Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances

always  about  you.”  She  made  an  impatient  sound.  “What  about  the  sticky  note  that  said  Do  Not  Forget
Pig? Didn’t that ring any bells for you?”
“An old lady stole it from me,” I said.
“An old lady . . . ” She broke off. “Yeah, uh-huh. It’s not that you spaced it; an old lady had to steal it
from you. It’s The Addie Show all over again. Every channel, every network.”
That stung. “It’s not The Addie Show. I just got sidetracked.”
“Go to Pet World,” Dorrie said, sounding tired. She hung up.

---

Chapter Twelve
S
unlight  glinted  on  the  snow  as  I  hurried  down  the  road  and  over  to  Pet  World.  The  sidewalks  were
mostly clear, but there were spots here and there where the shoveled-off drifts had crumbled down, and
my boots made oomph sounds as I trudged through those deeper stretches.
As I oomphed, I kept up a running monologue inside my brain about how The Addie Show was not on
every channel. The Addie Show wasn’t on the monster-truck channel, and it wasn’t on the pro-wrestling
channel. It most certainly wasn’t on whatever channel aired Let’s Go Fishing with Orlando Wilson, and I
was tempted to call Dorrie back and tell her that. “Is it called Let’s Go Fishing with Adeline Lindsey?”
I’d say. “Why, no! It’s not!”
But I didn’t, because no doubt she’d find a way to turn that into an example of my being self-absorbed,
too.  Worse,  she’d  probably  be  right.  A  better  plan  was  to  get  Gabriel  in  my  hot  little  hands—well,  my
cold little hands—and then call Dorrie. I’d say, “See? It turned out okay.” And then I’d call Tegan and let
Gabriel oink into the phone or something.
Or, no. I’d call Tegan first, to spread the joy, and then I’d call Dorrie. And I wouldn’t say, “Ha-ha,”
because I was bigger than that. Yeah. I was big enough to admit my wrongs, and I was big enough to stop
cowering when Dorrie scolded me, since the new, enlightened me would need no scolding.
My cell rang from within my bag, and I cowered. Holy crud, does the girl have ESP?
A worse possibility entered my mind: Maybe it’s Tegan.
And then a wildly unworse possibility, stubborn and fluttering: Or . . . maybe it’s Jeb?
I fumbled in my bag and snatched out my phone. The display screen said
DAD
, and I deflated. Why?  I
railed silently. Why couldn’t it have been—
And then I stopped. I cut that whiny voice off midsentence, because I was sick of it, and it wasn’t doing
me any good, and anyway, shouldn’t I have some say over the endless thoughts running through my head?
In my brain—and in my heart—I experienced a sudden absence of static. Wow. I could get used to that.
I hit the ignore button on my phone and dropped it back into my bag. I’d call Dad later, after I’d made
things right.
Eau de hamster hit me as I stepped inside Pet World, as well as the unmistakable scent of peanut butter.
I  paused,  closed  my  eyes,  and  said  a  prayer  for  strength,  because  while  eau  de  hamster  was  to  be
expected in a pet store, the smell of peanut butter could mean only one thing.
I  approached  the  cash  register,  and  Nathan  Krugle  glanced  up  midchew.  His  eyes  widened,  then
narrowed. He swallowed and put down his peanut butter sandwich.
“Hello, Addie,” he said distastefully, á la Jerry Seinfeld greeting his nemesis, Newman.
No. Wait. That would make me Newman, and I was so not Newman. Nathan was Newman. Nathan was
a super-skinny, acne-pocked Newman with a taste for shrunken T-shirts inscribed with Star Trek  quotes.
Today his shirt said,
YOU WILL DIE OF SUFFOCATION IN THE ICY COLD OF SPACE.
“Hello, Nathan,” I replied. I pushed my hood off, and he took in my hair. He semi-snorted.
“Nice haircut,” he said.
I started to say something back, then restrained myself. “I’m here to pick up something for a friend,” I
said. “For Tegan. You know Tegan.”
I’d  thought  the  mention  of  Tegan,  with  her  bottomless  sweetness,  might  distract  Nathan  from  his
vendetta.
It didn’t.

---

“Indeed I do,” he said, his eyes gleaming. “We go to the same school. The same small school. Surely it
would be hard to ignore someone in a school that small?”
I groaned. Here it came, again, as if we hadn’t spoken for four years and still had to process that one
regrettable incident. Which we didn’t. We had processed it many times, and yet apparently the processing
was one-sided.
“But wait,” he said in the robotic voice of a bad infomercial host. “You ignored someone in a school
that small!”
“Seventh gra-ade,” I said in a gritted-teeth, singsong voice. “Many many years ago.”
“Do you know what a Tribble is?” he demanded.
“Yes, Nathan, you’ve—”
“A Tribble is a harmless creature desperate for affection, native to the planet Iota Geminorum Four.”
“I thought it was Iota Gemi-blah-blah Five.”
“And not that many years ago”—he arched his brows to make sure I understood his emphasis—“I was
such a Tribble.”
I slumped next to a rack of dog treats. “You were not a Tribble, Nathan.”
“And like a specially trained Klingon warrior—”
“Please don’t call me that. You know I really hate being called that.”
“—you obliterated me.” He noticed the location of my elbow, and his nostrils flared. “Hey,” he said,
snapping his fingers repeatedly at the offending body part. “Don’t touch the Doggy de Lites.”
I jerked upright. “Sorry, I’m sorry,” I said. “Just as I am very sorry I hurt your feelings four years ago.
But. And this is important. Are you listening?”
“In galactic terms, four years is but a nanosecond.”
I made a sound of exasperation. “I didn’t get the note! I swear to God, I never saw it!”
“Sure, sure. Only, know what I think? I think you read it, tossed it, and promptly forgot it, because if it
has to do with anyone else’s woes, it doesn’t matter, right?”
“That’s not true. Listen, can we just—”
“Shall I recite the note’s contents?”
“Please don’t.”
He gazed into the distance. “And I quote: ‘Dear Addie, will you go steady with me? Call me with your
answer.’”
“I didn’t get the note, Nathan.”
“Even if you didn’t want to go steady, you should have called.”
“I would have! But I didn’t get the note!”
“The heart of a seventh-grade boy is a fragile thing,” he said tragically.
My hand itched toward the tidy rows of Doggy de Lites. I wanted to peg a pack at him.
“Okay, Nathan?” I said. “Even if I did get the note—which I didn’t—can’t you let it go? People move
on. People grow. People change.”
“Oh,  please,”  he  said  coldly.  The  way  he  regarded  me,  as  if  I  were  lower  than  a  straw  wrapper,
reminded me that he and Jeb were friends. “People like you don’t change.”
My throat closed. It was too much, that he would come down on me in the same way that everyone else
on the planet had.
“But . . . ” It came out wavery. I tried again, and in a voice that wobbled despite my best intentions, I
said, “Can’t anyone see I’m trying?”
After a long moment, he was the one who finally dropped his eyes.
“I’m here to pick up Tegan’s pig,” I said. “Can I just have him, please?”
Nathan’s brow furrowed. “What pig?”
“The pig that was dropped off last night.” I tried to read his expression. “Teeny-tiny? With a note that

---

said, Do not sell to anyone but Tegan Shepherd?”
“We  don’t  ‘sell’  animals,”  he  informed  me.  “We  adopt  them  out.  And  there  was  no  note,  just  an
invoice.”
“But there was a pig?”
“Well, yes.”
“And it was really, really small?”
“Maybe.”
“Well, there should have been a note attached to the pet carrier, but it doesn’t matter. Can you just get
him for me?”
Nathan hesitated.
“Nathan, oh my God.” I envisioned Gabriel alone through the cold night. “Please tell me he didn’t die.”
“What?! No.”
“Then where is he?”
Nathan didn’t reply.
“Nathan, come on,” I said. “This isn’t about me. It’s about Tegan. Do you honestly want to punish her
because you’re pissed at me?”
“Someone adopted him,” he muttered.
“I’m sorry. What’s that?”
“Some  lady,  she  adopted  the  pig.  She  came  in  about  half  an  hour  ago  and  forked  over  two  hundred
dollars. How was I supposed to know he wasn’t for sale—I mean, adoption?”
“Because of the note, you idiot!”
“I didn’t get the note!”
We realized the irony of his protest at the same time. We stared at each other.
“I’m not lying,” he said.
There was no point pushing the issue. This was bad, bad, bad, and I had to figure out how to fix it, not
get all over Nathan for something that was too late to change.
“Okay,  um,  do  you  still  have  the  invoice?”  I  said.  “Show  me  the  invoice.”  I  held  out  my  hand  and
wiggled my fingers.
Nathan jabbed the cash register, and the bottom drawer sprung open. He drew out a wrinkled piece of
pale pink paper.
I  grabbed  it.  “‘One  teacup  piglet,  certified  and  licensed,’”  I  read  aloud.  “‘Two  hundred  dollars.’”  I
flipped it over, zeroing in on the neatly penned message at the bottom. “‘Paid in full. To be picked up by
Tegan Shepherd.’”
“Damn,” Nathan said.
I flipped it over again, looking for the name of who rebought Tegan’s pig.
“Bob gets in new animals all the time,” Nathan said defensively. “They show up and I, you know, adopt
them out. Because it’s a pet store.”
“Nathan, I need you to tell me who you sold him to,” I told him.
“I can’t. That’s private information.”
“Yes, but it’s Tegan’s pig.”
“Um, we’ll give her a refund, I guess.”
Technically, it was Dorrie and I who should get the refund, but I didn’t mention that. I didn’t care about
the refund.
“Just tell me who you sold him to, and I’ll go explain the situation.”
He shifted, looking incredibly uncomfortable.
“You do have the person’s name, right? Who bought him?”
“No,” he said. His eyes darted to the open drawer of the cash register, where I saw the tail end of a

---

white credit-card slip.
“Even if I did know, there’s nothing I could do,” he continued. “I can’t reveal the details of customer
transactions. But I don’t know the lady’s name anyway, so, um . . . yeah.”
“It’s okay. I understand. And . . . I do believe you about not seeing the note.”
“You do?” he said. His expression was bewildered.
“I do,” I said truthfully. I turned to leave, and as I did, I hooked the toe of my boot under the Doggie de
Lite display rack and tugged. The rack toppled, and cellophane bags tumbled to the floor, bursting open
and spilling dog treats everywhere.
“Oh, no!” I cried.
“Aw, crap,” Nathan said. He came around from behind the counter, knelt, and started piling up the bags
that were still intact.
“I am so sorry,” I said. As he fished for a stray dog cookie, I leaned over the counter and plucked the
white receipt. I shoved it into my pocket. “You must hate me even more now, huh?”
He paused, straightening up and propping one hand on his knee. He did a weird thing with his lips, as if
he were going through some sort of struggle.
“I don’t hate you,” he said at last.
“You don’t?”
“I just don’t think you realize, sometimes, how you affect people. And I’m not just talking about me.”
“Then  .  .  .  who  are  you  talking  about?”  I  was  very  aware  of  the  receipt  in  my  pocket,  but  I  couldn’t
walk away from a comment like that.
“Forget it.”
“No way. Tell me.”
He sighed. “I don’t want this to go to your head, but you’re not always annoying.”