Gretchen knew she looked fine. Nobody would be able to see that she was still freaking out inside, or that her skin felt like it was going to crawl right off her body. Thank God for her parents, and thank God for Lincoln being handy and giving her a private place for a quick meltdown.
He turned out the store's overhead lights and locked the doors behind them.
Abby was atop the pony, on the way back up the alley to where her grandparents waited.
Gretchen snapped a few pictures.
As soon as Abby was back with them, she said, "Can we get more hot chocolate from Aunt Jody?"
"Sure." She tried not to overreact as Abby ran ahead of them. Jody's booth was in view and she got there five steps behind Abby, but still. What wouldn't have given her a second's pause three hours ago was now a scary ordeal with potentially dire consequences.
The PA system crackled and announced that the vendor hours were over, and that local bands were set up and ready to start playing on the free stage near the tree lighting area.
Stewart packed their equipment into plastic bins so they could tear down the booth. "Hey, munchkin, what are you up to?"
Abby jumped up and down. "I just rode a pony."
"A pony? That's awesome. Mindy used to have a pony named Peaches."
Mindy rolled her eyes. "I did not."
"You sure did. You talked about it all the time. Ask Uncle Eric. He'll remember."
"You had a pony?" Abby's jaw dropped.
Jody shook her head. "She had a pretend pony when she was your age."
"Oh." Abby shrugged. "I rode a real pony."
Gretchen forked over money for the last of the white chocolate peppermint drinks (with extra whipped topping).
Jody was subtly throwing eye daggers at Lincoln, who hung back, standing awkwardly off to the side.
Dory nudged Gretchen's arm. "They're starting to line up for S-A-N-T-A. We'll take her, you relax for a while. We'll meet you at the tree lighting." Gretchen knew what her mom meant. Calm down, chill out, go back to feeling like things were normal. But what was normal, anyway?
Lincoln pulled his phone out of his pocket and looked at the glowing screen. "I have to take this, I'll be right back."
Jody pulled her to the side of the booth. "Fill me in."
"There's nothing to fill in with Lincoln yet, but Carla was here."
Jody's gaze snapped to Gretchen's face. "What? Here?" She pointed to the ground. "Like here-here?"
"Yeah. She came up to Abby."
"Wait. That was her? The weird lady who came up to you here earlier?"
"Yeah."
Jody pressed a hand to her throat. "Oh, no. I wish I'd have recognized her."
"What could you have done?"
She flashed an evil grin. "Anything I needed to."
That made her laugh. "What would I ever do without you?"
"I don't know, but you would be very, very, bored. Seriously, though, is there anything we can do?"
Her curls bounced as she shook her head. "She's spending the weekend in jail, so I'm not even giving her another thought right now."
"Okay. Now go give Lincoln an earful about his sneaky activities last weekend and then ghosting. Then report back. And if you want me to stuff him in one of these plastic bins, I'm happy to do so."
"I'll keep that option in mind, for sure." Gretchen gave her a quick hug and looked around to see where Lincoln had gotten to.
He leaned against the brick wall, his hands shoved in his pockets.
"Hey."
"Hey. That was Ruby. Her sons came by so she got them to help tear down the booth so I don't have to."
"Oh. Good."
"We sold all the calendars."
"That's great."
"Do you want to go hear the band?"
"Sure." They started walking toward the opposite side of town. At least half of the vendors were already torn down and gone, emptying the sidewalks. Still, most of the people milling around walked on the road instead of the sidewalks that were occupied by ice sculptures.
Stars dotted the black sky, so bright even the streetlights couldn't cancel them out. The shop windows were full of twinkling colored lights that reflected through the ice sculptures displayed in front of each store.
"What is that?" Gretchen pointed to a sculpture that was about three feet high.
"I think it's burger? With a hat?"
"There's the Hollow Dog. That's really cute." The five-foot sculpture of the radio station's mascot stood regally, pointing toward the station's window display of a Christmas village.
They passed the massive reindeer sculpture. There was still a line of people waiting their turn to sit on the reindeer and take pictures.
An ice sculpture in front of the jewelry store was a giant heart with interlocked rings chiseled onto it.
They had to step off the sidewalk to get around the massive six-foot tall ice goose in front of Stephanie's Duck, Duck, Goose Daycare, which also had a goose etched in the glass of the front door.
Lincoln said, "Are we going to talk about last weekend? Or are we just not talking anymore?"
Gretchen focused her attention on an ice hot dog holding a soda. "I didn't think there was anything to talk about."
"I think there's a lot to talk about."
"Why? We're done. You've graduated the program. You certainly don't need my help anymore because you're doing fine on your own." She shoved her hands deep into her coat pockets.
"Gretchen."
"Lincoln. It's fine."
"It's clearly not fine."
She walked faster.
"Hey. Gretchen. Come on, slow down."
"I want a good spot to watch the tree lighting."
"It's a forty-foot tree. There are no bad spots."
She stopped abruptly and spun to face him. "Okay, fine. What are we going to talk about?" When he hesitated, she yanked her hands out of her pockets and lifted her arms. "See? Nothing to talk about."
"We have a lot to talk about."
"Such as?" She crossed her arms and tapped her foot.
"A lot happened last weekend and then you kind of ghosted me."
Her eyes bugged. "Me? Ghosted you? I don't recall getting any calls or texts or emails or letters or cards or smoke signals or carrier pigeons from you. You're the one who ghosted me. Presumably because your free time was occupied?"
"No, I didn't have any free time this week. The calendars—"
"Calendars?" She couldn't believe what she was hearing. "What do the calendars have to do with the blonde?"
"Blonde? Oh. Meredith." It really seemed to take him a second to connect the dots.
"Yeah. Meredith. I don't get it. If I'm supposed to be helping you date, why wouldn't you tell me? Get some pointers or something?"
Lincoln took a small step back like he was shocked. "Pointers?"
"Pointers. Tips. Ideas. Advice."
"So you…" He ran a hand over his hair and blew out a plume of breath that rose into the night. "That's why you're mad? Because I didn't get tips from you on taking another woman out on a date?"
Gretchen glared down at the sidewalk. Nope, that was absolutely not why she was mad, but it was an easy explanation. She could just run with it and put an end to this whole situation and part ways as friends. Or she could just be honest. She decided to go with that. "No. That's not why I'm mad."
"I'm confused."
"Me, too. The whole kiss thing on Saturday caught me so off guard and I wasn't sure what to think. And then when I saw you at the restaurant it confused me even more."
"You saw me? Why didn't you say anything? Come over and say hi?"
She looked up at him like he was clueless. Which he was. "Oh, sure. The woman you're fake dating just casually strolls up to you while you're on a romantic real date? There are zero ways I don't look crazy in that scenario." She emphasized the point by making a zero with her thumb and fingers.
"It wasn't romantic."
"It sure looked like it was. I suppose I should be glad my advice has been so effective. You were doing all the things I've told you. Leaning in, smiling, making eye contact. I'd give you a gold star if I had one."
"Gretchen."
"I think what confuses me the most is, why did you kiss me on Saturday if you knew you had a date the very next day? I don't get it."
He let out a huge sigh, sending another cloud of breath into the sky. "I had not been planning to go on a date with Meredith."
That didn't make sense. "When did you ask her out?"
"I didn't."
"How does that work, exactly?"
"Alex. Oren. Noah. Nate. That's how that works. Particularly Alex. We were at Sonny's for late breakfast on Sunday and I told them about the kiss."
"You told them?" Even in the dim streetlight, she could see him blush.
"Yeah. I didn't know if I should call you and talk about it, or wait for you to bring it up. Somehow they all decided I was suffering from transference and I needed to go out with someone else and Avery's friend Meredith was in town. Next thing I know, Alex is on his phone telling me that I'm taking Meredith out. I wasn't sure how to stop that runaway freight train, and I feel like a spineless dweeb because I went along with it instead of putting my foot down."
"You're telling me that you didn't want to go out and spend an evening with that gorgeous blonde?"
"I didn't."
"It looked like you were having a good time."
"Towards the end, it wasn't so bad, but it was really awkward and uncomfortable at the start. She was nice enough, but the whole time I felt like I was doing something wrong by being there. I know this is all supposed to be fake, but it still felt like I was being dishonest and disrespectful to you." He cleared his throat. "The funny part is that somewhere along the line I realized I wasn't feeling weird because of my anxiety. It was because I just wasn't interested in her."
Gretchen wasn't sure she bought that. Meredith was stunning, and if she was a good friend of Avery's, she had to be smart and funny and generally a good person.
"The good thing is that she clearly wasn't interested in me, either. Weirdly enough, that's when I was able to relax and have a decent time."
"That is weird. What woman wouldn't like you?" She squinted up at him. "And speaking of weird, transference? What were they talking about?"
He snorted a laugh. "They decided I only kissed you because I had imaginary feelings like you're my therapist or something. I don't know. They had a whole convoluted theory and none of it made any sense."
"Those guys rarely make sense."
"Tell me about it."
"Hey, don't act like you agree with me. You're the one who keeps taking their bad advice."
"I know, I know."
"Their theory is stupid, but I have to ask. Why did you kiss me?"
"Mommy, guess what! Santa's going to bring me a pony!"
Gretchen's gaze snapped away from Lincoln and down to Abby's red-chilled face. "Sweetheart, Santa can't bring you a pony."
"Yuh-huh he is. He asked me what I want for Christmas and I said I want a pony and I'm going to name it Peaches like Mindy's pony only this one is going to be real and it can sleep in my room with me and Walter and I'll feed it pancakes and dress it up like Princess Poppy and take it to school for show and tell—"
"Whoa, whoa, slow down. Ponies don't live inside the house. And they don't eat pancakes."
"Yes they do."
"Ponies live in barns."
Abby's brow pinched inward. "Not my pony."
Gretchen looked at Dory over Abby's head. Dory just shrugged and put her hands up in defeat. "I tried to tell her."
Her boot stamped down onto the sidewalk. "He's bringing me a real pony!"
Gretchen braced herself. It had been a long day. Meltdown incoming in 3… 2…
Lincoln hunkered down to be eye-level with Abby. "Hey."
She glared at him.
"Unfortunately, Santa isn't allowed to bring real ponies."
"Santa can bring anything."
Lincoln shook his head. "It's the law. I know, because I work with animals, so I have to know the animal laws."
"Nuh-uh." She sounded a little less certain.
"Yeah. You see, regular animals aren't allowed to be up in the sky in Santa's sleigh. Only his specially trained reindeer. Even regular reindeer aren't allowed. It's a rule from the Federation of Animals."
Gretchen watched the emotions play over Abby's face as she decided whether or not to believe him.
"It's a grown-up safety rule. It kind of stinks, but Santa's hands are tied. Did you know that Blitzen almost wasn't allowed to fly the sleigh last year because his Federation of Animals clearance expired?"
Abby's eyes got wide.
"It was a whole mess. Lots of paperwork that didn't get fixed until like an hour before they had to take off. It was on the news and everything."
Gretchen bit her lips to keep from laughing until Abby turned to her and stabbed a finger in her direction. "Then you can get me a pony."
There would be no reasoning with this child, so Gretchen decided to deflect. "Let's go watch them light the tree."
They found a spot in the crowd. The last local band of the night exclusively played Christmas carols. The mayor walked through the crowd, encouraging everyone to join in. Before long, the whole town was singing.
At nine o'clock on the dot, the streetlights dimmed and the band played "Silent Night."
Soft white lights dotted the tree. With each line, the lights brightened. For the second verse, even more white lights turned on.
When the song ended, "Deck the Halls" began. With the festive, upbeat music, colored lights began to pop out on the tree. By the end, thousands and thousands of lights lit up not only the tree, but the whole town square and the wonderful faces of everyone who made Hickory Hollow special.
At the end of the song, the streetlights came back up to full brightness. The band played more carols, but most of the people began to peel away from the crowd and head for home.