Page 5 of The Amazing Alpha Tau Fratmas Experience
More importantly, neither would my mother, who would eat Miss Manners for breakfast. Using the correct silverware, naturally.
It would be fine. I’d get through Christmas in the fraternity house, enjoying the quiet and whatever food I felt like getting delivered, and then I’d go to DC and take coffee orders for three weeks, and somehow that would look better on my resume thanany of Trey’s extracurriculars did. Because I was a Talbot-Smith, and that was how things worked for us.
So why, when I was being given this awesome opportunity, did it still feel like I was the one missing out?
It didn’t help that right now I was surrounded by love and peace and joy and all that bullshit. Any minute now a rosy-cheeked child was going to skip past ringing a bell, or a bunch of people in Victorian garb were going to barrel into the store and accost me with carols.
Hopewell didn’t have much of a shopping district, but there were a few antiques stores in the City Point historic district, and Trey and I were checking them out because he still hadn’t bought a gift for his mom. Most of the storefronts were filled with decorations and tinsel, reminding me relentlessly that it was Christmas Day in a week. I did my best to push it aside because when it came to shopping I was in my element, unlike Trey.
Trey was a terrible shopper. Like, objectively awful. He was smart as hell, but when it came to choosing a gift, he either froze like a deer in the headlights or second-guessed himself right out of the store. It was almost endearing, but I’d never tell him that.
“You can’t go wrong with jewelry,” I said as we inspected the case the woman had put on the counter.
Trey reached out for a ring.
“Not that one.”
He gave me a look. “You just said I couldn’t go wrong with jewelry.”
“Not generally,” I said. “But specifically, that is a man’s ring, Trey.”
“Are you sure?” Trey asked.
I picked the ring in question up. It was a classic silver pinky ring with a blank face where initials could be engraved, and it had three lines scored in one corner that added texture to the otherwise simple design. It was a timeless piece andin surprisingly good condition. I slipped it onto my pinky to demonstrate and held it up to admire it. It looked good on me. “See? Made for a man’s hand. And are you going to tell your mother she has man hands?”
He gave me another look. “You choose then.”
I cast my critical gaze over the case and said, “What else do you have?”
The woman met my critical gaze with one of her own and then hummed as she looked me up and down. “I’ll see what’s out back.”
“Thank you.” I waited until she’d left before I said, “We just saw the stuff they show to the tourists and the college kids. She’ll be back with the good stuff now.”
“I don’t know if you’ve forgotten, but we are college kids,” Trey said.
“Yes, but I’m wearing Brunello Cucinelli.”
“I’m not,” Trey said, his forehead pinching. “And I don’t want to go crazy.”
“This is Hopewell, Trey,” I said. “There will be nothing here even approaching crazy.”
The woman emerged from the back of the store carrying a small box and set it in front of us. “These just came in yesterday,” she said. She opened the box to reveal the tray inside, which held an array of brooches ranging from understated to over-the-top and everything in between. “From an estate sale.”
Trey picked up a solid square brooch with a stone the color of cat vomit. My fingers itched with the urge to slap his hand away. I restrained myself, but Trey must have felt my glare because he put it down again and put his hands behind his back. I scanned the tray, and my gaze was drawn to a silver art deco-style brooch with blue and white stones set in a geometric pattern that started as a rectangle but had rounded ends. It was solid but elegant, and I knew Trey’s mom would love it. She was totally into thatera, and she loved bright statement pieces. I nudged him gently and gave a subtle nod.
Trey reached out and picked up the brooch. “Maybe… this?” For someone who’d aced his LSAT, he sounded very unsure. “Wait, those aren’t diamonds, are they?”
Both the lady and I laughed.
“It’s paste jewelry, Trey,” I said. “It’s glass.” I pulled him closer to me and said in an undertone, “It’s genuine but don’t pay more than a hundred for it. There’s a chip in the bottom stone.”
I left Trey to the brooch and wandered off into the next aisle where a pair of gloomy-faced clowns regarded me from a shelf. They appeared to be salt and pepper shakers, and they were so ugly they would haunt my dreams until the end of my life, but at least they stopped me from thinking about Christmas, right? And Christmas was overrated anyway. Who cared if I didn’t get to spend a day with my family? I could catch up with them another time.
I looked away from the clowns before they gave me actual nightmares, and my gaze landed on a snow globe. I felt a stab of something like guilt when I remembered how I’d snapped at Marty. He hadn’t meant anything when he’d asked for a snow globe from Vienna. It was just Marty being Marty. But I’d reacted like he’d asked for a kidney or something.
Okay, maybe I was more sensitive about spending the holidays alone than I’d thought. But it wasn’t like I could do anything about it now. So I’d do what I always did and pretend I didn’t give a shit. I was incredibly good at that.
“Eighty.” Trey’s voice was low in my ear, and when I turned he held up a small gift box.
