Page 13 of Grinch Girl

Chapter Four

Early on Mondaymorning, I perched on the stool in front of the backdrop we’d constructed in one corner of Jim’s pub and waited as Sean fidgeted with the lighting. “Let’s get this over with,” I grumbled. I was the last of our contestants to film a video introduction of myself for the web series. Sean had done everyone else’s over the weekend, and I’d been up until two a.m. last night helping him edit the footage.

The website for the Christmas Village was live, and I’d spent way too much time tweaking the search engine optimization. But whenever someone searched for any Christmassy event in Wisconsin, I wanted them to find us. I’d spent two dismal hours yesterday poring over the books for Greta’s shop, fruitlessly hoping I’d misunderstood the math before—but nope. I made a mental note to spruce up the shop with Christmas lights and ornaments before I opened tomorrow. I was going to plug it like hell every time I was being filmed and make damn sure our contestants wandered through to browse on their silly dates.

“Ready!” Sean called, and I straightened on the stool and showed my teeth in the smile I greeted customers with when tending bar. Sean counted down so I knew when to start talking.

“I’m Jane Zielinski,” I started. “I’ve lived in Falworth my whole life.”

In my head, I flicked through the list of prompts we’d given all contestants to help them craft their intro: name, light personal background, what you do for a living, how you’d summarize your personality, likes and dislikes, why you’re participating in the web series.

It’d been extremely interesting to watch the other contestants’ footage. I was surprised by something from just about everyone. Either I didn’t know some of these people as well as I thought or they were making shit up. Jim’s estranged wife, Nicole, for example, said she loved to travel. I knew for a fact that Jim and Nicole hadn’t left Wisconsin in five years. Of course, maybe they couldn’t afford it. Or maybe Jim hated to travel and that’s why they never went anywhere.

Between brief fishing anecdotes, Brian had mumbled that he enjoyed writing in his spare time. Mabel, the librarian, said that one of her hobbies was rebuilding motorcycles. Diane boasted that she ownedthreelocal businesses, and I had no idea what she owned besides the bakery and thrift store.

Of course, there were other very non-surprising moments as well. Tripp had paused in the middle of a monologue about his athletic prowess to ask, “Are we getting, like, any money for doing this? Like, endorsements or something?”

Nate, Bella’s city man, had grinned disarmingly as soon as Sean had given him the prompt and said, “I have no idea what I’m doing in this web series. I was in town for five minutes before signing up. But sometimes that’s life, you know? You’ve just got to go along for the ride.” The minute Sean signaled that he’d gotten what he needed, the freewheeling grin dropped right off his face and he went back to working on his phone. Disingenuous or efficient? A charming jerk? Very unlike Bella’s usual type.

Not that I knew anything about Bella anymore.

Her video introduction had been frustratingly perfect, of course. She looked gorgeous in an angelic, nonthreatening way. She still favored big light-colored sweaters and jeans, which always looked both comfy and chic on her tall, slim frame. She spoke of herself in a self-deprecating manner as “a computer nerd,” which was true. She’d gone to college on an engineeringscholarship, and Greta constantly bragged about her fancy consulting job after graduation and the software project she’d been working on independently for the last couple of years.

To the prompt about why she was doing the web series, she’d paused thoughtfully. “I’ve been away from home a long time. There’s nothing more I want this Christmas season than to reconnect with my community.” A light, tinkling laugh. “If that involves romance, so be it!”

So yeah. Adorable. Sweet. After all these years, still the perfect Christmas Princess. Truly heroine-esque.

“How would you describe your personality?” Sean prompted me in an uninflected dronelike manner. Luckily, we cut all that stuff out.

I smoothed my hands down over my black T-shirt. Cocked my head as if I hadn’t planned exactly what I was going to say. “I guess you could call me a work-hard, play-hard kind of girl.”

Sean looked up from the camera and frowned at me. “I’ve never seen you play at all,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “Or wear makeup. I didn’t even know you had such long hair until today!”

I rolled my eyes—eyes fully lined with black eyeliner and a heavy coat of mascara—at him. Plain Jane could never compete with Beautiful Bella in the looks department, but I couldcontrastwith her. She was tall and blond. I was short with almost black hair. She looked like a girl who modeled for Neutrogena moisturizer ads. With my smudged eyes and tight black jeans, I was more “bad girl” than a beauty.

That’s the thing though. Sometimes the bad girl won, especially in reality TV.

I flicked my hand at Sean to keep going. “It’s just a…persona,” I assured him. “I’m only doing this to even out the numbers,” I lied. “I don’t want to actually be myself in this thing. I want to keep the real me private.” That part was true.

When we finished and I’d edited myself to my satisfaction, I sat back down and exchanged a few texts with Carol. The kick-off grand opening to the Christmas Village was going to be on Wednesday night. A public event to decorate the huge tree in the center of the square. Carol was frantically doing PR—everything from putting flyers at all hotels in a six-town radius to calling and begging everyone we knew to show up on Wednesday. Aside from wanting people to come and spend money, we also needed the Christmas Village to look busy with people enjoying themselves as background for the first set of dates.

“When are you posting the first poll?” Sean asked.

“Today,” I said firmly. Once my intro was up, I’d make the corresponding website live. We’d link to it from the town’s pitiful social media presence and beg everyone we knew to share and vote. We didn’t expect many votes for the first date, but that was OK. The more footage we aired, the more engagement we’d get. Especially as more personal tidbits—like Jim and Nicole’s marriage or Bella and Michael’s past romantic history—were revealed.

Well, fingers crossed anyway.

Sean snorted at me. “Who do you think you’ll ‘date’ this week, Ms. Work-Hard-Play-Hard?”

I set my phone down and rolled my stiff neck and shoulders. Too many hours on the computer this weekend. “Who knows?” I yawned. “Doesn’t matter.”

Since most of the early voters were going to be people we knew, they’d probably pair me with Tripp as a laugh.

Once we got past the initial round and more strangers started voting, however, I had high hopes for being paired with Michael. I was counting on the fact that Bella and Michael together would seem boring. But the sweet, good guy paired with the bad girl…interesting, right?

Take that, Hell’s Bells.

My triumphant smirk faded; even her nickname wasn’t fun anymore now that the web series was namedSingle Bells. It was like we’d named the show afterher. Grrr.

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