Page 89 of Mistletoe Season
“Hey, what’s your hurry?” Carwyn teased as I bolted for the punch bowl.
I’d have liked nothing better than to crawl under the dining room table with its long, red tablecloth and stay there forever, but you can only pull that off when you’re five. So I tried to act cool and put out the fire burning my face with eggnog punch and pretend that I didn’t want to act like a five-year-old.
I kept my back to Carwyn and the party guests while the sizzleon my face died down. The sizzle on my lips subsided, too, and that was sad. Later that night, alone in my room, I put my fingers to my lips, trying to recapture that glorious sensational second. Kissed by Carwyn Davies—holiday magic!
I remained trapped in the throes of unrequited love clear through high school. To feed my sickness I read Jane Austen and the Brontës and every book Barbara Cartland and Georgette Heyer ever wrote. I devoured Debbie Macomber and Susan Wiggs and Susan Elizabeth Phillips. And sighed at the end of each book, envisioning myself and Carwyn as the hero and heroine of those stories. I went to every basketball game he played in, sitting in the bleachers with Scarlet and sighing longingly as I watched him in action, all muscled and gorgeous. I dreamed about him at night but hid in my room whenever he came over to game with Sam. I couldn’t think of another guy, let alone date one.
Not that boys were banging on the door. Shy bookworms were not in high demand. Except as a cliché in a novel.
I know about clichés. My first stories were full of them—beautiful, snobby cheerleaders (I know there are nice ones out there, but I didn’t know any, and I wasn’t about to give a single one of my fictional cheerleaders a heart); handsome jocks who could never see when the perfect girl was right under their nose; mean girls who got what was coming to them in the end. And girls like me, who were always successful and beautiful by the end of the story. And wore contacts. Of course they got contacts.
Except I didn’t. I’ve never been able to master sticking something in my eye. I tried. Heaven knows, I tried. Anyway, like I said, glasses are in style now. And I’m in better shape these days, thanks to regular visits to that torture chamber known as the gym. But here I am, still single.
It seems everyone else in Cascade is with someone now. Scarlet is engaged and living in LA. Her younger sister Billie, who never lefttown, is married and working on baby number two. And Mom tells me that even Sam has found a serious girlfriend.
I just learned this yesterday when we were talking on the phone.“Maybe you know her,”Mom said.“Gwendolyn Payne?”
Yes, I know Gwendolyn—snobby mean girl. I suddenly felt like someone whacked me in the face with a giant Christmas pickle. If there’s one person I don’t want to see ever again, it’s her. She was one of my nemeses when I was in high school. And Sam has fallen for her? Seriously? Did she hypnotize him?
Of course, she’ll be on the scene, all smooth and slick. And there I’ll be, all... alone.
Earlier in the year, when I thought I’d finally found true love, I’d been looking forward to coming home for Christmas with bling on my finger and a perfect man in tow. Revenge of the Nerd Girl. Career success, romance success—I’d have it all. I’m happy I still have my career (so far), but coming back as a love loser really stinks. And frankly, right now so does writing romance novels. Which doesn’t bode well for my career.
Part of me wants to hide here on the East Coast, but I wiggled out of going home last Christmas, and that got me in scalding-hot water. If I try it again, my parents will disown me, especially since they insisted on buying my ticket. Anyway, I do want to see my family. I just don’t want to run into any of the women who made me so miserable. I especially don’t want to see Gwendolyn. But there she’ll be. And then there’s Carwyn.
If I could just stay in the house, I’d be fine, but Mom has plans. She has plans upon plans.
Including an appearance at the local bookstore.
Mom is my number-one fan and has bought copies of my books and passed them out to all her friends. In honor of my return, she’s talked Eloise Matthews, the owner of Mountain Books, into having me in for a book-signing party. (That probably wasn’t hard to do.After all, Mom’s bought so many of my books there that I think she’s single-handedly kept Mountain Books in business. Eloise owes her big-time.) I’m not wild about standing in front of a crowd and reading from my novels. I always find parts I could have written better, and it’s sooo embarrassing to read those second-best sentences.
I’ll have to smile and sign books and pretend I’m not a romance fraud who writes about love but can’t get it right in real life.
I shouldn’t have committed to coming home so early and staying clear through New Year’s. That’s too much time—too many opportunities for Christmas gremlins to get into my life and mess it all up even worse than it already is. I can only hope the Davies family won’t host their annual Christmas party. If they do, there’s bound to be mistletoe. My kryptonite. Santa, help me!
Two
He was everything she’d ever dreamed of.
—Hailey Fairchild,What the Heart Seeks
I’m flying out tomorrow, a whole eight days before Christmas Eve. In addition to the bookstore appearance, Mom’s expecting me to be part of her cookie exchange, which means baking and cookie temptation. And she’s volunteered me to speak to Mrs. Wharton’s freshman English class.
“Future readers,”Mom had said.“It’s important to be visible when you’re an author. Marketing.”
Mom used to sell candles on the party plan. She knows about marketing.
“Janet is delighted you’re going to do this,”Mom had added.“And then there’s the book-signing party at Mountain Books. Everyone’s coming.”
“This is going to be a circus,” I tell Ramona, my roommate, who’s watching me pack.
“You need to face your demons.”
Carwyn Davies is the first face that comes to mind. He’s hardly a demon, but the few times I’ve seen him when I’ve been home (from as great a distance as I could manage), it’s about given me hives.
Then there have been those encounters with mean girls who loved to make my life miserable back in high school. I was never even sure why. Because I was smart and that intimidated them?Because I was shy and easily embarrassed, and that made me an easy target? Who knows. All I know is most of them haven’t changed, and I don’t care if I ever see any of them again. But it’s Christmas. No matter where we’ve moved, everyone comes back home for Christmas, even the ones who ought to be taken captive by Krampus. And the worst of them, one of the ones who never left, is now with my brother.
“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” Ramona says.
