“Gold Rush Bookshop,” he decides. “But can we take the long way? I want time for road trip games.”
“There is no long way.” I gesture to the steep path wending down the mountainside, straight between Cheers Chocolatiers and Silver Mine Dining on Cottonwood Lane, to Old Homestead Road and Gold Rush Bookshop, two doors down from the gingerbread town house. I never paid much attention to its neighbors before, but I appreciate that he built my new place between a store and a café. Once Christmas with the Watsons is over, I can enjoy freshly baked scones every morning. Maybe we can get a pulley delivery system going on between our windows.
“Right there.” He points as a new sign fizzles into existence. The sign directs left, into the mountains, where, one could assume, the road barrels its way through them and all the way around. The name on the green sign, predictably, readsHoliday Road. He definitely loves naming stuff after himself.
I indulge him with a left turn, and he grins. “What are your top three cities?” he shoots at me. “Go!”
“I like Hanoi. Umm.” I consider the question. “Barcelona. And probably Amsterdam.”
“Mine are Waikato, New Zealand; Santiago, Chile; and Santa Monica, California.”
“Santa Monica?” I repeat with a laugh. The road is well paved, smooth as a ribbon. Spruces and firs jump out of the way as theroad continuously forms ahead of us, sky foggy and white-gray whispering through the gaps between them.
“It has the two best words in it. Santa and Monica.”
“Why do you like the name Monica so much?”
“It sounds musical, don’t you think?Monica.” He repeats the word in different registers. “Some words have a sound that I just like, don’t know why. Likebelvedereandelephantineandpolo.” I shake my head, smiling. I think that what I like the best about Hall is that even though he’s seeing more of the world and its ugliness now that he’s at ground level with us, he’s remained steadfastlynice, viewing humanity through an optimistic, rosy lens. Nothing I have said or done, nor my family’s occasionally rude or unseemly behavior, has corrupted that. He is so wonderfully different compared to most of the men who’ve been part of my life—so many of them strutting and showy, possessive, with tempers and dark moods. He is unabashedly joyful. He is sweet with no self-consciousness. And the true kicker: he says exactly what he feels.
“I am very ecstatic about spending the day with you, shopping for your wonderful family,” he gushes, which is a statement I never dreamed I’d hear uttered un-ironically. “Okay, now we have to play I Spy. I spy something...” He stares directly at his target. “White.”
“Is it the sky?”
“Yes! It’s the sky! This game is excellent. Now it’s your turn.”
“I spy—”
“Hold on.” He holds a Polaroid camera against the windshield and squints through it, snapping a picture of the sky for posterity. “You’d think my favorite color would be red or green, but it’s actually white. An opalescent sort of white, with dashes of other color.”
“Like the sky,” I say, bemused. “Or snow, more like.”
Hall gently grasps my arm. “We know each other so well.”
“I think you know me a little better than I know you, actually. How did you come to be the Holiday Spirit?”
“I simply am.”
“Yeah, but where did youcomefrom?”
“Nothing.”
I cut him an exasperated look. “I’m getting to know you so much better already. Where do you draw your power from, then? There has to be some kind of source for it. That’s how magic systems work.”
“I draw my power from nothing and everything.” He’s writing down whatever we say, hand a blur across the page. Now he’s peeling off stickers.That’s how magic systems workis bordered by an iridescent Pegasus and a rabbit peering out of a top hat. “Now that’s pizzazz,” he murmurs to himself, smoothing the edges.
I give up. “Nothing and everything is such a non-answer.”
“No, this is a non-answer. The chicken parm sandwich from Domino’s. That’s where I draw my power.”
I laugh. “Chicken parm powers, it is.” We rattle over a long suspension bridge that, according to an elaborate overhanging sign, is called the Disbelief. Tufts of snow flurry directly into our path, like an airplane’s condensation trails in reverse. “Are you making it snow? You’re such a breaker of your own rules. I thought we weren’t using magic today.”
“I’m not doing anything,” he replies evasively, jabbing the radio button to drown me out with “Last Christmas” by Wham! I wonder who taught him to lie.
Probably Felix.
“This time of year is unbeatable,” he prattles on. “A sublime car ride through the snow—”
“Thanks toyou, Elsa.”
