Page 28 of Grinch Girl

“No!” I said, exasperated. “I honestly kind of love that you own this place.” Her posture relaxed. “But, Diane, why’d you have to spring this on us? You have to know it’s a logistical nightmare. We can’t record or post footage of these women.”

She smirked. “Way ahead of you, darling. There are four dancers who are willing to be recorded and included online, and I have their written permission already documented.” She winked at me. “We won’t do them totally nude either. I have some great little outfits picked out for them, and they’re excited to show off their moves onstage. Their routines are phenomenal.”

Oh. My lips quirked as the outrageousness of the evening caught up with me. Sixty-something Diane was a on date with thirty-something Nate and she took him to a strip club that she owns—and we were going to be able to put some of this on our show?

Holy shit. Not only would people know they could come to town for Christmas Village G-rated fun but also Decemberbachelor parties! Adventurous couples’ weekends! It was a whole new market.

“OK.” I rubbed my hands together. If done right, this could be funny and shocking all at once. So much fun. I nodded to myself and beckoned both Sean and the other cameraman to me. “Here’s how we’ll do this.”

*

At four a.m.,I collapsed on my sofa next to Sean. We’d been at The Satin Lady until after eleven, and then we’d rushed back here to cobble together our episode.

The Satin Lady was going to rule this episode, no doubt, but there were other juicy tidbits as well. Bella and Michael had been strolling through the Christmas Village, reminiscing and reconnecting, when they caught sight of an upcoming mistletoe arbor in the same instant and stopped walking. Then they’d fumbled all over themselves trying to figure out how to not walk under it without talking about it. In the end, they did walk under it, and Michael awkwardly kissed Bella on the cheek. They both flushed vividly red, and the camera caught the whole thing. The pure sweetness of it was a perfect foil to the strip club shenanigans.

Another great moment: Brian and Mabel talking intensely in the bakery while buying gingerbread houses for their various family members. The camera didn’t catch their conversation, but Brian said something to make Mabel laugh, hard, and it changed her whole appearance. Her eyes went shiny and a previously hidden dimple dented her right cheek.

And finally, Tripp and Nicole sipping a cocktail in the corner of the pub when Jim walked in. Everyone behaved themselves, much to my disappointment, but there was one interestingmoment when Nicole and Tripp were playing pool. Their cameraman caught Jim in the background, staring. Not at Tripp with anger but at Nicole…with a sort of wistful longing.

“Almost done?” I asked Sean, my voice hoarse from shouting over hard rock for hours.

“Nearly.” I could see the gas station coffee he’d pounded on the way back in his wired eyes. “Send me the footage of the other dates and I’ll put the episode all together.”

“I can help you,” I said, slurring the words.

“Nah. You’ve gotta work tomorrow,” he said. “After I post the episode, I’m just gonna sleep all day.”

Grateful, I stumbled into my bedroom and collapsed face-first on my mattress, asleep before I could even take off the leather pants.

*

The next day,I finished with a Geek Squad appointment around noon—an enterprising soul near the Christmas Village had decided to buy the kind of Christmas lights that changed colors and patterns along with the beats and frequencies of the music played on their devices. But buying that kind of thing and understanding how to set it up were two different things. By the time I had the lights dancing along to Rudolph, I was running twenty minutes late and had to hightail it to the town center to open the wine shop on time.

Bella was sitting on a stool behind the register when I got there, looking at the screen of her laptop. Half owner of the store or not, I was about to harangue her for being there when I noticed her glazed expression and parted lips. She raised wide, bright eyes to my face. “Oh my God, JZ.”

Another old nickname. I used to like that one though. Now, it threw me off-balance.

“Wh-what?”

She swiveled the laptop to face me. It was the statistics dashboard of the platform that hosted our web series. I looked at the numbers and blinked. Blinked again. “That can’t be right.” I shook my head.

According to the counts displayed on the page, nearly 28,000 people had viewed the most recent episode ofSingle Bells. I refreshed the page. “There must be a bug.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said slowly. “You said to share widely, right? Well, a few months ago I met some really interesting women in Chicago. They all work in technology, and I thought they might know someone with a big social media presence.”

Bella bit her lip, eyes glinting, a mischievous Pandora who was a little shocked by what came out of the box. She grabbed the laptop back and navigated to Twitter. “Look.”

I frowned at the Twitter handle. “Who is @RozNGod?” The photo associated with the profile was of a tiny rodent-like dog sitting on a woman’s lap next to a remote control.

Bella’s shoulders began to shake, the way they did when she wasn’t sure if she wanted to laugh or cry. “It appears to be an account of a sassy older woman who watches TV programs with her dog, named God, and live-tweets commentary on them.” She gulped. “She has more than 17,000 followers.”

My eyes widened on @RozNGod’s latest tweet, a post from last night. It was a link toSingle Bellswith one pithy sentence.“This is some funny shit. #DianeRules.”

I grabbed for the keyboard and went back to the web series platform and looked at the polling to see how many people had voted so far on the couple pairings for date three. “Oh my God.”We’d received 21,541 votes so far. As I watched, it went up to 21,542.

The phone next to the register rang. I ignored it and kept staring at the screen.

The phone rang again, and Bella hit the speaker button and cleared her throat. “Falworth Wine and Liquor.”

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