Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances

We are the Christmas star lit by the angels, I thought, imagining how this one spot of brightness must
look from anywhere else in the pitch-black town. Only Christmas is over, and there were no angels.
I pulled off my hat and coat and slipped on my black clogs, which matched my black pants. I resecured
the
DO NOT FORGET PIG!
sticky note to my Starbucks shirt, which read,
YOU CALL IT, WE’LL MAKE IT.
Dorrie
made fun of my T-shirt, just as she made fun of everything Starbucks, but I didn’t care. Starbucks was my
safe place. It was also my sad place, since it housed so many Jeb memories.
Even  so,  I  found  solace  in  its  smells  and  routines—and  especially  its  music.  Call  it  “corporate”  or
“canned” or whatever, but the Starbucks CDs were good.
“Hey, Christina,” I called, “care for a little ‘Hallelujah’?”
“Heck yeah,” she called back.
I stuck in the Lifted: Songs of the Spirit CD (which, yes, Dorrie gagged at) and selected track seven.
Rufus Wainwright’s voice filled the air, and I thought, Ah, the sweet sound of Starbucks.
What Dorrie failed to appreciate—along with the squillions of other Starbucks scoffers—was that the
people who worked at Starbucks were still people, just like everyone else. Yes, Starbucks was owned by
some hotshot Starbucks daddy, and yes, Starbucks was a chain. But Christina lived here in Gracetown just
like Dorrie did. So did I. So did the rest of the baristas. So what was the big deal?
I walked out of the back room and started unpacking the pastries left by Carlos, the food-delivery guy.
My attention kept getting pulled to the purple chairs at the front of the store, and tears made the reduced-
fat blueberry muffins go blurry.
Stop it, I commanded myself. Get a frickin’ grip, or it’s going to be a very long day.
“Whoa,” Christina said, her feet appearing in front of me. “You cut your hair.”
I lifted my head. “Um . . . yeah.”
“And dyed it pink.”
“That’s not a problem, is it?”
Starbucks  had  a  Don’t  Ask,  Don’t  Tell  appearance  code  that  prohibited  nose  rings,  other  facial
piercings,  and  visible  tattoos—meaning  you  could  have  tattoos  and  piercings,  you  just  couldn’t  show
them. I didn’t think there was anything in the guidelines that said you couldn’t have pink hair, though. Then
again, the topic had never come up.

---

“Hmm,” Christina said, studying me. “No, it’s fine. Surprised me is all.”
“Yeah, me, too,” I said under my breath.
I didn’t intend for her to hear me, but she did.
“Addie, are you okay?” she asked.
“Of course,” I said.
Her gaze shifted to my shirt. She frowned. “What pig are you not supposed to forget?”
“Huh?”  I  looked  down.  “Oh.  Uh  .  .  .  nothing.”  I  suspected  that  pigs  were  probably  prohibited  in
Starbucks, too, and I saw no reason to get Christina all worked up by explaining the whole story. I’d keep
Gabriel hidden in the back room after I picked him up, and she would never have to know.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” she said.
I smiled brightly and peeled off the sticky note. “Never better!”
She went back to prepping the coffee station, and I folded the note in half and stuck it in my pocket. I
lugged the pastries to the glass case, put on a pair of plastic gloves, and started loading the trays. Rufus
Wainwright’s cover of “Hallelujah” filled the store, and I hummed along. It was almost pleasant, in a life-
sucks-but-at-least-there’s-good-music sort of way.
But  as  I  listened  to  the  lyrics—truly  listened,  instead  of  just  letting  them  float  over  me—the  almost-
pleasant feelings went away. I’d always thought this was an inspirational song about God or something,
because of all the hallelujahs. Only it turned out there were words before and after the hallelujahs, and
those words were hardly uplifting.
Rufus was singing about love, and how love couldn’t exist without faith. I grew still, because what he
was saying sounded way too familiar. I listened some more, and was horrified to realize that the whole
song was about a guy who was in love, only the person he loved betrayed him. And those heartbreakingly
sweet  hallelujahs?  They  weren’t  inspirational  hallelujahs.  They  were  .  .  .  they  were  “cold  and  broken”
hallelujahs—it said so right there in the chorus!
Why had I ever liked this song? This song sucked!
I  went  to  change  the  CD,  but  it  switched  to  the  next  track  before  I  got  there.  A  gospel  version  of
“Amazing Grace” filled the store, and I thought, Well, it’s a heck of a lot better than a broken hallelujah.
And also, Please, God, I sure could use some grace.

---

Chapter Eight
B
y  five
A.M.
,  our  morning  prep  was  done.  At  5:01,  our  first  customer  rapped  on  the  glass  door,  and
Christina walked over to officially unlock it.
“Merry day-after-Christmas, Earl,” she said to the burly guy waiting outside. “Didn’t know if we’d see
you today.”
“You think my customers care what the weather’s like?” Earl said. “Think again, darlin’.”
He trundled into the store, bringing with him a gust of frigid air. His cheeks were ruddy, and he wore a
red-and-black hat with earflaps. He was huge, bearded, and looked like a lumberjack—which worked out
nicely since he was a lumberjack. He drove one of those semis you never wanted to get behind on one of
the many mountain roads around here, since, first of all, the weight he pulled meant he maintained a speed
of a rip-roaring twenty miles an hour, and, second of all, the back of his open trailer was filled with logs.