AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Bill shook his bucket enticingly. “You have to be in it to win it, Frances!”
I neither wanted to be in it nor win it, but I grimaced and scrawled my name and number on the receipt before dropping it into the bucket. “Merry Christmas.”
And now I’d said it twice.
“I’d better hurry along.” Bill’s eyes twinkled. Actually twinkled. “Santa will be here soon!”
Ada and Em beamed excitedly.
We edged our way to the front of the crowd, my desire not to see anyone else I knew taking a backseat to my desire to get the girls in a good position to see Santa’s arrival. Santa turned up right on time—riding a fire truck and tossing candies out into the crowd, which was always a hit—and then, with the help of the mayor, he pushed the comically large button up on the stage that turned on the lights. And the street outside the old Mercantile Bank, which was already up to its glittery balls in Christmas lights, could no doubt be seen from space.
“Magic!” Ada declared as Christmas burned our retinas and the crowd burst into a round of impromptu caroling.
“Santa!” Em yelled. “Santa!”
Santa waved at her from the stage.
She puffed up proudly. “Santa, we’re gonna make you cookies!” Then she tucked her mittened hand into mine and grinned at me. “Aren’t we, Daddy?”
“Yes,” I said, reaching out for Ada’s hand too, and squeezing them both tightly. “We’re going to have the greatest Cookies with Santaever.”
The girls cheered.
* * *
On Wednesday afternoon, the girls had a playdate with their newest BFF Brianna. Brianna was a grubby-kneed, gap-toothed kid, with the attention span of a hummingbird on speed. I liked her a lot, although her mother terrified me. Felicity Mackenzie was one of those moms who always dressed in activewear, never had a hair out of place, and could usually be found holding a protein shake in a perfectly manicured hand. I hadn’t seen much of the inside of her house, but I just knew she had a “Live, Laugh, Love” sign somewhere. She was the sort of parent who could make me feel inadequate just by looking at her, and we both knew it.
I dropped the girls off, and Felicity took a few minutes to talk about how if you were making your kids’ oatmeal from rolled oats instead of steel cut oats you might as well just be feeding them Fruity Pebbles for breakfast. I nodded politely and made a mental note to never let her inside my house, let alone as far as the kitchen pantry.
But the combination of Felicity’s Instagramable life and the rising panic that Cass would be visiting me in less than an hour pushed me to actually clean up my house—or at least shove the unpacked boxes from the living room to the garage. That was progress, right?
I changed my sweater twice. Called Mom just to hear her voice. What her voice said was that Pebbles had tried to eat Jake’s balls. Whether these were Jake’s actual balls or his Christmas ornaments was unclear, and I did not seek clarification. Mom also said Linda had an ulcer and might not be able to perform in the Christmas dance recital.
“Would you do it with me?” she asked. “If Linda can’t?”
“Mom, I don’t know how to dance. Even a little.”
“I see.” She sounded genuinely disappointed.
“Linda will feel better. Through the magic of Christmas or something.”
Mom didn’t answer. There was a knock on the front door.
“I have to go,” I told her, my heart thudding. “I’m having someone over, and they’re here.”
It felt, for a second, like old times: Cass and me, sneaking around like we were teenagers and not out yet to our parents. I remembered the day Mom had told me she knew a boy I should go on a date with, and I’d been so shocked that she was playing matchmaker, it didn’t sink in at first that she’d said “boy,” or that the boy in question was Linda’s son, Cassidy. Whom I was already—if notdating, by that point—certainly blowing in his Camry with some regularity.
“Who’s over?” Mom asked suspiciously.
“I have to go,” I repeated, and hung up. If my name got moved to the naughty list, then so be it. Pebbles would be in good company. I hurried into the foyer and opened the door.
Cassidy Sullivan sure could pull off a charcoal pea coat, let me tell you.
He had snow in his hair, and I stood there letting him get more snow in his hair before I yanked the door open wide and beckoned him in with a gesture that was a little more ‘Come on, hobbitses, Smeagol will show you the way’ than I’d intended.
And then Cassidy Sullivan was in my house, and I wasn’t kissing him. I wasn’t shrugging off my backpack so he could grab my hips, I wasn’t laughing into his mouth, I wasn’t trying my best to remove his coat and shirt before I even got him into my bedroom and onto my twin bed, while my mom yelled“Fran? Is that you?”from the kitchen. We were thirty-six years old and had become strangers in all the ways that mattered, and I didn’t want to remove his pea coat, because it looked so good.
“Nice place,” he said, glancing around.
