1
EMMIE
“If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times—you need to keep your goddamn cats out of my establishment!”
“It’s Christmas, Charles,” I said, doing my best to keep up the cheery Christmas-loving facade in the face of my antagonistic next-door shop neighbor. “Let’s all be a little more charitable.” I took the tortoiseshell cat. “Maybe she just wants you to adopt her.”
“I’d never allow one of those filthy animals in my bakery,” the older man sputtered. “I come in at two a.m. to start my pastries. I don’t need cat hair everywhere. The next time I see one of these vermin, I’m calling the cops!”
There were yells of surprise as a crowd of people wearing sweaters decorated with cats and carrying signs pushed through the waiting line for my popular Christmas-themed cupcakes.
“Feral cats don’t belong in a café! No way!” they chanted.
“All these cats are up for adoption…” My voice rose as I prepared to have the same exact argument with my fellow feral-cat-committee members that we’d had during the last few months since I’d opened the Santa Claws Café.
Alice turned up her sharp nose. “You are using these cats for your own financial gain.”
“Interacting with the customers helps them be socialized,” I argued.
“This is not how the feral-cat committee does things,” Gertrude, an older woman and the official chair of the cat committee, ranted. “Not to mention you have pink in your Christmas decorations.”
“It’s cute.”
“It’s not traditional. Just like this scam you’re running.”
“Every day, one of my customers adopts a cat,” I reminded Gertrude. “The Santa Claws Café moves more cats than the Humane Society. We serve cupcakes with a side of cat!” I chirped. That was our slogan.
“Like you have people eat the poor cats,” a man in a suit sneered in an unreasonably deep voice.
I glared into the crowd.
The feral-cat-committee protestors ignored me and continued to march around in a circle in the middle of my shop. I’d agonized over the decorations, the furniture, and the holiday-themed art on the walls. The café was adorned with twinkling Christmas lights, wreaths, and garlands of evergreen. The scent of freshly baked cupcakes and spiced hot cocoa filled the air. The soft Christmas music playing in the background was drowned out by angry chants. My cozy seasonal cat café was now a demonstration site.
“Do you still have Santa’s Surprise cupcakes left?” one young woman called out impatiently from the back of the line. “I’m not standing here unless you do. Oh, hey, Grandma!” She waved to a velour-tracksuit-wearing woman in the pack of senior citizens crowded around the utensil station.
“Ava!” An older woman wearing knitted reindeer antlers waved.
“I’m actually here to meet her…” The young woman stepped out of line.
There were angry shouts and grumbling from the line as Ava cut around the waiting customers.
“Gran!” I yelped at my grandmother, who was coming out from around the counter with trays of coffee. “What are you doing?”
“You can’t keep people waiting in line like this. You’ll lose customers,” she said, passing out small sips of coffee and little bites of the new cupcake recipe I’d been working on, the Sugar Plum Fairy. “You’ll never have enough money to move out at this rate.”
Panic set in. My heart was pounding from anxiety, or it could have just been from the sheer amount of coffee I’d consumed since five thirty that morning.
“Move out? You want me to leave?” My chin trembled. “On Christmas?”
“Can we please just order?” that same deep male voice snapped.
I ignored him. I was about to be homeless, for Kris Kringle’s sake.
Gran patted me on the arm. “I love having you, but you’re cutting into my sex life. And it’s cutting into yours. You’ll never meet a man if you’re sleeping on your grandmother’s couch.”
“I don’t need to meet a man,” I said. “I’m technically still married. My vows mean something to me, even if they don’t to Brooks.”
“Just kill him so you can move on!” Granny’s friend Donna cackled.
