Page 91 of Kiss the Girl
It was Tabitha, shouting from the front door.
“Tabitha!” My mom jumped up and ran to greet her prodigal eldest daughter.
Well, not prodigal in the sense that Tabitha had been frittering away her life. She was wildly successful by any measure, and I didn’t begrudge her that. I just wanted to be able to say the same thing. Soon. I’d be able to say it soon.
“Hey, sis,” I said, claiming my hug after my mom finally let her go. “Not to rush you, but we have to get over to Christmas Town in an hour. We’ve been advertising it in all the local Facebook groups, and we’re expecting a big old surge of visitors during your shift.”
“No problem,” she said. “Let me go put my things up in my room, and then we can run over there.”
“Grace, give her two seconds to rest,” my mom complained.
“It’s fine, Mom.” Tabitha was already heading for the stairs and her old room. “I travel all the time. It’s better if I stay busy all day. Then I don’t have any time to realize I’m tired until I sit down at night.”
“Okay,” Mom said, her voice reluctant. “But we’ve hardly had time to catch up.”
“We’ll have all night plus the next two days,” Tabitha reassured her. “And we talk on the phone almost every day anyway. I’m not sure I even have anything new to report.”
She disappeared up the stairs and I felt my mom’s eyes on me. I turned to meet her slightly accusatory stare. “What, Mom?”
“You hijacked her.”
“For a good cause. I’ll have her back by seven. I’m going to go get changed.” I escaped up to my apartment and switched into black leggings and a black sweater, fastened one of my dad’s church bowties around my neck, then picked up the hat one of the moms had made for me. She’d made one for Tabitha too, cute red-striped sun visors. I made my ponytail up higher than usual to give it a more Seuss-ish touch, then went back to meet Tabitha and hand off her visor.
“Cute,” she said. “Look what I got the wardrobe girl at the studio to make.” She unfurled an apron that looked like the Cat in the Hat’s body.
“That’s going to be stupid cute on you,” I said.
“Right? Let’s go do this. Mom, you’ll bring Dad over after the store closes?”
“We’ll be there,” she said.
As we climbed into my car, Tabitha asked, “So do I get to meet the boyfriend?”
I sighed as I pulled my door shut. “Fake boyfriend.”
“Small-town. Hot guy. Cute girl. Christmas time. Fake dating. Wait. Are youlivinga Hallmark Christmas movie? Should I have brought popcorn for this?”
“I’m definitely living the dumbest version of my life right now,” I grumbled.
“I can’t wait to watch you and fake boyfriend,” she said, grinning. “This will be the second most entertaining public appearance I’ve ever done.”
“What was the first?”
“Snoop Dogg and I did a cooking segment on ‘Good Morning America,’ and he messed up cracking an egg then cursed. It was bleeped on the West coast, but they couldn’t do it fast enough on the East coast, so they got that earful live.”
“I saw that one. Woke me up better than coffee. But also, there will be no show today. Noah and I are cool. Nothing to see. Move along.”
We parked at the store and popped in so Tabitha could say hi to my dad, who smothered her with a giant hug.
As we walked over to the booths, my stomach flipped. And not even because it already had a long line of people waiting for Tabitha. My stomach did this every time I was going to see Noah.
People started calling Tab’s name the second we crossed into the town square, and it took nearly fifteen minutes to navigate all the people wanting to say hello. She proved what a pro she had become when people asked for selfies, telling them to come get a hand pie and she’d do selfies then.
“Way to push the pies,” I said.
“That’s what I’m here for, right?” she asked, smiling as she waved to her fourth grade teacher. “And also to spy on you and Noah.”
“There’s nothing to spy on,” I said.
