Page 3 of Grinchland
My entire body froze. That was exactly what I wanted, no, needed. But Maria wasn’t in Winter Springs. That meant I’d have to move to…I paused. What city did she say she lived in?
“How long do you need me for?” I asked as I leaned back and folded my right arm across my chest so I could rest my left elbow on my hand. It made it easier to hold my phone to my cheek.
“Just until the end of January, unless it moves to full-time. I need you here to close out the first semester. You don’t even have to stay for Christmas break. All I ask is you be back by January fifth when school starts in the new year.”
That was an interesting proposition. I could come back and spend the holidays here, in Gran’s house, while still keeping a job. From the numbers in my bank account last time I checked, I needed something fast.
“There’s a woman here that has a fully furnished place available to rent. I already talked to her about arranging for the new teacher to stay there since I knew I was going to need to hire an out-of-towner.” She paused. “You’d really be helping me out of a bind.”
Ugh. Maria was addressing every excuse I’d come up with for why I couldn’t take this job. And I couldn’t ignore the fact that I needed a job. I closed my eyes. “I’ll do it,” I said, excitement brewing in my stomach as I said the words. Then I frowned, trying to recall where the school was. “What city did you say you live in now?”
“Grinchland.”
TWO
CLARA
“Ma’am, is this going?” One of the beefy men from Sexy Guys Move You lifted up my giant light-up Santa whose paint had faded from the sun and gave it a once-over. We were standing in front of my open garage door, and I was showing the three movers what was going to Grinchland and what was staying.
“Grandpa Santa? Um, yes sir,” I said with a scoff. What a ridiculous question. “He goes with the reindeer ensemble. Without him, the whole sleigh and eight reindeer would look ridiculous.” I waved to the items that another mover was currently trying to stack in the back of the moving truck.
Beefy mover glanced at me, then over to the truck, and then back to Grandpa Santa. “Um, sure,” he said. The tone of his voice told me he didn’t believe that would be the reason the ensemble would look ridiculous.
I wanted to explain to him why this Santa set meant so much to me—Gran and I found it on a trip back from Florida when I was fifteen, and we’d had to strap it to the top of her Volvo—but I already knew how these conversations went. I would get passionate, his eyes would go wide, his lips would slightly part, and just when I would take a breath to continue, he’d find a way to apologize and hurry away.
I’d learned that I may care about the history behind the decorations, but other people didn’t. It was best to keep these stories to myself.
“Oh my gosh, Clara.”
Abbie’s voice drew my attention away from the movers as I turned to see her approach me. Her black winter coat was zipped to the top, and wrapped around her neck was the rainbow scarf that she’d bought on our trip to New York last year to celebrate her twenty-fifth birthday. Her cheeks were rosy and her eyebrows raised as she took in what we were doing.
“I thought you were coming home after school gets out,” she said. She took a step back to get out of the way of the two movers carrying the giant nativity cutout that Gran had inherited from our church when they decided to go with a digital projector. Her gaze followed them as they made their way to the open truck.
“I am,” I said as I glanced back and nodded to the beefy mover who had moved on to grab the cardboard boxes that were labeled Outdoor Lights. “But I’m not going to spend all December in a pathetically decorated house.”
Linda, the landlord, had called me last night to give me the rundown. The house I was renting was a modest two-bedroom with one bathroom. It was fully furnished, just not “Pinterest furnished like you young people love.” I almost told her that I lived in my grandmother’s house, which hadn’t been purged in twenty years but decided against it. Linda was chatty, and I had packing to do.
“You don’t know it’s pathetically decorated.”
I scoffed and looked over my shoulder at her. “To me, it will be.”
She sighed. “That’s because you’re extra.”
“Am I extra? Or are others just basic?”
Abbie narrowed her eyes at me. “You’re extra. Only extra people get a whole moving truck to move into a house that is fully furnished.” She drew out the last two words. I watched as a thought dawned on her. “How are you even paying for this?”
I tsked her. “It’s December,” I sang out as I moved to grab the deflated dinosaur climbing a Christmas tree and headed to the truck. “The one month it’s socially acceptable for me to be this obsessive, so I am going to milk it.”
“You’re crazy.”
“You love me.”
She paused and then sighed. “I think it’s more that I’m stuck with you.”
I handed the dinosaur up to the mover and then turned to face Abbie. I grinned at her. “Soul sisters forever, no matter what.”
She glanced at the line of movers carrying artificial Christmas trees who were passing by in front of her like a strange parade. “No matter what,” she whispered.
