Page 20 of Meet Me at Christmas
Eight
When Stella got to the car after Henry’s therapy session, she checked her phone, finding a text from an hour ago. It was a photo of Lily in a white dress, wearing a ring of flowers around her mass of blonde waves. Her arms were around a man with an olive complexion, a wide, gleaming smile and sparkling green eyes, dressed in a tuxedo. They each had confetti in their hair, which looked like a dusting of snow. The message said, “This is Mateo. I adore him.”
She tried to text her sister back, asking for more details, but her message was marked undeliverable once more. With a sigh, she slipped the phone into her pocket and started the engine.
Her spirits lifted quickly when she reached the main drag in town, the small stretch of Old Hillsboro Road that she knew so well. It was lined on both sides with quaint wooden art galleries and Southern shops—all of them elegantly decorated in holiday greenery, the remnants of the storm shimmering on either side of the road as if leading her home.
For the first time, the appeal of the area hit her. Growing up there, she hadn’t been able to see its worth—it was just a part of her—but now, after traveling the world, she could view it through a new lens. She slowed the car at the weedy corner where she’d always sat to eat her ice cream from the café down the road as one particular day came to mind.
* * *
“There’s a skill to it,” seventeen-year-old Stella told Henry as they sat there, the shade from the maple tree that covered the corner still no match for the blazing summer sun. “You have to lick it all the way around.” She ran her tongue along the edge of her ice cream, catching the drips, until it had flattened in the cone. “Then you bite off the bottom and eat up to the top.” She nibbled the small waffle cone from its point.
Henry did the same, but his cone broke open, sending melting ice cream down his arm. “How did you do that?” he asked as he wiped his forearm against his shirt. “I’m all sticky.”
Stella popped the last of her cone into her mouth and held out her clean hands. After swallowing, she said, “Not everyone is a master ice cream eater.”
Henry cut his eyes at her, a grin surfacing. “True,” he said. “Let me give you a big hug to celebrate how great you are.” He held out his sticky hands toward her.
Stella jumped up, squealing as she ran down the sidewalk. “Get away!”
“Why? I’m just celebrating your skill!” He chased and pawed at her while she dodged him.
* * *
A car came up behind her, forcing her mind from the memory. Stella pressed the gas, and Leiper’s Fork gave way to the countryside. She was approaching the pop-up Christmas tree farm, decked out with its signature red trailer, booths of games and holiday wares, and the swirling sign that simply read:Christmas.
The business had gotten its singular name because the town didn’t decorate for Christmas until the lot was up, so it wasn’tChristmasuntil then. Making the first visit on the day it opened every year had been a tradition for her family. Then, when she’d gotten older, she and Henry went together, but they still made sure to meet her family there.
One of the booths offered chocolate-covered candy canes of every size and shape. She and Henry used to get a different kind each year. Another vendor brought an array of fudge in unusual flavors, like buttered popcorn and caramel latte, and served it warm with a tall glass of milk. She saw the Holiday Hoops stall from the road, and the memory of the feel of Henry’s strong hands holding hers washed over her.
Their last Christmas together, she’d come home to the guest cabin behind his mom’s farmhouse after her shift at the diner and found a piece of paper taped to the door that read:Meet me at Christmas. After untying her apron, she hung it on the banister of the porch and got back in the car, heading to the tree lot. Her feet were sore from working, her shoulders tired, but there was no way she’d miss spending time with Henry.
* * *
“We can definitely win if we do the red hoop,” Henry had said with a devious glint in his eyes when she found him at the Holiday Hoops booth. He reached over and took a wide red Hula-Hoop from the hook on the side of the stall.
Stella eyed it suspiciously. “So we both have to keep it going together?”
“Easy.” He handed a dollar to the attendant and “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” poured from the speakers. Henry stepped closer to Stella and slipped the hoop around them. Then he pressed their bodies together. “When I say ‘go,’ hula to the right.” After a kiss on her lips that tasted of peppermint, he said, “Go!”
They began to move their hips together, their thick coats cumbersome, and when she started to giggle, he grabbed her hands, looking into her eyes with that grin on his face, doing most of the work to keep the hoop spinning at their waists.
“Keep going,” he said as the timer clicked away in digital numbers. “We just have to get to ten and we win.” He caressed her cold fingers with his, their hips going in circles.
She’d worked an entire shift, but she barely noticed her fatigue when Henry’s attention was on her. With one smile, he could wipe away all the long hours. The clock clicked seven, eight, nine…
“Ten!” the attendant called out.
The hoop fell to the ground.
“Which bear would you like?” Henry waved at the array of stuffed animals, all clad in various Christmas outfits.
Stella attempted to study her options, but Henry distracted her, wrapping his arms around her and stealing kisses, his cold lips making her shiver.
* * *
The hoops that day had been one of her favorite memories, one of the last of happy times before the weather turned warm and everything changed.
