Page 6 of The Twelve Months of Christmas
“Got your damper pulled. You’re probably going to have to air out your house the rest of the day,” he said.
“Thank you,” said Mrs. White, and smiled at him.
“Thank you,” said her daughter. No smile on those pretty, pouty lips. It was almost as if she resented having to be polite. Who had knocked down her holiday snowman?
“No problem,” he said. And now, to bed. “When you go back in, could you turn down the music?”
The snotball smiled now. It was a snarky one. “No Christmas spirit?”
“I’ve got plenty when I’ve had enough sleep,” he snapped then. Before she could say anything else to irritate him, he marched back to his house. If ever there was a candidate for receiving a lump of coal, she was it.
“Not your finest moment,” Mia scolded her daughter as they walked back to the house.
Arianna rubbed her aching forehead. “You’re right.”
Not the best way to meet the neighbor she’d only had glimpses of since she’d moved in.
According to Mia, he’d moved into the neighborhood shortly before Arianna came back. His grandma had owned the house but she was gone. “I think he might work nights so I don’t see much of him,” Mia had said. “He seems nice.”
“He didn’t have to come help us,” Mia said, continuing her motherly reprimand.
Arianna sighed. “I know, and I was a stinker. I’ll take over some cookies tomorrow and apologize. We have plenty left.”
“Hopefully they don’t smell like smoke,” said Mia.
“Okay, I’ll buy some.”
They opened every window, then cranked up the heat and shut themselves in Mia’s room and found a movie to stream on Arianna’s laptop—It’s a Wonderful Life, Mia’s all-time favorite movie.
“Some Christmas,” Arianna muttered as she started the movie.
“It could be worse. We could have burned down the house,” Mia said.
There was that.
“And at least you got rid of the last of your unwanted pictures,” her mother continued.
If only she could as easily get rid of the taunting memories. She sighed deeply and prepared to watch George Bailey learn that he’d had a wonderful life.
Bah humbug.
Christmas morning was long gone by the time Molly Fielding got to her daughter’s house. But it was still Christmas Day, and it was never too late to enjoy cinnamon rolls. Or so she’d told herself when she picked some up at the Safeway bakery department. And they were Ava’s favorite.
Ava wasn’t smiling when she opened the door to her condo, and the sight of the cinnamon rolls didn’t change that. “Finally,” she said.
“I’m sorry I didn’t make it over last night,” Molly said.
The plan had been for her to come over for Christmas Eve and spend the night so she’d be on hand for the early morning festivities. She’d done it in the past and she wasn’t above sharing a bed with her daughter, but Ava tended to thrash around and talk in her sleep, and all Molly had wanted from Santa was a good night’s rest.
“You missed seeing Paisley open her present from Santa,” Ava said. It made Molly feel like a criminal in the witness stand with the lawyer for the prosecution trying to destroy her.
Guilty as charged. “Did she like it?” Molly asked.
“What’s not to like about a new iPad?” Ava retorted, swinging the door wide. She was dressed in jeans and a black top that showed off a perfect figure. To match her perfectly done hair and makeup. Not that Ava needed makeup.
Sometimes Molly wondered how she’d wound up with such a beautiful daughter. And smart, too. She, herself, was so...average.
And yet, here was Ava, still single in spite of her beauty and intelligence. It seemed she did everything right in her life except relationships.
