Chapter 14
Nate
It seems like Jenna is with her aunt for a very long time. When she finally comes down, it’s time for her to unlock the door and open the store for the day.
We work throughout the day, me with the plastic candy canes, gluing first one side of them and then the other. I have some candy cane pieces left over after I’m done, and Jenna pulls out a little fence that Aunt Janet uses for a farm display in the summer. The fence goes nicely with the decorated candy canes, and Jenna painstakingly glues candy cane pieces to the fence rails and posts.
I think the idea is brilliant, and the effect is stunning.
Everyone who comes in raves about what’s going on in the windows as our vision slowly takes place.
By late afternoon, it’s pretty much finished, and if I do say so myself, it looks pretty amazing.
I’m admiring it, standing back with my hands on my hips, when the bell jingles, and Abby walks in, clutching a book to her chest, a smile on her face that could only be termed wicked and evil.
She seemed like the perfect girl to go out with after I broke up with Jenna because she was the kind of girl that I knew I wasn’t going to want to have anything permanent with. Of course, we all know how that turned out, and I regret it. I shouldn’t have been out with anyone. After all, I knew Jenna wasn’t going to have a date for the prom, although it wasn’t something I had thought about before I broke up with her. In hindsight, I should have, at the least, waited until after prom, but when I made the decision to do it, I knew I needed to just go and get it done.
Regardless, it would have been a lot more considerate of me to just stay home too.
Again, I had bad advice and I followed it. I hope that I still listen to my dad, because he’s wise, and I admire and respect him, but I’m going to be very careful about taking advice and implementing it, especially when I know it’s going to hurt someone I love. When it’s going to hurt Jenna.
“Oh my goodness, Nate. It didn’t take you long to go back to sniffing around Jenna.” She looks me up and down, like I’m related to rodents, and perhaps she thinks I’ve grown a tail since the last time we spoke.
“I guess Jenna always pulls me in that way,” I say, and there’s no malice in my tone. It’s just the truth. I took off work today so I could be with her. And I did it at the last minute, even though I never take off work and certainly not for something as frivolous as putting up a display in the window, except it’s not frivolous when it’s Jenna.
But Abby wouldn’t know that, and she wouldn’t understand either. I guess she thinks the whole world thinks the way she does. But underneath that, I know there is a human being that is just crying out for someone to love her for the way she is. I hope she finds that person, but it’s not me.
“Jenna!” Abby says, as though she just realized Jenna was in the room too. Maybe she did. She’s the kind of girl who when she’s with a guy, he takes up all of her attention.
“Abby. You’re in the shop. I...” Jenna doesn’t sound happy. She sounds flustered and insecure. I want to go over and put my arm around her, draw her close to me, and give her whatever strength she needs, but I don’t have that right. I don’t know if my presence in here right now is even welcome, let alone my touch or my presence beside her. So I just stand there and watch helplessly.