Page 66 of Her Counterfeit Christmas
After Brady convinces her to choose a tree, Tori shows me the bag of ornaments Sadie picked. Twenty painted animal figurines carved from local wood.
“I tried to talk her into something sparkly, but she is one stubborn girl. If she didn’t resemble me, I would swear someone swapped her at birth.”
When the last tree is purchased, they’re all taken to amachine where each tree is shaken before being wrapped in plastic for easy transportation.
“What are you doing to my tree?” Sadie asks the man when the machine stops. Her hands are on her hips and her expression is fierce.
“I’m unhoming the spiders who took up residence,” the guy says.
Sadie scrunches up her face. “Huh?”
The employee smiles and bends down closer. “Sometimes when trees sit on our lot, spiders move in. Shaking the tree forces them to leave.”
She bursts into tears.
Tori gets down on her level, one knee on the dirt packed ground. She doesn’t seem to notice the dust accumulating on her Burberry jeans. “What’s wrong, baby?”
“I want to take the spiders home with me!”
Tori picks up her daughter and lets her cry on her shoulder. She whispers to me, “She wantsspidersas pets. Where did this child come from?”
Rheta schedules a delivery for the trees and greenery later that night, but has everything else packed onto two bench seats in the van, including Sadie’s mini tree, so she can decorate it when she gets home.
I go to climb in, but Spencer grabs my hand. “I thought you would drive back with me.”
He points to his rental car parked close by. I look back at the van and everyone laughing and talking as they get inside. I don’t want to give up the camaraderie I’ve felt today with the rest of his family, and it would probably do him good to socialize with them.
“It’s fun in the family van,” I say. “Come with me? We can get someone to come pick up your car later today.”
What’s the purpose of having so much money if we can’t be selfish once in a while?
He studies my hopeful face for only a few seconds before he nods. “Alright. Let’s ride in a van.”
It’s a tight squeeze on the back row with four of us, which means I snuggle close to Spencer. In order to make room for our shoulders, he lays his arm along the back of the seat. I catch Owen’s glance in the rearview mirror. His eyes look sad.
There’s a tug-a-war inside my heart. I don’t want Owen to see me snuggling with my boyfriend, and I don’t want my boyfriend to doubt my commitment to our secret engagement. This is a mess and one I’m not sure how to clean-up.
As we pull out of the parking lot, Sadie sings, “The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round.”
It’s enough of a distraction for me to cast off the concerns I have about these two men. I’ve made my decision. Owen knows that I’m with Spencer. Owen is the one who asked if we could be friends. He’s the one who invites me to do friendly things with him. If he doesn’t like seeing me and Spencer together, then he can stop hanging out with me.
I lean into Spencer’s side and join Sadie in singing. Brady does as well. Tori rolls her eyes but smiles like she’s about to cry.
“It’s a van, not a bus,” Owen calls from the front. He’s so far away we can barely hear him.
“And its name is Tori, apparently,” Tori mutters under her breath. “It’s a little insulting.”
Then she, too, joins in to sing about windshield wipers swishing.
Spencer does not sing, but he laughs. He laughs so rarely; it feels like a gift. Driving home in the van together was the right decision.
Owen sprays the windows and the wipers swish against the windshield. Sadie cheers.
It’s shocking to realize this is turning out to be a fun Christmas full of new experiences. It was only days ago I felt melancholy about this year differing from past Christmases, but the differences have made this one so much more enjoyable.
I shouldn’t be having this much fun away from home. Nana is alone. She escaped for the second time yesterday and was only found because she shoplifted a bag of chocolate chips and a bottle of window cleaner.
I miss my roommates. I yearn to tell them all about the tour today, but I can’t reach out or they’ll insist on knowing everything. There will be no communication between us for the rest of the week, no matter how hard it is for me.
