Christie Ridgway: Must Love Mistletoe

“Or if you don’t need me, I was thinking about heading home.”

Tracy stilled. “Home to…to Walnut Street?”

“No.” She shook her head. “ Home home. L.A.”

An awkward silence welled.

Dan rubbed his hand over his gray-less head. “Here’s the thing, Bay-”

“Harry will be home day after tomorrow,” Tracy interjected. “Can’t you stay through the holiday? We’re only open until noon on Christmas Eve.”

Bailey frowned. “You’re going to be closing at noon? The Christmas Eve afternoon hours are primo time, Mom. All those people on the way to holiday dinners making a quick stop for the perfect hostess gift-which means the quick hostess gift. I was planning to put the most expensive stuff at the front of the store and also right beside the register. Christmas Eve shoppers are desperate.”

“Noon on Christmas Eve,” Dan said, his voice firm. “We’re going to start doing things differently.”

She shrugged. “Okay. It’s your store.”

“That’s what we wanted to talk about on Christmas Eve afternoon,” Tracy said, the words rushing out. “The store. I mean, that it’s ours.”

Bailey frowned. “Well, it is.”

“We might as well tell you we’re thinking of making some changes in our life,” Dan said, his gaze gentle on Tracy’s face.

Her mother swallowed, hard, her eyes unwavering as they met Bailey’s. “And we want to give The Perfect Christmas to you.”

Bailey Sullivan’s Vintage Christmas

Facts & Fun Calendar

December 21

In Mexico, the Christmas season includes the tradition of the posadas . People travel to one another’s homes, reenacting Mary and Joseph’s search for lodging, with some taking on the roles of mean innkeepers and others the Holy Family. What follows is food, fun, piñatas, and fireworks.

“Of course I told them no.” Bailey rocked from one foot to the other while Adam Truehouse, ragdoll-asleep, drooled on her neck.

Trin continued fanning cocktail napkins across the surface of her dining room table. “So what are they going to do with the store?”

Bailey shrugged. “Sell it, they say. They want to do some traveling, explore other options.”

Trin swung around, her eyes widening. “What if the new owner doesn’t want to keep it The Perfect Christmas?”

Adam’s little red velvet shoes had come from the store. Bailey ran her finger over the soft fabric. “Then it becomes The Horrid Halloween or The Excellent Easter or even The Freakin’ Fourth of July,” she said, her voice matter-of-fact.

“But it’s-”

“An institution, I know.”

Trin frowned. “I was going to say landmark.”

Albatross. “Whatever.” She wasn’t going to feel bad about the loss of the family store. After all, she’d done her very best, hadn’t she? She’d kept it going these past weeks so there would be something to sell to someone else.

“I bought Adam’s first Christmas ornament there,” Trin said. “This year’s ornament too. He picked out that cute little jointed panda bear, remember?”

“No.” It wore a green-and-white striped cap and carried an even tinier teddy bear. She looked up, straight into her best friend’s annoyed glare.

“Bailey-”

“Give me a break, Trin. I don’t like Christmas. I don’t like the store.” Though she’d given in to pressure once again and agreed to stay until the morning of the twenty-fifth. Her mother wanted her to have Christmas Eve dinner with the family and there was her half brother Harry to consider too. He’d be back home and eager to tell all of them about his college experience.

Trin stalked toward the kitchen. “The whole town will be upset about the store changing hands…if it even stays a store at all. Word gets around fast, you know. I bet some people at the party tonight will already have heard about it.”

Wincing, Bailey followed. She’d hoped to be hours away before that news hit Coronado. Mrs. Mohn might come after her with a bedpan. “Surely not. I don’t think my mom and Dan will say anything right away.”

“What about Finn?”

“What about him?” Bailey inspected the trays of cookies lined up on the counter. She wasn’t going to feel bad about that either. Both of them had gone into their fling eyes-open. That it was ending now…it was nothing more than they’d both expected.

Of course yesterday morning in her bed…She’d wanted a memorable last time with him, but it had been like nothing she’d expected or ever before experienced. His heart had beat like a drum against her back; it had been like her heartbeat. Their heartbeat.

“Is Finn going to let you run away again?”

“You mean is Finn going to wave good-bye as I head home like I intended from the day I drove back into town?” She recalled the cool expression on his face when she’d dropped that little bit of info in his grandmother’s kitchen. “I think he will.”

“Well I’ll just ask him,” Trin said, as she peeled plastic wrap off a plate of fancy-cut sandwiches.

Bailey clutched Adam tighter to her chest, so that he made a sleepy bleat of protest. “Did you…did you invite Finn here tonight?” She’d managed to avoid him since the French toast the day before. Maybe he was ducking her too, but because she’d spent all her time at the store today, even coming straight to Trin’s without a stop on Walnut Street first, she didn’t know.

“Yup.”

Bailey pasted on a calm, upbeat smile. Why not? She was calm. Upbeat. Her trip to her childhood home couldn’t have ended any better.

She should be feeling on top of the world.

It was closing in on midnight and Trin and Drew’s party was winding down. Telling herself her lowering spirits were just postparty letdown, Bailey volunteered for leftovers duty and busied herself in the kitchen. In a lower cabinet, she found two shelves full of jumbled plastic containers.

She looked up as Trin’s footsteps clacked on the tile floor. “I know we’re all grown up when I see you have a full complement of Tupperware. But something tells me this isn’t one of the areas you’ve baby-proofed.”

Trin didn’t laugh. Bailey didn’t either, as three words echoed in her head. She stared back down at the disorganized plasticware, so different than the by-size and by-color stacks in her own cupboard in L.A. All grown up. Finn had whispered that in her ear. Finn, who had never showed up at the party.

“Bay…”

Her gaze shifted back to Trin. The Christmas cheer was gone from her best friend too.

Bailey stood so quickly, her head spun. She shot out a hand to catch the lip of the counter and steady herself. “What’s the matter? What’s wrong?”

“You know how news travels fast around here.”

“Sure.” Seventy-five hundred households. Seven point four square miles. Nosy. Cozy.

“Somebody just heard from their babysitter who heard from her mother who heard from another friend…” Trin glanced over her shoulder, then grimaced. “I know why Finn didn’t come tonight.”

Foreboding trickled like a tear down Bailey’s spine. “Why?”

“His grandmother’s been terminally ill for months and this morning…this morning she passed on.”

Bailey’s face must have been so blank that Trin felt the need to be even clearer. “Bay, Mrs. Jacobson died.”

Bailey Sullivan’s Vintage Christmas

Facts & Fun Calendar

December 22

The Yule log goes back to pagan times. A special log was cut and burned during the winter festival to ward off evil and to bring safety to the home and its inhabitants for the coming year.