“Oh, my Santa, you two are getting married!?” Kristal squeals, her face lit up with delight.
That morning I walk into the Inn’s noisy dining room, but Kristal runs, making a straight beeline to where Declan and Siobhan are having another small breakfast with Maeve.
“Who’s getting married?” a man wearing a pair of long john pajamas asks another man dressed in a much more formal suit.
“The new housekeeper’s son is getting married to the inn keeper’s niece,” a young woman with Farrah Fawcett hair answers from another table. She’s wearing a bikini. “He proposed late last night in the sitting room. It was so romantic!”
“But I thought he was arranging to go back to Japan with the oriental and the black girl,” the man in the long johns says.
“That was before he decided to propose,” the woman in the bikini answers. “Now, he’s going to stay here and he and Siobhan are going to take over the inn! Isn’t that the grooviest situation you’ve ever heard? Why I could just scream.”
“Oh, well, that certainly is romantic,” the man in the morning suit agrees. “Do you think they’ll have children? It will be so nice to have babies running around the inn again. I’d almost given up hope after Rodge took over.”
“Ssh!” says the woman in the bikini. “They’re talking about wedding plans. I want to listen in.”
“And remember, Rodge is longtime friends with the town clerk,” Maeve says to the happy couple. “He’ll probably be able to expedite a license for you.”
“There you go, volunteering me for crap again,” Rodge says, walking up to the table with a cup of coffee in his hands. “And you know Melvin and I aren’t friends anymore. We had that falling out back in October.”
“Then fall back in!” Maeve insists. “The sooner these two get married, the sooner I’ll get baby grands.”
“Here, here!” the man in the morning suit agrees.
“So, so dreamy!” the woman in the bikini says. She’s turned all the way around in her seat now and blatantly listening in on the conversation at our table.
Doing my best to ignore all the eavesdroppers, I glance over at Kristal, only to find her hunched over her sketch pad.
I grind my teeth. If she draws me one more picture of that old man…
“Has the pilot called yet?” I ask Declan, interrupting the argument between Maeve and Rodge. “I’d like to get back to Japan as soon as possible.”
“Nothing yet,” Declan answers. “And don’t worry, I’m checking every fifteen minutes. You don’t know how bad I feel about leaving you in a lurch like this.”
No, I didn’t know. Nor did I understand how my sensible driver could give up his well-paying job to manage a rundown inn in Maine with a woman he only reunited with yesterday.
But then again, who am I to talk? Kristal and I only spent one night together. But after obsessing over the elf for nearly a year, here I am trying to figure out how to keep her with me in Japan.
“You know, if you made up with Melvin, then Shuv and Dec could get married before Kristal and his poor abandoned boss fly out,” Maeve pointed out. “After all the work they did to reunite these two, don’t you think they at least deserve that?”
“Or his rich boss could come back in his private jet for a summer wedding,” Rodge answers, taking a grumpy sip of his coffee. “Bring the elf with him.”
He stabs his coffee cup in Kristal’s direction. “Wouldn’t you much rather come back for a well-planned out summer wedding than some rush job in front of my fireplace?”
“Actually there’s something else you need to do,” Kristal says. “Like right now.”
She tears out the piece of sketch paper she was drawing on.
“I’m not sure who this is, but his sketch suddenly appeared, not just with a date, but also with a time. Less than twenty minutes from now.”
With an apologetic look, she slides the drawing across the table to Rodge…whose face pales when he sees the sketch.
“Who is it?” Kristal asks into his shocked silence. “Can we call him? Or maybe he’s close enough to save?”
Rodge blinks at Siobhan. “I’m…I’m not sure what to do. Of course, I don’t believe in any of her elf hocus pocus, but…”
He lifts up the sketch of a thin balding man in a cardigan sweater, and the reaction is instantaneous.
Maeve, Declan, and Siobhan jump out of their seats. As do many of the guests at the eavesdropping table.
“Oh no, not him!” I hear the girl say behind me.
“Oh, hell,” Declan says, as Maeve crosses herself.
Siobhan grabs Rodge by the sleeve. “C’mon, Uncle Rodge. We’ll take my truck.”
“No, let’s take the shuttle!” Maeve says, standing up herself and tugging Rodge to his feet. “We’re all coming. You, too, Kristal.”
Proving themselves well-matched, Declan springs into immediate action, running out ahead to the shuttle while Siobhan fishes the shuttle keys off a hook in the lobby.
We’re all in the van before Kristal has another chance to ask, “Who is it? Who are we hopefully going to save?”
Thanks to all the chattering people in the dining room, I can save the worried people in the van the chore of answering her.
“The person in your sketch is Melvin…” I tell her. “The town clerk who used to be Rodge’s longtime friend.”