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She talks right over me. “—but I loved it.”
I’m quiet for a moment, not entirely sure if I should put this out there so soon. “I was thinking about surprising Olivia with a trip to New York for her birthday.”
Skylar smiles and closes her eyes like she’s lost in a good memory. “She would absolutelylovethat.”
“It’s coming up at the end of the month and there’s a school holiday on that Monday, so I was thinking we could make a long weekend of it.”
She takes another bite and nods as she chews. “I saw it on our district calendar…A religious holiday. It’s either Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur, right?”
“I’m not sure which. So that works with your schedule? You’ll come?”
“You want me to come with you?”
“I want you there, yeah.”
She goes quiet, looks down into her lap for a moment before she meets my eyes with a soft smile. “Then I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Skylar
“I don’t think you can cram anymore tinsel onto that tree, Libs.”
“Sure I can,” she says as she tosses some more in the general vicinity of the tree, moving her arms like she’s sprinkling fairy dust. “See?”
“I stand corrected. Here,” I hand her one of the ornaments from the storage box, “let’s start hanging these.”
After hanging that first one she comes over to pick through the box herself. “Ooh, a snowman.”
“I like that one. And look at this…Mickey Mouse in a Santa hat.” I hand it to her so she can hang it and then start rummaging deep into the box. “Minnie must be around here somewhere.”
Leo comes in with a paper bag. “I just remembered the ones from our trip. They were still in your luggage, Olivia.”
She comes over and helps him to unwrap them from the tissue paper. The first one is a snow globe with the Empire State Building standing tall amid the other skyscrapers, a Broadway street sign and a big apple inside. That was my corny pick, and Leo teased me unmercifully after I bought it from that street vendor.
“Hand it over,” I order him with a phony frown, and then shake it and smile as the snow falls over that magical cityscape.
Then there’s an oversized Olaf wearing a pink bedazzled scarf. Olivia takes it and says, “This one is my favorite,” as she circles the tree looking for a prime location.
Leo unwraps the last one. He looks at the little figure in his hands and then looks back to me smiling.
“What is that?”
He holds it up to show me as Olivia comes back over. Her eyes go wide. “The hot dog man!”
And yes, it’s a replica of one of those sidewalk hot dog carts, complete with the umbrella and a man dressed in an apron. “That’s adorable! When did you get that?”
“While you two were busy bankrupting me in the American Girl store, I went into some cheesy tourist shop to kill some time.”
Handing it over to Olivia, he says, “It was either that one or the Rockettes kick line. But I figured we’d get that next time...Maybe we’ll catch the Christmas show at Rockefeller Center next year.”
I waggle my eyebrows. “The Rockettes, huh?”
Leo pulls me onto his lap. “I like dancers.”
When Libs comes over he pulls her in and starts tickling us both. We’re laughing and breathless and screaming for him to stop when the three of us fall onto the rug in a heap.
I roll onto my back, still laughing, and Olivia settles into the crook of my arm. She has tinsel in her hair and her cheeks are bright red, and I’m sure I look the same.
