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I do and instinctively turn to Birdy for her approval. She cocks her head, squints, and reaches up to make a tiny adjustment to how it sits on my head. Then a smile spreads across her face, and I wonder what she’s seeing on mine. Attraction? Affection? Lust? Because I’m feeling all of those things right now.
“It’s perfect,” she says, then asks, “Do you have matching mittens?”
They do, and when we stroll away after a round of thanks, my knees are still exposed, but I’m miles warmer. The only downside is that there’s no reason for Birdy to take me by the hand anymore.
Kettle drum Christmas gets louder as we turn onto the final street, where we’re greeted by a truly indescribable sight: Santa Claus in full beard, hat, red velvet coat, and Bermuda shorts. He’s sitting on a green beach chair in the middle of a sea of sand, and the garland overhead is the same mix of holly and starfish that the dune buggy horse was sporting.
“I know him,” Birdy breathes, and before I can bust her for quoting fromElf, she pulls us into the line to meet the man of the hour.
“You know,” I say as we move into place behind two women and their three small children, “for somebody who doesn’t like Christmas, you’re really getting into this.”
“Oh, shut it,” she says, bumping her shoulder against mine. “This turned out to be fun.”
“It really did.” I’m supposed to be at my parents’ right now listening to my dad complain about how the neighbors botched their Christmas light display and offering praise as my mom showed off her latest quilt creation. Instead, I’m in line to meet Sandy Claus with a woman whose name I didn’t know forty-eight hours ago. And I’m good with it. Loving it, even. Whatever sadness has plagued Birdy over the past few days isn’t anywhere in her clear blue eyes right now, and I hope I had a little something to do with that.
My initial impression of her in the bar wasn’t the right one, but neither was my second one. She’s playful and smart and surprising, but she’s also a little guarded, a little wounded. Thank God I stuck around long enough to see all these different shades for myself. It makes me wonder if I wrote off other women too quickly when I went looking for someone to get serious about.
Then again, maybe none of those other women worked out because the right woman was waiting for me at a bar in Burlington, Vermont.
But no. That’s not what’s happening here. Not with mytravel buddy.
As we inch closer to the front of the line, I lean down to whisper, “You have sat on Santa’s lap before, right?”
She rolls her eyes. “I may be Christmas-averse, but I’m not an alien.”
“Hate to break it to you, but you look downright Christmas-curious right now,” I tell her. Somewhere along the way, she switched from frozen hot chocolate to the hot stuff, which comes with a candy cane sticking out the top. At my pointed glance, she takes a big swig of it and smacks her lips.
“You’re just jealous because you already finished boring old eggnog,” she says, although she doesn’t protest when I swipe her hot chocolate, take a sip, and hand it back. She smiles and takes a swig herself, putting her lips on the same spot I just drank from. Was that intentional?
It’s not a question to ponder when she’s about to sit on Sandy Claus’ lap, so I force my thoughts away.
“Actually, my mom makes the world’s best hot chocolate. Nothing else compares,” I tell her. “So there’s no point trying anybody else’s.”
For a split-second, I worry that I’ve just painted myself as some kind of weird mama’s boy—or worse, a Christmas mama’s boy. But Birdy’s face softens. “That’s really sweet.”
Before I can answer, the pastel-clad assistant calls us forward, and we walk across the sand for a little truth-telling with the jolly old elf.
“Ho ho ho!” Santa chortles as Birdy tentatively settles on his lap while I opt to stand on his other side. “Naughty or nice this year?”
She shoots me a laughing glance. “What do you think, captain?”
“Definitely a little bit of both,” I tell Santa, whose beard is the real deal and who shoots me a wink before nodding his head at Birdy, setting the bells on his hat jingling.
“Sandy Claus approves,” he says. “And what do you want for Christmas, little lady?”
Birdy’s mouth opens, but nothing comes out, and that sadness I thought was gone comes rushing back, clouding her expression. But she blinks it away and says tartly, “A pony.”
Santa nods somberly. “I’ll see what I can do. And you, young man?”
What do I want? This night to never end. Birdy not to think of me as a temporary friend. The search for my person to be over. How startling to think that those three things might very well be intertwined.
But I don’t say any of that. Instead, I dig the toe of my boot into the sand and tell Santa, “World peace.”
ELEVEN
Birdy
If you’d asked me how I expected to spend the evening of December 22, I’d never have guessed it would be helping a ridiculously sexy commercial airline pilot carefully unload four nutcrackers from a horse-drawn dune buggy in the middle of nowhere, Ohio.
