baxter, shaking her head. “I'm not going back in there.”

              “Did you see Elaine dump that whole bowl of fruit in her purse? She's stocking up on food like they're going to run out,” said Dorothy laughing.

              Baxter laughed. “I know. I wanted a banana, but I didn't have a chance to say anything when she asked. Before I knew it, she already had the bowl in her hands and was emptying it into her bag.”

              When the cowbell on the door chimed, the women quieted. They looked over towards the door to see that Angel and Millicent were walking out. “Hey, ladies. Did you enjoy your breakfast?” asked Dorothy, trying to make conversation.

              “Yes! I sure did. I had two biscuits and a bowl of oatmeal. How about you girls?” asked Millicent.

              “Oh, we enjoyed it just fine,” said Baxter calmly. She couldn't understand why Millicent seemed so hyper in the morning. She seemed like the type of person that just had five cups of coffee.

              “It was okay,” said Angel. She took a deep breath and rambled out a long story about one of her exes.  “My ex Jennifer used to make me oatmeal all the time and she used to put raisins in it and sometimes sugar or sweetener for a little added sweetness. This one was sort of plain. I tried to add some packets of sugar to it, but it wasn't the same. It could have used some cinnamon, too, I think. Robin, one of my other exes, used to make oatmeal with cinnamon. I don't know. It was lacking something. What do you think? Did you have the oatmeal?”

              “No, Sid and I had the biscuits,” said Baxter. She looked over at Sidney and smiled.

              “I had the oatmeal. You're right. It was plain, but at least it was hot,” said Dorothy.

              When the other women exited the building, Cherry stood by the building and admired a sign that was posted that said 'Christmas Shop.' “Hey, Paula,” said Cherry to Patty. “I really like this sign. Did you and Olga make it yourselves?”

              “No, we bought that,” said Patty. Everyone was beginning to notice that Cherry never got anyone's name right, so therefore, didn't say anything when she got it wrong. Seconds later, Olivia came out of the building with a clipboard.

              “Is everyone here?” asked Olivia, looking around.

              “I think we're missing a couple of people,” said Patty.

              “I saw Lara go upstairs. She's the writer so she probably wanted some quiet time,” said Dorothy.

              “Anyone else missing?” asked Patty.

              Felicia looked around and spoke up when no one else said anything. “Yes, my roommate Karen. She wandered out into the woods by herself about twenty minutes ago.”

              Olivia wrote Karen's name down on her clipboard. “Okay, that's fine. As long as we know where everyone is at all times. If she's not back by supper time, we can go out looking for her.”

              “Where are we going?” asked Elaine eating a bag of trail mix.

              Olivia led the way down the trail and everyone followed after. “It's not too far. It's a trail that leads away about a mile and a half, and then it's a mile and a half back. If we're lucky we'll see some deer grazing or some interesting birds. We may see a woodpecker or a wild turkey.”

              “I don't know if I can walk three miles,” said Elaine. “Will we be back by supper time?”

              “If you can't make it the length of the hike, I'll walk back with you,” said Patty, patting Elaine on the back. “And we'll be back plenty early. Don't worry.”

              Baxter, Dorothy, and Sidney were walking at the tail end of the line when they noticed that Elaine and Nora ducked out from the front of the hike and started walking behind them. Nora talked the entire way down the trail and back up again. Three whole miles. It started innocently enough, “Would you believe I sprained my ankle once on a hike? I sprained it so bad that I couldn't put any pressure on it and someone I was with at the time had to carry me back to my car. It was quite the embarrassing situation. That reminds me; one time when I was in grade school I broke my ankle. I was walking home from school and I just tumbled into the grass. I have no idea what happened. My foot just went out from underneath me, and the next thing I knew, I couldn't stand up and I couldn't walk...”

BOOK: Christmas Retreat
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