Page 41 of Christmas Cove

“Anything to eat with that?” the woman shifted her eyes to the case and back up to America.

“I’m not from here,” America said. “Tell me, what’s your favorite?”

Without a hesitation, the woman snapped her fingers and said, “One snickerdoodle croissant it is. I’ll get you squared away. I’m Anne, by the way.”

The patrons, standing shoulder to shoulder in the line, scooted America down the counter towards the register at the rear of the long store. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m America.”

As Anne worked, she spoke. “Where are you visiting from, America?”

“I’m actually staying nearby, in Christmas Cove.”

Anne froze for a moment. “That’s nice. I haven’t been there for years. They used to have this bonfire every year—”

“We had it last night, actually,” America interrupted.

“I hadn’t realized,” Anne turned towards America with the coffee and a small brown bag, “that the town was still putting on such events.”

“That’s actually why I’m here, in Elizabethtown today.” America handed Anne a flier. “Christmas Cove is open for business again. I’m trying to get the word out, and thought I might hang this flier in your window and leave a pile for your guests too?” Her words were a statement presented as an unsure request.

Anne took the flier and considered it for a moment. “It would be nice to see the place again. Is it all decked out this year?”

“Pretty much,” America said and smiled a little too wide to be convincing.

“Well, I don’t see that it’ll hurt anything. You can leave some here,” Anne said. “That’ll be seven dollars.”

“I really appreciate this,” America said. She placed a stack of fliers beside the register and handed Anne a ten note. “Keep the change. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas to you too.”

With her coffee and a delicious-looking croissant in one hand, and her fliers in the other, America skipped out of the bakery with a new zeal pushing her along. She only hoped the rest of the people would be as accepting as Anne had been. She handed fliers to anyone she passed on the sidewalk and ducked into several more establishments, meeting with mixed receptions, along her way.

One owner of a little toy shop said he wouldn’t promote his competition, while another said, “What’s the point? That town is dead.” These revelations didn’t help, and her mood soured more than she liked, but she was satisfied that the pile of fliers in her hand was nearly gone. She turned and looked back down the Main Street, lined with flocked trees and red ornaments, and saw that it was far more festive looking than what she’d been able to achieve, even with all the work they’d done in bringing the Cove up to par for the season.

She sighed and took a deep breath, wishing to speak to her parents. They always knew the right things to say, but never lied to her about the realities she faced. Checking her cell reception and the time, she figured the hour where her parents were staying in Italy. They would probably be out to dinner, and . . . no, she decided not to disturb them.

It was important that she go on by herself. She had some research to do at the library and needed to send her notes to Mr. Janowitz. The library was just ahead. It wasn’t hard to miss its 1970s modern lines and concrete columns holding up a slanted, flat roof and topped with a large neon sign above the door.

Inside, the library smelled like the archives room at her office. Old paper mixed with the acidic tinge of the new. Fluorescent lights gave the whole space a cool, green tint that was off-putting and would ensure no one would linger too long in the space.

“Can I help you?” a young man said from behind a semicircular counter centered on the front doors.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m looking for some historical texts about Christmas Cove. And do you have free wifi?”

“Sure do,” he said and pointed to a plastic placard on the counter that featured the wifi password. “There’s a local section upstairs. Whatever we have will be up there.”

She thanked the librarian and proceeded up the floating steps to the second floor. The area was no more than a loft where short bookcases and filing cabinets lined the walls. A low, round utility table, the sort one would find in an elementary school, sat in the middle of the space, and a water fountain grumbled in the corner.

The books were arranged by topic and author. There was no section specifically about Christmas Cove, but she found a couple of old almanacs and surveys of the county. The survey caught her attention. The maps were of particular interest since she had no real idea of the cove’s size and shape, having only seen it empty and fogged over. The filing cabinets held a collection of county newspapers and were arranged by year. Their stories and photographs collected over the years could prove especially useful. Where a book is a big picture, a newspaper is a snapshot of a moment in time, and is less tainted by history’s narrative.

Before the storm, the cove was at its finest. So, she began there. Looking back only a few years, she pulled a November issue. “Christmas Cove Elects New Mayor. Outsider brings inheritance to buy his way into position.” A photo of Leo wearing a broad smile and standing in front of the fountain in the plaza sat below the headline. The story was curiously written and affected a negative view of the new mayor. She wondered who would care so much about the mayor of a tiny town to write such a smearing article in the first place.

Wanting something older, she put the issue back in its place in the file cabinet and flipped back to a December issue from a couple of years earlier. She spread the paper across the child-size table and kneeled down. Photos from a tree lighting and a schedule of events were plastered across the front page. The tree was easily twice the size of the one they had erected the day before, and the turnout looked to be in the hundreds, unlike the dozen or so that had attended their impromptu lighting and Edwin’s musical entertainment.

A lantern lighting, ice fishing competition, and a fruit cake walk were all on the week’s schedule. A snowman-making race and a hand-maker’s market capped off the week’s festivities before Christmas. The traditions she had seen advertised in the online brochure were all but forgotten now.

“We can’t do the fishing,” she said as she flipped through the pages. “No lake. No ice. And we can’t do the snowman race since there’s no snow. And . . .” America folded the paper and tossed it away from herself. “What’s the point?”

Out the window, she saw all of Elizabethtown’s Main Street, with its decorations and cheer. It looked like the place she should be covering for the magazine, and not the town that had forgotten what Christmas really means.

---