Page 29 of No Business Like Snow Business

The museum wasn’t at all profitable. The only reason it was still running was because nobody would dare suggest closing it, although sometimes the mayor liked to sigh loudly in mydirection at budget time. I had a hundred different ideas of what I could do to improve the museum, but unfortunately most of these cost money the mayor didn’t want to give me. Which was fair. It wasn’t as though I was a qualified curator or anything; I was just the guy who was willing to sit here for a smidge over minimum wage every day and keep an eye on the place.

But, for all that the museum wasn’t profitable, the people of Christmas Falls loved it. We even had a wedding booked for the building this year, which was a first. And, by some of the noises the wedding planner had made as he’d run through everything he needed versus everything the museum had, that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. Still, exciting, right?

When my phone chimed with a text, my heart skipped a few beats in a rush of anticipation, but it wasn’t from Sterling. It was Chloe, wanting to know if I wanted to go over to her place tonight for beer and pickles. Look, we’d tried to be civilized with charcuterie boards and stuff like that, but we’d since had to face up to the fact that somewhere along the way our interpretation of ‘charcuterie’ had devolved into ‘a jar full of pickles.’

I sneaked into the storeroom to call her. “Hey, on a scale of believability, one being ‘I stubbed my toe today’ and ten being ‘There’s a full-scale alien invasion happening outside the museum right now,’ where would you put, ‘I actually have dinner plans already, with a guy?’”

It took her a justifiable moment to parse that, and then she said, “Holy shit, are you serious? What guy? Wait. Is it the guy everyone’s seen you around town with? Is this finally the year you meet a hot tourist and have a holiday fling?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes, Christmas Falls is known for attracting hot, single tourists. It’s totally the demographic we attract.”

“Omigod, itis!” She made the same excited huffing sound my neighbor’s cocker spaniel made when someone brought out treats. “Harvey, is it serious?”

“No!” I ignored the flutter in my stomach. “How could it be? We only just met. But he’s nice, and he’s hot, and he’s invited me to dinner, so it’s a rain check on beer and pickles.”

“I mean, that’s clearly the smart decision even if there’s no hot guy involved,” Chloe said, her voice warm. “Have fun! Give me all the details later.”

“I’m not going to give you all the details later,” I said, even though we both knew that I was, and Chloe laughed as she ended the call.

I checked the time.

Again.

It wasn’t even four yet.

Had time stopped? Was it goingbackward?

I sighed, and rearranged a few of the boxes in here that Sterling and I had dug through previously. Old newspapers, photographs and the detritus of decades of parades. I really needed help to go through it all and catalog it properly, but that was a plan for the future.

I left the storeroom and returned to the main room, killing a few minutes by straightening the postcards on the rack on the counter. And then rearranging them. And then straightening them again.

“Oh, dear,” Martha said. “I know that look.”

“What look?” I asked guiltily.

She raised her eyebrows. “That look that says you’re head over heels for that young man from earlier.”

“I am not,” I said, and tried to laugh it off. I wheezed instead. “Okay, fine. He’s cute, and he’s nice, and he’s invited me to dinner tonight.”

“Oh, you lucky thing! If I were fifty years younger and didn’t have a plastic hip, I would bang him like a drum.”

“Martha!”

“What?” She gave me a wicked smile. “Let me tell you, Harvey Novak, you might get a little bit wrinkly and saggy as you get older, but that doesn’t mean there’s no gas in the tank anymore, if you get my meaning.”

“I wish I didn’t!”

She cackled and patted me on the forearm. “You young people! You think you invented sex. How do you imagine you all got here, hmm? The stork?”

“Excuse you. Everyone knows I was found in a pumpkin patch.”

She laughed, swatting me on the shoulder. “And you were cute as a bug too. You still are. Now go and change the toilet paper in the restrooms before it runs out. I was going to do it earlier, but you locked the storeroom.”

I’d locked the storeroom because that’s where the ladder was, and ever since I’d gotten back from lunch a few months ago and found her wobbling away on it as she dusted the ceilings, I’d been terrified she try it again.

“Ah,” I said, “that glamorous museum lifestyle! I’ll get right on it.”

At least it kept me from checking the time for another ten minutes.

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