Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances

Addie  .  .  .  he’d  written,  and  I  could  feel  the  complicated  Jeb-silence  inside  that  dot-dot-dot.  I  could
imagine him thinking and breathing, his hands hovering over the keyboard. Finally—or at least, that was
how I pictured it—he’d typed in, We’ll see.
“‘We’ll see’?” Dorrie read aloud. “That’s all he said, ‘We’ll see’?”
“I know. Classic Jeb.”
“Hmm,” Dorrie said.
“I don’t think ‘we’ll see’ is bad,” Tegan said. “He probably didn’t know what to say. He loved you so
much, Addie. I bet he got your e-mail, and at first his heart lifted up, and then, because he’s Jeb—”
“Because he’s a guy,” Dorrie interjected.
“He said to himself, Hold on. Be careful.”
“Stop,” I said. It was too painful.
“And maybe that’s what his ‘we’ll see’ meant,” Tegan said anyway. “That he was thinking about it. I
think that’s good, Addie!”
“Tegan . . . ” I said.
Her expression faltered. She went from hopeful to uncertain to worried. Her eyes flew to my pink hair.
Dorrie, who was quicker on the uptake with these things, said, “How long did you wait at Starbucks?”
“Two hours.”
She gestured at my hair. “And after that, that’s when you . . . ?”
“Uh-huh. At the Fantastic Sam’s across the street.”
“Fantastic Sam’s?” Dorrie said. “You got your breakup haircut at a place that gives out Dum-Dums and
balloons?”
“They didn’t give me a Dum-Dum or a balloon,” I said glumly. “They were about to close. They didn’t
even want to give me an appointment.”
“I don’t get it,” Dorrie said. “Do you know how many girls would have died for your hair?”
“Well, if they’re willing to dig through a trash can for it, they can have it.”
“Honestly, the pink is growing on me,” Tegan said. “And I’m not just saying that.”
“Yes, you are,” I said. “But who cares? It’s Christmas, and I’m all alone—”
“You’re not alone,” Tegan argued.
“And I’ll always be alone—”
“How can you be alone when we’re right here next to you?”
“And Jeb . . . ” My voice hitched. “Jeb doesn’t love me anymore.”
“I can’t believe he didn’t come!” Tegan said. “That just doesn’t sound like Jeb. Even if he didn’t want
to get back together, don’t you think he’d at least show up?”
“But why doesn’t he want to get back together?” I said. “Why?”
“Are you sure it’s not some kind of mistake?” she pressed.
“Don’t,” Dorrie warned her.
“Don’t what?” Tegan said. She turned to me. “Are you absolutely positive he didn’t try to call you or
anything?”
I grabbed my phone off my bedside table. I tossed it to her. “Look for yourself.”
She went to my call history and read the names out loud. “Me, Dorrie, home, home, home again—”
“That was my mom, trying to figure out where I was, since I was gone for so long.”
Tegan frowned. “Eight-oh-four, five-five-five, three-six-three-one? Who’s that?”
“Wrong number,” I said. “I answered, but no one was there.”

---

She pressed a button and lifted the phone to her ear.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Whoever it was, I’m calling them. What if it was Jeb calling from someone else’s phone?”
“It wasn’t,” I said.
“Eight-oh-four is Virginia’s area code,” Dorrie said. “Did Jeb take some mystery trip to Virginia?”
“No,” I said. Tegan was the one grasping at straws, not me. Still, when she held up her finger, my pulse
quickened.
“Um, hi,” Tegan said. “May I ask who’s calling?”
“You’re the one who’s calling, you doof,” Dorrie said.
Tegan blushed. “Sorry,” she said into the phone. “I mean, um, may I ask who’s speaking?”
Dorrie waited for about half a second. “Well? Who is it?”
Tegan fluttered her hand, meaning, Shush, you’re distracting me.
“Me?” she said to the mystery person on the other end of the line. “No, because that’s insanity. And if I
had thrown my cell phone into a snowbank, why would I—”
Tegan  drew  back  and  held  the  phone  several  inches  from  her  ear.  Tiny  voices  spilled  out  from  the
speaker, sounding like Alvin and the Chipmunks.
“How old are you guys?” Tegan said. “And hey, quit passing the phone around. All I want to know . . .
Excuse me, could we get back to . . . ” Her jaw dropped. “No! Absolutely not. I’m hanging up now, and I
think you should . . . go play on the swing set.”
She shut the phone. “Can you believe that?” she asked Dorrie and me indignantly. “They’re eight years
old—eight!—and  they  want  me  to  tell  them  how  to  French-kiss  a  guy.  They  are  seriously  in  need  of
deprogramming.”
Dorrie and I looked at each other. Dorrie turned to Tegan and said, “The person who called Addie was
an eight-year-old girl?”
“There wasn’t just one. There was a whole gaggle, all yapping away. Yap, yap, yap.” She shook her
head. “I sure hope we weren’t that annoying when we were that age.”
“Tegan?” Dorrie said. “You’re not giving us much to work with, babe. Did you find out why this gaggle
of eight-year-olds called Addie?”
“Oh. Sorry. Um, I don’t think it was them, because they said it wasn’t actually their phone. They said
they found it a few hours ago, after some girl flung it in a snowbank.”
“Come again?” Dorrie said.
My  palms  felt  itchy.  I  didn’t  like  the  sound  of  this  girl.  “Yeah,  please  tell  us  what  the  heck  you’re
talking about.”
“Well,” Tegan said, “I’m not convinced they knew what they were talking about, but what they said was
that the girl—”
“The phone-flinging girl?” Dorrie interrupted.
“Right.  That  she  was  with  a  guy,  and  that  they  were  in  loooooove,  which  the  eight-year-olds  knew
because  they  saw  the  guy  ‘plant  a  juicy  one’  on  the  girl.  And  then  they  asked  me  to  teach  them  how  to
French-kiss!”
“You can’t teach someone to French-kiss over the phone,” Dorrie said.
“Plus, they’re eight! They’re babies! They don’t need to be French-kissing, period. And ‘plant a juicy
one’? Please!”
“Um, Tegan?” I said. “Was the guy Jeb?”
The giggliness went out of her. I could see it happen. She bit her lip, flipped my phone back open, and
hit redial.
“I am not here to chat,” she said, right off the bat. She held the phone away from her head, wincing, then
drew it back. “No! Shhh! I have one question and one question only. The guy with the girl . . . what did he

---

look like?”
Chipmunk chatter burbled from the phone, but I couldn’t make out the words. I watched Tegan’s face
and gnawed my thumbnail.
“Uh-huh, okay,” Tegan said. “He did? Aw, that’s so cute!”
“Tegan,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Gotta  go,  bye,”  Tegan  said,  snapping  shut  the  phone.  She  turned  to  me.  “Most  definitely  not  Jeb,
because this guy had curly hair. So . . . yay! Case solved!”
“What made you say, ‘Aw, that’s so cute’?” Dorrie asked.
“They  said  that  the  guy  did  this  dorky  happy  dance  after  kissing  the  phone-flinging  girl,  and  that  he
thrust his fist into the air and yelled, ‘Jubilee!’”
Dorrie drew back and made an okay-that’s-weird expression.
“What?” Tegan said. “Wouldn’t you want some guy yelling ‘jubilee’ after kissing you?”
“Maybe they’d just had dessert,” I said.
They looked at me.
I looked back at them. I flipped my palms up, like, C’mon, guys. “With cherries? Cherries Jubilee?”
Dorrie  turned  back  to  Tegan.  “No,”  she  said.  “I  wouldn’t  want  some  guy  yelling  ‘jubilee’  about  my
cherry.”
Tegan giggle-snickered, then stopped when she saw that I wasn’t.
“But it wasn’t Jeb,” she repeated. “Isn’t that good?”
I  didn’t  answer.  I  didn’t  want  Jeb  kissing  strange  girls  in  Virginia,  but  if  the  eight-year-old  Kissing
Patrol had somehow possessed news of Jeb—well, I would very much have appreciated hearing it. Just
say the guy they saw didn’t have curly hair, and instead of kissing some girl, he was, like . . . locked in a
Porta-Potty  or  something.  If  the  Kissing  Patrol  had  told  Tegan  that,  then  yes,  it  would  have  been  good
news, because it would have meant Jeb had an excuse for not meeting me.
Not that I wanted Jeb to be locked in a Porta-Potty, obviously.
“Addie? Are you okay?” Tegan asked.
“Do you believe in the magic of Christmas?” I asked.
“Huh?” she said.
“I don’t, ’cause I’m Jewish,” Dorrie said.
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “Never mind, I’m just being dumb.”
Tegan looked at Dorrie. “Do you believe in the magic of Hanukkah?”
“What?”
“Or, I know! Angels!” Tegan said. “Do you believe in angels?”
Now Dorrie and I both stared at her.
“You brought it up,” Tegan said to me. “The magic of Christmas, the magic of Hanukkah, the magic of
the holiday season . . . ” She held her hands out, palms up, as if the answer was obvious. “Angels.”
Dorrie  snorted.  Not  me,  though,  because  I  guess  maybe  that  was  where  my  lonely  heart  was  headed,
even if I didn’t want to say the word.
“Last  year  on  Christmas  Eve,  after  Jeb  kissed  me  at  Starbucks,  he  came  over  and  watched  It’s  a