Page 67 of Saved By Noel
I’m smiling, but I can’t stop tears from slipping down my cheeks.
“Did it live up to your vision?” Clark asks, breaking the silence.
“It’s perfect. Everything is beautiful. It’s just . . .perfect, Clark,” I whisper, still overwhelmed.
His hands are in his pockets, but his face is pleased. Then again, I don’t entirely trust myself to interpret Clark accurately anymore. “Tomorrow will be the moment of truth,” he muses.
“Notjusttomorrow,” I say. “We have three whole weeks of Christmas festivities to look forward to,” I add with a wry smile.
Now I’m positive he smiles back at me as he responds, “Don’t remind me.”
The opening days of The First Noel start off with simmering magic. We decided to kick the festival off on a Sunday, banking on a few slower weekdays to help us get our footing before larger weekend crowds.
Still, even more people have come than we anticipated. Becky’s Brews is a raging success—no surprise there. But that means we have to make a rush order of more syrup supplies to arrive before the weekend.
Santa’s Workshop is teeming with Christmas enchantment. The sight of Pops’ table full of animal carvings brings tears to my eyes. It’s not taking much to bring tears to my eyes this week. The magic of the season paired with the feeling of helping this town come to life has my tear ducts ever-ready to produce moisture.
A friend of Madison’s arranged for a TV crew to come on Thursday to film a short spot for an Arkansas news station. Clark and I guide the crew around the town to get B-roll footage of the Christmas-themed cabins, the town decorations, the Letters to Santa craft station, and the evening festivities. When it’s time to do the on-camera interview, Clark tries to pawn off the job to me.
“This whole thing was your idea, Clara! I don’t want to be on the news. You talk,” he asserts, arms crossed and eyebrows furrowed.
“But this isyourtown, Clark. The city of Noel—this is your family, your history. It has to be you,” I counter equally as adamantly.
He groans. “Fine, but when all the potential visitors are scared away by my face on TV, you’ll be to blame.”
I snort. “Your face isn’t scaring anyone away.” My cheeks heat as I realize I said that out loud. “Just . . . try to smile a little,” I add, trying to breeze over the foot in my mouth.
We find a spot with the festivities perfectly framed in the background, and the reporter asks Clark a series of questions about the festival and the town of Noel. Clark does a stand-up job of looking neutral, bordering on amiable, as he answers. He never mentions me by name, but at one point, he meets my eyes as he talks about “The First Noel” tag line. A hint of a smile crinkles the sides of his eyes.
I hold my breath as I watch him. My thoughts are caught up in all the positive connections I’ve shared with Clark over thepast year. Sure, we had our difficult moments too—times when he crumpled my heart. But now, watching him stand in front of a news camera talking about the very festival he was stubbornly opposed to, I’m overwhelmed with affection for this complicated man. Affection I can’t bury anymore.
Late into the night, I furiously type at my writing desk. My mind is playing out scene after scene, line after line of my movie script, faster than my fingers can keep up. Tears blur my view of the computer screen as I write Jack and Renee’s first kiss into existence, when they finally stop avoiding their feelings for each other.
At 3:00 a.m., I type those epic words: The End.
I sigh and lean back, arching with my hands overhead. It’s far from the end—I’ll go through a rigorous edit of the script before I decide if I’m even going to submit it. But finishing the first draft is still a huge accomplishment.
Staring at the screen, my ears tune in to the music playing from the speaker— “The Waltz of the Snowflakes.” I can almostfeelthe physical hug from Aunt Gloria. Almost see the wide smile on her face, the light in her eyes. Almost hear her soothing voice telling me she’s proud of me.
I look around my cabin with tears in my eyes. “We did it, Aunt Gloria. You made it possible for me to chase this dream.”
And just like that, I know that I’m going to submit this script to Heartmark. I might be terrified to put it out there, to potentially tip my hand to show my interest in Clark. The script might get rejected and never turned into a movie. But I owe it to Aunt Gloria to follow this dream as far as I can take it.
Chapter thirty-eight
Clark
“Clark, we need more boxes brought over from the storage unit,” Pearl calls to me.
“You mean myoffice, Pearl?”
“Call a spade a spade; it’s temporarily a storage unit and you know it,” she scoffs back. “Can you run and get some or find someone who can?”
“I got it. Let me finish changing out the trashcan liners at the picnic area,” I call back.
I’ve been running around like a chicken with its head cut off for the past two days, jumping in to fill every job from barista to photographer to garbageman. Nothing could have prepared me for the number of people that have circulated through town this week—and it’s only the first week of the festivities. We’ve easily had as many, if not more, tourists as we do during the height of float season.
The news spot we filmed on Thursday aired yesterday on the Friday morning news, and I swear, every person within driving distance of Noel made their way to town today. Paul and Emily have been placing rushed order after rushed order of moresupplies for Becky and the baking ladies, as well as gift wrapping for the gift shop.
