Nine. Walking in a Literal Winter Wonderland #2
And then he vanishes. No, he doesn’t full-on vanish by twitching his nose or whatever. But he spots a teacher leading a line of children walking down the street, all of them with letters in hand on the way to a North Pole mailbox. “Are those for me?” he bellows.
So, there’s a way out if I can just deduce what Santa’s cryptic “write the ending” means. Because everyone knows that writing is just oh so simple.
Still, it’s something to think about. If Sweetville is straight out of a Heartfelt movie, then maybe I’m not merely here as a casual observer. Maybe I have a story of my own.
I lean my head against the surely hygienic back panel of the trolley shelter, and that’s when the advertisement crosses my eye.
The photo is of a cake made to look like Santa’s workshop with a big blue prize ribbon on it.
Across the top of the ad are the words 26th Annual Sweetville Cookie Competition!
Ten thousand dollars for the winner. The sign-up date is the fifteenth—so today, in this place I’m in—and the contest finals will be on Christmas Eve.
If I had any doubt I was in a Heartfelt movie, I don’t anymore.
Every year, at least one of their plotlines centers on some kind of Christmas-themed competition sure to pit two pretty people against each other until they realize they care more about winning each other than winning the contest. Or some comparable storyline.
“God, why me?”
“Are you okay? You look a little pale.” The warm voice is coming from none other than Corey Hartwell, who’s standing right in front of me.
He’s wearing a sensible parka and a knit cap, giving off down-to- earth town-hunk vibes, and his green eyes twinkle kindly at me.
He’s holding the hand of a little boy maybe two years younger than Henry but equally adorable.
He has a candy-cane-striped box under his other arm.
A girl maybe a year older is coming up behind them.
She’s toting a teddy bear in one hand. Her plaid scarf matches the bear’s.
Corey’s kids. I recognize them from the photo I saw at the bakery two days ago.
I try to smile but can’t help thinking that I know I’m not in hell because if I were, Corey wouldn’t be here. He’d be denied entry for being too good. “I’m fine,” I say. “Holiday stress.”
Corey pats me on the shoulder. “I know the feeling,” he says. “Bryce, see if the lady wants a cookie.”
Bryce thrusts the box toward me, and Corey lifts the lid, revealing a few dozen gorgeously decorated holiday cookies. “You should eat something,” Corey says to me. “Bryce, Lindy, and I were just running these over to the librarians, but we can spare one. Right, kids?”
The little girl, Lindy, nods eagerly. She’s wearing a bow that matches her scarf, and it bobs up and down charmingly on her golden hair. “My dad is the best baker in town.” She points at the cookie competition poster. “He’s going to win that.”
“I don’t know about that, Lindy,” Corey says to her.
“Although, if you don’t mind being my first judge…
” he says to me with a wink—an actual wink , but it’s adorable.
He gestures for me to choose a cookie. So I do—a snowman frosted so neatly it looks nicer than I’ve ever looked in my life. It smells delicious, too.
I set my cocoa down on the bench beside me and pull off my sunglasses to get a better look at the cookie—the icing is mind-bogglingly precise.
As I shove my sunglasses into my coat pocket, I catch Corey’s blink of recognition. “Wait—I know you,” he says. “You’re Jill Jacobs! Wow! You look great.”
I realize now that maybe he didn’t recognize me in the bakery because I was wearing sunglasses, and the compliment is enough to kick my skulking-through-Sweetville-in-flannel-pajamas posture up several notches. I squint, pretending I’m just recognizing Corey. “Corey? Corey Hartwell?”
“You remember me?” He smiles, and the dimple I sometimes got lost in sitting at his kitchen table shows itself. “Kids, this is Jill Jacobs. She used to be my writing tutor in high school.”
“Toot like a train?” Bryce says.
Corey reacts like this is much funnier than it is.
But he has a charming, kind laugh. If a laugh could sound like folding yourself in your boyfriend’s comfiest cotton T-shirt, this is the laugh.
“No; Jill helped me with my papers for school. I’ve never been great with words.
Cookies, though.” He points at the cookie I’m holding like he wants me to take a bite.
The kids are staring at me expectantly. I take a bite from the bottom of the snowman. Oh. God. Wow. It’s sweet but not too sweet, with the slightest hint of spice—that something extra only a great baker would think to add. “Fuck, that’s delicious,” I say.
Corey’s face twitches a little, and Bryce’s and Lindy’s mouths gape open. Did they understand my f-bomb, even though the craft-fair folks didn’t seem to? At any rate, I’ll need to check my language a bit here. “Uh, it’s been a long time since I’ve been in Po—Sweetville.”
“That was my next question,” Corey says while his children stand patiently and not at all like four- and five-year-olds who want their dad to hurry the hell up. “What have you been up to since high school?”
I shrug. “I moved to LA.” And then, because some part of me still wants Corey Hartwell, my high school crush, to see me as a fascinating woman, I inflate the next part. “I write movies.” This is true, even if the movies I write are only movies to me.
“Wow.” Corey shakes his head, definitely impressed. “So, we have a full-blown Hollywood star on our hands.”
I blush. It’s not even a fake blush. Because Corey really looks awed by me.
He’s the one who’s managed to hold on to his strapping football-player shoulders and—from what I can tell from this angle—perfect butt, who runs the most popular bakery in town, who’s somehow still standing, still smiling , after a devastating loss, yet I’m the one making his jaw drop. “I wouldn’t go that far,” I say.
Now Corey runs a hand through his sandy hair and makes an apologetic face.
“Look, I really love the chance to catch up with you,” he begins, then gestures to the baking-competition sign.
“But after we drop these cookies at the library, I was on my way to sign up for that contest… Maybe you want to walk with us?”
How can I say no to him? Or his adorable children? They’re waiting expectantly for my answer, and if I have to figure out what Sweetville is, exactly, wouldn’t it be better to have a familiar face for company?
“Oh! Um. It would be my pleasure,” I say.
“Mine, too,” he tells me. “Come on, kids.” His extremely well-behaved children fall into step next to us, and Lindy even grabs my hand with her free one.
“You’re pretty,” she says. Polite enough not to mention my pajamas-and-heeled-boots ensemble.
“Thank you,” I say, resisting my usual urge to be self-deprecating at any compliment.
We pop into the library, where I wait while the kids deliver the cookies to the head librarian, who coos appropriately and promises to share the cookies with the whole staff.
When we resume our walk, Corey and I don’t catch up so much as I get to see what a big deal he is in town.
Everyone we pass says hello to Corey and his kids, and mentions how they’ll be in to the bakery soon to pick up their holiday goodies.
“It doesn’t seem like you need to enter a cookie competition,” I tell him. “Everyone in town is already a fan of your bakery. How did that all come about? You taking it over?”
“Oh, you know, family business. You definitely helped me at school, but short of playing pro football, the only other career I ever really wanted was to run the bakery,” Corey says. “I know it’s not LA, but I love it here.”
“It seems to me that if you love this town so much, you shouldn’t be so eager to crush all the other competitors.”
Now it’s Corey’s turn to blush. I worry I’ve said too much or the wrong thing.
“Well, this town is full of great bakers. And some come in from other places,” he says humbly.
“And the truth is, ever since my wife died, it’s been so hard to make ends meet.
She was a teacher. That bakery has been in my family for years, and I don’t want to lose it, but it’s hard to pay for a home and run a small business. ”
“I’m so sorry,” I tell him. Corey is only a year older than me, and he’s already lost his wife forever.
And he has money worries, too? I wonder if what he’s telling me in this world is true for the real world.
Financial trouble or not, my heart aches for him.
I can’t imagine raising two young kids and running a business all on my own, much less being a young widow.
“There’s a wealthy investor who’s tried a bunch of times to buy us out, but I’ve been able to avoid them for now,” he says. “But who knows how long I can do that?”
“That sounds like a lot of pressure,” I say.
“It’s okay. I’m sure it’s small potatoes compared to your busy life in Los Angeles,” he says.
He stops and gives me a long look. “You know, this competition runs in pairs. If you sign up alone, you get assigned someone as a partner. I remember we always worked well together. I don’t suppose you’d want to join me in the competition? ”
I often do this thing where I envision people I meet—and especially guys I go on dates with—as characters in a movie, and I draft up all their overarching qualities.
Corey’s write-up is easy: he’s sweet and kind, he’s beloved in town with a specialized Christmas talent (baking), he’s endured hardship, and he’s facing a threat to the thing he loves to do.
To get down to it, Corey has all the makings of a Heartfelt leading man.
Which means, in this world, he is one.
So who is his Heartfelt leading lady? Someone as sweet as he is? Christina, his wife, was the kind of person you knew would make a great mother, just like my friend Allie Rivera. Allie… who’s divorced and lives in town and would truly look so cute next to Corey.
I’m practically drafting their meet-cute in my head, when the tall heel of my boot catches a groove in the sidewalk and I start to topple forward.
Corey swoops toward me, reaching one strong arm out beneath me and pulling me into a rescue hug before I can tumble to the ground.
He’s staring into my eyes, and I’m gazing back at his. Then he says, “Those boots might be okay in LA, but we’re going to have to find you some safer shoes for Sweetville, partner?”
“Um, sure,” I say. I wonder what I’ve just signed up for.
But also… was he… questioning my choice of footwear?
This is a meet-cute if I’ve ever seen one—an out-of-her-element single woman from LA who cannot see the appeal of small-town life paired with the still-grieving widower trying to save his family business—and it’s mine and Corey’s.
Is it possible that this Heartfelt leading lady… is me?