Page 102 of Mistletoe Season
Then, once I’m back in my car, I pinch myself.Ouch!Nope, I’m not dreaming. I will have some pages to fill in that journal tonight.
***
“Oh my,” says Mom when she sees my hair. I’d forgotten about my hair for a while there. Now I frown, and she quickly adds, “It will fade after a couple of washings.”
Right.
I move to a more important topic. “You never told me about Mr. Davies.”
“I should have. I forgot.”
“Pretty big news to forget,” I say.
She sighs. “I guess there never was quite the right time to tell you. Whenever we texted or talked, we had so many other things to discuss.”
Like my love fails. Or how I’m struggling to write this new book, thanks to my mistletoe disillusionment. My conversations with my editor, my concerns about cover art. There hasn’t been much conversational room for anyone else. How humiliating.
***
Sam comes home, takes one look at my green hair, and goes allhohohohysterical.
“It’s not funny,” I say. “Your girlfriend did this on purpose.”
He stops laughing and his brows pull together. “Gwen wouldn’t do that.”
“Of course she would. That’s how she’s wired.”
He scowls. “Hey, you’re talking about the woman I’m in love with.”
I sigh inwardly and backpedal. “Maybe I’m imagining she did it on purpose.”
“Of course you are. Gwen doesn’t have a mean bone in her body.”
Not one but a whole collection. And there’s no escaping her. She will be the holly thorn in my side clear through to New Year’s. Or longer, if she and Sam make things permanent.
Sam stuck with Gwendolyn—there’sa terrible thought! Seeing my brother freed from her is now at the top of my Christmas wish list. That won’t be easy. Santa’s elves sure have their work cut out for them.
Five
Others looked at her and missed who she was. He didn’t.
—Hailey Fairchild,What the Heart Needs
I am relieved that Gwendolyn is not part of Mom’s cookie exchange. It’s the usual suspects—Mom, Gram, Mrs. Davies, and their friends. There are so many plates of cookies spread across the dining room table that it makes my mouth water.
I can conquer any situation. I will not yield to cookie temptation.
“That is an interesting shade of green,” says Geraldine Greer, who lives across the street.
She’s raising an eyebrow, looking at me as if she’s convinced that I meant to do this.
I can feel the face fire again. I never liked her very much. She was always stingy with her trick or treat candy at Halloween.
“It’s supposed to fade,” I say. Not that it has yet, despite two washings.
She shakes her head. “Dyeing your hair every color of the rainbow, such a silly fad.”
Mom is standing nearby, the poster child for silly fads. “Oh, lighten up, Ger. You’re just jealous ’cause you’re not brave enough to do it,” she teases.
