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ChapterOne
I stood in the produce section of the Christmas Valley Save-Rite, a place I hadn’t stood in eighteen years, reminding myself that a nice bag of turnip greens was just what the doctor ordered. And then trying not to imagine a scenario that involved me doingpreciselywhat my doctor ordered, all night long, because Dr. Stephen Florris had a blinding smile, a smooth baritone voice, and an absolute peach of an ass, and I was fairly certain that winning his love was the key to my elusive happiness. I focused on the greens, vaguely embarrassed that I even needed a doctor to tell me what I should eat. I was an RN and ought to have known better than to spend the last two months living on Lofthouse cookies, Pepsi Max, and White Cheddar Goldfish.
Dr. Stephen Florris had told me gently but gravely at my last visit that it was no wonder my anxiety was through the roof, with all the sugar I was consuming. I’d had the highly inappropriate urge to tell him the reason I was mainlining sugar was that my boyfriend had broken up with me via the Kiss Cam at a Sox game (I’d leaned in, and he’d turned away to ask the woman on his other side where she’d bought her pretzel), and so I’d moved from Boston back to Christmas Valley, OH—a town of 3,915 people, five different holiday shops all purporting to be the Midwest branch of Santa’s workshop, and three annual tree lighting ceremonies; two near actual Christmas, and one for Christmas in July.
Christmas Valley: for the undiscerning gentleman in the throes of a mid-ish life crisis who enjoys driving past Jim Jordan 2024 signs and gagging on Christmas’s dick year-round.
I’d gracefully accepted a nursing job at the community hospital and the attendant pay cut. For the past two months, I’d been driving fifteen minutes to the next town for groceries to avoid seeing anyone I knew. I’d enrolled my girls at Christmas Valley Elementary, the playground of which still harbored the segment of concrete tunnel where I used to hide from bullies with my imaginary friend, Liar Bob. Liar Bob had a tragic backstory where he’d been a compulsive liar until a fairy made it impossible for him to tell anything but the truth. I’d ask him things like, “Will I ever be hot?” and “Will I ever get away from this place?” and “Why would my parents name me Frances?” He’d said,“Yes, Frances, yes you will. And yes, you will. And because they are monsters, Frances.”And I’d believed him.
Now I was starting to think the whole story about the fairy making him tell the truth had been a lie. Because here I was, eighteen years after graduating from Christmas Valley High: Home of the Fighting Reindeer, feeling far from attractive and certain I’d be stuck here until the day I died.
Instead of telling Dr. Stephen Florris—who, mercifully, was not someone I’d gone to school with—my whole sob story, I’d tried to let him know that I was going through a stressful time but that obviously I understood the importance of getting enough sleep and enough B vitamins. He’d asked me, in an unconvincingly offhanded way, what my daughters ate, and I’d looked him right in the eye and told him they ate a healthy, balanced diet—except for the occasional fried potato pizza from Cocca’s—and that the White Cheddar Goldfish lived in Daddy’s secret closet. I didn’t mention the White Cheddar Goldfish’s friends who shared the closet: Box of Franzia, Some of Mom’s Xanax, and Just a Couple of Weed Gummies.
Dr. Stephen Florris had looked at me with mingled pity and suspicion and told me to follow up in four weeks.
My phone jarred me from my reverie and my search for a bag of turnip greens that was not past its sell-by date. My heart thumped when I saw Ben’s name on the screen. I couldn’t have ignored the call if I’d wanted to.
I swiped to answer and said, “Hey,” as casually as I could manage.
“Fran, it’s Ben,” he said, as though I required clarification.
“I know,” I said.
“Do you have a minute?”
“Sure.” I rummaged through the greens. The loudspeaker suddenly blared festive music and the sound of jingle bells, and a cheerful voice said,“Attention holiday shoppers, did you know that now you can get twice the ho-ho-holiday deals with a Save-Rite advantage card? Just fill out our form online, or ask one of our elves to...”
Ben and I both waited until the announcement ended. Then he spoke.
“I’ve been thinking. About Cookies with Santa.”
My heart sank. “Ben…” I said warningly. Maybe a little desperately.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
I closed my eyes briefly. Tightened my grip on the phone. “Why not?”
“For reasons I would think are obvious.”
“You said you would still see the girls.”
“Fran, you moved them eight hundred miles away. I care about them a lot, but if you’d really wanted me to keep seeing them, you wouldn’t have taken them so far.”
“This is where I’mfrom. I didn’t pick it at random. I needed somewhere to go after you—” I cut myself off. I was not going to get into an argument with my ex in the produce aisle of the Save-Rite. The parking lot, maybe. “Please, Ben,” I said, even though I’d promised myself I would never beg Ben for anything ever again. “Just this year. By next year I’ll have found a replacement, but Christmas is three weeks away, and I—I’m just dealing with a lot.”
“There have to be companies that do this shit. Rent-A-Santa or whatever.”
“They’re used toyou. Your Santa. They’ll know if it’s someone else. And come on, the surprise of getting to see you on Christmas Day…”
“I know.” For a moment, Ben sounded genuinely remorseful. “But the truth is, I’m trying to move on. I’ve met somebody.”
Time seemed to freeze. “Met somebody?”
“Yeah. He’s really, really great, actually. You’d like him. Things are going well for me, and it would be really hard to explain to him that hey, so, I have to fly to Ohio because I pretended to be Santa for my ex-boyfriend’s daughters for three years and ate cookies with them every Christmas Eve, and my ex wants me to continue to do this even though he called me ‘the Armie Hammer of mid-level insurance executives’ and said he hoped I died alone—”
“I was in a dark place.”
“—and then he also wants me to spend Christmas morning with him, as myself, because his daughters miss me. So you don’t mind, hon, do you, if I remain inextricably bound to my ex’s life?”
