Page 75 of The Summer of Christmas

Chapter 23

Ivy was determined to make her peace with Amari. She had a three-pronged battle plan. First on her list was showering Amari with presents. The next morning, she went to her mom’s Christmas shop to put together a gift basket for Amari. She included some of her holiday favorites: a snow globe, a nutcracker, a mini Christmas tree, a box of local chocolates, and peppermint hot cocoa. She had the basket delivered to the set, but Amari ghosted her gift, not that Ivy expected anything else. She knew that it was going to take a lot of convincing to get back on Amari’s good side. The cellophane-wrapped goodies were only a start.

Griffin reached out via text to tell her that Amari liked the snow globe and that she’d smiled at the nutcracker ornament. Ivy felt suddenly hopeful. Griffin neglected to mention that once Amari saw that the peace offering was from Ivy, she wanted nothing to do with it and gave it to the production designer.

At lunchtime, Vera showed Amari and Griffin the dailies from the morning. Vera was really pleased with their performances. She especially praised Amari’s acting. Called it award-winning. Amari actually smiled for the first time that day. Griffin texted all of this in confidence to Ivy. He kept telling her thathe was on her side. And he was. Ivy was starting to feel like the sister he’d never had. “Family sticks together,” he’d told Ivy. When Amari tried to badmouth Ivy, Griffin just ignored her.

The second item on Ivy’s battle plan was gifting the crew with baked goodies. She figured that if she could win over Drew, Vera, Bruce, and everyone else, she’d be closer to making peace with Amari. Ivy spent the day rolling out dough, making cookies that looked like each member of the crew. Her mom helped her. Together they put them each in individual boxes. Ivy wrote separate notes to each crew member, finishing each missive with anI’m so sorry. Love, Ivy.For Vera and Drew’s cookies, she wrote a longer note:I’m so sorry. I promise that will never happen again. Your kindness and support have meant the world to me. I hope you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me.Ivy’s dad offered to deliver the cookies to the filming location, just in case they were serious about keeping Ivy off the set. It happened to be mid-afternoon, and the crew was experiencing a blood sugar drop. J. B. was nowhere in sight with fresh food. Everyone was tired of the prepackaged snacks. So when Mitch arrived on set with a little pink bakery box for every crew member, they all gathered around him like chickens. Eager for what he had to offer. They didn’t care that it was from Ivy. In truth, they had no ax to grind with her. They were more concerned about the betting pool.

Even Drew smiled a little when he opened up his box. He saw that Ivy had given him big muscles in the icing on his cookie. But when he read the note, his smile faded. He wasn’t ready to forgive her. At least not yet. Vera was too busy to even look at her cookie. But if she had, she would have seen that Ivy had given her a cute button nose and a clipboard. Ivy had taken extra care with Vera’s cookie. Mitch told Ivy that the crew loved the cookies. He didn’t reveal that Drew had ripped up the note. Or that Vera hadn’t said anything.

The third item in Ivy’s battle plan list was what she thought was her ace in the hole. She was going to write Amari a new scene. She’d give her some memorable dialogue along the lines ofYou had me at hellofromJerry MaguireorKiss me. Kiss me as if it were the last timefromCasablanca. The new scene was going to come right before the Rick character died. Ivy figured that if she wrote an amazing scene, Vera and Drew would sign off on it.

She opened her laptop and sat in her old bedroom, prepared to write. Nothing was coming to her. She couldn’t really be having writer’s block, she thought. That had never happened to her. Ivy didn’t know what to do so she opened up Instagram and began scrolling. She stopped on Amari’s latest post. It was a close-up of Nick on his boat.Gosh, he’s handsome.Ivy closed Instagram. She knew what she had to do. Ivy put in her earbuds and searched for the Christmas song that most reminded her of Nick. Soon she was humming along to “Tinsel and Lights” by Train. It was the song that reminded her of the magical weekend she’d spent with Nick in New York City.

Before Ivy knew it, she wastap-tap-tappingaway on her laptop, no longer blocked. Ivy crafted a magical scene where Rick and Ilsa camped out by the lake in the snow just before Christmas. Rick built a fire to keep them warm. They snuggled together in sleeping bags. Ivy realized that the scene was suddenly becoming too personal as she slipped up a few times and typed inNickinstead ofRick.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, over at the Shepherd Winery, Nick was in a quandary. Ivy had gotten into his head when she’d emerged from the shower naked. Now he couldn’t stop thinking about her. He also couldn’t stop wiping down the bar. Over and over, he rubbed the cloth on the long gleaming piece of wood. Frannie and J. B. walked into the winery. J. B. carried bags from the Farmers’ Market for Frannie. Nick noticed that his mom looked different. Her face was bright and happy. She’d taken care with her hair. And J. B. was grinning ear to ear. His shirt was misbuttoned. Nick wondered,Did they just have sex?He shook his head, trying to squash that image and bring back the one of naked Ivy. But substituting a naked image of your ex-girlfriend for your mother wasn’t a good idea.

“If you wipe that bar down any more, the veneer is going to rub off,” Frannie joked.

“Huh?” Nick murmured. He’d been lost in thought.

“What’s going on with you?” his mother asked.

“Nothing. Nothing’s going on with me.”

“You look hungry,” J. B. commented.

“I’m not hungry,” he snapped.

“Maybe not hungry, but hangry,” Frannie said to J. B.

“I’m not hungry and I’m not hangry.”

Frannie walked over behind the bar and opened up a bottle of cab franc. “Do you want to try some of the riesling I’ve been telling you about?” she asked J. B.

“Of course.”

“It’s three in the afternoon,” Nick protested.

“And in Paris, it’s eight o’clock. I think we can have a glass.”

“Don’t you need to be on set, J. B.?” he groused.

“Dinner is not until eight. I went to the Farmers’ Market with your mother to get groceries. I found the big zucchini she wanted. I want to enjoy the moment with my love.”

His love? Nick wondered what was going on. He noticed his mother had removed the wedding ring that she’d worn for years. Was this really happening? Was she actually getting serious with this guy? What happened to just hooking up?

Frannie took out three glasses and poured the wine. She handed one to Nick. “Tell us your troubles, Nick. And be honest.”

Before he knew it, Nick revealed all that had happened to him in the past few days. Hanging around with Amari, and the overnight with Ivy. They emptied the bottle of wine and opened another. His mother tried to be helpful. “Did you talk to Ivy, like I suggested?” and “How do you feel about Amari? Is it serious?” None of her comments were helpful. Then J. B. looked him in the eye.

“Love isn’t convenient. You can’t plan it. It can’t be analyzed. Trust your gut. Stop beingune chochotteand just go talk to her.”

“To Ivy? Or to Amari?”

Now it was J. B.’s turn to look confused. “Uh, I don’t know.”

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