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

“Mayzie?” I said, befuddled. I glanced at the credit-card receipt. “I’m . . . uh . . . looking for Constance Billingsley?”

“Constance May Billingsley, that’s me,” she said.

My brain struggled to catch up. “But . . . ”

“Now, think about it,” she said. “Would you go by ‘Con-stance’ if you had a choice?”

“Uh . . . ”

She laughed. “I didn’t think so. Now, come inside, I have something to show you. Come, come, come!”

She led me into the kitchen, where on a blue quilt folded several times over sat the most adorable piglet I’d ever seen. He was pink and black and looked soft to the touch. His snout was a funny, squished thing, and his eyes were curious and alert. The curl of his tail said sproing even without being stretched and released, and yes, he was just the right size to nestle snugly into a teacup.

He oinked, and my insides went buttery.

“Gabriel,” I said. I knelt by the edge of the quilt, and Gabriel stood and trotted over. He nosed my hand, and he was so sweet, I didn’t care that I was being slimed with pig snot. Anyway, it wasn’t snot. Gabriel had a damp snout, that was all. No biggie.

“What did you call him?” Mayzie said. “Gabriel?”

I looked up to see her smiling quizzically.

“Gabriel,” she said, trying it out. She scooped Gabriel up. “Like the Angel Gabriel!”

“Huh?”

She put on an I’ll-be-quoting-now face. “‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said, ‘to talk of many things: Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—of cabbages—and kings. And why the sea is boiling hot—and whether pigs have wings.’”

“Okay, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said.

“‘And whether pigs have wings,’” Mayzie repeated. “An angel pig, you see? The Angel Gabriel!”

“I don’t think my friend was being that deep,” I said. “And please don’t start talking about angels again. Please?”

“But why not, when the universe has such fun revealing them to us?” She looked at me with pride. “You did it, Addie. I knew you would!”

I put my hands on my thighs and pushed myself up. “What did I do?”

“You passed the test!”

“What test?”

“And so did I,” she went on exuberantly. “At least, I think I did. We’ll find out soon enough, I suppose.”

Something tightened under my ribs. “Mayzie, did you go to Pet World and buy Gabriel on purpose?”

“Well, I didn’t buy him on accident,” she said.

“You know what I mean. You read my note, my pig note. Did you buy Gabriel just to mess with me?” I felt my lower lip tremble.

Her eyes widened. “Sweetie, no!”

“I went to Pet World, and Gabriel wasn’t there . . . and do you know how frantic I’ve been?” I fought back tears. “And I had to deal with Nathan, who hates me.” I sniffled. “Only it’s possible he doesn’t hate me anymore.”

“Of course he doesn’t,” Mayzie said. “How could anyone hate you?”

“And then I had to deal with Charlie, which, believe me, you don’t want to hear about.” I ran the back of my hand under my nose. “Although weirdly enough, I handled it pretty well.”

“Go on,” Mayzie said encouragingly.

“I think he’s even more messed up than I am.”

Mayzie looked intrigued. “Maybe he’ll be my next case.”

With those words, my next case, I remembered that Mayzie wasn’t my friend anymore, if she ever had been. She was just a kook who had my friend’s pig.

“Are you going to give Gabriel back?” I said, keeping my voice as level as I could.

“Why, yes. I was never going to keep him.” She lifted Gabriel so that she and he were nose to snout. “Although I will miss you, Mr. Gabriel. It was nice having company in this lonely apartment, even for just a while.” She nestled him back into the nook of her elbow and kissed the top of his head.

I curled my toes inside my boots. “Are you going to give him back today?”

“Oh, dear. I’ve upset you, haven’t I?”

“Whatever, just let me have Gabriel.”

“And here I thought you’d be happy to have an angel looking out for you. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Enough with the angel bit,” I said. “I’m not kidding. If the universe gave me you as my angel, then I deserve a refund.”

Mayzie chuckled. She chuckled, and I wanted to throttle her.

“Adeline, you make things so much harder for yourself than you have to,” she said. “Silly girl, it’s not what the universe gives us that matters. It’s what we give the universe.”

I opened my mouth to tell her how stupid and hokey and woo-woo that was—but then I didn’t, because something shifted inside me. Big shift, like an avalanche, and I could no longer resist it. The feeling inside of me was so big, and I was so small. . . .

So I let go. I gave myself over to it and let go . . . and it felt marvelous. So marvelous that I couldn’t understand why I’d resisted at all. So marvelous, in fact, that I thought, Holy cow, has this been here all this time? A state of being that isn’t tight and tangled and full of me me me? Because damn it felt good. And damn it felt pure. And maybe I could be full of light, like Nathan said, and maybe I could just . . . let that light be, and let it shine, and say screw it to being pinchy-squinchy-life-sucks-I suck-guess-I’ll-go-eat-worms. Was that possible in this existence of mine? Could I, Adeline Lindsey . . . could I evolve?

Mayzie escorted me to the door. “I think it’s time for you to get going,” she said.

“Uh, okay,” I said. But I dragged my feet, because I no longer felt bitter toward her—and, in fact, I felt bad that I was about to be leaving her all alone. I wanted her to feel as expansive inside as I did, and I worried that might be hard in her single-person, soon-to-be-pigless apartment.

“Hey!” I said. “Can I, um, come visit you sometimes? I promise I won’t be boring.”

“I don’t think you could possibly be boring, even if you tried,” Mayzie said. “And I would absolutely love it if