Page 113 of The Hockey Grump Saves Christmas

“It isn’t.”

“Okay, but it might be.”

“It’s not.” She folds her arms in defiance, but her coat’s so bulky and she’s so small that she can’t quite manage it, and they end up more resting on each other than folded.

“What I mean is,” I continue, grabbing for straws to clutch, “it could be that you’re just not used to her. Because you’re all so used to me. And once you get used to her, like you did with me, then you’ll like her too.”

She fixes me with her clear blue eyes and shakes her head, the glitter on the penguins on her hat sparkling in the sun.

Knowing Abigail as I’d like to think I do, there has to be a reason for her being so adamant about something. I shift the heavy bag of produce to rest on my other arm. “Has something happened?”

“Everything’s happened,” she says.

That’s a pretty scary statement. “Like what? Tell me one thing that’s made you not like her.”

“I could tell you twenty,” she says.

“Let’s start with one.” I urge her out of the way to allow a woman and her dachshund to pass.

“She’s changed the play.”

Now I’m all ears. It’s too late to expect them to learn new lines or stage directions. The play is in two days, for fuck’s sake. Also the script I left her was great.

“Changed it how?”

“She’s the narrator now.”

“Narrator? We don’t even have a narrator this year.”

“We do now,” Abigail says in that fifty-seven-year-old way of hers.

“Well, maybe that makes it better.” I’m scrambling here. “Maybe with it not being as easy to hear outdoors, it’s good to have one clear voice explaining the story.”

“It’s not. She’s so cringe.” Abigail clearly has an entrenched view on this subject. “And she’s singing.”

“Singing?”Dear God.

“Yes.”

“In the play? Like it’s a musical?”

“Sort of. She’s singing at the end.”

I’m getting a bit hot now. While I might not like the idea of Divina taking over and turning herself into the narrator, I could at least find an excuse for it. Singing is another matter entirely.

“Does she maybe want to get the audience to join in with singing a Christmas song? You know, so everyone feels involved?” It’s the best I’ve got standing on the sidewalk outside the produce store, holding a heavy bag and wanting to slice out the chunk of my brain that can’t stop thinking about Gabe.

“It’s not a Christmas song,” Abigail says.

“Do you know what it is?”

“It’s the song from the spaghetti ad.”

“The spaghetti ad?” What in all holy hell is going on? Then the penny drops. “Oh, you mean the one where the couple eat the spaghetti on the gondola in Venice?” Does Abigail know what a gondola is? Probably. “One plate has cheese on it, the other has mushrooms?”

“Yes. The cheese one is the best.”

The song in that commercial is Mozart’s “Queen of the Night.”It’s a fucking opera song. And it has absolutely nothing to do with Christmas or children. It’s clearly all about Divina.

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