Highly Recommended by our Reading Group members -- new books that speak to the holiday. 

Janice Kay Johnson
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Every Christmas gift Will and Dinah exchange is a symbol of their love. The tradition begins on their very first date in 1968, when Will arrives with an exquisitely wrapped present that shows he, unlike everyone else in her life, believes in her dream of becoming a chef. It continues through every holiday season after that—whether they're together or apart. But the tradition ends when tragedy strikes. After that, only an unexpected gift can make things right.

Excerpt

1968

The cough and choke of Will O'Keefe's 1952 Chevy brought Dinah racing to the front window. This was the second time he'd picked her up, but their first real date. The other time they'd been going to that jam session at Miguel's and Will had just been a ride—although it hadn't turned out that way, since they'd stuck together the whole night as if it was a given.

By the time she peeked around the drape, he'd slammed the car door and started up her steep driveway. That's when dismay punched her in the chest. In his hands was a gaily wrapped Christmas present with a bright red bow atop. It had to be for her!

But they'd only met two weeks before, at Terri's party. They'd talked there for hours, and then again at Miguel's. But that didn't really count, did it? They weren't going together or anything, so why had he bought her a Christmas present?

Her mind raced. Had she bought anything for her brother or father that she could pretend was for Will? But neither present was right. The album she was giving Stephen maybe, but she had no idea whether Will liked Country Joe and the Fish, and anyway… She didn't have enough money left to buy Stephen something else before Christmas! If only she'd thought to bake cookies, or make fudge, and had some saved for him. Since it was almost Christmas.

The doorbell rang. She was out of time.

Dinah took a deep breath and opened the door. "Hi," she said brightly, then looked at the gift as if she hadn't already seen it. "Oh, no! I didn't get you anything."

"Why would you? We just met." He offered her the smile that had made her heart skip a beat when Terri introduced them. It was genuine, even sweet, not marred by pretence or self- consciousness.

Will O'Keefe wasn't exactly handsome. He was only a few inches taller than her five foot seven, maybe five-ten. He was actually pretty skinny, although he had big hands and feet that gave him a puppy-dog look. And his face was, well, the kind her eye skipped over in a crowd. Just ordinary.

It was definitely the smile that had gotten to her. The smile, and his eyes, an amazing shade of blue, all the more unusual with his dark hair.

"Then why…" she asked, gesturing at the gift in his hand.

"Why?" He looked down. "Oh. I got stuck with my Mom the other day while she was Christmas shopping. And I saw this, and thought of you." He thrust the package at her as if to get rid of it. "It's no big deal. It was probably a dumb idea. I just thought…" His shoulders moved in an awkward shrug.

She glanced at the Christmas tree near the front window and the gifts piled beneath it. "Should I save it? Or, um, open it now?"

"Now," he said. "Since I'm here. Unless you want to save it."

"No. Now's fine. Do you want to sit down?"

"Sure." He shut the front door behind him and chose a place on the Danish modern sofa with the olive-green upholstery fabric that made Dinah's legs itch if she was wearing shorts.

She perched at the other end of the sofa, turned to half face him, glad no one else was home. Her mother would have raised her eyebrows at some boy she'd never met buying her daughter a present, her dad would have nodded in approval because Will's hair was short and Stephen would have given her a hard time about going out with a guy who looked so square. He wouldn't believe her when she said Will wasn't, that he'd cut his hair so he could be on the wrestling team at his high school. According to Will, his coach was like this Nazi, who practically measured every strand of hair to make sure his wrestlers looked like these perfect, all- American boys.

Dinah hesitated. Will smiled encouragement and she tore the paper to find a plain box inside. He looked nervous, she saw out of the corner of her eye. He really wanted her to like whatever he'd bought. She opened the box and stared in puzzlement at folded white canvas, like that of a sail.

"I had to wad it up to get it in," he apologized. Dinah lifted it out, then breathed, "Ohh," as she saw what he'd bought because it made him think of her.

An apron. A chef's apron. A real one, the kind professionals wore, extra wide so it would wrap around her and long enough to reach her knees.

"When I picked you up Saturday you were wearing that little flowery apron." Will gestured at his front. "And after you'd told me how much you love to cook, and how you'd like to be a chef or caterer, I thought you should look like one instead of wearing your mom's apron."

Her eyes filled with tears. "You believed me."

"Why wouldn't I?"

"My parents don't. They want me to go to college, not culinary school." She hugged the apron to herself and sniffed. "Thank you. I love it."

"Really?" With hopeful eyes, he looked more than ever like a puppy.

"Really." She scooted across the sofa and kissed his cheek.

Because he was a guy, he turned his head and found her mouth with his. Not for the first time. He'd kissed her Saturday night, before he dropped her off just in time for her 1:00 a.m. weekend curfew. But that kiss was like any first one, with Dinah, at least, worrying about what he'd think if she touched her tongue to his, or if she wrapped her arm around his neck or shifted more to face him. It was funny, because Dinah had spent all evening—while they sat side by side on the floor in the hall at Miguel's—thinking about how much she wanted him to kiss her. And she'd looked at his hands, splayed on his thighs, and wondered how they would feel touching her. But when he did bend his head to kiss her… Well, she'd had the panicky feeling that it was coming too soon. She wanted to keep wondering. She knew she was going to be really disappointed if he grabbed her breasts and reached for her zipper while mumbling in her ear, like Toby had when she let him kiss her at a party, that "sex is natural, man." When she'd pulled away from Toby, he'd asked her with genuine puzzlement, "Why are you so hung up?" Maybe she was, but she didn't want some guy pushing inside her when she hardly even knew him. And she hated the idea that Will might be like that, just assuming. But he hadn't assumed anything. That first kiss had been so self-conscious and brief, she'd worried instead that he was turned off and didn't care if he touched her breasts or not.

But now he'd bought her a Christmas present that told her he'd listened to her and that he liked her. And he was kissing her again, and this time wasn't nearly as awkward. Their shoulders brushed, and their thighs, but otherwise their mouths were the only connection. The kiss went from gentle to passionate and back again, and by the time he moved his face back an inch or two and they smiled foolishly at each other, Dinah felt incandescent, as if a candle had been lit within her and the light glowed through the translucent layers of her body.

Just like that, she was ready to give up her virginity. She was the last holdout of all her friends. In fact, she might be the last virgin in the junior class at Half Moon Bay High School. Or maybe at the whole high school. She did have hang-ups. But finally, she knew what they were. She'd been waiting. Not for the right time, but for the right guy.

"Hey," Will said. "We'd better get going. We'll be late for the movie."

It took her a moment to remember what their plans for the evening had been. "Oh. Right. This was such a cool present. Thanks." She kissed his cheek again, then jumped up, took the apron to her bedroom and grabbed her purse. She paused to brush her hair again, checking herself out in the full- length mirror on the back of her door.

She wore men's shrink-to-fit Levi's, a Mexican peasant shirt embroidered down the front, sandals and big gold hoops in her ears. Her strawberry-blond hair hung straight and smooth from a center part, reaching to the middle of her back. She looked hip enough not to stand out in the Haight-Ashbury, except she was cleaner than she would be if she was sharing an apartment with ten other people. Dinah had gone to places like that with friends and seen how one big group lived on practically nothing but still somehow had hashish to fill a bong. It seemed like they were passing one around anytime several of them were home, sitting cross-legged in the living room on the mattresses that substituted for furniture. The bedding was always disheveled and grungy. She'd felt uncomfortable and passed the bong on without doing more than pretending to take a draw. She didn't actually like being stoned. And, despite being antiwar and in favor of loving everyone, some part of her was too materialistic to want to live that way. No, too establishment. If she ever had a boyfriend she really loved, she wouldn't share him. And she hated being dirty. So maybe she was a pretender, a traitor to her generation.

But Will seemed to like her, didn't he? He straddled two worlds, too. He told her he'd also gone to antiwar demonstrations, and they'd seen some of the same concerts at the Fillmore Auditorium and Winterland. Only, he was a really good student, and he cared enough about making state in wrestling to cut his hair.

They saw the movie Bullitt, a police drama with Steve McQueen that was really good. Afterward, they stopped for a burger and fries, and talked about the movie and eventually the war and their parents. Will wouldn't be graduating in June with his class; he'd gotten meningitis when he was a freshman and had been really sick, so he was enough credits short he had to go half-time first semester the next year.

"What a drag!" She couldn't imagine having to go back after all your friends had tossed their graduation caps in the air and were gone to college and jobs.

"Yeah," Will said, sounding gloomy, "but the thing is, I don't know what I'm going to do after graduation anyway. I guess I'll apply at San Francisco State," he said, swirling ketchup on his plate with a French fry.

"Or I could go to Skyline."

He was from Pacifica, which was close to Skyline Junior College, so he could easily live at home and take classes there. Dinah lived in El Granada, half an hour farther south along the ocean from San Francisco. If she were going into the city, she'd drive right through Pacifica.

"You don't sound like that's what you want to do," she said, resting her elbows on the table.

"You can tell, huh? The thing is, I like to build." His face lit with enthusiasm. "I thought about going for a degree in architecture, but I'm not very good at art. I can see what I want to do with wood, but I can't put it down on paper. Anyway, design, that's not the same thing as actually building something with your own hands."

Dinah nodded. She knew exactly what he meant. She did enjoy creating new dishes, but mostly what she loved was the act of cooking. Reading a cookbook wasn't the same as appreciating the textures of everything from flour, which was puffy and lighter than air, to ginger root, which could be tough, filled with threads and yet bursting with moist sweetness. She found satisfaction in perfecting the techniques to draw out the most flavor, the precision of measurements, the exhilaration when a flash of creativity proved to be genius instead of a gigantic, mouth-puckering mistake and, in the end, from the beauty of the food arranged on the plate. She liked to touch, to mold, to roll out pastry, to chop and stir. Will just liked doing the same things with wood and tile and drywall.

"My parents keep telling me I'm too smart to be a carpenter," he continued, his expression brooding. "And then there's the draft."

"But you don't have to worry yet, do you?"

He grimaced. "I'll be nineteen in August. I started kindergarten a year late."

"Oh." The realization stole Dinah's breath. A couple of boys who'd gone to her high school had died in Vietnam. She'd known one. Not well, but enough to be shocked when she heard. Donald had played football, and a girl who'd been in Dinah's geometry class had gone to the prom with him. He was drafted, sent overseas and killed six weeks later. Dinah was already worrying about her brother. "It's awful!" she burst out. "What would you be fighting for, anyway?"

"That's why they have to hold a draft. No one wants to enlist anymore."

The awful thing with the draft was its unpredictability. How did young men plan their future when they could get drafted anytime? A student deferment was about the only protection, and that was temporary. Everybody knew now how awful it was in Vietnam. Every night, the news was filled with gruesome images. The Tet Offensive had been heavily covered by reporters and cameramen. Supposedly Nixon, just elected, had a plan for ending the war, but nobody under thirty believed that. And now Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy had both been assassinated, silencing their voices. Dinah sometimes felt as if there was no hope.

Now, feeling desperate, Dinah said, "But if you go to college, you'll be safe."

Will pushed his plate aside. "Now you sound like my mother."

It went against the grain, but Dinah stuck to her guns. "Maybe she's right. If you get drafted, you could die. For something you don't even believe in."

"Yeah, but what if the war goes on and on? Being stuck in college…" His face showed his struggle to find the right words. "It would be like treading water. I wouldn't be going anywhere!"

"At least you'd be alive," she said passionately.

"I might not get a low draft number."

"But what if you do?"

"I don't know!" he almost shouted.

Dinah bit her lip. "I'm sorry. I guess I do sound like your parents. It's just because the idea scares me."

He reached across the table and took her hand. "I know. It scares me, too. But it makes me mad that I should have to spend years more in school because of Nixon, even though it's a waste of time for me."

She nodded. It didn't make sense. There must be tens of thousands of guys taking college classes they didn't even care about, just to keep from having to go to Vietnam. And that was horribly unfair to the ones who couldn't get into college and win a deferment.

"None of it's fair," she said.

He squeezed her hand. "Let's not worry about it right now. I don't even have to apply to college until fall. That's a long time away. The war might be over by then."

She nodded. "If Nixon starts withdrawing troops, the way he's talked about, they might not need to keep on with the draft anyway."

"Right. So let's forget it." Will grinned at her. "You want to split a hot-fudge sundae?"

While they were eating it, laughing when their heads bumped as they dueled with plastic spoons for luscious drips of chocolate, Dinah thought of all the things her mother was afraid she did whenever she was out at night. Mom lay awake worrying that she was smoking pot, at least, if not dropping acid or having wild sex. Here she was instead, eating a hot-fudge sundae with a boy who hadn't even had a drink. How innocent could it get?

War Tore Them Apart, Can Love Bring Them Back Together?

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