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Lawson
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IT’D BEEN A LITTLE while, and while I had been getting myself ready for some true Christmas cookie baking, Holly scurried off to take care of some other things. I went and set the mood, putting on a holiday baking show on the television in the other room and getting things festive with some lights strung across the ceiling in the kitchen. I figured if there was some Christmas magic left in them, they might help this poor girl bake something that wouldn’t taste like charcoal on the edges.
When Holly made her grand return, I was folding up the ladder and putting it away in the utility closet in the hall. She looked at it strangely, and then her gaze moved up to the lights in the kitchen. I couldn’t tell if she was happy or frustrated with them, but I was going to go with happy until she told me otherwise.
“Well, that was certainly a decision you made,” she said.
And there it was.
“I thought we could get things feeling a bit more jolly in here if we had some lights up,” I said. “If you hate it, I’ll take them down.”
“No, no,” she said, cutting me off and holding one hand up to stop me. “It’s fine. I’m sure the other guests will love it. Who knows, maybe it will help.”
“That’s what I thought,” I said. “Want to give it a whirl? See if it works out?”
“Well, we have a bit of a problem first,” she said. “I just talked to the other guests.”
“Oh. Don’t tell me they all prefer pie. Because I can switch all this over to some holiday pies, but I am going to have to go change the episode of the show because I can’t do pies if they are doing cookies on TV.”
“What? No,” she said, looking thoroughly confused. It seemed that she noticed for the first time that the television was on. She made a sound somewhere between resignation and disgust and focused on me again. “I mean that there are problems with serving them all the same cookies.”
“Someone has allergies?” I asked.
“Something like that,” she said.
“Something like allergies?”
“We have to have some food intolerances for the guests to take into consideration when we make the cookies,” she said. “Specifically, that we can make conventional cookies, but we are going to have to have some vegan, nut-free options.”
“Vegan and nut-free or both vegan and nut-free at the same time?” I asked.
“Same time,” she said, shrugging and one side of her mouth turning downward. How could she make looking disappointed look cute? It was maddening.
“Oh,” I said. “Well, that can be done, I guess. They won’t be as good, mind you, and we will have to time it really carefully. My only worry is cross-contamination.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” she said, shaking her head.
“I know it seems silly, but it’s very real. People with nut allergies could die if exposed...” I began.
“She ate pecan brittle yesterday,” she said, clenching her eyes shut.
“She what?”
“I had some pecan brittle out for them and didn’t know about her supposed allergy,” she began, flopping down into a chair. “She happily grabbed a piece and ate it, so I didn’t think anything of it. But when she told me tonight that she had the allergy, I asked about the brittle. She said ‘oh, peanuts aren’t actually nuts, they are legumes.’”
“She thought it was peanut brittle?” I asked. Holly nodded, a slight smile crossing her lips.
“She was just fine, too.”
“What about the butter in the brittle?” Holly just stared at me. I grinned. “So, in the spirit of Christmas...”
“Don’t get carried away,” she said.
“Haven’t I already?”
We smiled, and I felt like there was a little bit of Christmas magic in those lights after all.
“So, Super Mega-lo-mart in Cratersville or Frank’s Country Store?” I asked as we got behind the wheel of my car.
“Those are our two choices?” Holly asked.
“Well, yeah, if you want to get everything all in one place,” I said. “Otherwise, I guess we could break it up into several shops.”
“Frank would have everything?” she asked, surprised. “I mean, compared to a Mega-lo-mart?”
I looked at her in surprise. “You’re a Snowflake Hollowite and aren’t familiar with Frank’s?”
“I prefer Snowflakian, and no, I’m not. I tend to stick to Main Street when it comes to my shopping needs. Or I jump ship and go to other towns.”
“You just aren’t living, then,” I said with a grin.
Holly sighed. “Tell me about Frank and his magical store of everything.”
“It’s not that he has everything,” I said, turning the engine on and hitting the heat to stave off the cold. “It’s that you never know what he might have. Sometimes he might have hundred-pound bags of peanuts, other times liquid nitrogen. One day he might have sealed cases of the ninety-two Topps baseball card collection and other times the world’s smallest record player. It’s a treasure hunt, but one where you might not find any bread, but you will find a container of peanut butter and strawberry jelly only sold once in Germany.”
“You say all this like it’s from experience,” she said.
“They were the greatest peanut butter sandwiches of my life,” I muttered. “I licked the jar clean.”
“It sounds like I kind of need to go to Frank’s.”
“Frank’s it is,” I said.
I popped on some Christmas music on in the background as we drove, and she didn’t visibly react to it, so I took that as a small win. Maybe she was just desensitized to it at this point, though. Most of the main stations had switched to Christmas-themed music, including the area’s only heavy metal station. I decided not to subject her to Ronnie James Dio belting out Santa tunes, despite how much I wanted to listen to them, and instead went for more classic stuff with Dean Martin and Bing Crosby.
When we arrived at Frank’s Country Store, I could see her feet tapping a little. It wasn’t much, but it was progress. I grinned as I shut the car off and went around to open her door for her. She still looked at me like I was an alien every time I did it, but that look only seemed to fuel my desire to do it again.
“Santa’s last stop?” she asked, reading the sign on the front door.
“Frank stays open on Christmas Eve. Like, until daybreak on Christmas morning. He has saved many a Christmas morning with his odd collection of toys. I will warn you, though, there are dolls.”
“I like dolls,” she said, and I stopped her.
“No, not these. Not these dolls,” I said. “Just... just don’t look them directly in the eye, okay?”
“You’re joking,” she said after a moment of deep eye contact. “You are joking, right?”
“Just, not the eyes, okay?” I said, then turned away, grinning.
I opened the door, making a little bell above it ring as we walked inside. The store was cramped, as usual, with a maze to get to the other side, mostly of shelves stacked high with oddities and food. There seemed to be no organizational method at play when you looked at it on the surface, but when you thought about it, it made a little bit of sense.
Baby food would be next to baby dolls that had those spoons that you clicked a button to make the food “disappear.” Bananas were stored on a wooden rack next to the vanilla wafers. Various skeins of yarn were stacked neatly, if impossibly high, next to bifocals and coffee.
Holly followed closely behind me as we made our way through the tight maze, zig-zagging the only way the floor plan allowed. I was certain it violated every single fire ordinance the town had, but Frank had been in operation like this since at least before I was born. It was like he was grandfathered in against safety regulations.
“Lawson, that you?” a voice came around the bed of another row. I looked at the rack and saw a gap between a stack of Harry Potter books and boxes of chocolate frogs. There was a person on the other side. One I hadn’t seen in years.
“Joey?” I asked. “Joey Page?”
“Son of a gun,” the voice said, and I heard the patter of steps as he made his way around to me.
Joey was a little person, and one of the most colorful and loudest people I had ever known. He made up for whatever he lacked in height with personality, and as he came up to me with dyed orange hair, I wondered if he was suckered into the Christmas pageant again.
“Joey, nice to see you, bud.” I held out my hand, and he took it for a shake before yanking me down into a tight bear hug.
“Nice to see you, too, Lawson. Who’s the girl?” he asked, looking at Holly. “You two together?”
I laughed, somewhat nervously, and avoided looking at Holly at all costs.
“This is Holly White,” I said. “Her grandma left her that big mansion, and she turned it into a bed-and-breakfast.”
“Oh, I know that place,” he said. “Good for you. How’s your mom?”
I filled him in, and after some condolences, he looked at his watch, and his eyes widened.
“I’ve got to get out of here,” he said. “Rehearsal for the pageant is in an hour. I just came here to get more spray paint for the hair.”
“Oh, are you playing an elf?” Holly asked.
There was silence as Joey stared at her blankly.
“No, he’s Santa,” I said.
“Santa?” she asked slowly. Her cheeks were turning red, and I could see the look of horror in her eyes. It was a reaction I’d seen many times before. Joey was more confident than ten people combined and got a kick out of making people just a little bit uncomfortable.
When Joey burst into laughter, I joined him and caught a whack on the arm for it.
“No, I’m an elf,” he said. “An elf who’s running late. I’ll see you around, yeah? Give my regards to your mom. Nice to meet you, Holly.”
“Nice to meet you too, Joey,” she said, shaking her head, her cheeks still red.
“Hey, permanent markers,” I said, noticing the package beside us and hoping to move on from the joke Joey and I pulled so she didn’t have time to get upset about it. “That reminds me, we need more ornaments for the guests.”
“Can we find them here?” she asked.
“Only if you like ones from the 1970s,” came Frank’s voice over the PA.
Holly took a step closer to me, and when she spoke, it was barely above a whisper.
“How did he hear us?” she asked.
“Microphones!” came the voice. “I have them on all the shelves. Also, cameras. Look up. Hi, Holly. Nice to meet you!”
Holly waved, rallying past what I assumed was slight terror on her face, and then tugged at my arm.
“I thought you said there was a craft store nearby?” she asked through gritted teeth.
I nodded and put the markers down. I’d be able to find them at the craft store down the street. Holly had been through a lot already. Subjecting her to Frank was probably not the best of plans.
We went down the street to the craft store, walking. It was cold, and when a stiff wind blew up, she curled up against me. We didn’t address it; it felt really nice to have her that tight against me. We went into the craft store like that and barely broke apart. It was like we were both addicted to the feeling of being that close. I thought back to the kiss that almost happened beside the Christmas tree. I wanted to find that moment again, even if I could give myself a dozen reasons why I shouldn’t.
Holly seemed to be in her element when we made it into the craft store, and we picked out ornaments for the guests to personalize. When we finally separated so I could bring everything to the register, the only thing I could think about was when we would touch again.
