“I don’t need these jobs anymore. I’m going to win the bake-off.”
“Don’t you think you might need a backup plan?” my friend asked gently.
“I can totally win the bake-off!” I was on top of the world!
“Sure, in a fair competition. But all those other contestants obviously gave you all the negative points. They’re going to be cutthroat. They’re probably going to sabotage you or cheat.”
I chewed on my lip and looked down at my phone.
“The job starts tonight. I need to run the shop…”
“I’ll run the shop,” Olivia offered.
“You don’t have to.”
“I can sit here and wonder why I Airbnb’d out my apartment then remind myself that I’m making mad money from all the Christmas tourists.”
“The shop is my problem. I should deal with it,” I said.
“It’s either I stay here or freeze in my car,” Olivia said. “I also have to do some work to close out the estate house project.”
“The owner didn’t want to move into it anyway?” I asked, reaching down to pet Olivia’s chubby cat that had waddled over to me.
My friend shrugged. “Dunno. I never met the guy. A shell LLC owns the Wynter Estate. I dealt with one of the property managers. Never met the woman who dumped the owner, either, but her Pinterest page was pretty gross. She pinned this chandelier that looked like it was made out of balloons and not in a good way. And she wanted to have a drop ceiling in the master bedroom with ceiling tiles made out of various animal furs.”
“Why?” I said, horrified.
“I don’t know. But at least we wouldn’t have had to paint the wood trim in that room with the drop ceiling.”
“That poor historic home. I hope it will go to an owner that will appreciate it.”
Olivia rolled her eyes. “People with taste have no money, and people with money have no taste.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
The Christmas marketwas glorious in the evening. I walked down Main Street, the faint strains of Christmas carols filtering from stalls as I passed by.
“Hot toddy?” a woman called to me. “On the house! You won me a lot of money at the bake-off.”
I accepted the cup.
“People were betting?”
“Of course,” she replied. “This is a small town. Anything is fair game for betting.”
Sipping my hot toddy, I wandered through the Christmas market on my way to my next money-making adventure of desperation. At least this one would pay out sooner than the bake-off.
I stopped for a moment to watch the ice skaters at the rink that was set up. It wasn’t a dinky rink either—it was huge, with a big Christmas tree smack in the center and tables scattered around on a raised boardwalk so you could eat while watching the skaters.
Tourists and townspeople had filled up the seating area, their colorful packages around them, sipping hot chocolate and eating Christmas-themed treats. I snapped a few pictures. I could never get enough Christmas.
The bells on the sleeve of my elf costume jingled.
“Oh my god,” a woman in a similar elf costume said, hurrying up to me. “What are you doing? You’re late. He’s waiting, and he is in a terrible mood.”
“Who?”
“Santa,” she said grimly, dragging me through the crowd to the gazebo in the large town square, where a sleigh and a real live reindeer waited.
