No, it was now or never. And no one ever saved Christmas by being too shy to ring a doorbell.
Besides, Wade had safely ushered little Billy out of the reindeer’s way, and Mira had managed to drag it back to its pen. The Arbogasts had thanked them both for it very nicely. Maybe it wasn’t too much to hope for that they’d go on being nice, even when the two of them were proposing something that objectively sounded kind of nuts.
She crossed her fingers again as Wade raised his hand and pressed his finger against the doorbell.
It took a moment—one where Mira both feared and prayed that no one was home—but then Mrs. Arbogast answered the door.
“Oh,” she said, her face lighting up with recognition. “Wade and—Mira, wasn’t it? Please come in.”
This was already easier than she’d been afraid it would be. She just had to hope that trend would continue.
She could tell she was going to be crossing her fingers so much tonight that they might go numb.
Mrs. Arbogast led them inside. It was a much, much bigger house than Mira was used to, and the Christmas decorations were much fancier and much more tasteful than the ones at her parents’. No Popsicle stick reindeer ornaments here, justartful custom-made glass bulbs that made every light on the tree sparkle with new depth and magic. It was beautiful, and she could tell it had been assembled with the utmost care, but she couldn’t help finding it just the tiniest bit too cool for her tastes.
She couldn’t help it: she was drawn to exuberance and passion, to tackiness and excess, to tradition and cliché, not minimalism and modernism and elegance. She liked the warmth of Wade’s wood, not the chill of this glass, and she liked her parents’ overblown Christmas explosions better than the Arbogasts’ restraint.
“I feel like I’m going to break something by accident,” Wade whispered to her as Mrs. Arbogast went to fetch her husband and some mugs of hot apple cider—she really was a very generous hostess even for surprise guests.
“Me too,” Mira said back in an undertone. “I was just thinking that this is beautiful but not exactly my thing. So that’s good: we have the same kind of thing.”
Wade’s smile warmed her more than any of the lights. “Maybe because we’re each other’s kind of thing.”
Maybe because they were even each other’s everything.
Andthatthought warmed her even more than his smile. It was still glowing inside her, bright as her parents’ fire, when the Arbogasts came in with their apple cider.
It was a good sign that they didn’t look irritated by tonight’s interruption. Politely confused, sure, but that was understandable.
“So,” Mr. Arbogast said, after they’d all greeted one another. “What can we do for you?”
Now or never, Mira reminded himself.
She took a deep breath.
“We know you said the Christmas Village hasn’t always gotten rave reviews from Honey Brook’s guests,” she said, “and we know that Mr. Marsh—”
Mrs. Arbogast took the moment to say a few choice words about Mr. Marsh.
“Honey,” Mr. Arbogast said, sounding mildly scandalized.
“Our son could have been trampled by a reindeer!”
“I know Mr. Marsh didn’t exactly help the Christmas Village’s case,” Mira said hastily. “And you’re thinking of shutting the whole thing down for good. But we wanted to ask you to reconsider. People complain about the Christmas Village, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter to them.”
Wade helped bolster her argument: “And kids want to see Santa at Christmastime.”
“We can still have a Santa,” Mr. Arbogast said. “I’m not trying to be a grinch here.”
“I know. But the surroundings help make it magical.”
“Not carol-oke, though,” Mira interjected. She’d decided that they should get that enshrined in the foundations of the new Christmas Village before anything else. No one should have to suffer through more of that. No matter how much they wanted to reinstate the Christmas Village’s overload of holiday spirit, there were limits. “None of the adults actually like carol-oke. The kids do, I know, and I’m usually all for humoring them, but ... seriously, everyone else hates it.”
“The carol-oke won’t be coming back,” Mrs. Arbogast promised her. “But I don’t know why anything else should either. It’s more trouble than it’s worth. All the upkeep, all the staff—our accountants are never sure if it brings in more money than it costs.”
That was the in they needed. She traded glances with Wade, and he took the lead.
“What if we could guarantee that more people would come than ever before?” Wade said. “What if we had a publicity stunt that would really pack the place? You haven’t had everything taken down yet, right? You could still sell plenty of gingerbread.And the stores would all benefit too—there could be a ton of last-minute shopping. I know I’d like it, as someone who has a shop there.”
