Cambria Williams

CHAPTER ONE

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I’VE NEVER HAD TROUBLE GETTING INTO THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT—last year being the only exception. And despite what movies portray, the Christmas spirit has nothing to do with snow. Growing up in Petaluma, I’ve never had a white Christmas. It also has nothing to do with baking, singing, or finding the perfect gift. No, I believe the secret to getting into the Christmas spirit is to decorate. My mom taught me that. She knew how to decorate for Christmas.

 

Our Victorian home on D Street has been featured in the Argus-Courier Newspaper four times. Twice on the front page. It always took her over a week to finish the job. Even with my help.

 

Everything twinkled. Everything. It was as if her art of decorating was magic.

 

This season?

 

This morning, as I stare at our two-story, white gingerbread house, piped with black trim from where I sit in my VW Rabbit, I have doubts. My home is void of any twinkle.

 

Mrs. Brewster’s house next door has been decorated since before Thanksgiving. Well, I still have three and a half weeks until Christmas.

 

Buzz.

 

The text from Paula reads: Where are u?

 

“Crap.” I snap out of my daze and turn the key in the ignition and drive toward downtown.

 

My phone buzzes again, but I ignore what is most certainly a second text from Paula.

 

The box of hand-painted ornaments in my trunk rattles as I slow over a speed bump. I grit my teeth. Paula will kill me if something happens to those ornaments.

 

As I turn onto Petaluma Boulevard, a line of parked cars on both sides of the street surrounds me. I slow, hoping some miracle parking space will appear.

 

The driver behind me honks.

 

“Calm down!” I shout into the rearview mirror. No parking spots.

 

I turn onto Washington Street. Same story. No parking spots.

 

“Be sure to get there before ten o’clock, Jessica." The memory of Paula’s words from last night ring through my mind as I turn onto Keller Street.

 

“Garage Full,” the sign reads.

 

Buzz.

 

Paula wouldn’t really kill me during the holiday season, would she?

 

I could park illegally in the Petaluma Market lot. I drive into the lot and, yes! A car is pulling out.

 

But just as the car reverses out of the parking space, from the other direction, a blacked-out

Toyota slides into it.

 

“No!” My hands bat the steering wheel.

 

Buzz.

 

I don’t wait to glare at the driver. I exit the parking lot and continue my search.

 

After another twenty minutes of circling downtown, I finally secure a spot in the empty bank parking lot. Which is about as far away as possible from where I need to be.

​

“Great.”

 

I climb out, pop the trunk, and gaze at the box of ornaments. Twenty-four hand-painted Christmas ornaments to be delivered to Paula’s client, Mr. Winslow, a recent Healdsburg transplant from Chicago. He paid Paula double to rush these.

 

I lift the lid and gingerly take my favorite in my hand. One of the ornaments I painted, of course. It’s a starry scene of Santa riding through the night in his sleigh. It’s to Paula’s specifications, but I got to choose the reindeer. All eight are uniquely painted. That’s what makes Paula’s ornaments so special, and her business so successful. No two ornaments are ever alike.

 

I replace the delicate ornament and shut the lid before taking the box in both arms to carry it the four blocks to Water Street, where Santa’s Riverboat Arrival is about to begin.

 

The sidewalks are crowded as pretty much all of Petaluma is here to see Santa float down the river and officially begin the Christmas season.

 

Someone I pass merrily glances at the box I carry.

 

The top of the box reads: “Home Again Adornments.”

 

It’s been a decade since Paula started a small craft business, but three years ago, Sonoma Magazine featured her adorable ornaments, and business exploded. Northern Californians love anything handcrafted. Make it a holiday handcrafted item? Let’s just say that Paula is doing well. The business she used to run from her kitchen is now based in a huge, converted barn in the countryside. And of course, her busiest season is Christmas. I’ve been lucky enough to work for her for almost two years because I’m an artist of sorts, and she and my mom were best friends.

 

I scurry through the crowd, dodging strollers and wagons, the smell of cinnamon roasted almonds and coffee in the air, the music of “Here Comes Santa Claus” being played by a band somewhere in the vicinity.

 

This year seems particularly crowded. But I did miss last year’s event. I didn’t want to go without my mom, and by that point, her cancer was bad enough that she didn’t have the energy to stand in a crowd.

 

Someone bumps my shoulder. My grip on the box tightens.

 

Slowly weaving through the masses grows more complicated until I’m standing at a halt still a block away from where I need to be. Cheers erupt in the distance. Santa Claus must be in sight.

 

My phone vibrates in my pocket.

 

Paula really is going to kill me.

 

Inch by inch, the crowd moves forward. Ahead, I spot the alley road. If I can maneuver my way over there, maybe I can cut down that way and then backtrack toward my meeting spot with Mr. Winslow. I steadily edge my way toward the alley, catching my sleeve on a kid’s sticky candy cane.

 

“Hey,” someone huffs when the corner of my box knocks into him.

 

“Sorry!” I return.

 

Sidestepping past bodies and bumping elbows, shoes, and dog leashes, I squeeze through the last of the crowd and into the opening of the alley, where only a few people mill their way toward Water Street.

 

I shove past a man with two coffees.

 

“Watch it!”

 

With legs already pumping, I turn. “Sorry!”

 

Bam!

 

My ornament box and I smack into something sturdy, tip backward, and tumble onto the pavement. My hands instinctively reach out to catch my fall, and my box—my box!—plummets to the ground.

 

The shattering engulfs my ears. It smashes into me.

 

“My ornaments!” I yell before I register anything else about what just happened. My wrist throbs, and my butt aches. What did I just crash into?

 

“You all right?” A male voice barely breaks through my splintering haze. I simply stare at the crumpled box. “Hey!” A hand brushes my shoulder. “Are you all right?”

 

I gaze up into blue eyes. They match the morning sky above. “Huh?”

 

“It’s Jessica, right? I’m in your art class.” His hand indicates his chest. “Joe. Sorry about bumping into you. I tried to move, but you just ran into me.”

 

“I ran into you?” I squint up at his tall form in the sunlight.

 

“Yeah.”

 

I stand, the sting of my wrist shooting into focus. “Why don’t you watch where you’re going? Look! Look at my box! My boss is going to kill me.” I stoop and lift the box, the clatter of broken glass clinks around.

 

“Me? Hey, I tried to move. You ran into me.”

 

“Whatever.” I roll my eyes and open the lid. Not one has been spared. Twenty-four ornaments destroyed. I think I might be sick.

 

“Oh man.” Joe rakes his fingers through his dark hair. “That’s bad. I’m sorry.”

 

I whip the box away like his glance might fracture them further. “Don’t act like you’re sorry.”

 

“What’s your problem? It was an accident. And like I just said, you ran into—” He shakes his head.

“You know what? Never mind.” Without another word, he steps past me, continues toward the crowd, and disappears.

 

I gaze into the box and bite my cheek.

 

Stupid. I can’t even finish the thought.

 

I pick up the largest fragment of my reindeer ornament. Only two are still intact, a pair I had painted to match as if they were mates. I drop it into the box.

Paula is really going to kill me.