Page 29 of Light Up My Life

My eyes shot up in surprise. “I was never mad at you.”

His eyebrows lifted, seeming to say Are you sure about that?

“I mean, you did deliver some very bad news,” I told him. News that I couldn’t stop thinking about. Our town might lose its shine. Would everything else be dimmed as well? The town square events? The visitors? My brother’s desire to come home?

“And you wanted to shoot the messenger?”

I let out a little laugh. “No. I didn’t.”

“Good,” he said. “Because I don’t want the Cherry Ridge lights to go away either.”

“Good,” I said, finally freeing a package of regular M&M’s from beneath a box of candy canes. I held it up as if to show him I was here for a reason, not just because I’d seen him coming. Because I hadn’t.

“Do you have a theme?” he asked.

“Wizard of Oz,” I said.

“Nice.”

“You?”

“A Charlie Brown Christmas. We’re thinking of doing the doghouse. Snoopy lying on top.” He had a pack of marshmallows in his hand. For Snoopy, I assumed.

I picked up a pack of red and green jelly beans and handed them to him. “For the Christmas lights.”

“Good call,” he said, taking them from me. My skin tingled to life with the transfer. I stumbled backward a few steps. “See you,” I said.

A smile crept onto his face. “See you.”

As I approached my family, I narrowed my eyes. There was an extra person standing at the table: Buddy, the hot-chocolate-selling elf.

“Look who we found,” Mom said.

Marcus and Harris were constructing the walls of the gingerbread house. Harris was drowning the seams in frosting while Marcus was holding them steady, frosting coating some of his fingers.

“Oh,” I said to Buddy. “Hey. You selling hot chocolate here today?” I looked around for his trailer.

“Or do you wear those shoes for fun?” Marcus added.

Buddy lifted a foot, twisting his pointy shoe one way and then the other. “Mostly for fun,” he deadpanned.

Mom laughed.

Momma relieved me of the candy I held.

“They didn’t have black licorice,” I said.

“It was a long shot,” Momma agreed.

“How is your business going?” Mom asked Buddy.

“Really well,” he said.

“Are you from around here?” she asked. “Jasmine said she’s never seen you at school.”

I had not, in fact, said that, even though it was true, I hadn’t seen him at school. But now he was going to think we sat around talking about him.

“I’m from down the canyon,” Buddy explained.