Page 19 of Jingle Bell Jilt
She adds a pack of plastic champagne flutes and a bunch of bare tree branches to her cart. Then two plastic baskets and a package of thin wooden dowels. The last thing she throws in is two spools of Christmas ribbon. She looks up at me. “Okay, I think I have everything I need here.” She stares at the contents of the cart. “Oh, except glitter. I need some glitter.”
“Glitter?” That’s where I put my foot down. “I don’t allow glitter in my house.” I give her a ‘sorry’ look.
Her lips turn down. “But it will be so pretty. You just need to wait and see. I promise I’ll glitter it outside and shake everything off before I come back in. And then I’ll move it as little as possible inside.”
This time she actually looks like she might cry. Is glitter really that important? I cave like a sandcastle at high tide. “Okay, fine. You can buy glitter.”
Her smile is instantaneous. Almost as if the tears weren’t real.
I scowl at her. “I think I was just played.”
She lifts a shoulder and grins sheepishly. “It’s for glitter. I feel no remorse.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing.” I motion to all the stuff in the cart.
“Me?” She looks at me in shock. “What about you? You haven’t bought a single thing.”
I nod slowly. “I know what I’m doing. Don’t you worry.”
She shakes her head. “I’m not worried. I already know which ice cream I want.” She winks at me, and my heart skips a beat. Woah. I was not expecting that. Either thing, actually.
We head to the checkout where she only gets a few coins back in change from her twenty-dollar bill.
“You’re out of money and this is our first store.” I don’t understand her logic. Nothing she bought looks remotely like it will be high-end decorating.
“Where do you want to go?” She asks as we pull the bags off the end of the check-out counter.
“I don’t know. There’s a Walmart at the other end of the parking lot. Maybe I’ll go there.”
She smiles. “Oh, good. I wanted to stop there also. They’ll have the glue gun. Plus I can buy groceries.”
“Didn’t you already grocery shop?” I nudge her, hoping she knows I’m teasing her about the contents of her fridge in a nice way.
“I thought you might want something besides chocolate for Christmas dinner.”
“Chocolate isn’t a completely terrible idea,” I say as we walk on the sidewalk past the other shops in the strip mall.
“I’m thinking I can make some Thai peanut noodles—” She turns and looks in a store that’s decked out in Christmas decorations. “Maybe you can find something in here.”
I peer in the window. “I think this place may be out of my budget.”
“Can we go inside anyway? There may be something I can buy for my mom.” She looks over at me as if asking for permission. Again, not what I expect from her. The woman Nathan described to me doesn’t ask permission for anything. She does whatever she wants and usually drags Nathan along, whether he wants to go or not.
But I haven’t really seen that woman yet. Shay was a little terse yesterday when she arrived, but can I really blame her for that? She’d had a pretty rough couple of days and was jet-lagged.
Maybe the other personality comes out after she’s comfortable with a person.
I move to open the door for her.
“Thanks,” she says as she ducks inside.
The whole store smells like cinnamon and pine trees. I’ve never noticed it here before. Is it a Christmas shop year-round or is it just for the holidays? An older lady, probably in her late sixties, stands behind the counter. She’s pretty much exactly what I picture Mrs. Claus looking like if she wore green jeggings (I only know the term because of my sister.) and had gray spikey hair.
She smiles up at us. “Welcome to The North Pole Mercantile.”
With a name like that, I’m guessing this is a just-for-Christmas thing. Maybe it’s like the costume shops that open in unrented spaces just for the few months before Halloween.
“Your store is so lovely,” Shay croons as she lightly touches the snow globes on a shelf.
