Approximately Yours (North Pole, Minnesota)

by Hammerle, Julie

  Holly shook her head. “Should I?”

  “He’s, like, one of the best college basketball players of all time. Full stop.”

  “Cool. Where does he go to school?”

  “Oh my God.” Danny buried his face in his hands.

  “What?” Holly shrugged.

  He looked up. His hands had messed up his usually perfect hair, which was definitely adorable, no matter how hard Holly tried not to notice. “He was in college, like thirty years ago. He played for Duke. Everybody thought he was this rich kid, spoiled baby, but it was all based on assumptions, because, well, he looked like a rich kid, spoiled baby.” He pointed a candy cane at Holly. “Before you leave town, we’re watching the ‘I Hate Christian Laettner’ 30 for 30.”

  “You just said a bunch of words that make no sense.” Though she definitely heard the part where he mentioned wanting to watch something together.

  “Trust me.”

  “Okay.” Grinning like a dork, she focused again on her gingerbread concoction.

  “You’re seriously not bad.” Danny nodded toward her replica of Grandma’s house. “I know Elda’s the brains behind the operation, but you’ve got skills, too.”

  Holly had been avoiding saying Elda’s name all day, but now it was out in the open. “She taught me everything I know.”

  “Well, then you’re a fast learner.” Danny pulled himself up from his chair and hopped over to the table where they kept all the extra candy. He was quiet over there, and it took all her will power to keep from looking at him. Holly pulled a bit of marzipan off a block and started molding it into a soft, sticky sphere. This would be her dad’s head. She had only four family members to go. “I’d better be careful making my Aunt Vixi,” she said. “I’ll be in for a world of hurt if my sculpture of her ends up unflattering.”

  She glanced up, because Danny didn’t say anything. He was no longer hunting for the perfect piece of candy. Now he was flipping through a book—Holly’s sketch pad.

  Shit. She couldn’t let him see her most recent sketches.

  Her legs immediately tried to push her up, but she stopped herself. He didn’t know the book was hers. He’d think it was Elda’s, and it would continue the narrative that Elda was the perfect girl for him. If he saw the pictures and knew Holly had made them, he’d book it out of here faster than Elda had ditched them at Santabucks that morning.

  “Did you see these drawings?”

  Holly shook her head. A ball had formed in her throat, blocking her ability to form words.

  Danny tucked the book under one armpit and jumped over to her. He dropped the book in front of Holly and rested his hands on the table next to her.

  She kept rolling little marzipan balls. It was all she could do.

  Resting one hand on the table for balance, he flipped through the pages. There was a sketch of young Danny at one of the gingerbread contests. And a few more of Danny now. He stopped on one Holly’d made a few days ago, one of him working hard piping icing on his gingerbread figures.

  “Wow,” Holly said, “so she’s been drawing pictures of you. Is that…creepy?” She couldn’t read Danny’s expression, but of course he wouldn’t think it was creepy. He liked Elda. They’d been on a date, and Elda thinking about him like that was totally legit.

  “Maybe I’ve been making something out of nothing,” Danny said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve been worried that Elda doesn’t like me, but this kind of proves she does, doesn’t it?”

  It proved nothing, because those were Holly’s sketches, not Elda’s. “It’s like I told you. She’s just awkward around the guys she likes.”

  “Yeah.” Danny flipped through the book one more time, then shut it. “It’s just we have so much chemistry when we’re—”

  “Texting.” She looked him straight in the eye.

  Danny frowned as he held her gaze. Holly was tempted to look away, but she held on. God, was she really about to do this? She had done such a good job of avoiding embarrassment and hiding her feelings, and now here she was about to ruin it all by letting him see that maybe she enjoyed his company a little bit.

  “Are you going to the skating thing later tonight?” she asked.

  “The figure skating competition?” he asked. “Planning on it.”

  “Well, so are we. I mean, so am I. I have to. It’s in my grandma’s day planner.” She played with another ball of marzipan, kneading it to temper her anxiety. “I don’t know. Maybe we can hang out.”

  “You and me?”

  “Yeah.”

  Danny raised his eyebrows.

  Holly squeezed the marzipan ball so hard, she squished it like a grape. “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe you’re not so bad.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Danny’s stomach was in knots, and he wasn’t sure why. He and Holly had made plans to meet here at the indoor ice rink for the amateur skating competition tonight. As friends. At least he thought they were meeting as friends. She’d basically only just admitted to him that she didn’t think he was abjectly terrible, so Danny was pretty sure she hadn’t jumped straight from disgust to desire. Still, he was excited to see her. He’d actually put on some of Brian’s cologne, which he was regretting.

  Way to be obvious, Garland.

  He rubbed his scarf against his neck, trying to wipe off some of the telltale scent.

  Danny, sitting in the first row of the bleachers, watched as person after person flew by him on the ice—Dinesh, Sam, Tinka, Marcus, Kevin. Phil Waterston was skating hand in hand with some sophomore girl from the JV basketball team, while Star stayed near her girlfriends, talking a mile a minute and shooting dirty looks at Phil every chance she got.

  Danny waved to Dinesh as he exited the rink and barreled toward the lobby, wobbling on his skates as he made his way across the padded floor. Danny glanced at the clock. It was already a quarter to eight. Holly should’ve been here by now. He was even more nervous about her whereabouts than he had been when Elda was late this morning. He would’ve been sad if Elda hadn’t shown up at Santabucks, but he’d be devastated if Holly blew him off tonight.

  Someone held a hot cup of cocoa in front of his face. Danny spun around. Holly stood there, grinning down at him. He smiled back automatically, without even thinking about it, and the fog in his mind lifted. His entire body flooded with relief. “Hey.” He took the cup from her.

  Holly sat next to him and dropped her rented skates to the floor. “Elda’s here, too. She’s talking to Dinesh.”

  Elda? Who cares about Elda? Danny nodded toward the rink. “So, you’re going out there?” Say no. Don’t leave me alone here.

  “Maybe for a minute before the competition starts.” Holly tucked some hair behind her ear. She was wearing dangly Christmas tree earrings.

  Danny pointed to his own ear.

  Holly blushed. “My grandma’s. Elda and I raided her jewelry box.” Holly glanced back at the lobby. “Where the heck did she go?”

  “She’ll get here when she gets here.” He popped the lid off his hot cocoa and closed his eyes as he inhaled the heady, chocolaty aroma. “This is from Mags’s Diner, isn’t it?”

  Holly nodded.

  “She makes the best cocoa in town, but don’t tell my mom that.”

  “Guess what.” Holly’s hands clutched her knees, and her face was bright with excitement. “You’re not going to believe this.”

  “Try me.”

  “Okay, what’s that thing called when you hear a new word and then all of a sudden it’s, like, everywhere?” Her glasses had slipped down her nose, and she pushed them up.

  Danny shook his head. “I’ve heard about this, but I don’t know what it’s called.”

  She waved him off. “I’d assumed the guy who had ‘philtrum’ on the tip of his tongue might know. Anyway.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a magazine. “After you left this afternoon, I went up to my grandma’s attic and started going through her old magazines. She
and my grandpa saved everything, which at first I was kind of annoyed by, but then I started thinking about taking a bunch home to use in collages and stuff. So before tossing them in the recycling bin, I started flipping through the ones that looked interesting, to see if there might be anything worth using.”

  Danny craned his neck to see what magazine she was holding.

  Finally, she turned it around. It was a People from 1992. A kind of familiar-looking woman was on the cover, someone famous, he couldn’t remember who.

  “The most beautiful people of the year,” Danny said.

  “Exactly.” She flipped to a page she had bookmarked with a Post-it Note. “Look who made the cut.” She held the pages open for Danny to see. “Christian Laettner.”

  “Hey.” He grabbed the magazine. It was from right after Duke had won the NCAA tournament against Kentucky, after Laettner had put up “the shot” that won the game. It was the kind of sports moment every young athlete dreamed of experiencing at some point in his or her career. Danny and his brother had recreated this shot many, many times in their driveway—with the two of them taking turns playing Laettner and Grant Hill. The shot had put Laettner on the map. It made him a legend, a pop-culture icon. “I remember this picture from that documentary I was telling you about.”

  Holly snatched the magazine back and gazed into Laettner’s bedroom eyes. “You didn’t tell me he was a fox.”

  “I’m sorry I left that part out.”

  She looked up at him, appraising.

  “What?” Danny’s eyes narrowed.

  So did Holly’s. “Nothing.”

  “I don’t look like him, if that’s what you were going to say.” Danny ran a hand through his hair, which was, admittedly, kind of Laettner-like, though that hadn’t been on purpose. That was genetics.

  “No, no, not exactly.” She glanced down at the page, and then up at him again. “It’s the nose. You both have that arrow nose pointing down at your lips.” She choked a little on the word “lips.”

  Danny’s hand went to his mouth. “Stop.” He couldn’t help smiling, though he fought it hard. Holly had noticed his lips.

  “I only noticed because I’m an artist, and that’s what artists do, obviously. We notice things.”

  “Of course.” Now Danny was about to choke. He was such a glutton for punishment. This same electricity was completely absent whenever he was with Elda. Holly was the Page girl he should be spending time with, no matter how great his texts with Elda had been, no matter how unsure he was of Holly’s feelings for him. He had to give this a shot.

  “Hey.” Danny was about to ask out a girl for the second time in a week. It was no less terrifying, especially since this was the cousin of the first girl he’d asked out, and he wasn’t sure about protocol. Still, this chemistry was too good to deny. He knew she was leaving in a little over a week, and this was a time-sensitive matter. If he waited much longer, Holly’d be out of his life for good. Forever. “The video store is showing Love, Actually the day after Christmas—”

  “Ooh!” Holly’s eyes widened, and she cut him off. “Elda and I love that movie.” She glanced toward the lobby and waved over Elda, who was carrying two big bags of popcorn. “We totally have to go.”

  …

  Holly had choked.

  She’d cut Danny off before he could finish whatever he was about to say. In those split seconds, she’d seen every possible outcome—Love, Actually was playing at the video store and he wanted to ask Elda out again, or maybe he’d wanted to go with Holly just as friends, or, completely unlikely, he was asking Holly out on a date. That terrified her more than the other possibilities, honestly. For one thing, she’d have to clear it with Elda first, out of courtesy. For another, Holly had spent the past week or so deceiving Danny. She had misrepresented herself to him since day one. If she went out with him, she’d have to come clean with him at some point, and she wouldn’t blame him if he couldn’t forgive her for that.

  But they could hang out as friends. “Friends” she could do. Buddies who hung out and never, ever got to the point where they had to discuss the awful, deceitful way she and Elda had kicked off their relationship with Danny.

  Holly waved over Elda and Dinesh and scooted toward the middle of the bench to make room for the two of them between herself and Danny. She needed space. Dinesh, who was right next to her, handed Holly a box of popcorn. Here they were, a quartet on a weird sort of double date.

  “Did you get the sink fixed?” Holly asked.

  “Sure did,” Dinesh said. “Elda’s a pro.”

  Elda beamed at him.

  Thankfully, that was when the figure skating competition started.

  After watching a world championship competition on TV when she was about six, Holly had started to fancy herself a figure skater. They made it look so easy. She’d go down to her basement and perform routines set to, like, the overture from Jesus Christ Superstar or whatever.

  She’d come back to North Pole the next Christmas ready to wow everyone with her amazing skills. She’d lace up her skates and wobble out onto the ice, where she’d promptly fall down. She’d get up and fall down again. The routine she’d performed so effortlessly at home on her basement floor was impossible on the ice.

  That was the first time Holly understood that just dreaming about something didn’t make it so. Her imagination sustained her. Trying to reach beyond that had always, predictably, ended in disappointment.

  Holly was going to be in North Pole for a little over a week. She could dump all her feelings on Danny and face rejection, or she could hang back, be cool, and let their friendship continue to bloom. In one scenario, she’d get to see Danny, to joke with him and work on their gingerbread showstoppers together. In the other, she’d ruin everything and scare him away.

  Friendship was safe and predictable. She understood the rules. The sweet agony she felt every time she was in the room with him was familiar to her. That she could live with.

  Holly glanced down the row. Danny and Elda were chatting, completely engrossed in what the other was saying. Holly focused on the ice. She’d pushed them back together. Good. That’s the way it was supposed to be, never mind the lump growing in her throat right now.

  Sam, Tinka, and Craig had taken the row behind them. Sam’s little sister, Maddie, was actually living Holly’s childhood dream of figure skating stardom. She was only nine years old but could do these amazing spins and jumps that Holly could barely do, even on solid ground.

  “She practices every day,” Sam said. “She gets up at five in the morning to come here before school, then a few hours after school, too. My dad’s constantly driving her to competitions all over the place.”

  Holly watched as Maddie twirled like a top in the center of the ice before abruptly stopping and raising an arm with a flourish. Her chest heaved as she gazed up at the ceiling with a content smile. Then she bowed to the judges and waved to her brother before skating off to the side as the lights caught every sequin on her short purple dress.

  Maybe that was a big part of the reason Holly had always wanted to be a figure skater—the shiny clothes. She was such a magpie.

  After the awards had been handed out and Maddie had won first place in the youth group, Holly dashed alone out into the lobby and tossed her unused skates up on the counter. She’d get out of here fast, go home, and finish her showstopper for tomorrow. Her foot tapped on the floor as she waited for her shoes.

  Danny came through the door, still talking to Elda. Holly averted her eyes. God, these two certainly had enough to say to each other tonight.

  “Hey, Garland,” some guy shouted. His voice boomed so loud that everyone turned to look. The guy was pointing all the way across the room to the ceiling above Danny’s head. “You’re under the mistletoe.”

  An entire scenario flew through Holly’s imagination in a split second. She pictured doing the bold thing, the thing she’d only ever do in her head, marching all the way across the room and kissing him right i
n front of everyone. Her mini-daydream ended with a “happily ever after,” because that’s how daydreams were supposed to end.

  “Someone kiss Danny already,” the same guy announced to the crowd.

  Danny’s eyes met Holly’s over at the skate return. That really happened. Some dude said the word “kiss” and Danny had looked at Holly. Her heart sped up, excited, wanting to believe this was real, that her dream was actually coming true.

  But then Danny frowned. He winced. It was a look Holly knew well, one she was used to seeing.

  That was the danger of dreaming. It was just a way to escape reality until it came full force and slammed the unsuspecting dreamer into a wall. The reality was that Danny would push her away if she tried to kiss him. He’d reject her, possibly even laugh at her, in public, and she’d be subjected to yet another version of “I’m not that into you.” She couldn’t handle hearing that right now, not from Danny, especially not after the great day they’d had together. She was saying good-bye to so many important, wonderful things in her life right now, and a rejection from Danny would kill every other joyful memory she’d ever had of North Pole.

  “Kiss him, Elda,” someone else yelled.

  Elda leaned toward Danny, and Holly ducked her head, shielding her eyes, allowing herself to disappear into the crowd as she made her way toward the door. This was perfect. Her two favorite people in North Pole were finally getting together. It was what she’d wanted all along. She repeated that over and over in her head, drowning out the voices of people cheering Danny and Elda on.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Stupid mistletoe. Stupid Christmas. Stupid North Pole.

  Danny had spent most of this holiday season being annoyed by tourists and carolers and the froofy drinks he had to make at Santabucks, but he’d forgotten about the mistletoe, probably because, in the past, it had never been an issue. He’d always had someone to kiss. There was no question.

  But tonight he’d found himself under the dreaded mistletoe, and his heart had pounded from nerves and excitement. He no longer had a girlfriend. He was a single guy standing under this blasted plant. And there was definitely someone he wanted to kiss.