I put my phone in my pocket and spend the next hour trying to write captions and mostly not thinking about Anthony.
The evening event begins at five.
Holly has outdone herself, which is saying something given what I've already seen this week. The resort grounds are transformed with even more lighting than the night walk, strung in great arching canopies between the trees. There are stands selling handmade ornaments and specialty hot drinks and small beautiful things. A string quartet has set up near the central courtyard where the tree lighting will happen again, but for the full group this time. The last time was a practice run, after all.
And there is a sleigh. An actual sleigh, with actual white horses, stamping in the cold air with the patient dignity of animals who know they're the most impressive thing present. They have to know how magnificent they are. I stop myself from running over and petting them. It takes all the self-control Ipossess as I want nothing more than to go stroke their beautiful noses.
I find Anthony at the reindeer enclosure at five-fifteen, doing a last check before the animals go on display for the event. He looks up when I reach him and there it is immediately, his full attention, landing on me like something physical.
"I’m so happy the fawn's eating," I say.
"I told you she'd make it." He fastens the enclosure latch and turns to face me fully. He's in a dark coat tonight, not the canvas work jacket, and he looks like exactly what he is: a man who belongs here, in these mountains, in this cold, in this specific life. "You look —"
He stops.
He stops. Anthony Rossi, who chooses every word, who doesn't say things unless he means them, who has been precise and measured all week, stops.
"What?" I ask. I look what? Is there something on my face? Do I have a tear or a stain? I look down at my outfit.
"Good. You look beautiful." he says.
"Thank you. You look very nice, too.” I say a bit awkwardly. “The event looks incredible."
"Holly worked on it for three months." He falls into step beside me as we move back toward the main grounds. "What do you want to see first?"
You, I think. Obviously you. I've been wanting to see you since seven this morning.
"The horses," I say.
We move through the evening together and this time neither of us is pretending it's incidental.
He gets my cider, and I notice it’s the alcohol free one, with a look that is mostly amusement and only partly pointed and I take it from him and our fingers overlap for a moment on the warm cup and neither of us hurries it. We look at the artisan market stalls and he asks questions about the things that catch my eye.
At the ornament station he stops and I raise an eyebrow.
"I want to finish the one from yesterday," he says.
He didn't finish it. He took it home.
And he brought it back tonight.
He pulls the glass ornament from his coat pocket. It’s half-painted in a deep navy with careful precise lines that look like mountains and picks up where he left off. I watch him for a moment before I start another one of my own.
"That's going to be beautiful," I say.
"It's a mountain," he says. He glances at me. "What are you making tonight?"
"I don't know yet." I look at the blank glass in my hand. "I'll know when I start."
He watches me pick up the paint pen with an expression I'm starting to be able to read. He finds something about how I work, the way I jump in without a plan, both baffling and something else. Something warmer than baffled. Endearing perhaps.
“I could never start something without a plan. I’ve always been the type who needs a well written plan with a backup to go along with it. I don’t know how you do it.”
“I don’t either because I don’t think about it too much.” We both laugh.
I paint a small elk calf. I’ve always been creative. I can write, photograph and draw with the best of them. I know my strengths and my weaknesses, and art is one of my strengths. It takes some time and it comes out better than I expected, the proportions area little loose, but they feel right. When I hold it up he looks at it for a long moment.
"That's the calf from the road," he says.
