by Pippa Grant
Second Chance Cupcakes is turning a profit, but just barely. I can’t afford to enter the New Year with last year’s bad luck still following me around.
So I’ll be devoting all my effort to flipping my personal script this holiday season.
Even if Clint weren’t on my Off Limits list, I don’t have time for flirtation. I’ve got a business—and a life—to save.
I put every penny I had into the bakery. Either it’s going to fly, or we’re both going to flop.
I choose fly, so my first official step in the Embracing the Holiday Spirit mission is to take gingerbread cookies to the senior center for everyone to decorate.
Nothing says “holiday love” like giving away free sugar and getting crafty with new friends.
I shut down the shop early Wednesday afternoon, load up the back seat of my VW Bug with the cookies I baked that morning, along with various icing flavors, frosting bags, and tips.
I can’t find my sprinkles, which I swore were right on the counter, but if I don’t leave now I’ll be late. So I head out, sprinkle-less, and drive across the square to the red brick senior center that recently opened across the street from Sunshine Sex Toys factory.
The three amigos—Greta, Eunice, and Phoebe, who organize all the social activities for the center—meet me at the door. Back in the summer months, they wore matching pastel linen trousers, tropical shirts, and sun visors. Now, they’re in black yoga pants and oversized ugly Christmas sweaters, with various Christmas decorations on their heads.
Greta has a red-and-black striped elf hat. Eunice is sporting reindeer antlers. And Phoebe—the tiniest of the bunch—has a light-up Christmas tree balanced precariously on her militantly hair-sprayed coif. It tilts and teeters every time she moves, as if it’s about to fall off, but somehow stays atop her tight white curls.
It’s a Christmas miracle.
This should be celebrated.
I smile brightly. “I love your hats! You’re all so festive.”
“Are you on InstaChat, Noelle?” Phoebe whips out her phone, scooting in close as I place the box of cookies on the table in the all-purpose room. “If not, you gotta get on, girl. They’ve got all these me-me things of Clint O’Dell—”
“Meeeems, Phoebe,” Greta corrects. “Not me-mes.”
“It looks like me-me.”
“It does,” Eunice agrees. “But my granddaughter told me the same thing Greta’s nephew said. It’s meem. And our very own Clint is a full-fledged meme star. Just like Chuck Norris!”
Phoebe flips her phone around to show me a picture, and there’s Clint, in his dress uniform, holding a tiny red-haired man in camo gear, turned into a meme that says Clint O’Dell uses Chuck Norris as a Christmas ornament.
Oh. Dear.
Greta claps her hands. “There are loads of them. Happy Cat knows how to celebrate its heroes. Phoebe, show her the dildo one.”
“How do I get back to that one?”
“Hit the back button.”
“Which one is the back button?”
“It’s right—ooh, somebody’s making her list for Santa!”
I look down at Phoebe’s phone again, and there’s a Mrs. Claus teddy on display.
“I got it!” Eunice cries. She shoves her phone in my face, and there’s Clint again, in his military uniform, with a dildo Photoshopped into one hand and the caption Clint O’Dell is the original Happy Cat Sex Toy. All others are cheap imitations.
And now I’m imagining all the ways I’d like to play with Clint, and I really need to get these ladies distracted with gingerbread men. “So! Let’s decorate cookies! Who wants to pick a frosting flavor?”
I lift the lid on the box, and ugh.
Half my gingerbread men have lost limbs!
How? I drove so carefully. And they were cool before I put them in the box. But it looks like Bumble the Snow Monster came trampling through my gingerbread forest, tearing the arms and legs off my gingerbread army and leaving death and destruction in his wake.
This is okay, I remind myself.
Happy thoughts. We can glue the legs back together with frosting.
And the senior citizens are already diving in and grabbing gingerbread pieces like they’re not bothered at all.
“Look, Earl! It’s you, if that knee replacement had gone awry!”
“Oh, this one reminds me of my granddaughter. She’s broken her arm three times. Poor thing has zero hand-eye coordination and two left feet.”
“Definitely your granddaughter, bless her heart. Ha! I got a whole man.”
“Noelle, can I have an extra leg?”
The question catches me by surprise, but I nod to Phoebe. Because why not?
The point is holiday cheer.
And if an extra gingerbread leg will make her happy, I say go for it, girl.
Once the initial rush is over, I pass out piping bags and demonstrate how to decorate a gingerbread man. After my mom left us when I was a little girl, our next-door neighbor took me in before and after school. For the next three years, Terry taught me how to decorate cakes. When Dad got orders and we had to leave, I begged him to marry her so she could go with us.
She was a widow; Dad had been left by his wife—as a kid, I thought pairing them up was the perfect solution.
As an adult, however, I realize Dad had very little in common with Terry—or anyone with feelings who wasn’t accustomed to his brand of stoic love—and she probably would’ve left us too.
In some ways, it was a blessing that we moved before I got even more attached.
Don’t get attached. It’s good advice in most situations.
Attachment almost always leads to disappointment in the end. I learned that lesson as a kid being shuffled around the world from one school to the next. I forgot it for a while in Atlanta, with a certain Someone I Refuse to Think About, but he reminded me—painfully and thoroughly enough that I won’t be forgetting that lesson again.
Which is why I’m going to be very, very careful about who I choose to get attached to from now on. I refuse to put myself through that kind of pain again.
Not thinking about that. Happy thoughts, Noelle! Grateful thoughts!
Bringing my focus back to the perfectly lovely present moment, I circle around the senior citizens, answering questions and offering encouragement. Because we can all use a little boost now and again.
Except every time I ask if someone needs help, I’m peppered with unrelated questions.
Like when Frank pulls a jar of mushrooms out of his pocket. “Do you know any tricks for opening this? I can’t get it with my arthritis flaring up.”
I blink. “Do you want mushrooms on your gingerbread man?”
“No. I’m just saying that’s what I need help with. Opening jars. Usually Hope stops by so we can pet some animals, and I get her to open my jars while she’s here. But she’s been tied up with the reindeer this week, so I didn’t have a chance to ask her.”
“Right. No problem.” I open Frank’s mushrooms and move on to Ari Lightwell, who’s always coming into Second Chance and asking if little fairies help me bake, and if he can borrow a roll of toilet paper.
I’m onto his game, but I’m not going to judge a man who goes through a roll a day. I mean…ouch.
He beams at me over his gingerbread man’s body. It’s missing half a leg and sporting an icing face that makes it look like he’s in agony. “Noelle! I heard you found the reindeer the other night. Do you think it’s true it was looking for Clint because he’s the chosen one?”
“Chosen one for what?” I ask, trying not to laugh. I’m not sure if Ari’s serious—about this, or the fairies, or anything else to be honest.
“You know. To be one of the town Santas this year.”
That little ticker in my chest seizes up, then howls out an indignant Nooooo!
Because Santas and me? There’s some serious baggage there, stuff that’s going to take time to unpack, but I’m not going there right now. Not yet. This holiday season i
s about choosing my own destiny.
And deflecting questions I don’t want to answer. “Um, don’t know… Do you?”
“Of course!” Ari beams up at me. “But he’s so tough, he’d probably replace the reindeer with flying polar bears. They’re fucking deadly, you know.”
“Ari! Don’t say fuck,” Eunice chides. “There are grandchildren present.”
“If they’re old enough to ice cookies, they’re old enough to learn when to use a curse word. When you’re talking about deadly beasts, you should say fuck. As in—A fucking polar bear bit my gingerbread man’s leg off. If a creature can rip your leg off with one furry paw, you should show it some verbal respect.”
He could have a point.
But even though the seniors and one or two fully-grown grandchildren are enjoying the cookie decorating, I’m still disappointed that the gingerbread men are all broken. I wanted to give them something nice. And whole. And Christmas-card-lovely.
Instead, our holiday cheer has turned into a discussion of deadly fucking polar bears.
“Write that one down, Eunice. Clint O’Dell doesn’t fly his sled with reindeer. Clint flies with fucking polar bears,” Ari instructs.
“I think we’re missing the wit of these me-mes,” Phoebe says.
Eunice claps. “Oh! I’ve got it! Clint O’Dell doesn’t worry about Santa’s naughty list. Santa worries about Clint O’Dell’s naughty list.”
“Nailed it, Eunice,” a deep voice calls. “Except I am the naughty list.”
An excited gasp rolls through the room. A few people clap. My nipples flicker to life like Christmas lights and my throat goes drier than New Year’s champagne. I shake out my hands—nervous habit—and suck in a deep breath before I plaster on a welcoming smile and turn to the hometown hero who apparently has plans at the senior center too.
“Clint! Look! I made a gingerbread you!” Phoebe cries.
She lifts up a cookie. It’s missing both arms, but she’s drawn them in with frosting to be holding the middle of his three legs.
Yes, I’m seeing that correctly.
She definitely used frosting to glue a third leg between his other two.
“Ah, I don’t think—” I start.
“Phoebe! You made a naughty gingerbread man?” Greta shrieks. “You animal.”
I’ve been in Happy Cat long enough to know that of course this was going to happen.
And while the Noelle of three weeks ago would have run home to drown her mortification in peppermint schnapps, this Noelle is going to roll with the punches.
Or the penises… Gingerbread penises…
God, when did this become my life?
And why does all the craziness seem kind of fun when Clint O’Dell looks my way and winks one dreamy green eye?
Four
Clint
I keep saying it’s good to be home.
And it keeps being true.
“That’s one hell of a cookie.” I put an arm around Phoebe, admiring her well-hung handiwork.
She blushes and rolls her eyes at Greta. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Greta. It’s Clint with a sword. From that time he and the other boys did the medieval battle reenactment in the square.”
“Oh, right.” Greta winks. “Of course it is.”
“I’m hung like that,” Ari pipes up. “But mine’s mostly gravity.”
“Own it, man.” I fist-bump him. “Take every win you can get. Have any of you seen George Cooney? My mom went to feed him and his family, and realized they’d busted out of their kennel again. I figured I should follow the smell of sugar.”
“No raccoons here,” Eunice pipes up. “But my eyes are giving me trouble. Could you be a dear and help me glue this gingerbread man’s head back on? And then sign it for me?”
“Anything for a lady in distress.”
Except Eunice doesn’t look distressed.
Noelle does.
She’s wearing a smile that’s too bright to match the tension around her eyes.
“You mind if I stay and help?” I ask as I pass by. I drop my voice. “We probably shouldn’t trust people with vision problems to know if there’s been a raccoon sighting near the cookies.”
Her smile softens. “That’s probably a good—”
“I can still hear just fine, Clint O’Dell,” Eunice cuts in.
“Only because she put her hearing aids in today,” Greta mutters.
“Plus, if George shows up—and you know he will—I can be here waiting,” I add. “Head trouble off at the pass.”
“Of course.” Noelle winces. “It’s not like he can make the cookies look any worse. That’s for sure.”
“Never underestimate an opponent like George Cooney.” I don’t add that I’ve seen what Ryan’s trash panda can do to a box of cupcakes. I witnessed the carnage firsthand this past summer, when George leapt off the roof right into a plate of Noelle’s frosted finest.
But she doesn’t need to know about that unfortunate incident.
George is gaining control over his sugar cravings. Now that his kits are older, he seems to be calming down. He’s even lost a few pounds thanks to a diet heavy in fresh veggies recommended by both Hope and his vet.
But he’s still not to be trusted around easy sweets.
Especially three-legged gingerbread men.
George has a thing for anything dildo-shaped, a habit acquired from years of living next door to a sex toy designer and going through her exotically fascinating trash.
“Okay. Will do.” Noelle shoots me a smile that gets me in the chest like a Chuck Norris roundhouse kick.
Yeah, I’ve seen the memes.
They’re hilarious. And I’m definitely letting my family think they’ve gone to my head, because, dude—
How often is a man compared to Chuck Norris? A guy who happens to be both an honorary Marine and the creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Apparently he accidentally ate a live baby turtle in a Korean stew. By the time it made its way out the other side, it was six feet tall and knew karate.
I mean, at least that’s what the Internet says, so I assume it must be true.
I help Eunice use frosting to glue her gingerbread man’s head back on, then make my way down the table until I’m next to Noelle again.
She’s trying to Frankenstein the remaining gingerbread limbs and bodies into larger cookies, so I grab a bag of frosting and go to town helping her.
“They came out of the oven in one piece. I swear they did,” she says with a sigh. “But everyone’s having fun, and that’s what it’s all about, right?”
“You know it, Cupcake. You going caroling tonight?”
“Yes!” She looks up at me, a fierce smile reclaiming control of her pretty face. “It’s Christmas. Of course I’m caroling. I love Christmas!”
That’s a forced I love Christmas if I’ve ever heard one, but I don’t push, because who needs people poking holes in their happy balloon at the holidays? Even if it’s a forcibly inflated happy balloon?
“Magical time of the year,” I agree, and leave it at that.
One of the senior citizens calls out for help, and Noelle bustles around the tables to head to the rescue.
She doesn’t seem to like staying still.
I can appreciate that. Too much living to do to stay still.
Soon, the cookies are being sampled—or devoured—and praised, which makes Noelle duck her head but smile with a pride that’s absolutely deserved. Frank’s dentures slip when he chews too hard, but otherwise, everyone’s happy.
Cheerful.
Grateful.
It’s a perfect holiday moment, with no George Cooney in sight. Though I legitimately suspect the greedy trash panda’s around here somewhere, lurking in wait.
That wasn’t just an excuse to check on Noelle.
Or at least that wasn’t the only reason I wanted to pop down to the senior center…
My sisters-in-law tell me Noelle’s settling in well, but that she’s been shy about
joining in the community activities. I’m guessing she just needs time to get her sea legs.
Or her Happy Cat legs, as the case may be.
I insist on carrying the leftover cookies and supplies out to her car in the chill of early evening. The sunlight’s fading fast, and the holiday lights strung around the street lamps are flickering on. Soon, we’ll all be getting hot chocolate in the square and lining up for caroling.
I’m about to ask if she’d like to walk over together from her shop later, when she pops the trunk, and screams like she’s being chased by a bloodthirsty Christmas goose.
I drop the box and dive between her and whatever’s in the trunk, because Danger! Protect the innocent. Duty.
It’s what I do.
I got a second chance when I was a kid. I was struck by lightning, but survived without much more than a scratch. I have a patch of white hair near the crown of my head to show for it, and my brothers like to say my personality is permanently warped. But they love me, and I love being alive, so ever since, I’ve done my best to make the most of my time here on Earth.
I’ll face down threats I’m prepared for—and those I’m not—with equal abandon.
But luckily the danger in Noelle’s car is the kind I’m totally equipped to handle. “George! Bad raccoon,” I scold the chubby beast rolling around in the messy trunk. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
He chitters at me and tosses a red-and-white candy cane-striped bra into the air.
Noelle dives for it and shoves it into her apron pocket, her cheeks flushing pink as she says, “Um. Thank you, George. Been looking for that one.”
He chirps in response and climbs out of the trunk, seconds before one of his kits emerges from inside a bowling bag and waddles out after his old man.
“George, we’ve talked about stealing underwear.” I sigh dramatically and shake my head, turning to Noelle. “He stole my leopard-print thong once. Thought I’d never get it back.”
Her eyes flare wide and dip below my belt, sending a bolt of heat rushing through me even as I crack a grin. “Kidding. I don’t wear thongs. And if I did, they’d be polka-dot print. So, what songs are your caroling go-tos? ‘Jingle Bells’ is my favorite. Followed closely by ‘Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.’”