Page 16 of With Love, from Cold World
Sure enough, the expression on the mom’s face was dismissive, bordering on distrustful. “It’s okay,” she said. “I got it!”
That was ridiculous. Clearly, she didn’t have it. “Are you sure? I could frame it really nice. It’d make a great holiday card.”
Lauren could tell from the way the mom’s lips pinched together that she was about to refuse again, this time more forcefully, but then the dad reached into his pocket and withdrew his phone.
“Would you mind?” he asked.
“Of course,” Lauren said, fighting the urge to look over her shoulder and make sure Asa was watching this moment of triumph. “Gather in close.”
The family huddled together around their snowman, and Lauren snapped a couple quick vertical photos before she realized that the perspective was all wrong. They were already starting to come out of the pose, the dad reaching for his phone, but Lauren gestured them back together. “A fewmore,” she said, kneeling down in the snow so she could get a horizontal shot of them with the snowman, their faces filling the frame better. Immediately, the cold wetness from the snow soaked into the knees of her tights.
“Everyone smile!” she said, snapping a few more pictures before, satisfied, she got back to her feet.
“Thank you so much!” the dad said as she handed him back his phone. She hoped his voice carried enough that Asa could hear it.
“See?” she said once she was back at his side. “Your laziness almost resigned that poor family to an off-center, blurry picture to remember their time here.”
“I didn’t know you took your photo shoots so seriously.” He was looking at her legs, which had two damp patches on both knees and rivulets of melting snow running down into her ballet flats. There was nothing really to see, the bare skin covered by sheer black tights, and yet something about the way he was looking made her shiver all the same.
“Pictures are important,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself in an attempt to warm up. “They’re memories.”
She watched the family as the kids packed the snowman with more and more snow, until eventually the lumpy head collapsed on one side and rolled off into the slush below. The younger kid’s face screwed up for a minute, like he might cry, but then the mom bounced him up to her hip and murmured something that made him laugh instead. They were still laughing as they left the Snow Globe, and Lauren stared at the doorway, lost in thought.
Next to her, Asa cleared his throat. “You can let four more people in,” he said. “Since they left.”
“Oh.” Lauren turned in the wrong direction before orienting herself to where a few people stood in line for entrance to the Snow Globe. She waved in a group of three but then after that was a couple, and Lauren glanced back at Asa. He waved his hand in ago aheadgesture, and she stepped back to allow the couple to enter, too.
“You’re the one who told me no more than twenty,” she said.
He shrugged. “One more won’t be the end of the world.”
“But then what’s the point of having a limit?”
The entire time they’d been in the Snow Globe, he’d been standing with his hands clasped behind his back, surveying the guests with a slightly bored expression. She knew it was probably part of the job, mastering thatignore me, I’m not even heretype of demeanor, but it was driving her crazy.
“You’d be one of those people who bring eleven items to theten items or fewerline at the grocery store, wouldn’t you?”
“No,” Asa said. “But I also wouldn’t be one of those people who count every single item of the person in front of them.”
Lauren started to protest, but she could already see the corner of his mouth quirk. She’d tried to get a rise out of him, and instead he’d gotten one out of her. Once again, he was winning.
She kicked at the snow with the toe of her ballet flat. She did like the sound of it, that cold crunch. But just from watching people interact with it, she could see that it was a sorry replica of the real thing. She bent down, scooping some into her hand.
“They should call this place the Snow Cone,” she said. “That’s what this stuff reminds me of.”
“There’s an idea,” Asa said. “Dribble a bunch of different-colored syrups all over the place, let in all the kids at once, lock the doors. Their parents can go shopping and pick themup half an hour later coming down from their sugar high. We could charge a fortune.”
“Such a relief that you’re already thinking of your presentation,” Lauren said. “I was worried you were going to come sniffing around the night before, wanting one of my cast-offs.”
The snow was making her hand numb, but she had to admit that there was something about holding it, about experiencing such a completely different texture and temperature from what she was used to. She closed her fingers around it, letting it squish between her fingers.
“So I take it you have an idea for yours.”
As if she’d share it with him. And she definitely wasn’t about to share that she’d spent hours brainstorming on her commute to work, in the shower, at her desk, with so far... nothing to show for it.
The hem of her cardigan sleeve was now cold and clammy from the melting snow, but still she scooped up another handful. She molded it into a round ball, suddenly understanding why people might be tempted to start snowball fights in here. She wished she could chuck this one right at Asa’s face, just to see how he’d react.
His eyes were hooded as he watched her. It was almost as if he knew what she was thinking, was daring her to throw it.
