Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances (7 page)

“It’s okay.” He reached for more turkey, looking like he had already forgotten how dumb I could be sometimes. “I tend to think that people like having us around. Like we add something to the neighborhood. We have a playground, an efficient recycling setup, and two Jewish families.”

“But isn’t it weird?” I asked, picking up the snowman salt shaker. “All these Christmas decorations?”

“Maybe. But it’s just a big holiday, you know? It all feels so fake that it seems okay. My mom just likes to celebrate anything, really. Our relatives in other places think it’s strange that we have a tree, but trees are nice. It’s not like a tree is religious.”

“True,” I said. “What does your dad think?”

“No idea. He doesn’t live here.”

Stuart didn’t seem very troubled by this fact. He beat another little rhythm on the table to brush the subject away, and stood.

“I’ll get you set up for the night,” he said. “Be right back.”

I got up to have a look around. There were
two
Christmas trees: a tiny one in the picture window, and a massive one—easily eight feet high—in the corner. It was practically bent over from the weight of all the handmade ornaments, the multiple strings of lights, and what must have been ten boxes of silver tinsel.

There was a piano in the living room that was loaded down with opened pages of music, some with comments written on the pages in pen. I don’t play any instruments, so all music looks complicated to me—but this looked even more complicated than normal. Someone here knew what they were doing. This wasn’t just “piano as furniture.”

What really caught my eye, though, was what was sitting on top of the piano. It was much smaller, much less technically complex than ours, but it was a Flobie Santa Village nonetheless, framed with a little barrier of garland.

“You must know what these are,” Stuart said, coming down the stairs with a massive load of blankets and pillows, which he dumped on the sofa.

I did, of course. They had five pieces—the Merry Men Café, the gumdrop shop, Festive Frank’s Supply Store, the Elfateria, and the ice-cream parlor.

“I guess you guys have more of these than we do,” he said.

“We have fifty-six pieces.”

He whistled in appreciation, and reached over to switch on the power. Unlike us, they didn’t have a fancy system for switching all the houses on at once. He had to turn the dimmer dial on each one, clicking it to life.

“My mom thinks they’re worth something,” he said. “She treats them like they’re
the precious
.”

“They all think that,” I said sympathetically.

I looked the pieces over with an expert eye. I don’t usually advertise the fact, but I actually know a lot about the Flobie Santa Village, for obvious reasons. I could hold my own at any dealer’s show.

“Well,” I said, pointing at the Merry Men Café, “this one is kind of worth something. See how it’s brick, with green around the windows? This is a first-generation piece. In the second year, they made the windowsills black.”

I picked it up carefully and checked the bottom.

“It’s not a numbered piece,” I said, examining the base. “But still . . . any first-generation piece with a noticeable difference is good. And they retired the Merry Men Café five years ago, so that makes it worth a bit more. This would go for about four hundred dollars, except that it looks like your chimney was broken off and glued back on.”

“Oh, yeah. My sister did that.”

“You have a sister?”

“Rachel,” Stuart said. “She’s five. Don’t worry. You’ll meet her. And that was kind of amazing.”

“I don’t think amazing is the right word for that. Maybe
sad
.”

He switched all the houses back off.

“Who plays the piano?” I asked.

“Me. It’s my talent. I guess we all have one.”

Stuart made a kind of ridiculous face, which made me laugh.

“You shouldn’t dismiss it,” I said. “Schools love people who have musical skills.”

God, I sounded so . . . well, so like one of those people who do things only because they think it will make colleges like them. I was shocked when I realized that was a Noah quote. I had never thought of it as being so obnoxious before.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m just tired.”

He waved this away, as if it required no explanation or apology.

“So do mothers,” he said. “And neighbors. I’m sort of the performing monkey of the subdivision. Luckily, I also like to play, so it works out. So . . . the sheets and pillows are for you, and . . . ”

“I’m fine,” I said. “This is great. It’s really nice of you to let me stay.”

“Like I said, it’s no problem.”

He turned to go but stopped halfway up the stairs.

“Hey,” he said, “I’m sorry if I was kind of a dick earlier, when we were walking. It was just . . . ”

“Walking in the storm,” I said. “I know. It was cold; we were grouchy. Don’t worry about it. I’m sorry, too. And thanks.”

He looked like he was about to say something else but simply nodded and started back up the stairs. I heard him reach the top, then back down a few. He peered through the top rails.

“Merry Christmas,” he added, before disappearing.

This is when it really hit me. My eyes filled up. I missed my family. I missed Noah. I missed home. These people had done all they could, but they weren’t my family. Stuart wasn’t my boyfriend. I lay there for a long time, twisting on the sofa, listening to a dog snoring somewhere upstairs (I think it was the dog), watching two hours burn away on the very loud ticky-ticky clock.

I simply couldn’t stand it.

My phone was in my coat pocket, so I went searching for where my clothes had been stashed. I found them in the laundry room. The coat had been hung up over a heating vent. Apparently, my phone hadn’t liked being completely submerged in cold water. The screen was blank. No wonder I hadn’t heard from him.

There was a phone on the kitchen counter. I quietly crept out and took it from the cradle and dialed Noah’s number. It rang four times before he answered. He sounded very confused when he answered. His voice was tired and deep.

“It’s me,” I whispered.

“Lee?” he croaked. “What time is it?”

“Three in the morning,” I said. “You never called back.”

Assorted snuffling noises, as he tried to clear his thoughts.

“Sorry. It was busy all night. You know my mom and the Smorgasbord. Can we talk tomorrow? I’ll call you as soon as we finish opening gifts.”

I fell silent. I had braved the biggest storm of the year—many years—I had fallen into a frozen creek, and my parents were imprisoned . . . and he
still
couldn’t talk to me?

But . . . he had had a long night, and it seemed a waste to force my story on him when he was half asleep. People can’t really sympathize with you properly when you’ve woken them up, and I needed him at 100 percent for this.

“Sure,” I said. “Tomorrow.”

I climbed back into my cave of blankets and pillows. They had a strong, unfamiliar smell. Not bad—just a very strong detergent that I’d never smelled before.

Sometimes, I just didn’t
get
Noah. Sometimes I even felt like he dated me as part of his plan, like they were going to have a checklist on the application, and one of the things to tick off was going to be, “Do you have a reasonably intelligent girlfriend who shares your aspirations, and who is fully prepared to accept your limited availability? One who likes to listen to you talk about your own accomplishments for hours at a time?”

No. This was fear and cold talking. This was being in a strange place away from my family. This was stress over the fact that my parents had been arrested in a riot for ceramic houses. And if I just slept, my brain would go back to normal.

I closed my eyes and felt the world swirling with snow. I was dizzy for a moment, and slightly nauseous, and then I was fast, fast asleep, dreaming of waffle sandwiches and cheerleaders doing splits on the tables.

Chapter Eight

M
orning came in the form of a five-year-old leaping onto my stomach. My eyes popped open from the force.

“Who are you?” she said excitedly. “I’m Rachel!”

“Rachel! Stop jumping on her! She’s sleeping!”

This was Stuart’s mom’s voice.

Rachel was a highly freckled mini-Stuart with incredibly bed-messy hair and a huge smile. She smelled vaguely of Cheerios, and she needed a bath. Debbie was right there as well, nursing a cup of coffee while she switched on the Flobie Santa Village. Stuart stepped out from the direction of the kitchen.

I hate it when I wake up to find that people have been creeping around me and have seen me asleep. Unfortunately, it happens to me a lot. I can sleep like a champion. I once slept through a smoke alarm going off. For three hours.
In my bedroom.

“We’re going to put off opening our presents,” Debbie said. “So this morning, we can all just have something to eat and have a nice talk!”

This was clearly for my benefit, as there were no gifts for me. Rachel’s face looked like it was going to split in two, like a piece of overripe fruit. Stuart looked to his mother, as if asking if this was really a good idea.

“Except for Rachel,” she said quickly.

It’s amazing how quickly little kids’ moods can shift. She went from total despair to elation in the time it normally takes to sneeze.

“No,” I said. “No, you guys should, too.”

Debbie was shaking her head firmly and smiling.

“Stuart and I can wait. Why don’t you go and get yourself ready for some breakfast?”

I slunk off to the bathroom, head down, to try to do some basic morning repair. My hair looked like it was trying out for the comedy circuit, and my skin was raw and chapped. I did my best with cold water and decorative hand soaps, which is to say, I didn’t make a lot of progress.

“Do you want to call your family?” Debbie asked when I emerged. “Wish them a happy holiday?”

I found myself looking to Stuart for help with this one.

“That may be hard,” he said. “They’re in the Flobie Five.”

So much for hiding that fact. Debbie didn’t seem put out by it, though. Instead, she got a gleam in her eye like she’d just met a celebrity.

“Your parents were in that?” she asked. “Oh, why didn’t you say? I love the Flobie Santa Village. And it was so silly to put them in jail. The Flobie Five! Oh, I’m sure they’ll let them talk on the phone to their daughter! At Christmas! It’s not like they killed somebody.”

Stuart looked up at me knowingly, as if to say,
Told you.

“I don’t even know what jail they’re in,” I said. I felt guilty as soon as I said it. My parents were wasting away in a cell somewhere, and I didn’t even know where.

“Well, that’s easy enough to find out. Stuart, go online and find out what jail they’re in. It has to be on the news.”

Stuart was already on his way out of the room, saying he was on it.

“Stuart’s a wizard with those kinds of things,” she said.

“What kinds of things?”

“Oh, he can find anything online.”

Debbie was one of those parents who still hadn’t quite grasped that using the Internet was not exactly wizardry, and that we could
all
find anything online. I didn’t say this, because you don’t want people to feel that they’ve missed something really obvious, even when they have.

Stuart came back in with the information, and Debbie made the call.

“I
will
get them to let you talk to your parents,” she said, holding her hand over the receiver. “They have no idea how persist— Oh, hello?”

It sounded like they were giving her a bit of trouble, but Debbie beat them down. Sam would have been impressed. She handed me the phone and retreated from the kitchen, all smiles. Stuart picked up a wriggling Rachel and carried her out, as well.

“Jubilee?” my mom said. “Honey! Are you okay? Did you just get to Florida? How are Grandma and Grandpa? Oh, honey . . . ”

“I’m not in Florida. The train never made it. I’m in Gracetown.”

“Gracetown?” she repeated. “You only made it that far? Oh, Jubilee . . . where are you? Are you all right? Are you still on the train?”

I didn’t quite feel up to telling the whole story of the last twenty-four hours, so I made it nice and short.

“The train got stuck,” I said. “We had to get off. I met some people. I’m staying at their house.”

“People?” Her voice hit a high pitch of concern, the kind that said that she suspected drug dealers and molesters. “What kind of
people
?”

“Nice people, Mom. A mom and two kids. They have a Flobie Santa Village. Not as big as ours, but some of the same pieces. They have the gumdrop shop, with the full display. And the gingerbread bakery. They even have a first-generation Merry Men Café.”

“Oh,” she said, somewhat relieved.

I think my parents think you have to have
some
kind of moral character to be in the Flobie crew. Social deviants don’t take the time to lovingly set the tiny gingerbread men displays in the window of the bakery. And yet, lots of people would take that as a sign that someone was unhinged. One person’s crazy is another person’s sane, I guess. Plus, I thought I was being pretty crafty by describing Stuart as one of “two kids” instead of “some guy I met at a Waffle House with plastic bags on his head.”

“Are you still there?” she asked. “What about your train?”

“I think it’s still stuck. It got caught in a snowbank last night, and they had to turn down the power and the heat. That’s why we got off.”

Again, pretty clever to say “we” as opposed to “just me, wandering across a six-lane interstate during a blizzard.” It wasn’t a lie, either. Jeb and the Ambers and Madisons had made the trek themselves, just after I blazed the trail. Being sixteen means you have to be a genius conversational editor.

“How’s . . . ” How do you ask your mom how
jail
is?

“We’re fine,” she said bravely. “We’re . . . Oh, Julie. Oh, honey. I am so sorry about this. So, so sorry. We didn’t mean . . . ”

I could hear that she was about to completely lose it, and that meant that I would soon lose it if I didn’t stop her.