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She shifted again to look up at me. “Did you really make out with Linda’s son?”
“Call him Cassidy. Or Cass.”
“Did you?”
“Let’s go bake the cookies.” I stood and hauled her up from the couch, ignoring her yelp of surprise.
“Answer the—”
“Shut up. We’re going to bake cookies, and nothing bad is going to happen the rest of the day. Got it?”
She followed me to the kitchen, grumbling, “Don’t tell me to shut up…”
“Huh,” I said. “Did I forget to preheat the oven?” I pressed my hand to the door. It was cold. I checked the temperature display, which was on the correct setting. “It’s not working. Why isn’t it working?”
“Oh, Fran!” Mom gave an exasperated sigh, pushing me out of the way so she could do it right. I was perversely pleased when it didn’t work for her either. She hummed and straightened up, her hands on her hips. “Well, I’d say we could bake them at my house, except my oven is currently full of an experimental turkey.”
“Experimental?”
“He has six recipes he wants to try,” she said, “so he can pick the best one for Christmas.Six. Fran, I’m going to be so sick of motherfuckingturkey.”
We shared a long, defeated gaze. Sometimes the straw that breaks the camel’s back is a stone-cold oven or an experimental turkey, and there’s not a single thing you can do about it. Well, there’s one thing.
“You have Franzia here somewhere, right?” Mom asked, and began searching for it.
“Cupboard to your left,” I said, then raised my voice. “Girls! The oven’s broken. Let’s eat raw cookie dough!”
ChapterEight
“I have an emergency.” It wasn’t the first, or even the fifth time I’d said that—this year—and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.
Cass gazed back at me from the Elfwood Santa throne, and I could feel the eyes of his two helper elves on me. “Fran, there’s a line of children behind you,” he said in a low voice.
“Yeah. I know.”
“You can’t just cut in line.”
“Right, but I’m not sitting on your lap. I’m just asking a quick question.”
He sighed. “What is it?Quick.”
“My oven’s not working, and I can’t get someone out to look at it until after the holidays, and the girls and I made like seven pounds of cookie dough, but we have nowhere to bake the cookies.” I had two five-year-olds desperate to pour sprinkles onsomething, and if it wasn’t cookies, it would be my entire house.
“What about your mom’s oven?”
“Booked out between now and Christmas with Jake’s experimental turkeys.”
His brow furrowed.
“I’m serious. A turkey a day until Christmas. It’s like some fucked up factory farming advent calendar.”
“A neighbor’s, then?”
“I haven’t introduced myself to them yet.”
His jaw twitched under the beard. “I see.”
I tried to smile charmingly, but it was hard with so many angry parents and wailing children behind me. “I heard a rumor your shift ends in an hour. Could we come over and bake?”
