Page 2 of Mistletoe, Mayhem & Mr. Grump
"Doesn't it?" She adjusts her designer gloves with surgical precision. "The Bailey girl was in similar circumstances with her bakery last year. Then she married that contractor from Millbrook, and suddenly the bank found her loan terms much more favorable."
"Maybe the contractor co-signed?—"
"The Hendersons' hardware store was failing until their son came back from college with his fiancée. Now they're thriving."
"Correlation isn't?—"
"In small towns, my dear, correlation is close enough to causation for committee work." She smiles, and somewhere a small animal probably freezes in terror. "The Christmas gala is in three weeks. Everyone who matters will be there. Including the loan committee members who golf with their traditional values every Sunday."
"I'll be there. I'm always there. I haven't missed one since I was eight and threw up on Santa's shoes."
"Alone." The word hangs between us like a particularly judgmental icicle. "While every other business owner attends with their spouse or significant other, showing stability, permanence, commitment to building a future in Snowfall Creek."
"So, I should do what? Grab some random guy off the street and present him like a show pony?"
"I'm suggesting," Delia says with that maddening calm that comes from never having to check price tags, "that you think strategically. Your grandmother knew that sometimes unconventional solutions are the most effective."
"My grandmother also thought the neighbor's cat was psychic."
"Mr. Whiskers correctly predicted three snowstorms."
"Mr. Whiskers slept under a barometric pressure gauge!"
"Results are results, dear." She heads for the door, then pauses for maximum dramatic effect—she probably practices these exits in her mirror. "The shop meant everything to Helena. I'd hate to see it lost because of... pride."
She leaves, and I slump against the counter like a marionette whose strings just got cut. The carousel music box sits there, silent and judgmental, its painted horses frozen mid-gallop like they're waiting for someone to wind the key and make them dance.
But winding keys doesn't pay bills, and dancing horses don't impress loan committees.
I pick up the music box anyway, finding the key on the bottom and giving it three careful turns. The melody starts—'The Christmas Waltz'—tinny and sweet and absolutely nothing like my current disaster of a life.
When life gets hard, sweet girl, I can almost hear my grandmother saying,You wind the music and remember—beauty persists. Even in the darkest winter, even when everything seems lost, beauty finds a way to persist. Also, always keep bail money hidden in the flour jar, but that's unrelated advice.
Okay, she didn't say that last part, but she should have.
The shop feels too quiet now, even with the melody playing. Through the frost-etched windows, I watch the rest of Snowfall Creek bustling with holiday preparation like they don't have a care in the world. Garlands drape between lampposts like green smiles mocking my pain. The town Christmas tree stands tall and proud, probably also judging me.
By 3:45, I've accomplished exactly nothing except rearranging the same shelf four times and composing mental resignation letters to capitalism.
Dear Capitalism,
It's not me; it's you.
Actually, it's definitely you.
Hate and resentment,
Wren
The Daily Grind is already packed when I arrive for the mandatory Christmas Committee meeting—or as I like to call it, ‘Two Hours of My Life I'll Never Get Back: The Holiday Edition.’
"Wren, darling, there you are!" Delia waves me over with the authority of someone who's never been told no in her life. She's positioned at the corner table like a general surveying hertroops, armed with color-coded notebooks that probably have spreadsheets of their own.
I squeeze into the last empty chair between Teddy Wickham—whose magnificent Santa beard is achieving sentience—and June Hartwell from the Gazette, who's scribbling notes like committee meetings are breaking news. Which, in Snowfall Creek, they basically are. Tomorrow's headline:'Local Woman Fails to Bring Adequate Christmas Cheer, Town Mourns.'
"Now then," Delia adjusts her readers with the precision of someone defusing a bomb, "we need to address the elephant in the room."
"We're getting an elephant?" Teddy asks hopefully. "Because I've been saying for years, that nothing says Christmas like exotic animals."
