Santa Cutie (Cherryville #1)

Chapter 1

Ihave a problem.

Not the kind of problem people have with alcohol, drugs, or having sex with an ex when Mercury is retrograde.

This problem is taller, sparklier, and slightly pricklier.

“You hoard Christmas trees!” my best friend Allison shouts across Home Depot’s parking lot as we wrestle to push the floor model onto one of those rickety orange carts. We’re breathless, sweaty, and sound like we’re pushing out a baby—not a seven-foot fake Norway spruce.

She’s right.

Hello, my name is Melody, and I am a Christmas tree addict.

I’d cue the chorus of “Hi, Melody,” but let’s be honest: no one else has this problem.

Ally stops to catch her breath. “Whatever happened to the ‘every time we buy something, we get rid of something else' rule?”

“First,” I huff, pushing the cart (are these wheels rusty?), “I live in a home, not a library. I don’t have to return shit to justify getting new shit.”

I’m really hoping she doesn’t bring up the storage unit.

“What about the storage unit?”

Goddamnit.

The storage unit is the mysterious abyss where all my Christmas trees go at the end of each season—

“I’ve seen Christmas trees go in, but never come out,” Ally says. Her tone has the accusatory edge of a Dateline narrator.

“That is because I buy a new one every year. I don’t need the old ones—yet.”

I have flocked trees, white trees, berry-and-pinecone real-touch evergreens, trees with multi-colored lights, and trees that barely light up at all. Each one is different. And each one is necessary.

Definitely, absolutely necessary.

The cart veers off course, and it takes every muscle fiber I’ve gained in my 30-day wall Pilates program to steer this bitch back toward my car. So far, we’ve hit one Chevy van and two Mercedes with our Christmas spirit.

Ally stops again to make a point.

“You know, Fitz was a starving kitten before my parents rescued him. For years, they had to check every bag of cat food before it went in the pantry, just to make sure he wasn’t ass-up in a bag of Meow Mix.”

Fantastic. We’ve reached the point where I’m being compared to Ally’s ancient childhood cat.

I sigh.

Yes, I was deprived of Christmas. Now, I’m the one ass-up in a bag of Santa’s cookies.

As an ex-member of Heaven's Heralds (that's a religious cult, not a children's choir), you'd think they'd be all about the baby Jesus' birthday celebration, but no.

Growing up under their roof meant creepy pre-recorded hymns on CD instead of live Christmas carols, the scent of Lemon Pledge instead of gingerbread or pine, and the haunting absence of illuminated trees in deep December.

Just as my luck would have it, I was born into the one cult that considers itself Christian, but also feels superior to all the other Christians because they refuse to engage in anything with "pagan" origins.

So basically? That’s everything under the sun (or should I say Ra?).

In that world, birthdays were the most offensive to God (and God is very easily offended, apparently). Frolicking beneath a tree used in ancient solstice celebrations to honor the Big J’s birthday? Big no-no.

So were the Pledge of Allegiance, the Easter bunny, and my own birthday, which I still struggle to celebrate just because of all those times I had to turn down birthday party invites and buttercream cupcakes.

The year I finally left, I bought a dozen cupcakes on my birthday and ate them all in one sitting.

I puked them all back up the next morning (worth it), but I digress.

Back to Christmas.

While some kids relished telling others Santa wasn’t real, I got to break the news that neither was Jesus’ birthday—he was actually born in the spring.

Birthdays weren’t really his vibe anyway since his bestie, John the Baptist, was murdered and his head was served on a silver platter as a birthday gift.

Nice visual for my fellow six-year-olds, right?

Luckily, I only divulged this information when hounded—and usually, while I was stuck sitting in the hall, watching all the other kids (even the ones in in-school suspension!) eat Christmas goodies before break.

You know what's worse than a six-year-old with FOMO?

A hangry and humiliated six-year-old with FOMO.

Now the payback for that FOMO is a storage unit packed with Christmas trees and a bank account that bleeds red and green—every December.

Cue the world’s smallest jingle bells.

“It’s not gonna fit,” Allison says as we try to wedge the box in the backseat of my tiny silver Honda Civic.

“It’ll fit,” I say, using the Gucci boots I’m paying off with buy-now-pay-later at 20% interest to jam the box into the car. (They must be good for something besides debt.)

“Mel,” Allison says, wiping a bead of sweat from her brow.

I decided to switch tactics.

“You’re going to break your car!” Allison presses her hands to her cheeks, watching me body-slam the door—my dogged persistence in action (often to my own detriment).

“It… will… fit… Goddamn it!” I swear I hear an artery pop in my neck, but it’s just the door clicking shut. A satisfied grin spreads across my face as I dust off my hands.

“It’s not latched,” she says, grimacing.

“It’s fine,” I say, turning my back on her. “Get in the car.”

When I get home, Ally helps me carry the (now slightly crunched) box up to my apartment.

I hand her a Tupperware full of freshly baked red-and-green M&M cookies (her payment), and she squeals with delight, skipping off to share them with her fiancé.

And by share, I mean she’ll let him have one and then hoard the rest.

Now the real work begins.

I drag the box to my living room, slice it open with a box cutter, and take a breath before pulling out the tree, section by section.

First, I unfold the base and then slide each section into the next, fluffing branches as I go.

I’m an expert tree builder at this point.

I fish the top from the box, grab a ladder, and crown her.

Finally, I give the branches a quick spruce, making sure the tree is full and symmetrical.

Now for my favorite part.

I get on all fours and crawl under the tree. I find the cord and plug my seven-foot fake spruce into the wall.

When I crawl back out, she’s like a shiny beacon of hope. Big, fat, colorful LED globe lights—I simply had to have her. Never mind that she was $500. Never mind that I already have at least four other trees with colorful LEDs. This tree is different. This tree is unique. This tree is special.

Something I’ve said about all of my trees. And the truth is, I feel that way about every single one of them.

I love them so much, I give them all names. I think I’ll call this one Elsa, on account of her being modeled after a Norway spruce.

(Frozen was set in Norway, right? I only saw the movie once because I thought it was Pixar and instead got accosted with singing and ice-princess makeovers.)

My new baby is colorful and gorgeous, but bare—time to doll Elsa up. My gaze drifts to the tiny closet tucked between my living room and kitchen. Ah, yes, the Closet of Doom.

The Closet of Doom is my “junk drawer” closet.

Since the storage unit is completely jam-packed with Christmas trees, everything else I’ve collected in thirty years of life is stuffed inside this postage-stamp-sized cave.

Once, as a semi-joke, Ally taped a hand-written sign to the door: “Open at your own risk.” Fair, considering she once opened it without permission and got pummeled in the head by a box of books I’ve been hoarding since sixth grade.

Turns out The Baby-Sitters Club and Sweet Valley High are as good a weapon as any.

Allison had a sizable goose egg for two weeks, and I was so freaked out that I left the sign up for at least ten months.

That closet has it all: winter jackets, boxes of childhood memorabilia from my parents’ house after they kicked me out, shoes I don’t feel like putting away when company comes over, and, of course, Christmas ornaments.

It’s always been my dream to have so many ornaments that I’d have a true collection.

Enough to be a picky bitch when choosing the tree’s aesthetic each year.

And yes, people disorganized enough to nearly kill their best friends with the contents of their closets can still have a fabulous aesthetic.

No one sees the inside of the closet anyway—and when it comes to home organization, my motto is, “it’s what’s on the outside that counts. ”

I brace myself, crack the door, and stick one foot out in case any of the three dozen boxes decide to stage a coup.

After some careful rooting around, I find two red storage bins full of ornaments.

One look at Elsa’s multicolored globes, and it’s clear this Norwegian girly needs a vintage vibe.

I dig through the tissue paper in search of this year’s lewk and settle on White Christmas meets Home Alone (the first one—obviously).

Dragging the boxes into the living room, it occurs to me—I decorate my tree alone every year.

I could invite Allison, I guess, but tree decorating has always been my personal reaffirmation ritual.

Reaffirming that my life outside the cult—outside of my family—was worth celebrating.

The lights, the trees, the tinsel aren’t just sparkly, pretty things. They’re my freedom.

My parents think I started rebelling at 17, but it was actually middle school.

I was tired of being sent into the hallway, tired of parroting Biblical interpretations I could barely recite (much less understand) to prepubescent classmates, who used everything as ammunition to make me an outcast. Tired of knowing how to spell “righteousness” before I could spell “Mississippi.” I was a social pariah, ripe for bullying.

Darwin—another thing the Heralds don’t believe in—could’ve seen this one coming and taken that bet to Vegas.

By high school, I was fighting with my parents every weekend.

The only thing worse than kids picking on you is adults profiting from a cult picking on you.

My anxiety was at an all-time high. I was “disciplined” for failing to stay out of “worldly” things—like wanting higher education, having opinions about political candidates, and caring about women’s rights.

I hang a sparkling green present-shaped ornament on Elsa and sigh. As much as I’d love the company (and Allison would never say no to a good Chardonnay), this process is my religion now.

The phone rings. An unknown number with an area code I know all too well.

It’s that time of year, and there’s one person I do regret leaving behind.

I send her to voicemail, like I do every year.

I know in my heart it will never change—she will never actually leave the cult—and because of that, I wish she’d just stop calling.

In true T. S. Elliot fashion, I didn’t leave the cult with a bang—I left gradually, with a whisper.

And when my parents realized I wasn’t coming back, it broke their hearts.

I’m not sure they would have cut me off on their own, but the pressure to “do what’s right”—to abandon your daughter in the name of God—is intense.

Especially when you’re hounded every day, and told your eldest, most rebellious kid will lead the younger ones astray.

Oh, and probably get into drugs. To be fair, I’ve never been into drugs (maybe the occasional special gummy before bed), but I can see how that threat would be a powerful, last-ditch bid for control.

In the end, it was easier to cut me loose in God’s name than to stand up to an organization and uproot an entire life and belief system.

My mom has been to my apartment exactly once in the last six years—ironically, in December—and when she saw the Christmas tree (that year it was Cindy Lou Who), she had a flash of lucid sentimentality.

She said, “You remind me so much of your grandmother.” A cult-free, Italian woman who obsessed all year round over Christmas and started baking her famous cookie spreads in September.

When I took it as a compliment, my mom’s brain seemed to short-circuit—probably from the strain of thinking for herself and the reality of the estrangement—and she told me I’d chosen Christmas over her.

I haven’t seen her since.

Luckily, I had Ally and her fiancé Teddy to get me through the pain of it. Plus, my job as a senior interior decorator for an online home-decorating app keeps me busy, if not broke. The pay is crap, but at least I can work from home. Like I said, I value my freedom above all else.

I spend a good three hours hanging ornaments on the tree before the colorful bulbs start forming little halos, and I can barely keep my eyes open. I change into candy-cane pajamas and crawl into my big comfy bed alone—always alone.

Tomorrow is Saturday, and I start my new weekly volunteer gig at a local nursing home.

Volunteering is something my therapist suggested a few years back when I was struggling to come to terms with the living loss of my family.

I’ve worked in soup kitchens feeding the unhoused, read books to under-resourced kids, and walked dogs at the animal shelter.

But my favorite by far has been delivering meals to seniors.

They’re truly forgotten over the holidays, and visiting them reminds me of being with my grandma on Christmas—the only holiday tradition I was allowed (a little secret my parents kept from their meddling cult).

This year, I scoured Craigslist and landed an opportunity to play Mrs. Claus once a week at Forest Park Assisted Living.

I’ve never been more excited for a volunteer shift, but they want me there at eight a.m. (apparently, that’s lunch time for some of these early birds).

I set my alarm and smother my face in an assortment of creams before drifting off.

I dream of an entire forest of Christmas trees of all shapes and sizes—some with starry twinkling lights, others with colorful blinking lights.

In the distance, I hear the deep, barrel-chested laugh of the man who skipped my house year after year, even after I set out secret glasses of milk and whatever cookies I could scavenge in my parents’ pantry.

I try to catch a glimpse of red among the sea of trees, but there are too many, and the lights are too bright and blinding. Eventually, the sound of laughter and jingling bells fades. I collapse in the middle of the forest. I don’t hear him anymore.

The trees loom large and lovely around me.

I am alone. Always alone.