Harrison pretended to consider it. “Both.”
“Both!” she echoed with delight, and leaped across the aisle, grabbing a bag of each and tossing them in.
They carried on down the aisles, filling the cart with junk food and foods they wanted to try. Fancy summer sausage. A remoulade sauce. A jar of tiny pickles. Oreo cookies. Popcorn. Candy.
At some point, Amy halted their progress and leaned over the side of the cart to have a look at the contents. “You realize there is very limited nutritional value in this cart, don’t you? What if we are stranded for a long time?”
“Gosh.” Harrison scratched his chin. “Cannibalism?”
“Possibility,” Amy said. “Or maybe we just hike out?” Her eyes were shining with amusement. “But I think we’ve got a pretty good shot of surviving another Snowmageddon with this load. Let’s check out the home goods.”
They veered into that aisle, where Harrison picked up a can of lighter fluid and a single pack of chopped wood, which he slid onto the bottom rack. When he stood up, Amy was putting two bottles of wine into the cart. “We have plenty of booze, remember?”
“But do we?” she asked skeptically.
Harrison laughed. “I like the way you plan for disasters.”
“Thank you. I figure if I’m going to die, I’m not going to die sober. You?”
“Definitely not sober.”
She grinned at him, and he felt a stir in his chest. It was that thing his body did when he was feeling on the verge of giddiness, like after a great putt, or when a woman liked him.
They carried on, circling through the boots to examine them. Harrison tried on some blue ostrich cowboy boots that carried a price tag of almost one thousand dollars. The boots had very pointy tips, and there was something about them that made him walk a little bowlegged. He walked down the aisle with his pants legs tucked into the boots, trying to fit his feet into them properly. Amy could not contain her laughter and said he walked like a sumo wrestler. She grabbed some boots that were actually sandals. Beneath the quarters and uppers of the boot was a Crocs-like thong. She did the fashion walk up and down the aisle and she and Harrison giggled like kids.
When they’d tired of the boots, they turned the corner and found blankets. She picked up a burnt orange Texas Longhorns blanket. Harrison picked up a fleece lap rug. “You do know there are at least one hundred blankets in that house, all Christmas themed, right?” he reminded her.
“This afternoon there will be one hundred and two. It’s so cold! So dreary! The more blankets the better, don’t you think?”
As if he could disagree with anything she said right now. “I do.”
They tossed the blankets into the cart and continued on, past the Christmas ornaments without stopping, and Amy noted the remarkable constraint that required. They turned down another aisle and found themselves in the dog section. After a healthy debate, during which Amy made Harrison hold Duchess up so she could, in turn, hold up an elf costume, an Olaf costume, and a Santa costume, they decided that the elf costume, with its cute little hat, was essential to keep Duchess warm during the coming Snowmageddon. They didn’t waste any time, putting the costume on the dog immediately, then putting her back in the cart.
Harrison found moose antlers for a larger dog and put them on Amy.She took a selfie. “Hey,” she said, when she checked out the photo. “Do you see what I see?”
Harrison leaned over her shoulder to look at her phone. And then they both slowly turned to look behind them at dozens upon dozens of Santa’s Helpers—the elves on shelves that moved at night—staring at them. They looked at each other, and Amy whispered, “Run.”
They walked as quickly as they could out of the aisle and turned the corner into what could only be considered nirvana at Carlotta Jane’s: the aisle of ugly Christmas sweaters.
“We have to,” Harrison said. “It’s the only way we’ll stay warm, right?”
“Right. The amount of polyester alone has to trap body heat better than a NASA space blanket,” Amy said.
“Okay. You choose one. I’ll choose one. No peeking. We’ll do a sweater reveal at the lake house. Deal?”
“Deal.”
They searched through them, and when they had each selected one—rolling them up so the other could not see what was on the sweater—they decided it was time to cash out before they’d spent their entire savings. They made their way to the cash register, Duchess’s nose in the air, sniffing the many delectable smells, her elf hat firmly in place.
The woman at the cash register had a small Christmas tree woven into her hair. “You two find what you need?” she asked as she began to scan items.
“Not quite,” Harrison said, and pointed to a basket behind her. “We’ll take a couple of those surprise Christmas ornaments.”
“Our biggest seller. You never know if you’re going to get a plain old ball or something really fun.” She finished ringing up the items, leaned over to scratch Duchess behind the ears, then gave them the total.
Neither Harrison nor Amy moved a moment. “Wow,” Amy said, the first to speak.
It was a lot. Not that he couldn’t afford it, but the conservative fiscalgremlin that lived in him was protesting loudly. “I’ve got this,” Harrison said, and reached for his wallet.
