Page 13 of Christmas at the Ranch
Reesa turns away from me and calls out, “Sam? Please gather Ms.Oakes’s things!” Moments later, my gym bag lands with a thud in the snow at the bottom of the stairs, and the front door of the inn slams shut again. I think I see a curtain twitch, and Sam’s face peering out, her eyes filled with disillusion.
By the time I’m done shoveling my car out of its snowy prison, I’ve taken off my parka and am covered in a cold, clammy sweat. I carefully lean the shovel against the porch and take one last look at the exterior of the inn. I’m exhausted, embarrassed. The only bright side is that I am not nostalgic for this place anymore. Once I get out of here, I swear I’ll never think of Evergreen again. I get in my car and drive carefully down the inn’s driveway and out onto the road—but I can already tell I won’t make it back to the city without snowtires. The road is plowed, but the snow is still coming in thick.
I turn on the radio, scan until I find a local station called Kayak, just in time for the weather report. It’s delivered by a man who sounds like he’s eighty if he’s a day. “Looks like we’re in for a heck of a lot of snow today, folks. I can barely see my hand when I hold it outside the window of the station here, and there’s a snowfall warning in effect. I think they’re calling for”—long pause—“a couple more feet, at least, and in a short period of time. So, stay home if you can…and if you can’t, best to put on some tire chains.”
Tire chains? I don’t even have snow tires on my car, let alone tire chains. As if to prove this, my car fishtails at the bottom of a hill. Reluctantly, I turn left, heading toward Evergreen instead of away from it.
Ten years, I tell myself. It’s been ten years and this town is not going to look the same. This is not going to be another painful walk through my memories, like last night was.
And yet, somehow, it still is. There’s the grocery store where Tate and I went together to replenish his stock of the mints the horses liked to eat. And then, on Christmas Eve, we went there to get the ingredients for his dad’s fondue recipe: Emmenthal cheese, broth, apple juice, garlic, lemons, and cornstarch. There’s the movie theater, now shut down and housing a closed-for-the-season beach toy shop instead. But the sign is still there, golden and red, the bulbs lining the wordsEvergreen Theaterburned out or broken. We wentto see the latest Minions movie there—which neither of us had any interest in. We used it as an excuse to kiss in a back corner until the credits rolled. There’s Carrie’s Café, and when I see the pink-and-white hand-painted sign, my heart skitters in my chest. I remember thick, dark hot chocolate and caramel chip cookies, the best I’d ever had. My stomach grumbles and my traitorous heart swoons, thinking of my teenage self sharing a cookie with Tate Wilder at a corner table.
Ireallyhave to get out of this town. My backward gaze is rose-colored, but there’s only heartache waiting for me if I keep staring so intently into my rearview. I press my foot down on the gas pedal and keep going, looking for a garage. But first, I have to pass Gill’s Fish n Chips n Bait n Tackle. I’m agonized over my father’s crimes against this person. My family owes Gill—money, definitely, but also an apology. I don’t feel brave enough for that yet.
As I continue past Gill’s, another memory surfaces. Tate and I went there together, too. Gill kept polystyrene containers of worms and little buckets filled with minnows in a fridge in the corner, but the food was delicious. I can now recall Gill as a big man with bright blue eyes and a friendly manner—just like everyone in the town. Tate and I sat in a window booth with peeling vinyl, shared a huge plate of fries doused in malt vinegar and salt, fed each other pieces of crispy fried lake trout. I sucked on a lemon, then kissed him. I had to avoid lemon-flavored anything for a full year after.
“Pleaselet me find a mechanic who can do my snowtires fast,” I mutter. And then, as if in answer to my wish, a sign comes into view out the windshield:M&M’s Autobody.
I pull into the parking lot, breathing a sigh of relief as a young woman with wavy blond hair, wearing festive red coveralls, comes out to greet me. She gives my car a once-over as I get out. “Let me guess, you’re here for the winter tire special?”
My relief increases as I tell her I am, then follow her inside. She slides a form across the counter at the front and I pass her my credit card. There’s a long silence then, a sudden chill I know isn’t simply from the blast of cold air caused by another customer opening the door and entering the shop. The woman—the nametag stitched onto her coveralls readsMeredith—shoots a quick smile at the person who has just walked in, her glacier-blue eyes filled with warmth.
“Hey there. I’ll be right with you.” Then, to me, in a considerably less warm tone, she says “Just one second” before heading through a door behind the desk leading to the repair bay.
My credit card suddenly feels like it’s an incriminating item, my toxic family name a glowing beacon. I cover my card with my hand as I wait. The person behind me clears his throat, but I don’t turn.
After a few excruciating moments, Meredith is back. “I’m so sorry,” she says, but doesn’t sound sorry at all. “Unfortunately, we just ran out of the winter tires we have on special. All we have left are our custom European winter tires, which are quite expensive.”
My heart sinks. “How expensive?”
The price she quotes seems absurd. I suspect she just made up the whole European-winter-tires thing, but what other choice do I have?
“It’s fine,” I say, perhaps to convince myself. “Please go ahead.” I push my credit card toward her one more time and she looks down at it like it’s a dead fish from Gill’s.
“And it’ll be a lot longer than an hour,” she says. “These European winter tires are a specialty item. They won’t be ready until just before we close today.”
I’m even more dismayed than I already was. “But I need to get back to the city,” I say.I have to get out of this town.“Please, is there anything you can do?”
Another throat-clear behind me, and then a deep voice says, “Of course there darn well is. Meredith, cut the nonsense, would you? We both know there’s no such thing as European winter tires.”
I know who it is immediately. And I can’t decide if I want to turn and say hello or find a back door I can escape through so I don’t have to face him.
It’s Charlie Wilder, Tate’s father.
Six
I close my eyes and wait, hoping maybe a sinkhole will open up in the floor of the mechanic’s shop and swallow me before I have to turn around.
“Emory? That you?”
His voice cuts through my angst.
“Yes?” I say, my eyes still closed.
“Might as well turn around and find out what happens next.”
I’m too miserable toactuallylaugh, but I’m smiling when I turn toward him. Charlie always did have the best sense of humor, and apparently this is still true.
“Hi, Charlie.”
