Approximately Yours (North Pole, Minnesota)

by Hammerle, Julie

  “Oh.” Holly searched for the right words. She hated to see Elda sad, but Teddy wasn’t worth the tears. It might take Elda a while to come to that realization herself, but she’d get there eventually. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

  “He called me this morning and officially broke it off. He wants to go out with Kara. Kara!” Elda wiped her eyes. “Why am I so bad at this? My relationships never last longer than a minute.”

  At least Elda had gotten the chance to be in a bad relationship. Holly, who liked to think that she understood how the whole game worked, never even got that far. “I don’t know, Elda. Maybe you’re just going after the wrong guys.”

  “No.” Elda straightened. “It’s me. I always ruin things. I’m just, ugh! I always say the wrong thing. Remember how I talked about a freaking dead squirrel with Danny at the coffee shop?” Elda shook out her shoulders. “Everything sucks right now. I need to stop thinking about this.”

  “Maybe you need to find a guy who’s not scared of a little carcass chatter?”

  “Yeah, right. That guy doesn’t exist. What I need is a better filter, or any filter at all.”

  “I think I have something to take your mind off guys.” Holly got up and went to her suitcase, from which she pulled out her grandma’s day planner. Elda needed to see the book more than Holly needed to hide it. “I found this.” She handed it to Elda and sat next to her on the pull out couch.

  “Is this Grandma’s?” Elda started flipping through it. “It’s her journal. Oh my God, so cool.” Elda stopped on one of the last pages of the calendar, the entries for this week, the one leading up to Christmas. “Aw. She was supposed to go to a holiday dance tonight.”

  The calendar had been filled through December 31, which was sad and romantic and morbid all at once. Grandma’d had no clue that she wouldn’t make it to the end of the year. She’d gone about her business, making appointments and scheduling events. Holly couldn’t stop thinking about the impermanence of life. One minute you’re here, and the next? Gone.

  “She has a date,” Elda said. “Frank.”

  That had been another discovery, thanks to the journal. Grandma’d had a “friend,” a guy named Frank, whom she went out with regularly. They were supposed to go together to this dance tonight. “Poor Frank,” Holly said. “I had no idea he existed.”

  “Me neither.” Elda flipped to the end of the book. “I wonder if our dads knew?”

  Holly giggled. “Probably not. Could you imagine Grandma talking to them about her new boyfriend?”

  “They had to assume she’d been dating. Grandpa’s been dead for fifteen years.” Elda closed the book and ran her hands over the embossed lettering on the cover. “We should go to the dance.”

  “What? No.” Holly’d planned on making a collage out of the journal, or some kind of word art. She’d never for a second considered actually doing the things in Grandma’s calendar. Doing things was not in her comfort zone.

  “We totally should. To honor Grandma’s memory. We should go meet Frank for this dance and—” Elda flipped open the book to the current page again. “Look, she’d been planning on entering the gingerbread contest. We should do that, too, for old time’s sake.”

  Holly ran her fingers over the words. “Gingerbread contest starts” was scrawled over tomorrow’s page in green pen. “I don’t think we’ll have time. We’re supposed to be cleaning out the house.” The gingerbread competition and Danny Garland were inextricably tied together in Holly’s mind. One did not exist without the other. And Holly was supposed to be forgetting about Danny Garland right now.

  “Whatever, time,” Elda said. “This is our last Christmas in North Pole. We have to do all the things. You know what Grandma told me when she was in L.A. for Thanksgiving?”

  Elda had gotten to have one last holiday with Grandma. Holly hadn’t. She could hardly remember last summer, when Grandma had come down to Chicago for a week. What had they even talked about? Why hadn’t Holly asked Grandma what she’d been up to? Why hadn’t Grandma told her about the wedding she’d gone to a few weeks before? Maybe it had been Holly’s fault because she hadn’t asked, because she’d been too busy with her sculpting and hanging out with friends and working at the Chicken Shack. Now she’d never have the chance to get those answers.

  “Grandma said she was sad that you and I and the other grandkids had grown apart, that we didn’t know each other how we used to when we were younger,” Elda said. “Like, remember when we dressed R.J. and my brother up as girls and took them to the park because we wanted sisters?”

  “I totally forgot about that. I bet R.J. has no memory of it.” Holly grinned as the memories came flooding back. She remembered the time R.J. sat in an anthill and had ants running from his diaper down his legs. Or when they’d play murder mystery in Grandma’s den, using old Halloween costumes and toy weapons.

  “I have the receipts,” Elda said. “We took pictures of our sweet little ‘sisters,’ Roberta and Sally. I keep them locked in my room and trot them out any time Sal brings home a new girlfriend. Usually it backfires, though. He’s proud of how his legs look in a skirt. Anyway, I’ll send you copies.”

  Holly laughed. “I’d love to see those.” She took the book back from Elda. It was heavy in her hands, and the pages were soft from use. Holly stared at tonight’s entry: Holiday Dance, Town Hall, Frank. Grandma had drawn a heart next to his name. “Maybe we should go to this dance,” she said. “For Grandma.”

  “Yes!” Elda jumped off the pull out couch, and the springs under the mattress creaked. “For Grandma.”

  Giggling, Holly and Elda ran downstairs and raided Grandma’s closet, which was still full of vintage dresses from the ‘70s and ‘80s. When they were kids, she and Elda used to try on these frocks and then perform elaborate plays for their parents down in the living room. The musty scent of Grandma’s old clothes transported Holly back in time. Everything came back to her—the songs they used to sing, the choreographed dances to Elvis’s entire catalog, how her mom and dad used to cuddle on the couch laughing while Holly and Elda danced.

  When Holly and Elda went downstairs to find dresses for the Christmas gala, a few of their younger cousins followed them into Grandma’s room and started rummaging through all the old clothes and jewelry. The little kids had never seen this stuff before. And tonight, they made plans to put on dresses and sing for their parents. Life was cyclical.

  “The wigs!” Elda squealed, pulling open one of Grandma’s drawers. “I’ve been wanting to get my hands on these forever.”

  Their grandma used to wear wigs whenever she had to dress up. Holly’s dad had maintained she’d just liked changing up her look from time to time, but that explanation was way too boring. “I used to think she was a spy, like on The Americans.”

  Elda raised an eyebrow. “Who’s to say she wasn’t?” She plopped a blond wig on top of her head. Her long, brown locks flowed out from under the golden pixie cut, giving her a glorious two-toned mullet. “This is totally me, right?”

  “Oh, for sure.” Holly grabbed a black bob with bangs that actually stayed put, unlike her real hair. “What if I started wearing this all the time, if I just showed up back home with a wig and didn’t say anything. Would anyone notice?”

  “You look hot,” Elda said. “You should do it. Just start rocking the wig, like ‘This is me, take it or leave it.’”

  Holly stared at herself in the mirror, running her tongue along the back of her scar again. She did look hot. She looked tough and put-together. “Let’s pick our dresses.” She grabbed one she remembered from when she was a kid—a strapless black and gold dress with a sweetheart neckline she used to call the “Wicked Snow White” dress. She pulled it over her clothes and zipped it up with a silent prayer. It fit. It was an actual North Pole miracle.

  Elda had stripped down to her underwear, because she had a figure like a bikini model, and pulled on a kelly green dress with long, lacy sleeves and a pleated, floor-length skirt. “Grandma
wore this to her little sister’s wedding in, like, 1979. Bridesmaid dress. I remember the pictures.” She put her arm around Holly, and they posed together in the mirror. “Almost perfect.”

  They did their makeup—going for full, bold, Urban Decay glam. Elda hid her real hair under the short, blond wig, and Holly stripped off her robe (alone, in the privacy of the bathroom) and put on the dress. They found fancy capes and major platform heels in Grandma’s closet. Their grandma may or may not have been a spy, but tonight Holly and Elda were. They were going incognito to North Pole’s fanciest ball.

  On the sidewalk outside Grandma’s house, Elda twirled as Holly fixed her cape around her shoulders. She glanced over at Danny’s house. It was mostly dark, save for a few lights in the back of the house.

  As if reading Holly’s mind, Elda said, “I wonder if we’ll meet any hot guys at the dance tonight.”

  “Maybe,” Holly said. Though Danny Garland might not be among them. Those crutches weren’t very conducive to dancing. He was probably sitting home alone thinking about his gingerbread showstopper entry or reading a book or watching some really interesting documentary about history or architecture. Holly liked to picture him doing those things sans girlfriend, which was naive. He and this girlfriend were probably together all the time, doing all the things they loved to do together. She was probably an amazing gingerbread house builder.

  “Maybe we can team up tonight,” Elda said. “I can lure the guys over to us, because that’s where I really shine. Then you can keep me from saying words like ‘toe jam’ or ‘deer scat’ once the conversation gets going.”

  Holly grinned. “I think I can handle that. If I kick you in the shins, it means stop talking about blood and guts and hairballs.”

  Elda fixed the strap on her platform sandal. “And if I kick you in the shins, it means loosen up and smile at whatever cute guy is grooving on you.”

  “What are you talking about? I smile all the time!” Holly had never had anyone tell her to lighten up and smile more. Okay, except for her BFF Rebel sometimes. And her parents. And freaking R.J., but what did he know? Holly didn’t have to smile just to make other people feel more comfortable. She was allowed to wear any facial expression she pleased.

  “You don’t smile,” came a voice from the porch behind the girls. Holly swung around. Her cousin Sal, Elda’s brother, stood there, all dressed up like he was going to the dance, too. “Remember when you were in town for the funeral and I introduced you to my friend Patrick?”

  Holly shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe.” She didn’t remember a Patrick. She’d met a lot of people that day.

  “He thought you were hot, so I arranged a meeting.” Sal adjusted the cuffs on his button-down shirt. “But you were, like, totally aloof and acted like you wanted nothing to do with him.”

  He had to be kidding with this. “I was at my grandma’s funeral, Sal. What did he expect? Little Miss Sunshine?”

  “I don’t know, man,” Sal said. “He thought you were mean.”

  Rolling her eyes, Holly turned to Elda. “Tell your brother I’m not mean.”

  Elda wrapped an arm around Holly. “You’re not mean. You’re tough and strong and opinionated. Those are good qualities.” She squeezed Holly’s shoulder. “But friendliness is okay, too, you know. Maybe loosen up tonight. Be open to new people, new experiences. I’ll be there to help you, okay? I’m your wingwoman, too.”

  “You two are losers.” Sal brushed past the girls and headed down the street.

  “Why don’t you put on a skirt, Sal? Show off your legs a little?” Holly yelled after him.

  He responded by flipping her two birds.

  Laughing, Holly said, “I miss this, Elda. I love that we’re all hanging out again.”

  “Me, too.” She pulled Holly into a hug. “Let’s never lose touch again. Promise? Friends forever?”

  “Friends forever,” Holly said.

  Chapter Four

  Danny’s mom forced him to go to the mayor’s annual Christmas ball. It was a North Pole tradition, and everyone in town always went, but Danny should’ve gotten a pass this year, what with his crutches and the fact that he’d just been dumped. He did not.

  “You’re going,” his mom had said as she put on dangly emerald green earrings. “It’ll be a good distraction. What would you do otherwise? Stay here and play video games?”

  Yes, that was what he’d do. Maybe video games were his new purpose in life.

  “Maybe you’ll meet someone.” His mom waggled her eyebrows.

  “Mom, I just broke up with Star.” And he didn’t trust his judgment. Or his ability to talk to girls. Every time he thought about meeting the two cute girls in Santabucks the other day and how he’d completely blown it with both of them, Danny’s whole body shuddered involuntarily. He was a total dork trapped inside a hot guy’s body. He would be single for the rest of his life.

  At the dance, Danny perched himself at a table near the DJ booth, where Craig spun the Christmas tunes.

  “Nice suit.” Craig pressed a few keys on his computer like he was the most important person in the room and his DJ-ing abilities were going to solve world hunger or something.

  “Thanks.” Danny sipped non-alcoholic eggnog and tried hard not to watch Star and Phil dancing together in the middle of their circle of friends. Thanks a bunch, Mom.

  “You look like an eight-year-old about to make his First Communion,” Craig said.

  “Are you a fashion critic now?” Danny didn’t tell Craig that he looked like a stereotypical nerd, what with his hiked-up mom jeans and suspenders over a geeky Game of Thrones-themed Christmas T-shirt, because nerdy was the aesthetic Craig strived for. It was completely and utterly him. Danny was the one wearing a costume tonight. Danny was the one pretending to enjoy himself while being forced to watch his ex-girlfriend nuzzle her cheek against her new boyfriend’s neck.

  “You should go dance.” Craig flipped to some Mariah Carey song from one of her Christmas albums and everyone in the crowd whooped with glee. Mariah was big around these parts.

  This lousy, predictable town. “Crutches, Craig. Remember? You tried to keep me out of the laser tag room last night?”

  “Yeah, so why are you being such a wimp now?” He feigned crying, rubbing his fists over his eyes. “‘Boo-hoo! My leg is broken and I’m sad.’”

  Danny’s brother Brian came over with a small, unfamiliar blonde on his arm. Danny had never been so happy to see his brother and one of his flavors of the week. Anyone would be better than Craig at this point.

  But then Brian said, “You should get out there and dance.”

  Traitor.

  “That’s what I told him.” Craig rammed a toothpick into one of the cocktail wieners he’d managed to get Dinesh to procure for him.

  “Crutches. Cast.” Danny waved an arm toward his leg. “Also”—he pointed to his chest—“recently dumped.”

  Brian waved him off. “All the more reason to get out there and work the floor. The Page girls are here.” Brian nodded toward the far corner of the room, where two girls in silly dresses and obvious wigs were heading toward the refreshments.

  “The Page girls?” Danny asked.

  “Mrs. Page’s granddaughters. They’re in town going through her stuff.”

  Danny hadn’t noticed anyone over at Mrs. Page’s house, but then he hadn’t been paying attention. “She was always talking about her granddaughters.” His neighbor had been trying to set Danny up with one of them for years, but they never came back to visit, plus he’d been with Star the whole time.

  “Yeah,” Brian said. “And they’re hot.”

  The girls turned around, and it was like a spotlight landed on their faces. These were the girls from the coffee shop. “Oh, shit.” He ducked his head down and tried to cover his face.

  “What?” Brian said.

  “I know them. They came into Santabucks yesterday, and I was a total mess.”

  “What did you do?” Now Craig leaned towar
d Danny and Brian, trying to butt into this conversation, because he was obviously so skilled with the ladies and had much wisdom to impart. Whatever, Craig.

  “I don’t know.” Danny’s face warmed just thinking about it. “I thought one of them was flirting with me, so I blurted out that I had a girlfriend, and then the other one kind of looked at me like I was a weirdo.”

  “Well, you don’t have a girlfriend anymore,” Brian said.

  “And you are a weirdo,” Craig added.

  “Thanks, guys.” Danny spotted Star on the dance floor with Phil, the two of them having a great time together, spinning across the floor like tops.

  “You should go over and apologize for being a little off yesterday,” Brian said. “Tell them you were going through a breakup, and you didn’t know what you were saying, something like that.”

  “Let them see how sad you are,” Craig said. “Girls love a wounded guy. They’ll want to help you. Seduction 101.”

  Danny blinked at Craig. “What do you know about seduction?”

  “I’ve seen a lot of movies.”

  The girls were over by Frank from the hardware store now, talking and laughing with him and Nancy, who owned the bakery. The Page girls were both, objectively, really good looking. Now that he thought about it, he vaguely remembered them as kids, when they all used to enter the gingerbread contest. They’d been twins, almost, with their long, skinny legs and brown hair. He hadn’t been able to tell them apart back then. They were just Mrs. Page’s granddaughters. Interchangeable.

  But now he’d definitely noticed them, and they were only going to be in town for a short time. Yeah, he’d made a bad first impression at the coffee shop, but circumstances had changed. He was single now. It was time for him to get out there and start learning how to flirt. These girls, tourists with whom he had a shared history, would be a good start. They’d be like the training wheels on his bicycle of being single.

  Danny grabbed his crutches and stood. Craig started a one-man cheer of “Danny, Danny, Danny!”