Page 74 of Home Ice

"Traitor." Brant nudges me in the ribs. I take his free hand in mine and rub my thumb along the back of it. "You haven't had her turkey. It's drier than the salt flats back home."

"I'm sure it's going to be great."

Tracy smiles as her attention falls to our joined hands. "It will be," she says. "I have a new recipe for this year. Vietnamese. It has lemongrass and fish sauce."

Brant shakes his head, but I think it sounds wonderful. "Now I know why you're such a good cook," I say to him.

"Yeah. She's absolutely the reason. I learned the wrong way to do everything from her."

His mom flicks her wrist to wave him off. "You'll see. It'll be good."

When we get to their house, I see why Brant's dad calls it the farm. It looks just like an old farmhouse. The front porch stretches for the length of the house. Each post on it is wrapped in fresh pine garland dotted with tiny red and green balls. When I get closer, I see the lights hidden in the garland and running along the gutters on the front of the house.

The shiny red door is trimmed in the same garland with the same lights buried inside. When we're close enough, I lean in and inhale. It smells just like the Christmas trees Dad and I would pick out on December 11th. No matter the weather, he always insisted we had to get our tree that day so we could have it for two weeks before Christmas. When we got it home, Dad would set it right in the middle of the front window. Then he would do the lights, while I hung the ornaments.

Every year, he and I made a new set of ornaments. He would always hand me a plain glass ball, telling me to paint one thing that made me happy that year. By the time I moved out for college the tree was filled with our ornaments. Mine were all different: Finger smears from when I was too young to paint. A bicycle one year. A lopsided rectangle that was supposed to be a concert ticket another year. Dad's were always the same.

"Hey, let me have your backpack." Brant taps me on the shoulder. "Dad and I will take our bags up to our rooms."

I turn away from the garland and see Kevin already holding Chloe's bag, so I shrug mine from my shoulders and hand it to Brant. He takes it, staring at me, his head tilted just a little like he's asking if I'm okay. I nod and hurry inside the house.

Tracy leads me and Chloe right into the kitchen. Everything is white. The cabinets, the counters, the walls. It's bright like a sunny day with fresh snow. There are vases on the counter with small pine branches arranged like miniature trees. Each one is decorated with small ornaments. One has tiny pastel slotted spoons. Another has pastel spatulas the size of my thumb, and another has pink and yellow and light blue forks the same size.

"You girls do like cookies, right?"

"Yes," Chloe answers before I even have time to take a breath.

Tracy opens the refrigerator and pulls out a carton of eggs and a package of butter. "Good. We're going to bake some."

"No fair," Chloe protests. "That was a trick question."

Brant's mom grins as she hands me an apron she takes from a hook on the wall. "You don't have to help. Lily and I can have all the fun without you."

"No, I want to. I love baking. Probably. I've never been allowed to do it, but it looks fun."

"It is fun." Tracy hands Chloe another apron. She opens the cabinet beside the range hood and pulls out a stack of index cards. "There are three of us, so we can each be responsible for two different recipes."

I tie the apron around my back and wait for Brant's mom to laugh. But she doesn't. "So we're making six different kinds of cookies?" She nods and hands me two of the cards. They each say they make forty-eight cookies. "Are we cutting the recipes in half? Quartering them?"

"Doubling," she answers.

I peek at Chloe's cards. There, on the second line of each, "Makes four dozen." My mouth falls open as I do the math. Nearly six hundred cookies. Unless they've invited all the neighbors, I'm pretty sure this is enough cookies to last us all until next Christmas.

"They're not for us. We take cookies to the senior center every Christmas. We started when Barrie was one, so that means we've done it every year Brant's been with us. He's never admitted it, but I think he's always liked this more than he liked Christmas Day. Now, you two go ahead and start. The mixer is behind me. Bowls are right here. Spoons are there." She points at a cabinet and a drawer. "I need to get more butter out so it can soften. I'll grab the molasses too."

Two hours later, the kitchen is no longer pristine. Everything is covered in flour, including me and Chloe. Somehow Brant's mom is spotless, like she's surrounded by some flour-repelling force field. There are cooling cookie sheets propped up on iron trivets on one section of counter, while another has parchment lined sheets ready for dough to be spooned on them and then popped into the oven. I just finish spooning ten snickerdoodles onto one when the back door opens.

Even if I saw the woman out on the street, I would know instantly that she's Brant's sister. She has the same earth-brown hair, and as she steps into the kitchen, I see the same copper highlights reflecting the sunlight. Her eyes are even the same rich green. They squint when they see me.

"Barrie!" Her mom throws her arms around her and hugs like the two of them haven't seen each other all year. When they're finished, Tracy steps back and motions to us. Chloe is standing next to me now, and I wonder if she's as intimidated as I am. Barrie is formidable. "This is Brant's girlfriend Lily, and that's Chloe."

Her eyes have been locked on mine from the instant she noticed me, but now they move up and down my body. I wish I could have changed into something else before meeting her. She's wearing a body hugging green dress with black heels that make my toes hurt just looking at them. I'm wearing my travel clothes. A pair of baggy black sweats, and a long-sleeved t-shirt from a band I've never even heard of. I know my hair is a mess and probably has chunks of cookie dough in it. Chloe and I got into a dough ball fight when Tracy left the kitchen for a couple of minutes. Barrie's hair, on the other hand, falls in perfect waves past her shoulders. It looks like she just left a salon. "What are you doing?" she asks. Her voice could be pretty, but it sends a shiver through me.

"Uh… cookies? The making of?" Great, I sound like my name is Merriam Webster.

"Barrie!" Her mom slaps her softly on the shoulder. "The girls are helping me make cookies. Something you conveniently missed out on by showing up late."

Barrie stares at me for a second more. Then looks at her mom. Her face softens as she does. "Sorry. This client is an absolute asshole, but he's also absolutely loaded. So I have to jump whenever he tells me to."

---