Happy Christmas (Juniper Falls #1)
1 JANIE
JANIE
This is it. This is rock bottom.
It has to be.
First, I’m at an industry expo. That’s insufferable enough. Not only that, I can’t simply hide as a restock volunteer or tech staffer behind the scenes. No, I have to people all day.
Smiling and chatting.
While standing, handing out mayo samples.
Dressed in the world’s stuffiest, itchiest, smelliest mascot costume.
Mascot is not the right word for a jar of mayo costume but with the cartoon hands, and the fact that it’s huge and structured and reaches to the floor, making sure no human body parts show except for my face in the aptly labeled face hole, I’m not sure what else to call it.
It’s so big I considered just standing frozen like a display, but my face’s dark bronze skin stands out against the big tub of white, making me too noticeable for that tactic.
“What do you recommend, the tang or the spicy?” The eleventh young, lanyard-clad suit asks me.
You need this job. Smile, Janie. Talk. Because you really, really need this job.
“I’d go with the tang,” I say, knowing that…
He scrunches his nose, “Think I’ll go with the spicy.”
Every.
Time.
As if all of this isn’t bad enough, I’m in Las Vegas.
Man, I hate Vegas.
Actually, I hated Vegas whenever he brought me here. I hated being dragged around from hot spot to hot spot like it was our life’s mission to see and do as much as possible, as quickly as possible. Hated the fight every night, as if I would miraculously become a night owl in a different city.
Why are you always so damn boring?
Even the way you vacation is lame.
I’m just teasing, baby, don’t be so sensitive all the time.
I shudder, remembering as I look around, which is silly. It’s not like I can see the city lights from in here. Maybe I could enjoy Vegas at my own leisurely place—seated at a low-key coffee shop with views of the street for endless people watching.
Keyword: seated.
I resist the urge to look at my foam-arm-covered-wrist out of habit and instead glance at the giant event clock on the far wall. Two hours and fifty-three minutes left. I can do it.
Probably.
My phone buzzes on the pub table and my nerves light up along with the screen.
First there’s a twinge of fear that the nursing home is calling again.
Then there’s a stab of panic that it’s yet another reminder message that I don’t want to answer.
But I will have to. In a string of 67 messages that won’t go away, no matter how long I avoid it.
The bubble on the screen is just a Google calendar notification though.
“Chill, Janie,” I exhale.
But I can’t. Because after being here, which is terrible, I’m headed there. Home. I almost threw up in my mouth when Gran said, “At least you’ll be home for the holidays.” Ugh. Moving to be closer to Gran was supposed to make things better, not worse.
“Ha!” I laugh aloud at myself, grateful none of the attendees milling around heard me.
I stifle a second laugh because…nothing is better. Nothing is great, even though that’s what I say when every person in town asks. Things aren’t even approaching good. Things aren’t even fine.
But they will be.
Taking this job, moving home, even right before the holidays, fixing up Gran’s condo to sell, slowing down, laying low for a while. It’s the right move. Thirteen months, if nothing changes, which, given my awful luck lately, is unlikely, and I’ll be back on track.
Well, I’ll be able to breathe again. Twelve months after that, I’ll have my stability back. My peace. Maybe my mojo, if I ever had any. Hopefully, my sanity. This was the right, albeit painful, move for me.
It has to be.
I look up as another minute clicks down on the looming digital display and sigh.
At least things can’t get much worse.
“Only a few more hours!” Ellie says with way too much cheer for the circumstances.
She’s Mellman’s CMO and is as gorgeous, blonde and bubbly as you’d expect a CMO to be.
“Gah, my feet are killing me.” She glances down at the bottom of my costume.
“At least you get to chill here and wear comfy shoes all day.”
“True,” I manage to say out loud when inside I’m screaming, Are you really implying your day of flitting around to sales brunches full of free coffees and cocktails and gift bags is somehow worse than being a Kool-Aid-Man-Sized jar of sauce for a day?! Seriously?
“You men have it so easy,” Ellie says with a flick of her perfect golden waves over her shoulder. Her flirt mode is clearly engaged with whoever is trailing behind her. But she fumbles a bit. “I mean, not that you don’t also have to work hard, sir.”
Sir?
All the hairs on my neck stand up.
No.
He wasn’t supposed to be here! None of the Clarks personally walk the expo floor! I made sure!
Maybe it’s not my ex-best-friend’s-brother-in-law’s-brother…is that right? Something like that. Skye’s family. My heart clenches thinking of her since we haven’t spoken in months. Surely this is not her handsome, British, billionaire extended-family member.
Maybe it’s some other executive.
Then I hear his smooth voice.
Then I see the shining black loafers, the tailored suit that costs more than Gran’s mortgage. I don’t have to send my gaze any further up. I know the handsome face. I definitely don’t want to risk locking stares with those piercing blue gems he has where normal people have plain old eyes.
Just had to go and think it, didn’t I.
Just had to think about how my life couldn’t get any more unbearable.
Please don’t recognize me in the mayo suit. Please don’t recognize me in the mayo suit.
“Oh, I think we both know I’m firmly on the hardly-working side of that expression, darling,” he replies to Ellie, charm oozing all around him like a visible aura. “But I agree we d—” He pauses mid-word. No. Please, God, no! “Wait…Janie?”
I turn, pretending to talk to another sample seeker, but there’s a pub table that I miss because I have no peripheral vision is this stupid costume and—
No!
No please.
I search, trying to grab anything with my big foam cartoon hands. But I can’t catch a ledge, a chair…a break in my miserable life.
I’m going …yup. I’m all the way down. Face, meet carpet.
So.
He recognized me in the mayo suit.
Then I bit it.
Yeah.
That tracks.