“Hey, Boss Lady. Everyone is done. Wanna come check out the trees with us?”
I followed Trent to the front where the last remaining decorators were lingering. Nick was there with his wife Melissa. She was still wearing her scrubs from her shift at the regional hospital, and she had festively draped garland around her shoulders like a feather boa. Nick and Melissa were canoodling by a tree. When she saw me, she broke away from Nick.
“Kit! Hey!” she said. “These trees look amazing! How do you like our team’s tree?”
Melissa was on a team with local nurses. They had covered the tree in cute medically themed ornaments and garland made of gauze.
I stepped back and scratched my chin as if evaluating the tree. “The dangling syringe ornaments are a nice touch, especially the ones that look like they are full of green and red medicine.”
Melissa clapped and giggled. She skipped over and hooked arms with me. “Let’s go look at the other trees.”
Melissa was about the same age as Nick. She was petite and cute, but what she lacked in size she made up for in personality. Melissa lit up every room she went into. They met when they were in elementary school and Nick had been devotedly in love with her ever since. Nick and Melissa were the quintessential high school sweethearts. When Nick moved away and went to the University of Georgia in Athens, Melissa stayed home, went to community college, and finished her RN degree. I got to know Melissa when she would come to the library in the evenings to study for her college classes. She would study until I closed, and then we would walk to The Pub together to get a late dinner.
Melissa pulled me along from tree to tree, singing “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.”
“I love this one!” Melissa exclaimed at the Humane Society’s tree. It was covered in ornaments of dogs and cats that were up for adoption.
“This one is my favorite,” I said, admiring a tree covered in ornaments that looked like books and bookmarks.
“Shocker,” Melissa said, wrinkling her nose. Then her eyes grew wide. “Oh, wow. Look at that one over there.”
I turned to see where Melissa was pointing. Behind me stood a tall Frasier fir tree, decorated with long elegant ribbons, huge shiny bulbs, and the perfect twinkling lights. The tree looked like it had been decorated by a designer.
Melissa tugged my arm and we went toward the tree. As we approached, we saw Nick and William walking toward us.
Up close, I noticed the tree had silver tinsel that matched the perfect glowing star on top. I crossed my arms and frowned. Melissa noticed my frown and said, “What? You don’t like it?”
“That’s an understatement,” I said under my breath. “It’s awful. It’s generic. It looks like it belongs in a department store. You can’t even tell which team decorated this tree!”
Melissa looked at the tree as if she was considering what I was saying. “Yeah, I see what you mean.”
“This tree sucks,” I said.
“You don’t like it,” a familiar voice said.
I swirled around on my heel to see Wiliam and Nick standing behind me.
“Excuse me?” I tried not to look surprised to see William still here in the library.
“The tree,” William said pointing at it. “You said it sucks.”
“Well,” I said, “It’s just not in the spirit of the contest. It’s generic. You don’t get the essence of the team that decorated the tree.”
William crossed his arms across his broad chest. He scratched his chin and tilted his head to one side. “I don’t know. It looks pretty Christmassy to me.”
“It is a beautiful tree,” Melissa said with a polite smile. “The ribbons are so beautiful.”
“An interior designer I work with hand-selected the ornaments for me from Ponce City Market in Atlanta,” William said.
“Very nice,” Nick said. “I talked to William earlier this week and told him about the tree contest. I mentioned that the Senior Citizens’ Center’s team needed some help with their tree, and he volunteered.”
I don’t know why I couldn’t let it go, but before I could stop myself, I asked. “So, what’s the theme?”
“The theme?” William narrowed his eyes and scratched his chin as he looked at the tree.
Nick nervously rubbed the back of his neck. “I think it’s kind of an informal trend that most of the teams started doing over the years. They have a theme for their tree, but it’s not mandatory.”
My arms were crossed in front of my chest, and I was tapping my foot waiting for his answer. I tried not to notice how handsome William’s face was as he was working through how to respond.
