Page 2 of Snow Place Like Home
Me: It’s definitely a statement.
Mom: I make the perfect Virgin Mary and your father is a dashing Joseph. I wish you would reconsider being baby Jesus. It would be so cute, seeing as you are our child after all. People would love it.
Me: Jack is also your child, and you aren’t forcing him to lie in an adult manger with wheels on it.
“I cannot believe your father built a manger and expected you to lie in it,” Poppy said over hysterical laughter as she and I both waited for my mom’s response.
Mom: It’s his wedding, my love. He and Holly already had a plan for their costumes.
Me: And I have a plan for mine, and it does not include wearing a loin cloth over a nude-colored bodysuit and lying in a weird, oversized wagon filled with hay.
Mom: It’s a swaddling cloth, not a loin cloth.
Me: Not happening. You two can rock your costumes all on your own. I’ll be rocking my Rudolph suit.
Mom: It’s probably a good thing because dad’s allergies have been out of control since he filled the manger with hay.
Me: Oh my. A sneezing Joseph is going to be very distracting. I’m grateful for my cozy costume at the moment.
Mom: Did you even bother coordinating with Ace?
Ace Bonetti.
My brother’s lifelong best friend and the best man at the wedding.
Ace was basically the biggest thing to ever happen to our small town. Back in the day, he was the biggest football star of our high school, prom king of his senior class, and voted most likely to become famous, which of course he’d managed to do.
He’d gone on to play college football, and then he’d decided to become an actor, which meant he’d somehow scored the lead role in a Netflix series that ended up being the number one streaming show in the world last year.
He wasthat guy.
“She has no idea that you crushed on your brother’s bestie your entire adolescence, does she?”
“Don’t be dramatic. It didn’t last that long,” I said with a chuckle, because we both knew that I was lying through my reindeer teeth.
“Please. I know you better than you know yourself most of the time. And I feel for you, because he’s the worst crush you could have chosen. He doesn’t follow the typical pattern that dudes you crush on in high school follow.”
“Right?” I pushed to my feet and moved to the makeup vanity before applying some last-minute lip gloss. “The guy you pine over during your hormonal teen years is supposed to peak in high school. Not age like a fine wine.”
She reared back with a laugh. “Exactly. Take my high school crush, Bobby Flacker. He put on thirty pounds, and he has an impressive beer belly and a receding hairline. He laughed in my face when I asked him to the turnaround dance our sophomore year in high school, but who’s laughing now?”
I chuckled. “The badass light-up Christmas tree is laughing, that’s who. And that guy was always such a pompous ass. So it’s very fitting that karma would serve him a big shit sandwich.”
“Correct, Rudolph. Because your childhood crush is supposed to grow up and make you realize how much better you are that they rejected you. I certainly dodged a bullet with that guy.”
“You did.”
“Of course,youhad to go and have a secret crush on the heartthrob of White Cap Mountain. It’s very on brand for you to aim high. I prefer to shoot low.” She shrugged.
“Ace and I are great friends, and I’m glad I never told him how I felt, so I didn’t have to live through the actual rejection.” I knew that he thought of me like a little sister, and we’d always been close.
He just didn’t know that I’d never looked at him like a big brother.
He was the boy I’d compared all other boys to when I was a teenager, and also the guy who’d starred in every single one of my teenage fantasies.
Luckily, he’d gone away to school, and I eventually started dating my boyfriend Joshua in college and got over said crush.
I replied to my mother as Poppy moved to the vanity to add a few more curls to her long red hair.
