Any Boy but You (North Pole, Minnesota)

by Julie Hammerle

  When Elena looked over, Oliver raised his hand in greeting. Maybe he could wave her over, and they could talk about their parents here, tonight, alone. But she flipped him the bird, turned away, and faded deeper into her family’s store.

  She was not going to make this easy on him, was she?

  Chapter Eight

  “Check one. Sibilance. Sibilance.”

  “Craig, can you keep it down?” Elena was standing inside Chestnut’s, counting the chairs she’d set up around the floor. She had cleared away a big space in the middle, pushing some of the shelves to the side, and had lined up more seating along the perimeter. They were expecting at least forty people, and those were just the ones who’d RSVP-ed. Who knew who might crawl in off the street?

  “I have to make sure the mic is working properly,” Craig retorted. He stood behind a podium next to the refreshments table and started unzipping one of the thermal bags protecting the pizza.

  Elena ran over and swatted his hand away. “That’s for the guests!”

  “I am a guest,” he said. “It’s not like you’re paying me to be here.”

  “I know,” she said. “Just…wait. Have some coffee.” She gestured toward the other end of the table, where Danny Garland had set up two percolators (one regular and one decaf), a carafe of hot cocoa, and a tower of paper cups.

  He scowled as he hiked up his mom jeans. “Coffee and pizza? Unorthodox.”

  “Shut up,” she said. “I don’t know. There’s pop and water, too, in the coolers under the table.”

  The pizza was a last-minute addition. She had planned on just coffee and hot chocolate, maybe some pastries, which Danny’s mom had offered to donate. But then the pizzeria in town, Pie-lent Night, offered to supply food and pop at no cost. Elena just had to advertise their business. On the off-chance that Stashiuk4Prez might show up, she’d used her own tutoring money to buy a few cheese-free pizzas as a test. It was worth a shot.

  At seven o’clock sharp, she threw open the door and a throng of people pushed into Chestnut’s. The entire town was there—Danny, Star, Kevin, and Brian; Mags, Dolores, and Frank; Mayor Sandoval, Dinesh, and Sam. The entire high school soccer team showed up en masse. Maurice, the guy who owned the video store, had shut down for the night. The only people who weren’t there, from what Elena could see, were the Princes. And Harper.

  Her heart sunk for a second at Harper’s absence. Harper had promised she’d be here, she’d vowed to come after Elena had gone to her, begging for any cast-off prizes the Andersons might be able to provide for the Stash Grab Dash. Harper had come through with some NBA tickets and said she’d show up well before the start of the event. Elena longed to text Harper, to find out where she was, but she didn’t have time to wallow in her sadness. The folks who were milling around, waiting in line to report their current Stash Grab scores to Craig, actually started shopping, and she suddenly became very busy.

  Relieved, Elena finally spotted Harper when the Stash Grab Dash was about to start and she had joined Craig up at the DJ booth. But when she saw that her best friend was out in the crowd laughing and whispering with Oliver Prince, all the good vibes fled Elena’s body.

  Whenever he wasn’t muttering in Harper’s ear, Oliver was watching Elena with these infuriating hangdog eyes. Why was he here at all? He’d responded “no” to the invitation. Was he hoping to throw her off her game? To laugh at her little event? Was he somehow going to bogart the night and get people to shop at Prince’s instead? Elena was not about to let that happen. She wouldn’t give him the opportunity. She’d make sure to stay the hell away from Oliver Prince all night. She was too busy for his nonsense, anyway.

  She grabbed Craig’s microphone and held it a few inches from her face, trying to avoid Craig’s cooties. She’d spotted him slobbering all over the mic during setup. “Welcome, everybody, to Chestnut’s first ever Stash Grab Dash.”

  The crowd cheered.

  “Here’s how it works. You all should’ve given Craig your current Stash Grab scores by now. He has officially recorded all the numbers.”

  Craig held up a poster board with everyone’s current scores written on it. He waved his hand in front of the sign with a flourish, like a game show spokesmodel.

  “On my whistle,” Elena said, “you will have one hour to run around town catching Stashes. You must be back here in sixty minutes—exactly—in order to win. If you’re late, you’re out of luck. This is one of those moments in your life where it’s important to be on time, Danny Garland.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “I showed up late for one basketball game, one time!” Danny said.

  “All the basketball games, all the time,” Kevin corrected him with a friendly pat on the shoulder.

  “When you return, Craig and I will tally up the scores. Whoever earns the most Stash points within the hour is the big winner, and we have a fabulous prize for you—two floor seats to a Timberwolves game, courtesy of Sam and Harper’s dad, Mr. Anderson. For the rest of you, when you get back, we’ll have food and music, and you can take your Stash Grab score and divide it by one thousand. We’ll let you take that percentage off one item—any item—in Chestnut’s!”

  The room erupted in applause.

  “On your mark!”

  The people in the room prepared to dash out. Elena said a quick prayer that no one got trampled or gravely injured. She hadn’t considered the possibility that someone might hurt themselves. Oh well. Too late now.

  “Get set!” She paused, her heart thumping, then she blew hard into a whistle she’d pilfered from the referee section of the shop.

  The entire store emptied on her cue. There was quite a bottleneck at the actual door, and flop sweat formed on Elena’s brow, but no one was seriously hurt. Dinesh’s hand may have gotten pinched in the door, but he didn’t seem too concerned about it. He took off running as soon as he hit the sidewalk.

  Alone in the store, Craig stared at Elena, hopping from foot to foot.

  “Do you need me?” he asked, eyes darting to the street.

  “Go, Craig,” she said. “Have fun.”

  Elena watched as he, too, barreled out of the store. She wished she could join the horde—she could’ve used a full hour of Stash Grabbing, because she still really wanted those tickets—but someone had to stay behind and “hold down the fort,” as per her mother’s request. She wasn’t keeping her Stash Grabbing on the down low anymore. She didn’t advertise it, and her parents still didn’t know, but after Danny Garland caught her catching Stashes in Santabucks, trying to hide her gameplay was futile.

  She started to make her way back to the register when a voice from the fishing aisle said, “Impressive event.” Oliver Prince stepped out from the shadows like Nosferatu.

  “What are you doing here?” She folded her arms.

  He ducked his chin sheepishly, but he didn’t come any closer. “Harper,” he said with a slight grin. “She’s trying to get me to be more social.”

  Elena gestured toward the door. “Well, everybody’s out there.”

  “I know, but…I wanted to talk to you about something.”

  She rested her hands on her hips. “Yeah?”

  Now he did step closer. “You should sit down.”

  Though his wide, frightened eyes scared the crap out of her, Elena stood her ground. “I’m fine.” This conversation was giving her a weird sense of déjà vu.

  “Your call.” Oliver shrugged. “I wanted to let you know your dad came into Prince’s the other day.”

  That was news. Her dad hadn’t been inside Prince’s store in…to her knowledge he’d never stepped foot inside Prince’s store.

  “He and my dad were fighting,” said Oliver, nodding toward the street, toward Prince’s, like he was trying to set the scene. “I was in the office, and they didn’t know I was there, so I listened in.” He paused. “Did you know that my dad used to be engaged to your mom?”

  The words kicked the wind out of her, because of the news itself and
also because of the sense of dread she still couldn’t place. Elena shrugged. “Yup,” she lied.

  He frowned. “You knew?”

  “Everyone knows.” She would not share confidences with Oliver Prince, and she would not let him assume he’d known something before she did.

  “Well, I didn’t,” he said. “So you knew that your dad and my dad used to be friends?”

  She braced herself, tightening the muscles in her legs to stay strong and upright. Oliver kept dropping bombshells at her feet, all these little bits of information tying her family to the Princes. “I knew that.”

  From across the room, he searched her face—trying to assess whether or not she was telling the truth. “That’s old news, I suppose, but…um…what’s been happening recently is, apparently, your mom has been calling my dad and your dad’s not happy about it.” He held up his hands in surrender. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”

  “Whoa. What?”

  “Your mom has been calling my dad.”

  Elena shook her head. “Not that. The last part.”

  “Don’t shoot the messenger?”

  “That’s it.” Blinking, she put a hand to her heart, which was beating fast. Her rib cage squeezed the air from her lungs.

  Needing a distraction, Elena stepped over to the refreshments table and busied herself setting up the food. “Don’t shoot the messenger” was what Stashiuk4Prez had said the other day, an odd little conversation they’d had while she was painting her nails, one she’d barely given a second thought to since. Stashiuk4Prez had bad news to tell someone, and now here was Oliver Prince, standing in front of her, telling her that their parents might be hooking up. He was the messenger. And, yes, she wanted to shoot him.

  She squatted and lined up some cans of pop at one end. It couldn’t be. There was no way Oliver Prince and Stashiuk4Prez were the same person. The universe was simply not that cruel.

  A nearby rustle indicated that Oliver had joined her at the table and had started unzipping the thermal bags of pizza. “My dad claims he didn’t call her back,” said Oliver. “But when he left Prince’s and said he was going home, he turned in the opposite direction. I’m not sure where he went—”

  That was enough. Elena jumped up from her crouch. She was not about to listen to another word of this. This was supposed to be her night, and now here he was, ruining everything. “You don’t have to help.” She wrestled a box of pizza away from him. “I don’t need your help.”

  “I know…I’m just…” He backed away from the table. “Aren’t you worried our parents are having an affair?”

  She folded her arms. “Nope.” That was currently the least of her worries. “Maybe your mom and dad are having problems, but mine are not. Everything’s fine. You’re only here to ruin things.”

  He shook his head. “I’m really not. Elena, I thought we could—”

  “There is no ‘we,’ Oliver Prince.” She shuddered, recalling every conversation she’d had with Stashiuk4Prez over the past few weeks. “There is my family and there is your family, and we’ve all done just splendidly for the past several decades, steering clear of each other. Let’s not ruin the streak.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “You’re being ridiculous.”

  “I’m being ridiculous?” She stepped toward him and poked him in the chest. “You’re the one who came here, to my store, on the night of my big event and decided to drop a deuce on it by telling me you think our parents are hooking up. Why? Why now? Why couldn’t you have waited until tomorrow or the next time I tutor you or something? It’s because you’re jealous I’m hosting this contest and you have to sit on the sidelines watching it happen.”

  “Yeah, I’m jealous of you, Elena.” His words oozed with sarcasm and his brown eyes flashed orange from the Christmas lights that still framed Chestnut’s front window. This was the Oliver Prince she knew and loathed. This was the guy she was used to. There was no way this ogre was the same guy she’d poured her heart out to via the Stash Grab app. “Oh, I’m so jealous that you’re running a failing store that could close at any moment. I’m dripping with envy, and not at all smug, that you had to piggyback on the thing I created just to keep your store afloat for another—what?—week or two?”

  “We’re doing just fine.”

  “Sure you are.” He glanced around at the empty store. “The only way you could get anyone in here tonight was by promising them prizes and discounts—because of my game.”

  Elena stepped toward him, straightening her spine to raise herself to his eye level. She was not going to let him bring her down. Not tonight. Tonight was her night. “You’re terrible, Oliver Prince. You are the most arrogant, self-centered—”

  He bent down until they were almost nose to nose. A wave of heat—from anger only, obviously—ran up Elena’s spine. He said, “I have been trying to be nicer to you. I’ve said hello, I’ve been pleasant. You’ve just gotten meaner.”

  “You were mocking me.”

  “I was not.” He ran his fingers through his thick auburn hair, something he did when he was nervous or particularly frustrated. He did this a lot during their tutoring sessions. “I was working against my better instincts to be nicer to you. Harper insisted you were someone worth knowing. She was so, so fucking wrong.”

  Elena pursed her lips. This jackass. What did he know?

  He kept going. “I came here tonight for one reason only—to tell you about our parents, because it felt like the right thing to do. Why tonight?” He held up his hand and ticked off the reasons. His fingers were long but thick, with perfectly clean nails. When it hit her that she was drooling over Oliver Prince’s hands—how pathetic—she focused on his eyes instead, which were swirling brown hurricanes, dead set on destroying her. Well, not if she destroyed him first.

  “I had to do it tonight,” he said, “because when I caught your eye on Wednesday, you gave me the finger. When I tried to talk to you during lunch, you turned away and struck up a conversation with Star. When I attempted to bring it up during our tutoring session yesterday, you pretended to get a very important text. I have been running myself ragged trying to be decent to you, and you have given me nothing.”

  “Well, you—” She wracked her brain, hunting for something she could toss back at him, some grievous sin he’d committed against her in the past few weeks. She could come up with nothing. He was right. He had been nice. He had been greeting her kindly and doing his work before and during their tutoring appointments. He even offered her an apple at lunch the other day when she said she was starving, and she told him to go choke on it. She put her hands on her hips and shot daggers into his eyes. “Well, you,” she repeated, “are a Prince.” His last name tasted bitter in her mouth.

  “And you,” he said, “are kind of a pain in the butt, which, Chestnut or not, I guess is just who you are.”

  Her nostrils flared. She pointed to the door. “Get out.”

  “Gladly.” Then he reached past her. She caught a whiff of cold sweat and cloves under the lingering scent of Harper’s Obsession perfume. Then Elena watched as Oliver grabbed a slice of the cheese-less pizza she’d bought specifically for Stashiuk4Prez, and held it up like a toast before disappearing into the night.

  …

  Oliver ran into Harper just off Main Street on his way back home. On a normal evening, he, the Florida boy, would’ve been jumping up and down to fight against the cold, but tonight his righteous indignation kept him warm. He, Oliver, had done the noble thing. He had attempted to ally forces with Elena Chestnut, and she had rejected him. That was on her. Oliver was completely and totally on the right side of history here.

  “Where are you going?” Harper panted after him.

  “Home.” He gnawed a bit of the cheese-less pizza he’d stolen from Elena’s store. “Or something. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll run a marathon or dance in the moonlight. A weight has been lifted from my shoulders.”

  “That’s…good? And bizarre.” Harper paused to grab a Stash in front
of the town hall and then ran to catch up.

  “It is good.” He puffed some air from his nose, and it swirled around him like smoke. “I tried talking to Elena tonight, and she…” He shook his head. “I was always so sure I was the one who had problems relating to other people, but now I know. It’s not me. It’s her. She’s the one who sucks.” He popped the last bit of crust into his mouth.

  “She doesn’t, though,” whined Harper.

  “Oh, you say that, but you’re wrong.”

  “It’d make my life so much easier if you two would just get along!”

  Swallowing his mouthful of pizza, he nodded in the direction of Chestnut’s Sporting Goods. “Tell that to her.”

  “You just have to—”

  “I don’t ‘have to’ anything.” Oliver held his hands wide, welcoming peace and tranquility into his universe. “I did my part. I tried to be the nice guy, to do the right thing, and she told me to go screw myself. I absolve myself of any feelings of social inadequacy. I’m not the problem. It’s Elena Chestnut.”

  “Oliver!” Harper shouted after him, but he took off skipping, excited by his revelation. Oliver was perfectly capable of making friends. He’d made friends with Harper, after all. The only person he couldn’t befriend was Elena Chestnut, and that was totally, 100 percent fine.

  His phone buzzed, and he pulled off a mitten with his teeth to check it. There was a message from proud_hoser, and the sight of her name lit him up from the inside.

  He read the text. She asked, “Are you having a good night?”

  Grinning, he wrote, “Fanfreakingtastic.” Then he spun around, wondering if she was part of the crowd running up and down Main Street—catching Stashes outside the barbershop or in the park. Was she alone? With friends? Had she stayed home? His stomach knotted. What if he met her tonight? It would be the optimal time. He was invincible right now.

  “Why so fantastic?” she asked.

  “Oh, I took your advice and told my mortal enemy the news I’d uncovered. She bit my head off, as I figured she might; but I’m feeling great, because I did the right thing.” He waved at Bobbi Moore, owner of the flower shop in town, Holly and Ivy. She was marching over, dog leash in hand.