Chapter 5 Miracle

• *Holly*
• It was all I could do not to think about him all weekend. Actually, I was sure I’d failed at it because every time I saw a man on the street or in a restaurant or sitting in the car next to me at the stoplights, I wondered if it was him. I found myself on two occasions wearing the same shoes I’d worn that night so I could compare my height to the men I walked by. I started to feel pretty pathetic about it, actually.
• It was just one kiss, after all. I was sure there were a lot of other people at the party who were in the same boat as me. The fire alarm was unexpected, to say the least, but being pulled away from him like that–it was like someone was trying to snuff out a Christmas miracle.
• I was angry at the person who’d pulled the fire alarm, for whatever reason they had. Since there was no reason, I assumed it was mischief, probably some high school kids thinking they were being funny. But because of them or whoever it was, I didn’t know his face. I couldn’t trust anything I remembered about the color of his eyes with the impediment of the mask and the shining lights all around us. Even the sound of his voice was foggy. All I remembered was that it was soothing.
• “Are you going to mope around the house today or get yourself together?” Abigail asked.
• She was always the tough-love type, the straight shooter.
• I glared at her. “I have not been moping,” I said firmly.
• Abigail switched off the TV. “You never turn on the TV at–” She glanced at her watch. “Eight-twelve?” She stared at me in disbelief. “Besides, how many times have you watched White Christmas now?”
• She had a point. I had already played it through three times. This was the start of my fourth.
• “I’m not moping,” I insisted. “I just don’t have any plans today.”
• Abigail rolled her eyes. “You are not the kind of person that doesn’t have plans at any point during the Christmas season. Let me see your book.”
• On the end table next to me was my little daily planner. Yearly, I filled it with stickers and drawings and filled up my days in fifteen minute time slots. She snatched the book off the table before I could protest. She stabbed a pointed finger into one of the pages and then showed it to me.
• “See?” she said. “According to this, you should be reading to kids at the bookstore in an hour!”
• Honestly, I had forgotten I had planned to go in early before work for that. I stood from the couch and grabbed my journal out of her hand. “Yes, I know. I’ve been out every day. So, like I said, I’m not moping. I’m still doing most of the things.”
• She narrowed her eyes at me in disbelief. “But if you don’t do every single thing on that list, that leads me to believe it’s half-hearted. That’s moping by my standards.”
• “Fine!” I said. I was less annoyed that she was getting onto me than I was that she was right. It was silly to let some velvet-dressed mystery man ruin my Christmas plans just because every time I went out I was less sure I’d ever find him again.
• Abigail came over to me and hooked her arm over my shoulders. This was her version of a hug. “Girl, let’s go out. Let’s meet up with G and do all these things on your list! Christmas is your favorite time of year. Don’t let this little blip in time keep you from enjoying the season.”
• It was sweet that she was trying to get me back in the right headspace. I’d kind of forgotten that I could count on her for things like this. I swiveled around and surprised her with a hug. “You’re right, Abby. Let’s get out of here and have some fun.”
• Abigail gently pushed me away–she wasn’t much of a hugger. But she smiled at me with a mischievous grin. “Besides,” she said, “have you even bothered to look outside this morning?”
• She nodded to the window and I ran over to it.
• “It snowed!” I yelled. “Like a lot!”
• The night of the Santa Claus Ball had brought a few inches of snow, but as usual, all Mistletoe Mountain needed to do was hit the first of December before she pulled out the big guns. There had to be at least two feet of snow on the ground, and it was still falling, albeit slowly.
• “I knew that’d get you going,” Abigail said. “And I already called G. She’ll be here at three o’clock sharp this afternoon, or maybe ten after on account of the weather. So you better get in the shower. And… do something with your hair.”
• Her look was borderline judgy, but I probably deserved it. But not anymore. I was going to get my act together today. It was December first, it was snowing, and I had plans.
• But first, I had to go to work. No, first, I had to take a shower.
• * * *
• I kept staring out the window at the snow falling, and the nearer it got to three o’clock, the more excited I felt to get off work and get back into the swing of things. I was grateful Abigail had lovingly dragged me out of the house that morning and barely got me to the bookstore on time. Once I arrived and got into the second Christmas book reading with the kids, I was starting to feel that warm and tingly feeling that Christmas always gave me.
• I had even taken the time to reschedule some of the activities I had skipped over the last couple of days. The next thing on the list for the day was to start decorating the park.
• Despite the town’s name and love for Christmas, Mistletoe Mountain didn’t jump over all the other holidays and whip out the Christmas stuff in September like a lot of the commercial stores. Heading up to Thanksgiving, you would see evidence here and there of winter themes, but aside from the Santa Claus Ball and a few overzealous town members digging out their own decorations, December first was the day to deck the halls, or rather, the street, with Christmas.
• Every year, a couple groups of volunteers would tackle the three parks around town and start hanging up Christmas ornaments and lights. Sometimes I wondered if I didn’t actually enjoy this more than the Santa Claus Ball because after that day, everywhere you turned in town was Christmas.
• When three o’clock hit, I was out the door and headed to the park where Abigail and Gretchen would meet me, along with a handful of other volunteers to get started on Yule Park.
• There were already at least three people there when I arrived–a couple of men and one woman–pulling decorations out of one of the city vans. Seeing all the colorful ornaments made me even more excited to get started decorating. I didn’t even wait for Gretchen and Abigail before I stepped in to help.
• We started by putting boxes of ornaments near the evergreens that were littered through the park, leaving them there until whoever was bringing the lights showed up so we could string those on first. Next, we worked on sorting out the parts for the animated Santa’s sleigh and reindeer decoration, which was more complicated than it seemed. By the time we got everything sorted, Abigail and Gretchen arrived.
• “I tried to get her here sooner,” Abigail told me. “You know how she gets when her hat doesn’t match her boots.”
• I rolled my eyes and gave Gretchen a sympathetic pat on the back. She wasn’t the laborer type, but for the last couple of years, Abigail and I had dragged her along to help set up the decorations in whatever park we were assigned to.
• One of the volunteers named Andrew had been cracking jokes the whole time. He was a suave and charismatic guy who led me to believe he was a bit of a ladies' man. When he caught sight of Abigail, he fell silent and more serious, but he kept glancing over at her.
• “Where’s Pat at?” he asked one of the other volunteers. “I thought he would be here thirty minutes ago. We need help getting this sleigh together.”
• Abigail frowned. “Sorry, but my friends and I have been putting these decorations together for three years now. Last year we even did it by ourselves. So don’t assume that just because we’re a couple of good-looking women we can’t lift heavy things and attach a few nuts and bolts.”
• Andrew blinked at her, but it was hard to tell exactly what he was thinking. “I wasn’t trying to assume….”
• Gretchen raised her hand. “You assumed correctly about me at least,” she said. “I’m just here for the easy stuff.”
• I started to laugh, but another man came up to the group. “Andi, are you upsetting one of these ladies already?” he said, playfully smacking his friend on the back.
• He was tall and lean but sturdy-looking. The way his thighs fit his jeans could only mean he was packing some muscles under that sheep-skin lined jacket. He had light, sandy brown hair that was long enough to curl up slightly on the ends. And his eyes were that shining royal shade of blue that you could find hidden deep in a fresh drift of snow.
• Andrew ignored the comment and instead turned the focus to his friend. “Dude, you were supposed to be here thirty minutes ago.”
• “Mrs. Henson called again.”
• Andrew didn’t say anything else after that.
• “Well, sorry I’m a little late, everyone,” the man said to the group. “My name’s Patrick. I’m excited to work with all of you, and you’ll be happy to know I brought the most important addition to the decorations–the lights!”
• Patrick….
• Well, he seemed like a nice guy. He was friendly and had a winning smile. Abigail caught me staring as he turned around to grab the big bundle of lights from the back of his truck. She elbowed me in the side. “Don’t just stare. Go help him out!” I didn’t miss the wink she threw my way.
• I cleared my throat. What was she winking about? I straightened up my coat and pulled my gloves on a bit tighter as I neared him.
• “Need a hand?” I asked.
• He seemed surprised that someone had offered help. But he just smiled and nodded. “That’d be great. Thanks.”
• I hefted a big looped bundle of lights while Patrick easily grabbed all the rest, his arms looping through the centers of them.
• “What’s your name?” he asked.
• Even though I’d just cleared my throat on the way, my name had come out a little squeaky. “Holly.”
• “Holly?”
• I nodded.
• He smiled again and my heart thumped once. He was going to have to stop doing that. “I like that,” he said. “Very Christmassy.”
• I laughed because he didn’t know half of it. “Actually, my last name is Garland, so….”
• He puffed out a short chuckle. “Well, that’s even better then!”
• I gave a lopsided, half-hearted smile. “Tell that to all of the high schoolers who always told me my parents were trying too hard.”
• Patrick just shrugged. “Ah, high schoolers are just rude like that. They’ve got the whole hormonal thing on top of the peer pressure to look cool thing. I wouldn’t get hung up on that.”
• “At the time, I’d wished my name to be Jane Doe instead, but I’m over it now,” I told him. I didn’t want him to think I cared that much. I liked my name now.
• I set down my string of lights on a little tarp near the base of the first tree. “Jane Doe?”
• “Yeah, yeah,” I said. “I was a moody high schooler too. What? You were a perfect, straight-A, All-State athlete who always donated the most to the canned food drive?”
• Patrick let out a genuine laugh. The sound was deep and hearty, and it made me lose my train of thought. “Would you be upset if I told you you were right?”
• I narrowed my eyes at him.
• “Only eighty percent right,” he said. “Timothy Jenkins always beat me at the canned food drive. People praised him for winning our class a pizza party. But I could never win against him.” He stared off longingly.
• I chuckled and whacked him on the arm before I remembered I’d just met this man moments ago. “Sorry,” I said, tucking my hands in my pockets.
• “Don’t be,” he said with a slightly crooked smile. “I deserved it. Maybe now’s the time to tell you I wasn’t any good at drama.”
• “Had me fooled,” I muttered, turning around to return to the group. By now, we’d dropped off the last string at the farthest tree.
• He chuckled again, softly this time. “You know what,” he said, quickly catching up to me and walking by my side. “Usually Andrew helps me with the lights, but… I think you’d make better company.”
• I tried not to let my heart lift too much. After all, I was still on the lookout for my magical mystery man from the dance. But I liked Patrick. He was lighthearted and kind. He was clever and patient. We didn’t get to talk as much because he had to help with the sleigh assembly first. He and two other men pieced it together while the rest of the volunteers strung out the electrical cords and got the animation working.
• Toward the end of the day, Patrick and I found ourselves working side-by-side stringing the lights on some of the trees, just as he’d promised. We noted Abigail and Andrew’s interaction and laughed with each other.
• Patrick was good company. I found myself feeling a little sad that he wasn’t the guy I was looking for. But I let myself have fun with him and with everyone else.
• Everyone agreed that Gretchen should get to flip the switch to turn all the lights on, so she did. The park looked beautiful. The whole volunteer group found ourselves standing around chatting until Andrew said something catty and one of the other guys threw a clump of snow at him. It didn’t take long for it to erupt into a snowball fight.
• We went at it for several minutes, and by the end, we were all laughing and breathless, and Patrick declared he and I and Abigail as champions. As we cleaned up and things started to die down, I saw a woman approach Patrick. She was tall and thin with long wavy black hair. She was beautiful.
• And she was smiling at him, touching his arm and acting bashful.
• Of course he wasn’t single. He was charming and handsome. It was too bad, I thought. I might have asked him out.
• Well, at least I still had my mystery man to find.