Page 29 of Grinch Girl

“Bella, is that you? It’s Carol.” Her voice was strangely breathless, like she was jogging.

“Both Jane and I are here,” Bella said. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing!” Carol screeched, making us both jump. “Nothing is wrong! Everything is right!”

“For God’s sake, settle down,” I snapped. “What’s going on?”

Over the phone line came a doorbell ding. Bella stood from the stool and pointed across the square where Carol had just emerged from the diner, phone to her ear.

“Girls, Airbnbs and motel rooms in Falworth are now more than half-booked for the rest of December. I’ve got a diner full of unfamiliar faces. There are dozens of people wandering the Christmas Village right now, and it doesn’t even open for another hour.” Across the square, she began waving at us and grinning like a loon. “It’s working, girls! You two are the magic! It’s working.”

Bella and I exchanged amused glances—before I remembered that I hated her and looked away. On the phone, Carol’s voice went from joy to all business. “We need to redo our supply estimates for everything. We should also extend hours of the Village. I’m going to keep the diner open two hours later on the weekends. You may want to extend the wine shop’s hours as well. Jane, update the website. Bella, call Jim—”

And, she was off. I zoned out and kept my eyes on the laptop screen, watching the numbers continue to rise.

Chapter Ten

Watching the numberson the web series dashboard became a bit of a hobby for me over the next few days. Not that I had time for a hobby. I still had shifts at the resort restaurant, Geek Squad appointments to service, and the wine shop to run. Not to mention any errand for Christmas Village maintenance that Carol could think of.

But the pride I felt when I saw the chock-full Christmas Village on December 9 was hard to quell. It was bursting with curious tourists who actually looked like they were having a good time.

It was a little odd to overhear certain snatches of conversation though. From two women in their twenties sipping spiked cocoa:

“Where do you think Bella and Michael are?”

“Probably making out somewhere off-camera. There’s no way they’re not getting together outside of the series dates, no matter what they say when they’re being recorded.”

I might have thought the same, except I knew their schedules were as crammed as mine. I’d seen Bella’s car next to Nate’s in the mornings, so they were working. In the afternoons, Carol had Bella doing Christmas Village work. Grudgingly, I’d allowed Bella to man the register in the wine shop in the evenings so I could honor my restaurant shifts. So, no off-camera dates for the high school sweethearts, but speculation couldn’t hurt the show.

From an adult mother-daughter combo in line for baked pretzels:

“You should look for that bearded quiet man. He seems like a catch.”

“Brian? He is kinda hot. But I like Nate. God, that accent…”

Tripp was so excited by his current fifteen minutes of fame that he took to strolling through the Christmas Village and various Falworth businesses off and on all afternoon. Normally, I’d roll my eyes, but the tourists who recognized him would often take pictures and post them online. So, it was good for business.

As for me, I tucked my long, dark hair under my hat and just kept moving. I was so busy that half of me couldn’t wait for the damn holiday season to be over. But the other half thought about the never-ending, frigid January approaching—everything would go back to normal then. Everything would be so quiet.

So it was good that Bella’d been able to help the past couple of evenings, but she needed to realize it was only temporary. That the wine shop was not going to be half hers in the future. Was I supposed to take orders from her about it once she’d left town? That didn’t make any sense, and it wasn’t fair.

For once, I didn’t have to work at the restaurant tonight. I’d head over to shop and take back control. In my kitchen, Sean was rooting around for some potato chips. “I’m going out for a bit,” I told him and then paused. “How are the pairings shaping up for tomorrow’s date?”

“Votes are still coming in, but it’s pretty clear to see which pairings are set in stone and which ones are in flux,” he said, grabbing a carton of French onion dip out of the fridge to go with his chips.

I slid on my coat. “Who is set in stone?”

He stuffed some chips in his mouth and opened his laptop. “Bella and Michael,” he said, crunching away.

“Of course.” I groaned. “That’s three in a row for those two.”

He looked up at me and grinned. “This one is new: Jim and Nicole.”

“Oh!” I bit my lip. So, viewers were voting for the separated married couple to go on a date. Apparently, they’d been enjoying Jim’s territorial and wistful behavior. I hoped Jim and Nicole would be OK with this. I was actually kind of excited to see what each of them had said directly to the camera. Which made me want to smack myself. I wasn’t supposed to be getting invested in anything but sales numbers at the shop.

Grabbing my car keys, I headed for the front door. “See you.”

“There’s one more couple that has so many votes right now that they’ll definitely be a pairing tomorrow,” he called.

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