That Old Emerald Mountain Magic

by Cara Malone

  “Come with me,” she said, pulling her away from the buffet table.

  “Where are we going?” Carmen asked.

  Instead of answering, Joy just led her into the food pantry and shut the door, pulling her into a tight embrace. They kissed, and in between moments when their lips were locked, Joy murmured against Carmen’s skin, “I have to go to work soon. I wish I didn’t have to leave you.”

  “I wish I wasn’t going back to New York tomorrow,” Carmen said.

  “Don’t say that,” Joy said. “Let me pretend that isn’t happening.”

  They kissed again, Carmen’s pulse quickening and her body responding to Joy’s closeness, and it was hard to forget even though Joy’s lips made a good argument for it. This time tomorrow, Carmen would be packing her bags. By noon she’d be in Denver, and by dinnertime she’d be back in New York, back to her old life.

  Joy was right – it was best to push those thoughts out of her head and stay in the moment instead. She did her best to focus all of her attention on the way that Joy’s lips felt against hers, the shivery sensations that overtook her every time Joy touched her, and the aching way that her heart demanded she stay as close as possible to Joy for as long as she could. She wondered if Joy would mind if she just followed her around the resort all day today, and if her parents would understand.

  Then there was a knock on the door and they stepped away from each other, straightening their clothes as Tyler came in.

  “Am I interrupting something?” he asked with a smirk. “I just needed to get a bag of dried beans for dinner tonight.”

  “No, come in,” Joy said. “We’re going to head out because I’ve got to get to work.”

  “Okay, well, thanks again for all of your help,” Tyler said, shaking Carmen’s hand. “Everyone really appreciated the breakfast and it was a big help that you guys took the time to come lend a hand this morning.”

  “It’s our pleasure,” Carmen said, feeling safe to speak for the rest of her family as well. “Merry Christmas, Tyler.”

  “Merry Christmas,” he said. “Joy, I’ll see you next week?”

  “Yeah,” Joy said. “Mr. Castillo had some interesting ideas about the food pantry. I’ll fill you in then.”

  Carmen and Joy found the rest of the family still mingling with the shelter visitors and volunteers, and the kids that Marisol and Maria had made friends with were already absorbed in their new books. Joy told them that she had to get to work soon so they all piled back into the van and she drove them to the cabin. During the ride, they talked about their own Christmas Day tradition, which had Carmen salivating already.

  “None of us particularly enjoys spending the day in the kitchen,” she explained to Joy, “so we order food for Christmas. It started out pretty reasonable, catering from one restaurant, and over the years we’ve tried so many different dishes and found so many awesome things that we started ordering from a bunch of different places so that everyone can have their favorite food on the holiday.”

  “Dad and I usually go for traditional Mexican dishes – plantains, Johnnycakes, and sea food – but Carmen’s used to more American fare like ham, mashed potatoes, and stuffing,” Mom added. “And the twins insist on a variety of desserts.”

  “Sounds delicious,” Joy said, then added with a laugh, “and excessive.”

  “Trust me, none of it goes to waste,” Dad said with another festive belly laugh.

  “What’s your favorite Christmas dish?” Mom asks Joy. “We’ll order it for you and have it ready when you’re done with work.”

  “Oh,” Joy said, pausing to think for a minute. “Mince pies. My mom makes them and they’re incredible.”

  “I’ll be sure to get you some,” Mom said, not accepting Joy’s objections. Finally, as they pulled up to the cabin, she relented and thanked Carmen’s mom. Then they all climbed out of the van except for Joy, and Carmen stayed with her in the front seat.

  “I’ll come inside in a minute,” Carmen called as the rest of her family went into the cabin, the twins eager to open the last of their gifts waiting beneath the tree. Carmen thought about asking Joy if she could tag along on her shift, but instead she just leaned across the aisle and kissed her. Then she looked at the clock on the dashboard and said, “I’m leaving in twenty-four hours exactly.”

  Twenty-Six

  Joy

  “I know,” Joy said with a sigh. She kissed Carmen again, but there were only so many times that would work to distract her from the fact that she’d somehow managed to fall for a girl who she knew she’d never see again. Her heart was already heavy with that knowledge.

  “So you’re coming straight over after work, right?” Carmen asked. “My mom wasn’t kidding about those mince pies – they’ll be waiting for you, and if you want a break during your shift, I can bring you one as soon as they get here.”

  Joy laughed and gave Carmen a smile, doing her best to disguise the sadness beneath it. She couldn’t help but think that if Danny hadn’t left Emerald Hill, she probably never would have fallen so hard for Carmen. She would have kept busy with her job and her volunteer work and her best friend and she might not have been on the slopes at all they day that Carmen crashed into her life. Even if they had met, Danny probably would have been able to keep her grounded, to remind her that Carmen was painfully temporary.

  And now she had to learn that lesson all by herself.

  Painfully.

  The idea of making this their last moment together had started to form in Joy’s mind at the shelter. She was stealing surreptitious glances at Carmen, memorizing the barely discernible dimples that formed in her cheeks every time she smiled and wished someone a Merry Christmas, thinking about how she hadn’t noticed those dimples before and there was no use learning new things about Carmen so late in their fleeting relationship. That was when she really started thinking about the moment when they would have to say goodbye to each other.

  She would come back over to the Castillo cabin after her shift tonight and they’d have Christmas dinner together. Carmen was persuasive and Joy’s defenses had been thoroughly lowered by now, so she would almost definitely spend the night again. Then in the morning she would have to sit helplessly and watch Carmen pack her bags and prepare to walk out on her forever. Joy hated that idea, and she hated even the mental image of watching Carmen walking away from her, wondering if she would look back at her one last time.

  So by the time she dropped Carmen and the rest of her family back at the cabin, Joy was pretty certain that this would be the last time she saw her. It would be better this way, ending what should have been a carefree fling on a happy moment and keeping that as their last memory together. Joy didn’t want to see Carmen sad, and she didn’t want to show her how hard it was not to cry at the thought of losing her, so they would end on an optimistic moment instead.

  “I’ll be done around six if I’m lucky,” she said. “Maybe longer if it’s a crazy day, which Christmas often is.”

  “Okay,” Carmen said. “Come right over after.”

  Joy put her hand out and Carmen took it, and Joy brought her fingers to her lips. She wasn’t wearing her gloves and they were cold, so Joy took a minute to blow on them, rubbing them between her fingers to warm her up. Then she leaned across the space between their seats and kissed her, saying, “Merry Christmas, Carmen.”

  “Merry Christmas, Joy,” Carmen repeated back to her. “I’ll see you soon.”

  “Okay,” Joy croaked, and then Carmen was gone. She watched her walk into the cabin, then drove the short distance down to the lodge. She was holding back tears that came out of nowhere – it felt absurd to be this broken up about a girl she just met – and just as she was sitting in the parking lot and trying to pull herself together so she could go inside and start her shift, her phone started ringing.

  Joy’s heart skipped a beat and she let out a sigh as she dug it out of her pocket. She figured it was Carmen, calling to ask a question about the mince pies for her mother
or something like that, and Joy didn’t think she had the energy to lie to her again. It had taken every ounce of her courage to do it the first time without breaking down and telling Carmen that she’d screwed up and fallen for her, and she knew it would do more harm than good to admit that out loud.

  Instead of Carmen calling, though, it was Joy’s mother.

  “Hey, sweetie,” she said as soon as Joy picked up. “I wasn’t expecting you to answer - I was going to leave a voicemail to wish you a Merry Christmas. Are you working today?”

  “Yeah,” Joy said, “just about to go clock in.”

  “Okay, I won’t keep you then,” Mom started to say, but then she caught the watery quality of Joy’s voice, which she’d tried her best to disguise. Her mom always noticed that stuff, though, especially over the phone when her voice was all she had. “Something wrong?”

  “No,” Joy tried to lie, but then she found herself spilling everything to her mother. She didn’t want to keep it inside herself any longer, and she didn’t know how she’d make it through the day if she didn’t tell someone what was eating her. The time clock could wait, and she said, “I met a girl at the resort last week.”

  She told her mother about their ill-fated meeting on the black diamond hill, and how immediately they had clicked. She told her how fascinating Carmen and her family were, and all the different layers she’d managed to peel back that turned them from the average rich resort guests into a family that she’d really connected with this week. And of course, Joy couldn’t tell the story without telling her mother how magnetic Carmen seemed to be, pulling her closer with every day and leaving her with the feeling that her heart might burst the moment she left Emerald Hill.

  “I got attached to her and I knew it was a bad idea,” Joy said, frustrated and on the verge of tears.

  “Sweetie,” Mom said sympathetically, “love isn’t a matter of choice. You can’t just decide not to have feelings for someone.”

  “I know,” Joy said helplessly.

  “Does she know how you feel?” Mom asked, and the idea of having that conversation with Carmen struck all her most painful heartstrings.

  “I can’t imagine that she doesn’t,” she said. “But we haven’t exactly talked about it.”

  “You should,” her mom said.

  “Why? She’s getting on a plane tomorrow,” Joy said. “She lives on the other side of the country and there’s nothing I can do about the fact that I stupidly allowed myself to fall for her.”

  “You don’t know that,” Mom said. “If she’s got you this emotional, then you should tell her before it really is too late. It can’t hurt to talk.”

  “It might,” Joy said. In fact, she was sure that it would, that Carmen would confirm all her darkest fears by telling her that she was going to have no trouble getting over her, or worse, that she cared about Joy too but it didn’t matter and she was going back to her lavish lifestyle in New York anyway. Joy wiped an errant tear from her cheek and changed the subject, asking, “Did you and Allen go see the Christmas displays at Disney?”

  Mom laughed and said, “Wouldn’t you know it? We didn’t get around to it again this year.”

  “Mom!” Joy said, laughing with her. “It’s probably not too late. You should go today.”

  “Maybe we will,” she said. Then after a little pause in which Joy checked the mirror in the back of the visor and saw that her eyes were a little bit red from trying unsuccessfully to hold in her tears, Mom added, “Don’t let this turn into something you regret, sweetie. Take a leap of faith and tell her how you feel.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” Joy said, taking a deep breath. It was a nice pep talk, but she still didn’t know if she had the courage to take her mom’s advice. “I should get to work.”

  “Okay,” Mom said. “Merry Christmas, sweetie.”

  “Merry Christmas, Mom,” Joy said. “I’ll see you in a couple of weeks.”

  “Looking forward to it,” Mom said, and then they hung up and Joy went inside, returning the keys to the van at long last to the transportation office.

  “About damn time,” the guy at the desk said, joking with her.

  Joy wasn’t quite in the mood for jokes yet, though, and she nodded at the green elf hat he was wearing. “Nice hat.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “Yours is in your locker.”

  “Crap,” Joy said, but she couldn’t help smiling a little bit at the irony.

  Twenty-Seven

  Carmen

  Christmas dinner on Emerald Mountain turned out to be just as elaborate and exotic as it always was in Cancun. Carmen’s mom ordered about a dozen different dishes from the resort’s extensive menu, and earlier in the week she’d tasked the twins with finding Emerald Hill’s bakery and figuring out what they wanted to order from there for dessert. Dad called a car to take him to pick it up around noon, and he came back with his arms full of boxes containing everything from chocolate cake to puff pastries and fruit tarts.

  “Good news,” he said as he laid them all out on the kitchen island. “They had little mince pies in their grab-and-go case so I picked up one for each of us.”

  Carmen texted Joy, snapping a picture of the six perfectly round pies in their bakery box to entice her, and asked whether she wanted her dessert early. She offered, “I can come by the lodge and drop it off if you’re hungry.”

  It was about fifteen minutes before Joy responded, and Carmen was disappointed to see that she’d answered negatively.

  I appreciate the offer but we’re so busy with room service requests and a banquet going on in the ballroom. I’ll just have to be a good girl and wait.

  Carmen couldn’t resist the urge to send back a teasing comment about Joy’s assertion that she was a good girl, but when Joy didn’t respond, she figured that she’d gotten swept up in her work. The rest of her family was already eating – it was only a bit past lunchtime by the time the twins had finished opening their gifts from Santa and everyone’s stomachs started rumbling, and it was their tradition to graze and nibble at the feast all day long. Carmen made herself a plate, piling on the mashed potatoes and green bean casserole as well as the cornbread-like Johnnycakes that were Mom’s favorite, then went into the living room and sat down in the lounge chair to eat while Dad found A Christmas Story playing on television.

  She polished off her plate and then lay back in the deep chair, her feet up on the ottoman, to watch the movie and wait for Joy. She kept her phone in her lap in case Joy called or texted and it vibrated again and again as a stream of Merry Christmases and other notifications came through. Carmen looked at a few of them – more beaches and bikini selfies from Brigid and Bentley, and a few dozen social media posts from the rest of her New York crowd sharing their Christmas gifts in humble brag form.

  She sent Brigid a text, a quick one wishing her a Merry Christmas and telling her that she hoped she was having a nice time with Bentley, and found that she meant it for the first time ever. If Bentley made Brigid happy, for whatever reason there could be, then Carmen couldn’t stand in the way of that.

  Then she put her phone on the arm of the chair and turned her attention back to the television. The rest of her family was doing the same, Dad nodding off and the twins splitting their attention between the movie and a game that Santa had left them, and Mom cleaning up the kitchen. Carmen dozed off too, thinking that sleep was a perfectly good way to while away the hours until she could be with Joy again. If her subconscious was kind to her, then her dreams wouldn’t be about the clock ticking down on their time together, or the seventeen hundred miles that would separate them when she got back to New York.

  Carmen woke up to the sounds of her parents moving around in the kitchen, heating up plates for another round of their favorite foods. The movie had switched over from A Christmas Story to It’s a Wonderful Life, and she was surprised to see that it was dark outside the big picture window. She sat up abruptly, taking her phone off the arm of the chair and checking her messages. She found an answ
er from Brigid in the form of a selfie – Bentley’s arm around her shoulders possessively – and a few more social media notifications, but nothing from Joy, and it was past seven o’clock.

  “You want some more ham and mashed potatoes?” Mom called to her from the kitchen when she saw that Carmen was awake, and Carmen climbed out of the chair, wiping the sleep from her eyes.

  “No,” she said. “You guys let me take a four-hour nap?”

  “You looked tired,” Dad said. “Besides, we all conked out for a little while there. That’s what Christmas Day is all about – eating yourself into a coma.”

  Mom laughed but Carmen felt a little stone of worry settling into her stomach. She knew that Joy said she might have to work later if it was busy, but she didn’t think she meant a whole hour later. She thought that Joy would find an excuse to leave so they could spend their precious few remaining hours together.

  “I’m going to call Joy,” she said, heading into her room and closing the door.

  She dialed her number, but there was no answer, and somewhere in the back of her mind she started to worry that Joy was avoiding her. It was silly – she had no reason to think that – but Joy had always found time for Carmen every time she wanted her this week, even when she was busy with work, so where the hell was she now?

  When Carmen emerged from the bedroom, Mom asked, “Did you get ahold of her?”

  “I don’t know how much longer this mince pie is going to survive,” Dad teased. “I’m licking my chops over here.”

  “She didn’t answer. I think I’m going to walk over to the lodge and see if I can find her,” Carmen said. “She must have gotten held up.”