Chapter 18
After the argument they’d just had — Penny wasn’t sure if “argument” was the right way to describe what had just happened, but the term was definitely in the ballpark — the task of picking decorations for the tree proved straightforward.
Daniel was quick to agree with her suggestions and she with his.
With tinsel, ornaments, and lights in hand, they made their way back across the square to the cafe.
To the west, the sun was nearing the ridge — dusk was fast approaching.
As they stepped inside the cafe, a frigid gust followed them in.
“Whoa,” Holly said, glancing over from the counter. “I felt that.”
“We’ll be getting an inch or two in a bit,” Penny said.
Holly nodded. “Danny, your car is all-wheel-drive, right?”
“It is.”
“Be careful on the road back to the orchard. There’s a stretch about a quarter mile from the county road turnoff that gets icy, so slow down there.”
“Got it.”
The cafe door opened and Eva rushed in. “I’m back!” she announced. “What did I miss?”
“We just got back ourselves,” Daniel said.
“Perfect!” The girl pulled out her phone. “I can’t stay long, unfortunately. My mom wants me to drive home with her for dinner.”
“No worries,” Penny said.
Aware that time was pressing, they turned to their task. “Holly,” Penny said as she unpacked the shopping bags, “any preferences about what you want the tree to look like?”
“As long as the tree is festive and fun, I’m good,” Holly said. “I need to do some stuff in the back for a few minutes. Holler if you need me?”
“Will do.”
Penny looked around the cafe, which was now empty except for them.
“What first?” Daniel asked.
“Lights. Always start with lights.”
Together, they unwound the string of white lights, then carefully walked it around the tree.
“Okay,” Penny said when they were done. “Turn it on.”
Daniel plugged the lights in and — voilà!
“Nice.” She took a step back, looking at the tree from various angles. “A couple of minor adjustments.” After moving the string of lights to different branches, she stepped back again.
“What’s the verdict?” Daniel said, joining her.
“I think we got it.”
He smiled. “What’s next?”
“Tinsel.” At the hardware store, they’d purchased two kinds of tinsel garlands — silver and red. She handed him the box of silver. “Start circling the tree and draping the tinsel over the branches, just like we did with the lights.”
He nodded and got to work. “Like this?” he asked when he was about halfway done, turning to her for confirmation.
“Looks good.” When he finished, she started with the red tinsel.
“This is going really fast,” he said.
“The next step takes the longest,” she replied as she adjusted the last of the red tinsel.
“The ornaments?”
“It’s best to go box by box.” She picked up a box with six festive reindeer ornaments. “Generally, if we space them out on the tree, we’ll be fine.”
Holly joined them with more boxes of ornaments. “Here are the extras I brought from home,” she said. “Use as you see fit.”
“Thanks,” Daniel replied.
“Can I ask a favor?” she said to Penny. “Would it be okay if you close up for me? Mom and Dad are at the orchard with Joshua, and I want them to head home before the snow hits.”
“Of course,” Penny said.
“You have your key?”
“In my handbag.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it.” She turned to Eva and Daniel. “You guys are doing great. I’m sure the tree is going to be fantastic.”
“Thanks for letting us add a second tree, Holly,” Daniel said.
Holly smiled. “The more Christmas we have in here, the better.”
Eva piped up. “Thanks, Mrs. North — I mean, Holly.”
“Remember,” Holly said to Daniel, “slow down after turning off the county road.”
“Got it.”
A moment later, all bundled up, Holly said her goodbyes and headed out.
At the front door, Penny flipped the “Open” sign to “Closed,” then locked the door. “Okay, the place is ours.”
“How are we doing?” Daniel asked as she returned to the tree.
“Good,” she said, eyeing it carefully. “I’m pretty sure we’ll end up needing all of the ornaments we have.”
“It’s handy that you have a key to this place.”
“She has one for the bookstore, too. You know, just in case. I also have keys for the chocolate shop and the hardware store.”
“It’s great that you all know and trust each other enough to do that.”
For the next few moments, they continued their steady progress, adding a variety of ornaments — colored globes, silver bells, bedazzled diamonds, cheery snowmen, and more — to the tree.
They heard a buzz and Eva glanced at her phone. “Oh, drat,” she said. “My mom’s ready to go home.”
“So you need to leave,” Penny said.
Eva was crestfallen. “But you’re not done with the tree!”
“How about this: I’ll take video of the finished tree with my phone and send the video to you. Will that work?”
The girl looked doubtful. “Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“I also need a shot of Mr. Bedford putting the star on the top of the finished tree, and a video of him turning on the lights.”
“Consider it done and done.”
“You sure?”
“We’ll be good, Eva,” Daniel added. “Promise.”
“Okay,” the girl said with a worried sigh. “But remember, Mr. Bedford — you have to promise you’ll put the star on the top of the tree, and then you need to turn the lights on.”
“Got it.”
“Also,” she said, turning to Penny, “we need a shot of the finished lighted tree from inside and also outside.”
“Understood.”
The girl’s phone buzzed again. “Okay, gotta go.”
“Thanks for your help today,” Daniel said.
“Send me the video as soon as you have it,” she said as she unlocked the front door. “Good night!”And with that, she dashed across the street into the square.
Penny locked the door behind her. “Free again,” she said with a smile.
Daniel chuckled. “Time to get crazy.”
Penny laughed and returned to the tree.
“You know,” he said as he hung another ornament, “I’ve been thinking about something Mabel said.”
“Oh?” Penny said as she threaded a hook through an ornament. “What?”
“She wasn’t wrong about me needing to get my head on straight about why I came up here.”
Penny’s pulse quickened. Did that mean he was thinking about what Christmas meant for him? “Tell me more.”
“I came up here feeling a bit resentful,” he said with a sigh. “Like we talked about earlier, I felt guilty about causing a headache for my agent and publisher. When they cooked up this ‘Christmas immersion’ plan, I felt I had no choice but to go along.”
“I kind of sensed that when you arrived,” she said. “You weren’t exactly thrilled to be here.”
“No, I was not.”
“Though I have to say, you’ve been a complete gentleman about it.”
He took a moment to reply, searching for the right words. “I realized on the drive up here that I didn’t want my problem — my resentment — to become anyone else’s problem. I’ve made that mistake before.”
Penny shrugged. “I’m pretty sure everyone’s made that mistake before.”
“One of the things I’m trying to do now is to learn from my mistakes. When I mess up, I want to do more than own the error — I want to understand what I missed and figure out how to avoid repeating it going forward.”
“A good goal.”
“It’s a process,” he said with a sigh. “No one’s perfect. Definitely not me.”
His willingness to share was welcome. “If everyone put in the effort more often to learn from their mistakes, the world would be a better place.”
“Which ties into something else that Mabel was right about — my divorce.”
Penny felt a jolt — he was ready to go there? “How so?”
He paused. “You don’t mind me talking about this?”
“Not at all. I want to know.”
“Okay.” He took a deep breath. “When my wife and I met, she’d recently broken up with her long-time boyfriend and I was ready for something serious. We hit it off right away. Four months after we met, we got married.”
“That was fast.”
“At the time I thought, ‘Fast is fine. When you know, you know.’ And for the first year, fast worked. Her upbringing was very different from mine — she’s old money, I’m no money — and I wanted to understand everything I could about her, so I was eager to dive into her world.
My first book had been well received and she was happy to introduce me to her crowd as her ‘rising young novelist’ husband. ”
“All of that sounds exciting.”
“Fast-paced, fun, glamorous — it was all of that. But at the same time, I was feeling the pull of my next book.”
“Your historical novel, The Reckoning.”
“My agent was after me to finish it. Just as importantly, I wanted to get to it, too.”
“So what happened?”
“Well,” he said, “I got into it. I stepped back from the social scene and started researching and writing.”
“Historical novels can require a lot of research.”
“Extensive research. But I was up for that. I love learning new stuff.”
“You found a new world to explore.”
“For my first book, which was set in the near future, all I needed to do was read a bunch of research papers about cutting-edge scientific discoveries and imagine what might happen next. My second book was different. I was setting the novel in an actual era that actually existed. The details had to be right, and getting historical details right isn’t easy.
In ways large and small, life in the American West in 1873 was extremely different from the life we lead now. ”
“Give me an example.”
“Okay.” He rubbed his hands together, clearly enthused by the topic.
“Take something obvious, like travel. Today we have airplanes, trains, buses, cars, good roads — and most of us use them. But back in 1873, travel was difficult, slow, and dangerous. Most roads were bad. To get somewhere, people had to walk, or get a ride on a horse or wagon or carriage. Trains were relatively new and expensive. As a result, most people alive in 1873 never traveled far from where they were born.”
“So for your novel about a journey by covered wagon across the American West….”