Page 4 of Falling Like Snow

He sticks his hand up in acknowledgment as he skips down the porch steps, and I close the door.

After turning the TV off and grabbing my comforter, I head up to my room and sink into my bed. My sluggish thoughts swirl around Sleepless in Seattle, snagging on the idea of falling for someone without knowing them—without them really knowing you. The movie was sweet, and I want to believe in love at first sight. But is Asher right? Is it a ridiculous concept?

I’m nearly dozing when my bedroom door opens.

“Hey, you up?” Mom asks. Her voice is high-pitched, and her blond hair isn’t in much better shape than mine.

“Not really,” I mumble.

“Okay, sorry. I just wanted to let you know we’re having an emergency tourism board meeting in the morning.”

I bolt upright. Emergency meetings are never good. “Why?”

“I’ll explain tomorrow. I need you to be there,” she says. “Night, Sloane. Get some rest.”

I’m all too familiar with that look on her face—that mix of panic and excitement. It’s the look of ideas and planning and chaos. It’s the promise of no sleep.

She backs out of my room, the door clicks shut behind her, and I lie down and stare at my ceiling, wondering what I’m walking into tomorrow.

Chapter Two

“I’ve asked you all here today because, as you know, this year’s Falling Leaves Festival was an incredible success,” Mom begins the next morning, looking at each of the Bramble Falls residents gathered around our kitchen table and spread throughout the room. “Since the final weekend of the festival, videos of our town’s autumn events have continued going viral. We’ve had more late-November visitors than ever before, and shops and restaurants are reporting higher sales than previous years. People want to escape to a quaint little town like this one.” A few of the board members clap, and Mom nods. She seems less frazzled this morning, in her business-casual khakis and white sweater, her hair pulled back in a tidy French braid. “Yes, it’s a great thing, right? And that’s why”—she pauses and smiles for dramatic effect—“we’re going to put on the Falling Snow Festival!”

Everyone stares at her in stunned silence until Mom’s excitement visibly fades, the spark in her blue eyes dimming.

Finally, Helen Grant, the local florist, clears her throat. “Mayor Sullivan—”

“Please, Helen, you can call me Naomi,” Mom says.

“Naomi, what exactly are you proposing?” she asks.

Mom perks back up. “Well, similar to the Falling Leaves Festival we do every autumn, I’m envisioning fun events, open to the public each weekend, leading up to a big festival day. Last night I printed out a calendar”—Mom’s friend Amanda grabs a stack of papers off the counter and begins passing them out to each of us—“and I’ve marked the dates on which I think we should plan to have events.”

Helen slips on her reading glasses and looks at the paper. “This calendar says December.”

“December?” the bookstore owner shouts over the other frantic voices in the room. “Why not February?”

“February is too depressing,” Mom says, as if the suggestion is ludicrous.

“December is in two days!” Forrest, the hardware-store owner and go-to handyman, calls out. He runs his hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. “Unbelievable,” he mutters.

I bite my lip at the uproar and take a calendar from Amanda.

“I know, I know. I hear your concerns.” The room quiets as Mom holds her hands up to silence the mob. “Look, Bramble Falls is finally on the map. Now is the time to take advantage of the attention. Could we push it to February to give us more time to prepare? Yes. But who knows if everyone will have moved on to the next charming town by then? Bramble Falls is having its moment. People are captivated by us. It would be irresponsible not to capitalize on the festive season. December means holiday lights and an evergreen-draped Peach Street. The aesthetic is perfect.”

Looking over the calendar, I furrow my brow. “This thing is pretty much blank. Aside from the actual festival scheduled for the last Saturday of the month, all that’s on here is our usual tree-lighting ceremony on the first and the annual Christmas Eve Snow Ball.”

Mom points to me. “Great observation, Sloane. That’s actually why I wanted you to be here.” She claps her hands together. “If we’re going to pull this off, it’s going to have to be all hands on deck. So, I was hoping you could gather your friends for a bit of a brainstorming session. See what ideas everyone has to fill in this blank calendar. Things that are low-cost to us but could bring in some money and attention for the town. We’ll all be thinking on it as well, but you’re so creative, and Ellis and Cooper did such a wonderful job with the Harvest Hunt this fall… The more minds involved, the better.”

My chest constricts, my heart sinking like a stone. What does this mean for New York City?

“Sure, yeah. Of course I’ll help,” I tell her, swallowing my dread. “I’ll set up a meeting with everyone.”

“Excellent!” She turns back to the group. “The same goes for all of us. I’ve started a shared doc where we can add our ideas. So, let’s put our heads together today, and we’ll vote on them tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow morning?” Mrs. Yoshida—Asher’s mom—says. “This is all happening so fast.”

“As Forrest so passionately pointed out, December is in two days. We need to hurry along. Once we choose our events, I’ll get things scheduled and posted on the Bramble Falls website. Then we can start the planning and promoting.”