Chapter 3 #2
“Like, sometimes I try to guess what someone is going to order before they walk up, and I always wonder what it says about them. We have this one guy, super ancient old dude. And he comes in every day at exactly 6:03 p.m., and orders a jelly doughnut ‘for here,’ even though there’s not a single chair or table in the place.
But he eats that jelly doughnut standing up, getting powdered sugar all over the place, every single day.
Rain or shine. And I just wonder, what does he eat the rest of the day?
And when was his first jelly doughnut, ya know?
The one that made him need one every day after… ”
She’s gazing out in the distance now, like she can see the old man right in front of us.
It seems a little like how I feel when I daydream a scene.
The way she’s describing it, so vividly, makes it feel like I can see him too, and although the smell of sap and cold earth hangs in the air all around us, I swear I catch a whiff of powdered sugar, raspberry jelly…
“Anyway, probably sounds strange, but it’s kind of… well, it’s just such a human thing.”
“Hold up,” I say, stopping short to look at Eve. “Maybe you should be the one making movies. You’re a romantic.”
She lets out an amused laugh, then corrects me. “I’m a humanist .”
I’m not entirely sure what that means, but I keep going.
“You see beauty in people,” I argue.
“I’m curious about people. They’re fascinating,” she says with a new laugh, this one with the hint of a challenge in it, and I wonder how many different kinds she has. I want to make a playlist of them and listen on repeat.
She seemed so tough at first, but now I see something softer, and feelings I understand well—a desire to connect, and an appreciation for small moments with big meaning.
That’s why I’ve always loved rom-coms; they’re about two ordinary people doing ordinary things, but when Fate intervenes, boom—the extraordinary.
“I guess that’s part of why I want make movies, too,” I respond.
“To know people. To zoom in on those little moments that are so meaningful—the ones that get brushed past in daily life. That’s where the…
” I pause, because I’m about to say magic , and instead finish with, “That’s where the really good stuff is.
Stories everywhere, if you look, you know? ”
“I do,” she says with a smirk. I can’t decide if it’s a little bit teasing, or a little bit charmed. “I could give you a lot more material from the bakery, but it seems like you have plenty of inspiration right around here.”
She’s right. Cooper is so much more than a Christmas tree farm.
It’s a center of community. It’s a place where traditions are made and kept up and passed down.
All those small moments that become stories and eventually little family legends.
It’s what makes it so special. And right now, I want to show Eve more.
I take a breath and make a snap decision to guide us a little off course, even though it’s definitely not the most efficient.
“Here, this way,” I say, waving her and Hugo over and leading us to a scenic overlook. It’s a spot where we direct guests when they want a really spectacular view or a perfect photo op.
“Wow,” she says, with Hugo at her side. Their eyes widen to take it all in as we step into the clearing, and I low-key beam with pride. I knew this view would land.
“Check it out,” I say, and point into the distance. “See that little area with the booths? They’re getting ready for the Christmas Eve Bazaar. It’s a fundraiser—tons of people come out to buy from local vendors, who then donate some of what they make back to the farm.”
“Super cool,” she says, without taking her eyes off the bustling village. “But are you all worried about the storm?”
I almost forgot about the Polar Quasar in all this.
“Ah, yes. Well, the farm is big on preparedness. But then again…” I look up at the sky once more, and it hasn’t changed. It’s still as clear and blue as it was back at Diya’s station. “… it does seem kind of hard to imagine right now. What’s your take?”
“Mm.” Eve raises a hand to shield her eyes from the winter sun. “Well, I have my theories, but I can’t say just yet.”
“Because… you have a nondisclosure agreement with the clouds?”
“You’re funny, Strudel,” she says dryly. And even though she doesn’t actually laugh this time, I take it as a huge win.
“Well, thank you,” I say. “But if you’ve got some intel, I’d love to know. Lot of people around here taking bets on the storm—there are turkeys at stake!”
“Turkeys?” She looks at me sideways now.
“Never mind, it’s a weird farm thing…”
“Okay. Well, I don’t know if I’d put money on it, but…
,” she starts, then pauses and adjusts her backpack.
I resist the urge to offer to carry it for her, like a jock in a high school rom-com.
“It’s kind of silly. But my mom had this way of predicting snow.
She said if you see a ring of light around the moon the night before, it means it’s gonna be major. ”
I gasp. Actually gasp. “No. Way.”
“Well, I mean, I can’t prove it or anything,” she says, a little defensively. “It’s just a thing she said.”
“No, sorry. It’s just that my mom says the same thing.
When we were little, she used to take my sister and me outside to check.
Even when it was, like, really late on a school night or freezing out.
But I’ve never met anyone else who believed that.
I always thought it was just something from where she grew up in Tennessee—some southern superstition. ”
“I don’t think so—my mom was from Mexico. But that’s so weird.”
I’m staring again, stunned by the fact that this girl is the only other person I’ve ever met who knows about my mother’s snow-predicting moon magic. That has to be… Fate! But I don’t want to freak her out, so instead I say, “What a coincidence…”
“Yeah,” she says, looking into my eyes, like maybe she thinks that word isn’t big enough either, but also doesn’t want to say it. “Wild.”
And wild is how I feel inside, but I stand stock-still, frozen in her gaze.
“I guess that means we’ll be the only two people who know what’s really going to happen by tomorrow,” she adds.
“The only ones with the magic,” I say, because I can’t help myself this time.
She laughs. “Well, I don’t know about that. But my mom would have agreed. She fully believed in magic.”
It hits me then that Eve said her mom was , that she believed . Does that mean her mom isn’t… Even with this thing between us, though, it doesn’t feel like a question you ask someone you just met, so I pivot.
“Am I getting that you don’t?” I ask her. “Believe in magic, I mean?”
I try to disguise my panic. If Eve is a nonbeliever, it’s not a dealbreaker, but she might not take me seriously.
Eve rolls her head back and forth. “Mmm. I guess I like things I can prove.”
“Ah, now I get the documentary thing.”
“I mean, I like the idea ,” Eve says, sighing. “But let’s just say I’ve had my faith in that sort of thing tested.”
She pauses now, adjusting her scarf again.
There’s a new look on her face that’s harder to read.
It’s less flirtatious, and more… melancholy.
Like she’s carrying a heavy weight. Then she lets out a little shiver and continues, “I guess I’m more of a realist.” When she says this, her tone is lighter—like she’s stopped herself from going to too dark a place.
“I just believe more that humans make their own magic.”
That brightens my spirit. I can work with that!
“A humanist and a realist,” I respond. Then I remember something else. “But wait, you believe in star signs…”
“Different. Astrology is based in science,” she responds quickly.
“Oh,” I say, and stop in my tracks as it hits me like a gust of cold air from a drafty window. “Wait. I’ve got it.”
“What?” She looks at me now, puzzled, a new furrow in her brow that’s another dimension of freaking adorable.
“Protective. Curious. Deep thinker…” I stop before adding intense and supremely charismatic , because I’m not sure I should let on that’s what I’m thinking. “Scorpio, one hundred percent.”
She pauses, then lets a smile—not a smirk, a real, full smile—spread across her face as she pulls her scarf to the side, revealing a necklace with the zodiac symbol for Scorpio, a silver M with a sharp tail, hanging from a black choker string.
“Well done, Strudel,” she says.
My own smile explodes now. “I just needed a little time to be sure.”
“Well, I never doubted you,” she says. And that catches me off guard. Even my friends, who I know love me, definitely doubt me at times. My follow-through can be… a little chaotic.