Holidays by yourself were the worst, Kara knew from personal experience, and it broke her heart to see him like this. He had done a bad job of shaving himself this morning, and patches of gray stubble roughened his face. On impulse, she sat down at the table across from him, a cup of Earl Gray tea sending up fragrant steam. “How busy are you this morning,” she asked, already knowing the answer.
Bernie looked at her in surprise. “It’s a slow day for me, why?”
“I wondered if you could do me a favor.”
Bernie looked vaguely interested. “What do you need?”
“Ms. Woo wants to decorate the place for the holidays, and I’ve got class this afternoon. Would you have time to put up a little tinsel and some lights?”
She didn’t actually expect him to say yes, but he must have been bored, so he said “Yes.”
Not giving him time to change his mind, Kara led him to a closet behind the counter where boxes filled with random decorative objects and strings and strings of red lights.
“No green and blue?”
“Red is a lucky color in Chinese culture,” Kara said.
“Yes,” Bernie said. “I know.”
They were hauling out the last of the dusty cardboard boxes when Ms. Woo came upstairs with a bakery rack full of Five-Spice sugar cookies cut into stars. She stopped when she saw Bernie digging through the boxes.
“Morning Jennie,” he said.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m putting up some Christmas decorations for you.”
She looked from him to me. “Did Kara put you up to this?”
He laughed. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“Bah humbug,” she said, pointing to the bakery rack. “Please put out the cookies and bring the rack back downstairs.”
With a last look at Bernie, she disappeared into the elevator that led to the basement kitchen.
“Want a cookie?” Kara asked Bernie.
“I never say no to a cookie,” he said.
Kara put three of the still-warm cookies on a plate, inhaling the butter, sugar, and star anise. She was tempted to take one for herself, but she’d learned the hard way not to start eating sweets too early in the morning.
The soft comforting sweetness.
She’d been relying on the treats like a drug, burying her anxiety about school and money. She knew she had to stop. Some of her waistbands were getting uncomfortably snug.
That’s what New Year’s resolutions are for, she thought.
At 1:45, Kara looked up and realized she needed to hustle, or she was going to be late to class.
“See you later,” she said to Ms. Woo, grabbing up her tote and heading out.
On her way out, she noticed a tip had been left on a table near the door. Moving the cup she uncovered a nickel.
Her first reaction was annoyance. It wasn’t like this was the 1950s when a nickel could buy you a 12-ounce can of Mott’s apple juice. What exactly was she supposed to do with a nickel? Kara sighed and pocketed the tip. Usually people were more generous around the holidays, but the bakery’s customers were probably feeling the financial pinch too, especially people with families. But still, it didn’t keep a prickle of hot tears from forming. She blinked them away, ashamed. She had a roof over her head and enough to eat and while life was hard, it wasn’t unbearable.
She was passing the wishing well in the center of town when the nickel in her pocket suddenly felt warm. Although she passed the well every day of her life, Kara had not thrown any money in or made a wish since she was a little girl.
Her mother, whose name had been Hope, had not been a person who believed in hope. She would chide Kara for “throwing money away” when she did cast a penny and when none of Kara’s wishes came true, she sort of blamed her mom for putting a hex on them.
On impulse, she pulled the nickel out of her pocket, looked at it. It had been minted the year she was born. She took that as a sign.
I just need a little help, she said to herself, and it wasn’t really a wish, more like a prayer to the universe. And then she dropped the coin into the well. She heard a faint tink as it hit the frozen water at the bottom.
It was a little anticlimactic. She laughed at herself.
And of course, by stopping at the well, she had missed her bus by seconds and as she slipped again. She wanted to cry. She still had fifteen minutes. If she pushed it, she’d be able to get there.
Kara’s phone rang just as she was entering the Economics building. She rejected the call without looking and turned it off. Professor Sorenson was not a fan of cell phones at the best of times, he would get positively outraged if a phone rang in the middle of a test.
She tried to calm down. Her leg throbbed under her jeans and she found herself fighting to stay away. Just a little while longer, she coaxed herself. Once this test was over, she’d have two blissful weeks without doing double-duty at school and at work. Even though she’d still have to be up early to get to the bakery, she’d be able to take it easy in the afternoon and nights. And since the bakery would be closed at noon on Christmas Eve and wouldn’t open again until the morning of the 26th, she’d be able to catch up on her sleep.
That sounded like the best Christmas present ever.
Smiling a little at the prospect, Kara turned her attention to the test. She was the first to finish. As she took the booklet up to Professor Sorenson’s desk, he smiled.
“Merry Christmas Kara. See you next year.”
His words shot an arrow through her heart. No, you won’t, she thought, but what she said was, “I look forward to it.”
Outside the classroom, she turned her phone back on and saw that she had a message. From the Bursar’s office. With a sinking heart, she pressed “play.”
It was a final reminder that she needed to pay her tuition for the following semester, or she wouldn’t be able to register for winter classes. At the end, the caller left a call-back number and offered “happy holiday” greetings. Kara hit “call back” before she could talk herself out of it, but the office was closed and when the voice mail picked up, she ended the call.
She looked around the empty hallway and realized there was only one person still left. Rob Winters, who was on a phone call of his own.
She wondered if she could hitch a ride with him back to the bakery. Her right leg was starting to stiffen up and she was dreading the walk ahead.
Gathering up her courage, she walked toward him, careful to stay out of earshot of his conversation.
She could tell from his body language that he was angry with whoever he was talking to. She was debating walking away when he turned around and saw her there. Kara felt herself blush from her toes to her scalp. She barely knew Rob though they’d been in a lot of the same classes over the years. His little sister Avery came into the bakery all of the time, usually along with a clique of mean girls who ignored her until she reached for the bill for their coffees and sweets. Avery always got stuck with the bill, which annoyed Kara. She knew from listening to conversations she’d had with Bernie Park and Ms. Woo that she was a smart kid with big dreams. She was probably counting the days until she could leave Hopeful behind.
“Can I help you?” he drawled, his husky voice barely hiding his irritation.
“I was just wondering if you were going downtown?” To her annoyance, Kara heard the uncertain tone in her voice.
“I need to go to the bakery and …”
He looked at her for a moment. “Sure,” he said. “I’m going past Good Wishes.”
It wasn’t far to the student parking lot but even so, by the time they got to his car, a tricked-out Silver Denali with heavy snow tires, Kara was chilled to the bone. The sun had gone behind the clouds and it looked like it was going to start snowing any minute. Rob chirped his key fob and Kara
His phone buzzed. He glanced at Kara. “Can you dismiss that call?”
She picked up his phone, which was sleek and high-tech looking and fumbled with it until
she managed to make the call go away.
Dad, the caller display had read.
“It was your father,” she said.
Rob grimaced. “I’ll call him back.
To her surprise when they got to the bakery, instead of just stopping the car to let her out, Rob parked it and followed her into the store.
“Wow,” he said as the full effect of Bernie’s decorating hit him. Red lights were strung everywhere, along with gay pride flags, garlands of silver tinsel, swaths of what looked like lace. There was a makeshift manger scene cobbled together out of various Barbie dolls and stuffed animals with a glittery wire Angel standing guard over it all.
Ms. Woo was behind the counter, looking baleful.
“You unleashed a monster,” she said reproachfully. Then she took a look at Rob and raised her eyebrows at Kara. “Coffee?” she asked Rob.
“Please,” he said. “And …”
He leaned back to study the offerings in the display case.
“Have some Mexican chocolate cookies,” Ms. Woo suggested, pointing to the soft, sugar-sprinkled cookies in the front of the display case. “I made too many of them, so they’re on the house.”
“Thank you,” Rob said as Kara went behind the counter to pour him some coffee.
“Sugar? Cream?”
“Just black,” he said.
Kara handed him his cup and he carried it back to one of the small tables. He seemed surprised that she didn’t join him there.
“I’d like to ask you a favor,” he said, dipping part of his cookie into his coffee like he was a little kid.
“Okay,” Kara said.
“You’re not seeing anyone right now, right?”
Kara didn’t know whether to be offended or bemused that he knew that.
“I’m single, yes.”
“Would you come to a party with me?”
All kinds of complicated feelings rose up in her. On the one hand, she’d always been attracted to him. On the other, this seemed awfully abrupt.
“Did your date flake on you at the last minute?”
Now it was Rob’s turn to look bemused. “Not exactly.” He raked his hand through his thick dark hair. “It’s complicated.”
Which is code for something I really don’t want to get involved in, Kara thought.
“Thanks,” she said, “but I’m not really a party kind of girl.”
Before Rob could answer, Kara got up to attend to some customers who’d just walked in. When she’d delivered their muffins and coffee, she busied herself behind the counter, rearranging the sandwiches. It didn’t look like many had been sold, which was good news for the soup kitchen. Leon Garamendi came by the bakery every day at six to pick up what hadn’t sold and today would be a bonanza for his ministry, “Food is love.”
She tried to ignore Rob’s attention as he sat at the table, staring at her, but finally he got u and came to the counter when it became obvious she wasn’t going to sit back down with him.
“Look,” he said, “you’d really be helping me out.”
He looked around then and leaned toward her, lowering his voice. “And I’d pay you.”
What?
“I am not a prostitute,” Kara said icily. “If you need a date, I suggest you call an escort service.”
She turned away but he put his hand on hers. It felt warm. It felt familiar. It felt…good.
“I’m not looking for sex. I just need someone to pretend to be my fiancée for a couple of hours on Wednesday night, and then make three more appearances during the holiday.”
“Three more?”
Rob nodded. “The Christmas party on Wednesday, my parents’ tree-trimming party, on Friday, Christmas dinner on Saturday, and then Boxing Day.”
“Boxing Day? You wait to open your presents?”
“My mother was English,” Rob said.
Was, Kara thought. So they had something in common, membership in the dead mom club.
“Why do you need a fake fiancée?” Kara asked.
“It’s complicated,” he said again.
No doubt.
Kara shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said.
“Please,” he said. “I’d pay you five hundred dollars for each event.”
Five hundred times four? Kara’s mind reeled. Two thousand dollars would pay for the next semester. It would solve her immediate problem, give her the breathing space she needed to finish her degree.
But if she took the money, she knew she’d feel dirty, even if they didn’t have sex, even if no one ever knew.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and reached for the biodegradable sandwich sacks she used to pack food for Leon.
She expected Rob to leave, but instead he stood in front of the counter, apparently determined to wait her out. She glanced at him and he took that as a sign of encouragement. “I’m doing it for my father,” he said. “He’s been worried about me.”
“That doesn’t sound like the whole story,” Kara said.
He sighed. “It really is complicated, but I promise I’m not up to no good.”
Kara thought about that for a minute.
“Why me?” she finally asked because she really was curious. “We’ve been in classes together for three years and I don’t think we’ve ever had an actual conversation.”
“We have,” he said. “When we were freshmen I tried to ask you out and you blew me off.”
Kara instantly remembered what he was talking about. She hadn’t been trying to blow him off when she turned him down, she’d just not wanted to explain that not only did she have to work, she was taking care of her mother, who’d recently gotten out of the hospital and needed a lot of help for simple things like bathing and eating.
“I wasn’t blowing you off,” she said. “My mother was sick and needed me at home.”
She hadn’t put any extra emphasis on “sick”, but Rob had gotten the message. “I’m sorry,” he said. “If I’d known that, I would have asked again.”
Kara blushed. “But why now?”
“Because you’re not at all the kind of girl I usually bring home and that will please my father.”
“But if you’re passing me off as your fiancée, what will he think when you break up with me?”
“He won’t be particularly surprised. I have a pattern of breaking up with girls after the holidays.”
“Women,” Kara corrected him.
“See, right there is one of the ways you’re different. Most of the girls…women…I date are fine with being called “girls” even though they’re in their twenties.”
“I cut my pigtails off early,” Kara said. “Why do you need a fiancée anyway?”
“Because my fathers got a woman picked out for me.”
“A rich woman?”
“Good family, old money,” he said. “I think her great-grandfather made a ton of money in mining.”
“And the money’s still in the family?” Kara asked, thinking of the Vanderbilt fortune and how it had been frittered away over the generations.
“That’s the impression they give.”
“So what’s the problem?”
Rob gave her a look. “I didn’t realize you were so cynical.”
Kara shrugged. “I’m not really cynical,” she said. “I know a lot of marriages are more like business mergers than affairs of the heart.”
She couldn’t help but think of Ms. Woo when she said that. Now in her late middle age, Jennie Woo was still beautiful, with a virtually unlined face and thick dark hair she wore piled on top of her head. A descendent of Chinese workers who had come to Colorado in the 19th century, in her twenties, she’d been engaged to an idealistic young lawyer she’d met while working in Denver. His family had opposed their marriage—he’d been white—and he’d eventually bowed to family pressure. Broken-hearted, she’d returned to her hometown of Hopeful and started the bakery. Over the years there had been men who’d courted her, but she’d spurned all their affections.
“I don
’t want to marry Danielle,” he said. “For one thing, she isn’t a nice person.”
Kara wondered how he defined “nice.”
“My family will love you,” he said. “They’ll think I’ve chosen well, and they’ll stop trying to push me to marry Danielle.”
Kara could tell Rob thought his explanation was perfectly reasonable and plausible.
“Do you know how much this sounds like a bad rom com?” Kara asked.
“Does that mean you’re thinking about it?”
“I know,” he said.
Kara shook her head, but she couldn’t stop thinking about his proposal and the money he was offering.
“So, I just pretend to be your fiancée, but you don’t expect me to sleep with you.”
“No,” he said. “Unless you want to.”
He gave her a rakish grin.
Dimples, Kara thought. Of course he has dimples. She hesitated. He has the money, she argued with herself. If it’s all perfectly innocent, where’s the harm?
“What about a ring?”’ she said. “Won’t they expect me to be wearing a ring?”
“I’ve thought of that,” he said. “You told me you didn’t want an engagement ring, that it was a needless expense, so we’re just going with wedding bands.”
“That’s actually what I would say,” Kara said, somewhat surprised.
He shrugged. “I feel the same way. My father gave my stepmother a rock the size of a walnut and she hardly ever wears it.”
“Okay,” she said.
Rob looked very relieved. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll see you Wednesday night around seven.”
“Do you need my address?” she asked.
“Oh yeah,” he said, and handed her his phone so she could type in her details.
He pocked the phone and picked up the last cookie on his plate. “Later.”
“Later,” Kara replied.
“Was that Rob Winters who was in here earlier?” Ms. Woo asked as she sat down at one of the tables and lit her post-closing cigarette, the only one she allowed herself to smoke all day.
Country Wishes Page 48
