Page 44 of The Holiday Hate-Off
After I read the flyer, I pull out a pen and add:
Am I allowed to order takeaway?
That evening, there’s an answer. Someone has painstakingly written out the dictionary definition of “banned” beneath my question.
The next morning, I get a special delivery at the shop—an electrical fuse, along with ahandwritten note:
I know what you did.
Since we’re sending each other gifts, I order her a delivery of a lobster candy cane from Portia’s shop, hoping she hasn’t heard about them yet and assumes it’s a flavor people want to eat. The note suggests it’s from a secret admirer.
We close at noon on Sundays, because Sundays are family days, so I leave before Lucy can make her rebuttal.
It snows that night, big thick snowflakes coming down, and I find myself wondering if it snows much where Lucy is from. Does she like it?
Will she dance around in it and try to catch the flakes on her tongue?
Yup, I’m officially losing my mind.
I walk to Hidden Italy early on Monday morning, finding the cold refreshing. Although I wouldn’t care to admit it, I like the crisp crunch of the fresh snow drifts beneath my boots, and the sleepy way the town looks when it’s covered in a fresh layer of snow with smoke curling up from the chimneys. Even the Christmas tree in the town square is covered in snow, so scenic it’s as if someone came in and strategically placed the white drifts in the middle of the night.
This is the part of Hideaway Harbor I love, the town when it’s at rest. Not performing. Not trying to impress. But covered in a snowy blanket and looking much the same as it probably did after George Locke and Alma Keye founded it all those years ago. Sleepy and sweet. Quiet.
When I get to the shop, I’m not surprised to find the lobster candy cane taped to the Hidden Italy sign with another note:
Is that the best you can do?
I’ll be honest, it makes me smile.
The sidewalk in front of their café is covered with snow, so I shovel it after clearing our steps. Eileen’s elderly, and if Lucy’s working, she may not be used to shoveling snow.
No big deal. Just doing the gentlemanly thing.
Later that morning, Nonna comes into our shop, looking especially sour.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
I spend most of my time in the back office, but I also like hanging out in the front of the shop, seeing what people look at, what they order. It’s supposed to help ideas germinate, but so far all it’s done is keep me up to date on a bunch of town gossip I couldn’t care less about.
She waves her hand toward the door. “Those women next door have a cappuccino special.Che chazzo!I’m the one who taught Eileen to make them years ago.”
“I’m sure she doesn’t mean it as an insult,” I say, remembering what Eileen told me the other night. “She wants to get along.”
“And this is how she tries?” my grandmother asks incredulously, waving a fist at the door as if she wants to break it.
I exchange a glance with my brother, Nico, behind the sandwich counter, and feel a grin tugging at my mouth. Shifting my attention back to my grandmother, I say, “So we’ll show them how it’s done, Nonna.”
I don’t have to look at Nico again to know he’s shaking his head. Giovanni’s off today, so at least I only have one brother giving me a hard time.
A few minutes later, I head outside with a sandwich board sign and a dry-erase marker. Sure enough, Love at First Sip has a cinnamon-stick cappuccino advertised on their own whiteboard sign as their daily special. So I offer one too, setting our little sandwich board sign next to the staircase leading down toHidden Italy. I make ours a quarter cheaper and add that it’s an authentic Italian cappuccino, underlining “authentic.”
At around noon, I go outside to hang up a wreath on the bracket under our sign—a wreath at least twice as big as the one hanging on the door of the Sip. Our cinnamon broom was nowhere to be seen when I arrived this morning. Either the snowstorm swept it away, or Lucy sent it to sleep with the fishes.
While I’m outside getting the wreath to hang straight, Lucy marches out of the café with a red dry-erase marker. I can only assume she’s been watching for me to come out here.
She gives me the finger and then changes their sign to make their drink a quarter cheaper than ours.
I laugh as she adds,
