Chapter 11
Lily
Everyone in town was decking the halls for Christmas. I had tears in my eyes as I watched it all unfold. On top of the light pole decorations the Pack always put up, people had donated all sorts of things and we were trying hard to put everything to use.
“But what about the tree?” Sydney asked for the hundredth time.
There was a small roundabout in the middle of Collier Street. I walked over to it and looked around.
“How about we put the tree here?”
Sydney checked out the area and nodded. “I love it. I think it’s the perfect place for a tree.”
“Now, we just need a tree.”
“We can go out to the next town over and pick one up. Unless you plan on going out and chopping down your own it’s the best place around for real trees.”
“Let’s do it,” I said.
“Uh, should we wait on our men to help with this?”
“No. We are strong independent women and we can handle getting our own tree. I’ll drive.”
We walked back to my new mom-mobile as Thomas liked to tease me about, and climbed in. I turned on my Christmas playlist as we drove out of Pack territory to the closest human town.
Sydney and I sang along as I drove.
Everything was falling into place. Cammie’s first Christmas was going to be inspirational.
When we arrived at the tree farm, I couldn’t believe my eyes.
“What’s this?” I demanded.
“I don’t know,” Sydney said. “Looks like slim pickings.”
I groaned in frustration as I jumped out of the car and stomped over to the man dressed as Santa.
“Ho, ho, ho, what can I do for you, young lady?”
“I need a tree. I very large tree.”
“Sorry, hon, I’m about out as you can see. A new shipment will be arriving on Monday though.”
“I can’t wait until Monday. Collier is having a town tree lighting this Saturday. I need a tree.”
I was trying not to hyperventilate. I couldn’t have a tree lighting ceremony without a tree. This was a disaster.
“Try Millsville. They might have more options.”
“Millsville? That’s two hours away. What kind of tree lot is this if you don’t have trees?”
“There’s one left in the back, hon. You’re welcome to it. On the house,” he offered. “I’ll have the boys tie it down for you even. It’s the biggest one I’ve got, the best I got.”
“Fine, I’ll take it,” I said.
“Uh, Lily, are you sure about this?”
“I need a tree,” I insisted. “Whatever it is we’ll fix it with lights and stuff. We just need a tree.”
In a flurry, two men dressed as elves carried out a tree that was wrapped up.
I couldn’t really tell what kind it was or even how big it was, but it was a tree and that was the important part.
They strapped it to the roof of my car and grinned and waved when I got in the car and started driving away.
“That was weird, right? I don’t know how you convinced them to give you this tree. I mean what’s wrong with it that they just gave it to you?”
“There’s nothing weird about it. Everything is going to be fine.”
We pulled up to the roundabout on Collier Street and I parked. Sydney jumped out and waved a few people over to assist us.
Milly came running out of the Tavern to see what all the commotion was about.
“You got the tree?” she asked excitedly.
I stepped out of the car smiling proudly.
Two men removed the tree from on top of my car and pulled it down. There was already a base in place and waiting for it. They set it up and secured it into place.
The first thing I noticed was that it wasn’t nearly as tall as I had hoped it would be. I supposed we could live with that.
They cut the bindings from around the tree to free the limbs.
“No!” I cried.
My heart sank as I saw only half the needles were on it. There were bare spots everywhere. It was the ugliest tree I’d ever seen. Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree looked like it belonged in Rockefeller Square compared to this hideous tree.
I wanted to curl up and cry. Why couldn’t anything just go the way I wanted it to?
Sydney snickered. She tried to cover it, but that only made her snort until laughter bubbled from her. It was like it was contagious too as others started to laugh. I turned and looked back at the tree.
“It’s awful,” I said as I started laughing too.
“What do we do now?” Milly asked. “The tree lighting is in two days. All the flyers have gone out and the town page has been updated. Everyone’s coming.”
“I don’t know,” I confessed. “Can you guys just load that thing back onto my car? I can’t leave it here.”
“Sure thing, Lily,” one of them said as the men got back to work replacing it as it had arrived.
“I guess you get what you pay for,” Syd said. There were tears in her eyes and it wasn’t because she was sad.
I rolled my eyes and put my hands on my hips ready to tell her what we were going to do next. One of the men tripped on the curb and fell backwards. The tree dislodged from his hands and came flying right at me.
I felt the stab of the branches as I stumbled backwards in shock. My head hit the ground hard and everything around me started spinning out of control.