Page 38 of My Secret Snowflake
“I worked there after college, and I reconnected with Nathan, the son of my dad’s partner, but I thought he was still the kid I played with on weekends in the office while our dads were working. And the thing is—he was still that kid. I’d dismissed as innocent the fact that when we were ten, he suggested we raid the company pantry. We found these amazing desserts and ate them. My dad was so angry with me—he’d ordered those specially for an employee celebration.” My gut clenches. That shame.Why am I telling this story?I cringe. “I felt terrible, and I thought Nathan felt the same. And I forfeited my allowance for weeks to pay for the new cakes. But I learned my lesson that company property was definitely not mine for the taking.”
“What happened when you reconnected?”
I turn away. This story really doesn’t reflect well on me. But it’s also made me a better lawyer—because I want to figure out the truth and not trust first impressions.
“Nathan definitely had not learned that lesson. We were all working on a deal late at night, and he said he’d take us out for drinks to celebrate our finishing. But the bartender accidentally handed me the receipt after Nathan paid, and I saw this other employee’s name listed. It looked like he’d used Emil’s corporate card. I confronted him. He said he’d grabbed the wrong card by accident, and he’d pay it back and clear it up. I believed him.”
“But he didn’t?” Iris asks.
“No. I overheard Emil in my father’s office denying that he had used the company’s corporate card, and I backed him up. That was also when I realized I wanted to be a lawyer. I found past expense reports signed by Nathan to show that was Nathan’s signature on the receipt. Nathan had submitted the receipt as a corporate expense, pretending to be Emil, but I followed up with IT and they were able to prove that Emil wasn’t logged in at that time. Apparently, Emil had complained about Nathan’s lack of a work ethic, and Nathan wanted him out.”
“That’s great. You saved the day.”
“But I almost didn’t. I should have known.”
“But you did step in in time,” she says firmly, almost as if she knows how much I’ve regretted trusting Nathan. “What happened to Nathan?”
“His dad told him he was out until he could show he’d grown up. He took that as a win that he didn’t have to work in an office for the rest of the summer.”
"He sounds like Hank."
Dahlia rushes up with her answers.
“I made this too easy,” Iris says as she checks them off.
“No. It was perfect. A trip down memory lane.” Dahlia hugs her. The sister resemblance is unmistakable. She has the same silky brown hair and green eyes.
“I heard you saw the cat pawprint underwear,” Dahlia says.
“Meet Dahlia,” Iris says. “We give each other silly gifts every year. That was last year’s Christmas gift.”
“Great gift,” I say.
“Well, let’s see if you like this year’s gift.” Dahlia grins.
Iris swats at her playfully. “Don’t mind her,” she says.
We all pile back inside the bar. Iris turns on the microphone again.
“The next game is Icebreaker Bingo. I’ll hand out the sheets. When I ring the bell, you can start. The first one with five in a row wins the prize. You can only use a person once as an answer, and that person has to sign your card.” Iris hands out the sheets to all her sister’s friends and then rings the bell to signal the start of the games. “Go!”
I scan my sheet.
“I’m putting you down for ‘is single.’ You can put me down for the same,” she says. “Everyone else may be paired up here except for Uncle Harvey over there.” An older man sits snoring in the corner, a green tasseled pillow under his head, very close to where I hung the mistletoe. I definitely won’t be going near him.
“What about your aunt?” I ask.
“If she is, she’s not going to admit to it. I think she always has an admirer on hand.”
“Let’s do it together,” I say. “We need ‘speaks another language.’ That’s Arjan, Dahlia’s husband, or any of his Dutch friends here.”
Iris grins at me. “Sharp.”
We join the circle of friends around Arjan, and he writes his name in the blank square. There’s a lot of good-natured joking and camaraderie. This feeling of warmth from Iris’s family reminds me of my own. Melody’s family does not give off the same warmth, especially her mother. That one Thanksgiving dinner I attended was an extremely formal affair. I brought flowers, but they didn’t match the color scheme, so Melody swooped in and put them in the second bathroom. They weren’t even good enough for the first bathroom. After Melody broke up with me, Rupert tried to console me by saying, “At least you avoided her mom as a mother-in-law.”
“‘Kills houseplants’ is Rose, my older sister, or her best friend,” Iris says.
“My younger sister is the same,” I say. “My mom has learned to give her only succulents.” Annabelle would like Iris.
