Page 7 of Meet Me on Mistletoe Lane
She stepped forward, her braided silver bun sparkling like tinsel under the spotlights, and propped both of her hands on her hips. She called it her “non scherzare” or “don’t mess with me” stance. Nona may have only been five feet two and barely over one hundred pounds, but the woman always commanded the attention of a room simply by walking into it.
Goals.
She flipped a switch on the microphone, easily turning it on.
Well, now I feel like an idiot.
“Everyone needs to settle down,” she said. “I know the…passing of Mr. Paxton is unexpected and, well, terrible.”
“Heartbreaking,” Sam’s Gram added.
“Sì, heartbreaking,” Nona said while nodding in agreement. “But Arthur Paxton was a smart man. He wouldn’t want to leave this place”—she paused and motioned to the room—“or any of us in any distress over the future of our businesses. So you see it is va bene. Okay. Right, Mayor?”
Mayor David Moore, who looked suspiciously like he was on his way out of the side exit, froze and whirled around. “Of course!” he said, his voice cracking. “I’m sure it’ll all be okay. I just need to, um, run to Town Hall to check on the status of some of his affairs, and then, I’ll, uh…”
“Send us a message?” Sam’s Gram finished for him.
“Yes!” Mayor Moore clapped his hands. “A message. I’ll do that. Soon.” And with that, he disappeared through the door, the echo of it slamming shut bouncing around the room.
Um, if the mayor literally runs away from the problem, it doesn’t seem to me like “it’ll all be okay…”
“All right, so let’s all get back to work. We have lots to do!” Nona added before turning toward the rest of us on the stage.
“A runaway piano,” Gram mumbled, rubbing her forehead. “How awful.” Her eyes looked more shaded and tired than usual.
“How exactly does a piano run away?” I asked.
“The wheels were not locked, apparently.” Nona adjusted one of the pins in her silver hair and shook her head. “That moving company better be held responsible.”
“Agreed, Silvia—” Gram started coughing and pulled a lacy handkerchief out of her embroidered cardigan pocket. Nona stepped around me and placed a hand tenderly on her best friend’s shoulder as her coughing fit subsided.
“Let’s get you home and out of the cold, Suzie,” she said to Gram, who nodded in agreement.
The two of them looped arms, the way they always did, before walking slowly down the stairs of the stage, Gram’s long skirt billowing around her ankles as Nona’s bracelets jingled against her wrists.
Later that evening, Mom brought me a mug of tea where I sat on the front porch steps. The night was still and quiet except for the occasional breeze that wove through bare trees lining our short driveway.
“Your dad used to love these kinds of temps,” Mom said as she draped a quilt over both of our shoulders.
I smiled over the tiny pinch I felt in my heart every time I thought of him. “ ‘Cool enough for a fire but not too cold to sit outside for a bit.’ He loved to say that.” I took a sip of my tea and immediately felt better. Mom always knew the perfect portion of honey and lemon to add to chamomile.
“I went by the cemetery early this morning.” She pulled the quilt tighter around us. “Someone had placed a white poinsettia by his stone. It looked lovely.”
Sam.
His family grew the most beautiful poinsettias. It seemed like everyone took turns replacing the flowers on Dad’s grave since his funeral years ago. Even the high school where he had taught for over twenty years regularly donated plants from their greenhouse.
Dad had been that kind of teacher—the one everyone thought of as their own parent—so much in fact, that his nickname “Pop” was etched as part of his name on his marble headstone.
“I miss him, especially around Christmas.” I rested my head on her shoulder and inhaled her familiar scent of oil paint and eucalyptus.
“Me too.” She leaned her head on mine, wisps of her graying hair brushing my forehead. “He’d be proud of you and Leo. You two are so smart and strong.”
Strength.
Something told me I’d need a lot of it in the coming weeks.
“Mom?” I said.
