Page 91 of Mad About Yule

“No, I get it. Rumors.” He doesn’t quite meet my eye. “I’ve got to finish sanding that last Wonderland house.”

He walks down the steps strewn with rock salt. I follow, ready to stop him and explain, when someone calls my name.

“Hope!” Ada’s approaching me from the opposite direction. Bundled up in her big black coat, she takes careful steps on the shoveled sidewalk.

I turn for a second and watch my handyman slash would-be boyfriend get farther away before I give Ada my full attention.

“What can I do for you?” My smile feels too tight, my mind distracted, but I can’t just walk away and be rude.

“Do you have an activity list for Friday night on you?”

My heart warms to see she’s wearing a crocheted scarf that came from my store—or at least one of my artists. It’s wrapped up high against her chin, her gray wisps of hair brushing along the top.

“I don’t have anything with me.” I’d left flyers in several businesses, but I don’t have anything handy to give out.

“My granddaughter plans to come over from Salem with her babies, but she said she couldn’t find the event schedule online, and I must have recycled the notice in the paper.”

“The festival has a website, and the event’s on social media if she searches for it.”

“And the entire event schedule’s on there?”

I drop my mouth open to answer but have to close it again. I…don’t remember exactly what I posted where. Everything’s on the website, but did I put the same detailed graphic on all the pages across social media? Or did I just plan to?

My stomach caves in like an igloo that can’t hold up to its own weight. I’ve been scrambling around, trying to keep so many plates spinning. Did I completely forget about one of the most important ones? My cute Winter Wonderland and the full booths in the Christmas market won’t do much good if nobody knows they’re going to be there.

“I’ll double check,” I tell her when I’ve got my voice again. “I’ll make sure everything’s listed and easy to find. For now, I’ll take a picture of the flyer when I get back to my store and text it to you.”

She nods. “I appreciate it. My great grand-babies are looking forward to Friday night.”

With that sweet reminder, she walks away, and I pull out my phone to scroll through the festival’s socials, hoping against hope I haven’t sabotaged my own plans.

* * *

It’slate in the evening when I finally drag myself home. Between lights and painting and nine thousand last-minute phone calls from volunteers, I haven’t had a minute to myself. I want a little space to unwind before I crash into bed.

My house is blazing bright, every light on in the house. Lila huddles over her computer at the kitchen table, her phone resting on top of a notebook covered in her neat handwriting.

“Good day?” she asks.

I shrug out of my coat and hang it up, sifting through my possible answers, but when I turn around, I stop cold. “You cleaned.”

She looks up from the computer. “Just a little.”

“Just a littleis straightening the junk on the coffee table and putting dirty dishes in the sink. You did all the dishes. The counters are spotless.” I point an accusatory finger at the floor. “You mopped.”

She’s not a neat freak, and her attention to detail today feels weirdly suspicious. “What’s going on?”

Lila shrugs it off. “I’m a conscientious guest.”

I narrow my eyes at her. “Thank you?”

“I’ve been researching other Christmas festivals across the country and checking out their socials all day. Now get over here and look at my week of planned posts.”

“Can we do it tomorrow?”

“No. No more blowing me off. I’ve worked really hard on this.”

So have I.But I shuffle over and pull a chair around to Lila’s side. She opens a folder on her computer and clicks through page after page of colorful, Christmas-themed cheer. Peppy posts describing festival events, thoughtful posts about the importance of family time during the holidays, notes from Santa and Mrs. Claus. Lila’s description of her plans over pizza hadn’t come close to conveying this level of detail.

---