‘What stress?’
‘The stress of my intervention.’
‘Oh, give me a break. Ridge would like to eat a candy cane every once and a while too, you know?’ Clara frowned. ‘Not to mention Miles is worried about you.’
Christian froze. ‘You’ve been talking to Miles?’
‘He’s a guest at the inn, Thornton. I always talk to the guests.’
‘Yeah, but this is Miles Pine, James. Who knows what cooties he has.’
‘Cooties?’
Christian exhaled deeply. ‘Don’t tell me Miles is at my intervention.’
‘See for yourself.’
Clara dragged Christian into the sitting room, where Miles, Ridge, and Holly had gathered. Christian looked foggily between Miles and Ridge before saying hello to Holly.
‘Surprise,’ she squealed. ‘Isn’t this fun.’
‘Incredibly,’ Christian muttered.
‘Look, man, we’re only here because we care,’ Miles said as he offered Christian his hand. He didn’t let on whether he knew about the fake engagement or whether he planned to tell Clara about Christian’s plans to knock down the inn.
‘I appreciate that,’ Christian said, and then grit his teeth.
Ridge tapped a cheese knife against his champagne flute to catch the room’s attention. ‘G’day, guys. We’re gathered here today to help our dear friend Christian, who has gone mad on candy canes. A single cane contains ten grams of sugar. The American Heart Association recommends men consume no more than thirty-six grams of added sugar per day, so Christian’s habit of eating a couple dozen candy canes in one sitting is very bad.’
Clara nodded solemnly and clutched Christian’s arm as though he were dying.
‘But it’s not just the added sugar Clara, Miles, and I are worried about,’ Ridge continued. ‘Candy canes also contain high fructose corn syrup, and if you don’t know why high fructose corn syrup is bad for you, I’ve actually composed a little song I’d like to share with you all now.’
Ridge sang beautifully. Everyone applauded but Christian, because they were stupid and he was not. Ridge picked up his eggnog but did not drink until Clara found her own eggnog, which was Christian’s, and toasted to his brilliance. Ridge followed up his corn syrup song with ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You,’ and it was unsettling to Christian that Clara thought her boyfriend worthy of covering Mariah Carey in public.
Christian did not believe anyone should cover Mariah Carey in public—including Mariah Carey.
‘Do I need to be here for this?’ Christian asked.
He wondered if Ridge was doing this because he felt jealous. Clara and Christian did seem like a couple, really, ordering for each other, sharing a pie, and who could blame Ridge for getting a little jealous, for wanting to stage an intervention in order to publicly shame his romantic rival, the man with a candy cane addiction? And aside from that, Ridge hated corn syrup. Rallying against corn syrup and Christian Thornton III probably seemed like a great night, which explained why Ridge brought a six pack of beer, apart from the fact this was Ridge, of course.
Besides, Christian wasn’t really addicted to candy canes. So maybe he'd like to eat candy canes for breakfast and lunch and sometimes for dinner. ‘Can I go?’
Clara frowned. 'What did you eat for dinner?’
‘Pine nuts.’
‘That's all?’
‘No.’
'Sure,' Christian said, but what he meant was that if Ridge didn't get out of his face, he'd make Ridge get out of his face.
‘Pardon me?’
Christian and Ridge turned to see a postman standing in the doorway, looking nervous. He reminded Christian of the dwarves from Snow White, the one fairy tale he liked, the one fairy tale his mother read to him as a child. Christian calmed down then, and he offered the postman his hand.
‘Is Clara James around?’ the postman asked Christian after they’d shaken hands.
‘I’m here.’ Clara took a step forward, and then she took three more steps forward, because she’d spotted the letters in the postman’s hand.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said weakly, his face bright red.
‘But I posted these a week ago.’
‘Who were you writing letters to?’ Ridge asked.
‘Santa. I wrote at least fifty letters to a bunch of different Santa on Merry Living Magazine’s Top One Hundred Santa list.’
‘One of Yuletide’s elves turned up at the post office and threatened me. I’m sorry, Clara. I really am. I’m not supposed to be here, but I didn’t want you sitting around thinking you were going to get a reply.’
‘I wasn’t after a reply. I was after an appearance.’
‘I’m sorry,’ the postman said again.
Clara closed her eyes. When she opened them again, the postman had disappeared. Ridge’s phone buzzed. He read the message, sent off a reply, and then turned to Clara and said, ‘I know this is a bad time, babe, but—‘
‘Just go,’ she said. Christian felt a surge of joy when Clara turned her head away from Ridge’s goodbye kiss. Ridge didn’t seem to notice. He left without another word.
Christian frowned. ‘Clara. Isn’t this some kind of federal offense, messing with the mail?’ he said. ‘Do you want me to call my lawyer in New York?’’
He waited for Clara’s face to show some sign of life—anger, frustration, fear, anything. But her expression remained blank. Christian pinched one of her sleeves and gently steered her to an armchair. They sat together for ten minutes, not talking, not doing anything other than listening to each other breathe.
‘Hey, Clara, what are you thinking about?’ Christian said finally.
But Clara was quiet. She tugged at the ribbon holding together the letters. It was red, festive, flecked with gold. Christian wondered if Yuletide’s elves held the postman’s family hostage too, just like they held Henri’s.
‘Can I get you anything?’ he said.
‘I’m thinking of going to the mattresses,’ Clara replied, which meant she wanted to go to war with Yuletide.
‘I’ve been meaning to ask, James—when did your obsession with The Godfather begin?’ Going to the mattresses was a reference from the film, one Christian used himself every now and then.
But Clara shook her head.
‘Never seen it, but I have seen You've Got Mail, which references The Godfather like a million times. You’ve Got Mail is a classic.’
Christian snorted. ‘And The Godfather isn’t?’
‘It's no You've Got Mail.’
‘You’ve not seen it,’ he replied.
‘I just told you it was a classic.’
‘No, you’ve never seen The Godfather,’ Christian said. ‘And you have the nerve to call yourself a consigliere.’
Clara folded her hands and rested them on the letters. ‘I promised the people of Mistletoe a Top Fifty Santa. Now Mistletoe is not going to have any Santa.’
‘I know. We’ll have to think of something else.’
Clara was silent as she waited for Christian to elaborate on this, this something else which would save her the embarrassment of telling the town no Santa would be coming to Mistletoe this Christmas Eve. When Christian couldn’t think of anything to say, Clara exhaled deeply and shook her head.
‘Your candy cane intervention will have to wait,’ she said.
‘Will Ridge mind? He seemed pretty keen on my intervention.’
‘It was his idea.’
Of course it was. Christian stared straight ahead. He didn’t want to trash talk Ridge, was the thing. It was important for him to keep in mind that Clara loved Ridge. Here was a smart, brilliant woman who could pick the good ones from the bad ones, and that meant Ridge was maybe one of the good ones. And besides, what could Christian say about a man who planned his, Christian’s, candy cane intervention without sounding like a complete jerk?
‘That’s nice of Ridge not to want me eating so many candy canes,’ he said flatly.
‘I think Ridge just h
ates high fructose corn syrup.’
Clara stood suddenly. She moved across the room and tossed the letters into the roaring fire. Christian rose and took Clara by the hand and led her back to the armchair, where they sat together without a word. Christian smoothed the hair out of Clara’s eyes, and held her when she pushed her face into the curve of his neck and began to cry.
Christian wondered if this was cheating, even though he knew the answer was yes, of course. But he didn’t wonder this out loud, because he didn’t want Clara to move. He didn’t want her to cry, either, but if she was going to cry, he was glad she felt comfortable enough to do so on his shoulder.
For the record, Clara’s letters totally would have worked, according to Clara. Of course, they would have worked. Clara wrote them, didn’t she? Had anyone approached the most wonderful time of year the way Clara James did every day, in her role as a Christmas consigliere? So the letters were solid. If Mistletoe’s postal service had been just as solid, they’d probably have a Top Hundred Santa—they’d probably have too many. But nothing Clara could do about that now.
Some time later, Ridge returned, a little drunk, and scooped a sleeping Clara into his arms. He took her to her room. He didn’t stay with her for long, and Christian made sure to avoid the hallway when Ridge left, just because he didn’t want to get into a fight with the man, while everyone in Milleridge wound down for the evening.
Later that night, Christian found himself sitting at his grandfather’s old writing desk in the library, penning a letter.
He would send the letter the following day.
Fifteen
On Thursday morning, Christian took a sleigh to Dasher Street, in Yuletide, and spent the morning catching up on emails in a contemplative mood, in a small cafe, near Santa’s Gingerbread Village.
He knew returning to Yuletide was a bad idea, but he didn’t trust Mistletoe. He didn’t trust that he could plan his demolition of Milleridge Inn and the construction of a luxury hotel in Mistletoe, that no one would peek at his blueprints.
He ordered a hot apple cider and also a bowl of broccoli cheddar soup and a baguette. He liked the baguette more than he liked the soup, but when he tried to delight in a hunk of bread spread with butter, the bread didn’t taste anywhere near as good alone. He realized the beautiful bread needed the soup in order to be beautiful.
He thought Clara would like the cafe, the soup and the bread and the cider, but he knew better than to invite her. He knew better than to tell her that he had come here this morning, and not just because of what he was working on, but because of where he was working on it.
Clara James had no love for Yuletide.
After finishing his work, he spent an hour or two on the Internet, reading. He pored over Allure's ‘How To Smell Like A French Girl,’ and then he ordered a bottle of La Vie Est Belle by Lancôme, despite neither wanting to smell like a French girl nor the perfume finding a place on the list. He’d give it to Magdalena, perhaps for Christmas.
He remembered shopping in Yuletide with Clara on her seventeenth birthday. They’d stepped into an antique store, where Clara had found herself a bracelet, which was in fact an anklet. Christian decided not to tell Clara, but the sales assistant couldn’t help herself. Perhaps she needed to say something not for Clara but for herself. ‘That can’t be worn as a bracelet,’ she had whispered, not harshly, not in a way that made it seem as though she were judging Clara. Except, of course, she was. And suddenly, Christian had understood why Clara loved Mistletoe. Clara James was Clara James in Mistletoe, daughter of Caroline, and everywhere else she was just a dumb kid who didn’t know an anklet was not a bracelet.
After leaving the cafe, Christian spent eighty dollars on Balenciaga socks that looked exactly the same as three dollar not-Balenciaga socks, and then he felt a little better. But still, he had spent the morning in Yuletide planning the destruction of Milleridge, which meant he’d spent the morning in Yuletide planning his betrayal of Clara.
Back in Mistletoe that afternoon, Christian went to Milleridge and plugged in his laptop. He’d bought tinsel and baubles and lights and a ballerina along with the socks, but since he’d bought the tinsel and baubles and lights and the ballerina in Yuletide, he’d have to use them on his tree, in his room. It was as if Clara could smell Yuletide tinsel a mile away. And yet, he took the ballerina downstairs for Grace—it was too nice to stay in his room.
Clara was doing the rounds. She skipped into the sitting room—glowing, calling out hello—wearing an ugly Christmas sweater and carrying stockings to hang on the fireplace. She’d even brought one for Christian, because she didn’t know yet that he didn’t deserve one. Milleridge was a business to her, yes, but it was also a home. The only home Clara—and Christian, really—had ever known.
When Clara saw the ballerina, she threw herself into an armchair with an exhausted sigh. Time had never occurred to her, she announced to Christian, except when she turned twenty-five and then she turned twenty-six and then and then and then. The birthdays, they kept coming.
The infinite number of choices that had drowned her childhood and then her early adulthood with kinetic possibility vanished with the blowing out of twenty-nine candles on a red velvet cake. Yes, she could take ballet class, but she could never be a ballerina. Not in the way Misty Copeland, her favorite, was a ballerina. She could enroll in theater classes; she could catch a baseball in the yard; yet she would never achieve dreamy heights in acting or sport. She was thirty-three now, and it used to be that she had options. It used to be that she had something called promise.
‘You’ve still got promise,’ Christian said.
It turned out that Clara didn’t want to hear anything positive. ‘Ugh,’ she said, ‘why did you pick this very moment to be cheerful?’
‘I’m a cheerful guy.’
‘Only when orphans are being shoved out into the cold and Dalmatian puppies are being turned into coats. Hey, where is your friend Miles?’
‘Coworker. He left Mistletoe this morning, actually.’
‘Aw. That’s a shame.’
‘Yes,’ Christian replied. ‘I am bereft.’
‘We can never go to prison,’ Holly said, throwing herself into the armchair next to Clara.
‘What, why?’ Christian cried.
Holly waved a newspaper. ‘They only get instant coffee.’
‘Wait, they get coffee in prison?’
‘Only instant.’
‘So, no,’ Christian said.
Holly studied both Christian and Clara. Then said, ‘Why are you both looking so glum?’
Christian leaned back and began to open a candy cane. ‘No one is turning Dalmatian puppies into coats.’
‘Yes,’ Holly replied, ‘I can see how that would dampen your mood, Christian. Clara, are you okay?’
‘Thornton bought a ballerina ornament,’ she said, opening her own candy cane.
Holly raised an eyebrow. ’Wow—the nerve.’
‘It’s for Grace,’ Christian said defensively.
‘You know how Clara gets about ballerinas.’
‘I don’t, actually.’
Holly’s mouth dropped open. ‘The infinite number of choices that had drowned Clara’s childhood and then her early adulthood with kinetic possibility vanished with the blowing out of twenty-nine candles on a red velvet cake. Yes, Clara can take ballet class, but she can never be a ballerina. Not in the way Misty Copeland, only our favorite, is a ballerina.’
‘You both exhaust me,’ Christian said.
‘You want to talk about exhausting, Christian? The Relic cornered me this morning with a voucher for French lingerie. She believes my marriage is suffering because of my underwear.’
But what if Holly had always enjoyed utilitarian underwear? What if she never passed through bright and lace, but instead went to cotton and white? Holly addressed these questions to Christian, who did not want to hear about his sister’s marriage. At least, not that part of her marriage. But Holly, who was open and eage
r, in the way dating books she’d pored over in the ‘90’s told her not to be open and eager, didn't care.
Holly said, ‘What do you think, Christian?’
‘I think you should leave me alone.’
‘You sound just like my husband.’
‘Holly,’ Christian replied, ‘please stop talking about your underwear. I’ll buy you a slice of cake.’
‘Excellent. My nefarious plan worked.’ Holly turned and looked at her children, who were playing beneath the window. ‘Hey, Gs, Uncle Christian is buying us all cake.’
The Gs cheered.
‘Coming, Clara?’ Christian asked.
‘Oh, why not.’
Christian and Clara walked ahead of the others to Twinkle Trinkets, there to buy toys for the Gs—Grace, Grayson, George, and Gus. They avoided alphabet books, for fear Holly would discover there were twenty-five other letters in the alphabet and therefore regret her alliterative naming decisions. On tables peppered with glitter sat toys Ridge had crafted in his workshop—wooden toys and wooden figurines. Christian picked up an old man.
‘Ridge models them on people he knows,’ Clara said.
‘Then this must be one ugly old man,’ Christian replied. He began to snort with laughter.
‘That’s me,’ Clara said.
For a minute, Christian thought Clara was joking—classic Clara!—but then a crease formed between her eyebrows. Christian found himself gulping.
‘I sat for ten hours in Ridge’s workshop while he whittled that figurine in my likeness,’ she continued.
‘But this figurine has a hunchback?’
‘Everyone—everyone but you, Thornton—thinks that figurine is a perfect likeness of me.’
She had to be teasing him. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Clara.’
‘I’m not being ridiculous, thanks.’
‘This is a creepy one hundred and fifty year old man.’
‘That’s me.’
Christian held up Ridge’s figurine as his sister entered the store. ‘Holly, have you seen this?’
‘Yeah,’ Holly replied, ‘it’s Clara.’
Christian returned the figure to the table. ‘It’s not an exact likeness,’ he said defensively.
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