by Annie Harper
Grace steps forward. “There’s still a little time. We– We can try some other things with him, maybe.”
Avery stares at the floor and shakes her head. “There’s no point. It’s over.”
Grace leaves. Rudy is gone. Things can’t be fixed with hope alone. She tried so hard, with Rudy, with this adopt-a-thon, with Grace. All it did was hurt and disappoint her. She’d be better off numb.
“What was your favorite Christmas, Avery?”
Avery stares at him blankly, so twisted up in her own head she forgot that Santa, whoever he really is, was there. “My what?”
“Your favorite Christmas. Just one.”
They always travelled somewhere, usually to somewhere warm. It was nice enough. “They were all the same. Nothing special.”
“Really?” Santa gives her a knowing look. He’s angling at something, but she doesn’t want to talk to him, or anyone, right now—maybe ever again. But he did suffer a dog bite without complaint—or a lawsuit—and it was her fault, sort of, so she probably owes him a conversation, at least.
There was that year when she begged to go somewhere with snow as if she’d gotten it into her head that it wasn’t really Christmas without snow on Christmas morning. “Well, this one Christmas we rented a cabin in the mountains. It snowed the whole time—this perfect fluffy snow. Not like the ice and freezing rain crap we get in February around here. I got to go sledding and make cookies with my grandmother and hang out with all of my cousins. Everyone actually got along the whole time. I got a Furby! Remember those?”
Santa gives a hearty ho ho ho. “I do remember those.”
Despite her sullen mood, she smiles at the memories. She hasn’t thought about that year in so long. “We built the perfect snowman. And then sang Christmas carols. Just like a cheesy holiday movie. But then, on the way home, my parents argued in the car the whole way. My Furby broke. Then the car broke down, and my parents argued on the side of the road. So that ruined it.”
“Why?”
Avery squints at him. “Why what?”
“Why did that ruin it?”
“Because,” Avery says with an incredulous laugh. Isn’t today proof positive that everything always gets ruined? “Nothing good lasts! It just tricks you into happiness and then goes back to being awful again.” She holds up a finger. “But I figured it out. If you’re never happy or unhappy, then nothing ever hurts.”
“Hmm.” Santa strokes his beard. “Do you find that to be true?”
Avery opens her mouth to say of course I do but it sticks in her throat because the truth is that she’s been unhappy for a long time, except for this last month or so, up until it all went wrong. “No,” Avery answers, truthfully. “It still hurts.”
Santa nods, adjusts his hat, and turns to leave, saying as he goes. “All we have are moments, Avery. Good and bad. Hold on to the good moments. Joy is out there, you just have to go and find it and hold on to it. Just like that one perfect Christmas.” Avery tips her head and takes a good long look at this so-called Santa Claus. She’s heard that sentiment somewhere before—
“Avery,” Santa says, interrupting her thoughts before they can get very far. “Don’t you think there’s some joy you should be going after right now?”
Chapter Thirteen
In the dark of the shelter’s parking lot, Avery takes several bites of morale-boosting vanilla ice cream and waits in her car for the right moment. The lot is empty except for the truck used for stray-dog pickups and Deb’s car. Grace is not there. But Avery isn’t there for Grace. Deb appears in the lonely yellow glow of the shelter’s door, locking up for the night; it’s now or never. Avery races to the front door, getting there just before the last deadbolt slides into place. “Just one quick thing!” Avery says through the glass. Deb’s face pinches with clear annoyance, but she does open the door.
“I have a last-minute donation, wanted to get it in before Christmas.” Avery tries to scurry past, but Deborah shoves a clipboard at her.
“Name and donation amount?”
Avery blinks, incredulous. Seriously, still? “Avery. I am Avery.”
Deb scribbles the name. “Avery…”
“How about I save you the trouble and drop the donation off in the back office myself,” Avery says, already walking away. She ducks around the corner, calling, “Just finish up what you were doing; pretend I’m not even here.”
The shelter is quiet and empty, eerily so. All of the dogs but Rudy are in homes, and, with the shelter’s closing eminent, no new dogs have come to fill the kennels. What will happen to them, the dogs who need this halfway point to get another chance at a happily ever after? Avery reaches the office, determined to complete just this one mission. She can’t save every dog, can’t save the world, but she can do something. She can try.
The donation chart in the office has been filled in to reflect the amount earned at today’s Santa fundraiser. The meter is noticeably higher, yet still far from the goal. Avery pulls one-hundred-and-fifty dollars from her coat pocket, all of her Christmas money from her family, plus the little bit she set aside from her paychecks to get a couch. It’s not enough to make up the difference in the amount needed, not by a long shot, but it’s not a donation, so it doesn’t matter how short the amount falls. This money is for an adoption fee.
Searching the filing cabinet until she finds the folder of adoption forms, Avery fills one out quickly and attaches the cash with a paper clip. She hopes it’s enough to absolve her from what is technically dognapping. Creeping in the dark to Rudy’s kennel, her heart races, her footsteps echo, the kennel door screeches open. No Deb. No one to there to stop her. Of course, Rudy greets her with his usual frantic yapping. She shushes him and slips inside, then crouches at his cot.
“If you can understand anything I say at all, please let it be this,” she whispers, shaking out his blanket and covering him completely. “Zip it,” she tells him. “Not a sound.” Clutching the blanket-bundle to her chest, Avery walks at a steady, non-suspicious, confident pace out of the kennel, around the corner, past the office, almost to the lobby, just a little farther—
“Avery.”
She winces at the deep voice calling her name and turns around. Rudy squirms in her arms. “Oh, hey, Tino!” she says, wincing at how fake-cheerful she sounds. “I’m gonna take this blanket home and wash it. Um. For Rudy? Because. It smells. So.”
Tino looks rightfully unconvinced. He says nothing and doesn’t move, just stares at Avery while her heart pounds so hard she’s sure it must be audible in the quiet between them. Tino stretches his arm out to Avery, as if to take Rudy away, then he opens his palm. In his hand is Rudy’s favorite squeaky purple porcupine toy. She takes it, then Tino nods. Avery nods. For a moment, standing in the dark of the shelter, they’re two outlaws doing what needs to be done. Then Tino calls out to Deborah, “Deb! Go on home. I’ll finish locking up.”
If Avery weren’t hoping to kiss someone else soon, she’d plant one right on him. “Thank you,” she whispers. Tino winks, giving her the all-clear.
She drives to Grace’s house next, even more anxious than she was about staging Rudy’s escape. “Just be glad you don’t have to date,” she tells Rudy, scooping out a bite of drippy ice cream. “You’d be dead inside after a while of that too.” Avery holds out the ice cream lid for Rudy to lick. Can dogs eat ice cream? It’s probably fine. “See? Who doesn’t like vanilla ice cream, right? It’s like all other ice cream owes vanilla its existence. Rocky road. Cookie dough. Moose Tracks. Cookies and cream.” Rudy looks plaintively up at her, so she sets the now-empty carton down on the seat for him. “Okay, yeah. I’m stalling.”
Covering him with the blanket again, Avery cuts the engine, promising to be back quickly before the cold seeps in, then runs up Grace’s driveway before she chickens out. Grace answers with two of her dogs at her heels.
“Hi,” Avery
says, clouds of steam puffing out as she speaks. “Sorry to drop by.”
“It’s okay, I’m glad you did.” Grace smiles, and Avery shivers.
“I um, had a weird, yet inspirational, talk with Santa. I mean not real Santa. I don’t think he’s real; you know what I—”
Grace laughs. “I get it, yeah.”
Avery exhales a cloudy breath. “Okay. The thing is, I’ve been settling for feeling nothing because it was safe, or I thought it was, but I don’t want to feel numb anymore. Even though my nose and fingers do actually feel numb right now.” She rubs at her nose. It’s so cold; she has to wrap this up and get back to Rudy. “I just wanted to tell you that I really, really like you a lot. Like I haven’t liked anyone as much as you… ever, actually. Yes, including the person I lived with because— because I was afraid to speak up and say how I really felt. But I’m not anymore. Grace, meeting you was fate. And I don’t even believe in fate, but I don’t know what else it could be. If you need time, then I can give you time. But this is real, and it’s worth the risk to me.” Avery turns and jogs down the steps, not giving Grace a chance to respond. She said what she had say, she did what she needed to do and she’s proud of that, whatever happens or doesn’t happen. “Merry Christmas, Grace.”
Grace calls her name, just once, soft and hesitant. Avery doesn’t turn. The timing isn’t right, and that’s okay. It will be. Avery tucks this moment away, an ember warm and steady in her chest: hope.
Chapter Fourteen
Avery wakes Christmas morning with her legs pinned under eleven pounds of stubbornly snoring mutt. It turns out that Rudy, once off the streets and freed from the pound, is extraordinarily lazy. As soon as they got back to Avery’s apartment, he immediately curled up under the covers on Avery’s bed and hasn’t budged other than shifting positions a few times. So far, he’s the best roommate she’s ever had. They don’t have anywhere to be today, Christmas morning, so Avery nudges Rudy off of her legs to shift her sleeping position; he grunts and resettles by her hips, and Avery curls around him. When her phone rings some time later, she yawns and reaches blindly behind her, squinting one eye open to hit the answer button, then closing it again as she says, “Hi, Mom.”
“Merry Christmas, honey! Wish you were here!” Here is Key West, a favored holiday retreat.
“Merry Christmas,” Avery replies sleepily, and, for the first time in a very long time, means it when she says, “I wish I was there too.”
“Well, I hope you’re not alone anyway,” her mom says. It sounds as if they’ve arrived somewhere, with a sudden whip of wind crackling through the phone.
Avery gives Rudy a pat on his head. “I’m not,” she says. “Not alone.”
In the background now, Avery can hear water splashing, the excited chatter of tourists, and an unintelligible loudspeaker announcement. “We’re getting on the glass-bottom boat now, chat later? We love you, honey!”
Avery promises to join them next year and smiles as she imagines Rudy on a boat somewhere warm and tropical, wearing a little doggy life jacket, soaking up the sun, and barking at everything. He’d probably love being somewhere warm in the winter. They doze again until Avery gets another call, this time from Tracie.
Avery sleepily answers, “Isn’t Santa back in the North Pole getting ready for next year by now?”
“Ha,” Tracie says. “I think Santa’s gone back to being a retiree.”
“Mmm, that’s the life,” Avery says, as if she hasn’t been in bed all day.
“Actually, speaking of the off-season, I am calling to offer you a job. Aside from Easter and Christmas, the company provides costumed characters for festivals and parades and birthday parties, fun stuff like that. And we need a coordinator, someone who makes sure everyone gets where they need to be and everything goes to plan.”
“And you want me for that? Really?”
“Yes, Avery.” Tracie’s tone is firm. “You’re cool under pressure, you’re a hard worker, and you really try to make the best of any situation. Usually. I think you’d be a great asset… If you’re interested.”
Is she interested, or is she just agreeing to something that’s falling in her lap? “Actually, yes. I am interested. It sounds really fun, and like something I'd be good at. So, yes.”
“Great. I will send you the paperwork,” Tracie says.
“I look forward to it.”
She’s just closed her eyes again when the phone rings for a third time. She groans, grabs for the phone to see who it is, then sits up, wide awake. Rudy lifts his head. “Grace? Hi. I, um. I wasn’t expecting to hear from you. Hi.”
Grace hums warmly. “It’s been a day full of surprises for me too.”
“Um?” Is Avery’s confused response.
“I was hoping…” Grace starts, “Can you come to the shelter? I hate to ask on Christmas, but maybe you can clear up some stuff for us.”
Avery’s stomach churns. She’s in trouble. They found out about Rudy, and she has to give him back, and they want to charge Avery with dognapping. “I left money!” She protests. “I left— I had to— I couldn’t—”
“Avery. Relax.” Grace’s commanding, assertive tone halts Avery’s nervous babble. It also sends a thrill down Avery’s spine and spreads warmth across her belly. Grace continues, “Why don’t you come in and we’ll clear up what happened, okay?”
Before heading to the shelter, Avery takes her time walking Rudy and feeding Rudy and struggling to dress Rudy in the Christmas sweater she bought at the pet store when she stopped in to buy him food last night. Then, of course, she has to send a picture of Rudy in his sweater to her family—and one of the two of them, which she saves as her phone background.
In the shower, Avery practices what she’ll say to stand her ground. “I filled out the paperwork. I paid the adoption fee,” she tells her shampoo bottle. “I know you said you’d do everything you could, but he’s mine. He’s been mine from the very first moment in the rain when I almost ran him over. I needed to do something…” She shakes her head; that’s not quite right. “No. I finally did what I should have done a long time ago.”
The roads are nearly empty, so Avery makes it to the shelter in record time. She gives herself one last pep talk in the vanity mirror and strides purposefully into the lobby with her speech ready on her lips.
Inside there’s… a party?
“Avery!” Deb sweeps her into a hug as soon Avery steps inside, to Avery’s immense bewilderment. She pulls back to hold Avery at arm’s length, beams at her, and says, “I can’t believe you did this!”
“Yeah, me either.” Avery glances around once Deb releases her. The shelter’s lobby has been decorated for Christmas, with lights and garlands strung across the ceiling and the front desk, red and green stockings stuck onto the wall, and a little tree tucked in one corner. “Wait, I— Avery starts to explain the mix-up, but she’s interrupted by Tino.
“I knew you were sneaky, man, but this is next level!”
“I didn’t—” Avery says, then she’s interrupted by Grace. Her hair is in loose waves, and she’s wearing a worn thermal shirt and soft flannel pants as if she’d come here fresh from bed. Her eyes are bright, and her smile is impossibly brighter. Avery’s heart clenches at how beautiful she is, and, as much as she wishes she could take credit for decorating the place so festively—because she so badly wants to be the person who makes Grace smile like that—it’s not true. Avery swallows and looks away.
“Grace, I didn’t do this.” She gestures around the lobby.
“What? Oh, no! No, I decorated. Would you believe that I have even more Christmas decorations in storage because they wouldn’t all fit in my house?”
Avery glances up to give her wry grin. “Yes.”
“Well,” Grace says with a chuckle. “I’m glad, because of course we had to celebrate the shelter staying open!”
Avery’s face shifts through several stages of confusion. “Wait, the shelter is staying open?”
“Yes, because of you!”
“My adoption fee for Rudy was all you needed?”
Grace’s expression goes on the same journey of confusion that Avery’s did. At least they’re both confused, and it’s not just Avery being dense. “Okay, you adopted Rudy. That clears that up. Tino was being really cagey about where he went.” She seems relieved, then confused again. “I’m talking about the huge anonymous donation you made?”
Avery flounders for a response and finally comes up with, “No?”
“So you didn’t…” Grace crosses the lobby to duck behind the front desk and comes back with a snow globe that has an envelope attached to the bottom of it. “Deb said you came by last night with a donation.” She holds up the envelope. “This isn’t it?”
“No. I came here to bust out Rudy— I mean, adopt Rudy through the appropriate legal channels that definitely won’t get me in trouble. I left enough money for that.”
Grace tilts her head, says, “Huh,” and pulls a small card and a check from the envelope. “Maybe you know who did leave this, then?”
The card is simple; white with a fancy gold border. In the center is a note: A moment of joy in calligraphy. The check is more than enough to keep the shelter open another year. It is signed, but the ornate script is difficult to read. Avery turns it to the side, squints, and turns it to the other side. “I think that’s an S.”
Grace points to the last name. “That might be a C.”
S.C.
Avery’s attention is drawn back to the snow globe. It’s a cabin, she realizes, a cabin in the snow on Christmas morning. She gives it a shake so the snow falls over the cabin, feeling a little woozy. Could it be? No. That’s insane.
A moment of joy.
“Avery? Any ideas?”
She shakes her head to clear it, trying to think of something, anything, other than, I’ve gone insane, and Santa Claus is real and also loaded, apparently.