Page 10 of Grinch Girl

“Besides our one esteemed participant, who else signed up?” Michael asked, eyes wide with curiosity.

He really was so cute. And so nice. He’d sent me a text earlier today to let me know that his sister was coming to town in a few weeks and suggested that the three of us go out for a celebratory drink. That was a good sign. Maybe all of this holiday craziness would bring us even closer together. It was definitely time for me to make a long-overdue move.

“Two,” Jim mumbled.

We all turned to face him. Two? “You didn’t reach out to me today,” I said slowly. Um, he wasmarried. I was all for scandalous, but I didn’t want icky.

The rest of the group frowned at him as well. Diane lifted her cell phone as though she had Jim’s wife on speed dial.

“Both Nicole and I will do it,” he forced out, his forehead going shiny with sweat. “You guys all know we’re separated. We work alternate shifts at the pub, so we’re never together. I’ve been sleeping at my brother’s for a month. When I told her about the Christmas Village and the dating show, Nicole said we should both sign up. She said it’s something we can do to help the town and to help us move on.”

The room was silent for a moment. The situation was truly bizarre, but from a reality TV show perspective it totally worked! Voters would be intrigued by a separated married couple. Would they vote for them to go on dates together or with other people?Also, Jim and Nicole were in their late thirties—a great crossover age to date both younger and older.

“OK!” I said finally, breaking the silence. “I’ll add you both to my list.”

I pulled up a few files on my laptop. “I have three other volunteers. The first is Mabel Hastings.”

“I know her!” Diane exclaimed. “She’s the librarian at the high school.” Indeed she was, an attractive forty-something brunette with a tiny voice.

I smiled at the picture on my screen of the next one. “Tripp Waring.”

Jim groaned so loud I bet he felt the vibration in his toes. “Tripp? Are you serious? That idiot?”

Yup. Ahotidiot. The staple of any reality TV show. Twenty-five-year-old Tripp had dated just about every woman under forty in town. He was not interested in love, he was interested in social media exposure. Which was absolutely fine. He’d act like a good-looking moron on camera, which is what we needed.

Now, would my last contestant be a surprise? I glanced at Carol. “Brian signed up.”

She blinked at me. Oh yeah, I’d floored her. “My Brian? My son?”

“Yeah.” I’d been almost as surprised when he’d contacted me on Facebook. Brian was in his early forties. He’d divorced a few years ago, and his wife had moved away. He was a man of few words who loved the outdoors way more than people. He spent every free minute fishing on the lake. I was worried about him as a reality TV show participant because he grunted more than formed actual words. But beggars couldn’t be choosers, and Brian did have a great rugged man look with his year-round tan and thick beard.

“Huh.” Carol looked down at her notepad again and shook it off. “So, by my count you have three women and three men. That’s pretty good, right?”

Yes and no. Five couples would have been ideal for the schedule I put together and the hours of content we’d need to fill. After calculating the average time of a date and how much interesting footage could likely be culled from it against the hours of footage we wanted to post over the next month and the different places to highlight in town, I’d figured that five couples was our sweet spot. But oh well.

With the three we had, there were a few different pairings voters could play with. There was some intrigue, given Jim and Nicole’s marital situation. And the hot idiot, of course.

“From a successful reality TV show perspective, we have potential,” I said. “But we also have a problem. Reality TV shows are about archetypes, or at least the best ones are. There needs to be humor and drama to keep people watching. Both humor and drama are driven by certain people: the hero/heroines and villains. We don’t have either.”

Jim looked offended. Did he prefer to be the hero or the villain?

“I think it’ll be OK,” I said, unconvincingly. It’s not like I had any other volunteers, and we needed to get this show on the road ASAP. I’d arranged a dating schedule that started next week. We’d launch the voting website this weekend, do a little initial online marketing to get votes for the first matches, and then all couples would be required to do an almost-immediate date that included one local business and a stop at the Christmas Village. I wanted the first date footage posted by next Thursday night, less than a week away.

I looked at my slate of contestants again. What we really needed was a woman for viewers to root for. Someone whowould look beautiful on camera and win over the hearts of the audience. We didn’t have that.

Diane was kind of magnetic, that was true, but she was a little old to satisfy internet trolls—and she had no likely pairing in the group. Both Mabel and Nicole were nice enough, but they weren’t going to own the camera. I’d be surprised if they didn’t actually hide from the filming. Mabel was so quiet that being a librarian was almost a cliché. Nicole was more rough around the edges—she had to be to own a pub in a blue-collar town. Viewers would like her bluntness, but I wasn’t sure she’d capture their hearts.

If the series was at all successful, Tripp would gain new Insta followers and a lot of DMs to his accounts. But just as many viewers would roll their eyes at him and root for him to fail.

No heroes, no villains. Oh well. This is what we had forSingle Bells, and this is what we’d film.

Carol stood and moved for the door, clearing her throat and walking in a sweeping style that drew everyone’s eyes. “I think I can help with one of those archetypes, Jane. It’s time for you guys to meet our mysterious donor who contributed the money to our Christmas Village. The person who may have saved all of our businesses!”

She put her hand on the doorknob, and I frowned and sat up straighter. The donor was actually here? I’d thought Carol was just going to make an announcement about some sort of local corporation or an eccentric millionaire who owned one of the huge lakeside mansions.

She pulled open the door, and a man walked in abruptly, almost jostling her as he stepped into the room. Oh no. Oh no, no, no. I recognized the dark hair and haughty jaw immediately. The stranger from Jim’s pub. The one I’d been rude to—was he our mysterious donor?

Way to get off on the wrong foot, Jane.So typical. I sighed, prepared to smile and apologize.

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