Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances by Myracle, John (good book club books TXT) 📕

he or-dered a to-go cup of whipped cream for Maggie, his black lab.

Diana, who worked at the preschool down the road, stopped in for her skinny latte, and as she dug around in her purse for her Starbucks card, she told me for the hundred-billionth time that I needed to change my picture on the “Meet Your Baristas” board.

“You know I hate that photo,” she said. “You look like a fish with your lips puckered like that.”

“I like that picture,” I said. Jeb had snapped it last New Year’s Eve, when Tegan and I were goofing around pretending to be Angelina Jolie.

“Well, I don’t know why,” Diana replied. “You’re just such a pretty girl, even with this”—she waved her hand to indicate my new hairstyle—“punk look you’ve got going on.”

Punk. Good Lord.

“It’s not punk,” I said. “It’s pink.”

She found her card and held it aloft. “Aha! Here you go.”

I swiped it and returned it, and she wagged it in my face before going to claim her drink.

“Change that picture!” she commanded.

The Johns, all three of them, came in at eight and took up residence at their customary corner table. They were retired, and they liked to spend their mornings drinking tea and working through their Sudoku books.

John Number One said my new hair made me look foxy, and John Number Two told him to stop flirting.

“She’s young enough to be your granddaughter,” John Number Two said.

“Don’t worry,” I replied. “Anyone who uses the word foxy has pretty much taken himself out of the running.”

“You mean I was in the running till then?” John Number One said. His Carolina Tar Heels baseball cap perched high on his head like a bird’s nest.

“No,” I said, and John Number Three guffawed. He and John Number Two knocked their fists together, and I shook my head. Boys.

At eight forty-five, I reached for the strings of my apron and announced that I was going on break.

“I have a quick errand to run,” I told Christina, “but I’ll be right back.”

“Wait,” she said. She grabbed my forearm to keep me with her, and when I followed her gaze, I understood why. Entering the store was one of Gracetown’s finest, a tow truck driver named Travis who wore nothing but tinfoil. Tinfoil pants, tinfoil jacket-shirt-thing, even a cone-shaped tinfoil hat.

“Why oh why does he dress like that?” I said, and not for the first time.

“Maybe he’s a knight,” Christina suggested.

“Maybe he’s a lightning rod.”

“Maybe he’s a weather vane, here to predict the winds of change.”

“Ooo, nice one,” I said, and sighed. “I could use a wind of change.”

Travis approached. His eyes were so pale they looked silver. He didn’t smile.

“Hey, Travis,” Christina said. “What can I get you?” Usually, Travis just asked for water, but every so often he had enough change for a maple scone, his favorite pastry. Mine, too, actually. They looked dry, but they weren’t, and the maple icing rocked.

“Can I have a sample?” he said gruffly.

“Of course,” she said, reaching for one of the sample cups. “What would you like a sample of?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Just the cup.”

Christina glanced at me, and I trained my eyes on Travis to keep from laughing, which would be mean. If I looked closely, I could see lots of “me”s in his jacket-shirt-thingy. Or rather, fragments of me, broken up by the crinkles in the foil.

“The eggnog latte is good,” Christina suggested. “It’s our seasonal special.”

“Just the cup,” Travis repeated. He shifted in agitation. “I just want the cup!”

“Fine, fine.” She handed him the cup.

I pulled my gaze away from the “me”s, which were mesmerizing.

“I can’t believe you’re dressed like that, especially today,” I said. “Please tell me you’ve got a sweater on under that tinfoil.”

“What tinfoil?” he said.

“Ha-ha,” I said. “For real, Travis, aren’t you cold?”

“I’m not. Are you?”

“Um, nooo. Why would I be cold?”

“I don’t know. Why would you?”

I half laughed. Then stopped. Travis regarded me from beneath his craggy brows.

“I wouldn’t,” I said, flustered. “I’m not. I’m totally, completely comfortable, temperature-wise.”

“‘Temperature-wise,’” he scoffed. “It’s always about you, isn’t it?”

“What?! I’m not . . . talking about me! I’m just telling you that I’m not cold!”

The intensity of his gaze made me feel itchy.

“Okay, maybe I’m talking about me this very second,” I said. “But it’s not always about me.”

“Some things never change,” he said scornfully. He strode off with his doll-size cup, but at the door, he turned for one last parting shot. “And don’t bother asking for a tow. I’m off duty!”

“Well,” I said. He’d actually hurt my feelings, but I didn’t want to let on. “That was interesting.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard Travis deny anyone a tow before,” Christina said. “Seriously, I think you’re the first.”

“Please don’t sound so impressed,” I said faintly.

She laughed, which was what I wanted. But as she refilled the napkin container, Travis’s words came back to me: It’s always about you, isn’t it?

It was disconcertingly similar to what Dorrie said to me last night: Have you truly looked inside yourself? Do you even know what you need to change?

Or something like that.

“Hey, um, Christina . . . ?”

“Yeah?”

“Is there something wrong with me?”

She glanced up from the napkins. “Addie, Travis is nuts.”

“I know. But that doesn’t mean everything he says is nuts, necessarily.”

“Addie.”

“Christina.”

“Just tell me the truth: Am I a good person? Or am I, like, too self-absorbed?”

She considered. “Does it have to be either/or?”

“Ouch.” I drew my hand to my heart and staggered back.

She grinned, thinking I was being Funny Addie. And I was, I guess. But I also had the strangest fear that the universe was trying to tell me something. I felt as if I were teetering on the edge of a great chasm, only the chasm was in myself. I didn’t want to look down.

“Look lively,” Christina told me. “Here come the seniors.”

Sure enough, the Silver Sneakers van had pulled up outside Starbucks, and the driver was carefully helping his load of senior citizens navigate the sidewalk. They resembled a line of well-bundled bugs.

“Hi, Claire,” Christina said as