Stella, the stout, older woman who seemed to do everything from checking in guests to whipping up cocktails (at her own pace, of course), handed me a manila envelope withBee Hobbesscribbled across the front.
She walked my luggage around the front desk, which I’d left here earlier. “Something in one of these bags keeps buzzin’.”
I bit back a smile. “Thanks.” I opened the envelope to find a photocopied, hand-drawn map of Christmas Notch, along with some chamber of commerce pamphlets and my call sheet for tomorrow morning, complete with a Post-it that readSubject to Changestuck to the schedule.
I shook out the rest of the envelope’s contents, which included a key on a hand-carved wooden key chain labeledmistletoe suite. After studying the rest of my reading materials—including some information about where to find craft services and a cast and crew phone number directory—I waited at the elevator for a few minutes before Stella finally walked to the doors and taped an Out of Order sign over the buttons.
“Right,” I said as she walked away without a word. Summoning whatever energy I had left, I dragged my bags up to the third floor. I always said sex was my cardio, but this worked too.
Once I’d finally made it to the Mistletoe Suite, I was met with a king-size bed adorned with a velvet-tufted headboard in the shape of a heart and a Jacuzzi tub—also in the shape of a heart—looking out over the snow-covered mountains dotting the horizon. It was beautiful enough to make me forget that the entire room save the bathroom was covered in forest-green carpet and red-plaid wallpaper.
The day had been full of so many firsts already that I wasjust now realizing this was my first time seeing real snow. Back home in Texas, we’d get snow every few years, but it usually melted before it could stick or was more of a sleet-ice mixture. Still, we’d cancel school and hibernate for a day or two just in case the roads were patchy with ice. Moving from Arlington, Texas, to L.A. straight out of high school meant I’d never had a snow-covered Christmas and—oh shit. I still had to call home and break it to my parents that there had been a change of plans. They knew I was here in Vermont, but I had been light on details. That wouldn’t stop them from responding to my text with a nonstop stream of questions.
When I got dressed before my flight, I had a snow-bunny image of myself showing up in this sleepy Vermont village in my fluffy cropped baby-pink sweater and plaid schoolgirl skirt that I would have drooled over in high school but never had the guts to wear. But now that I was actually here, my legs were feeling the chill, so I ditched the skirt for fleece-lined leggings I managed to score at Target last night. I bundled up in my faux-fur vintage jacket, which was a coat only in the symbolic sense, because as a proud CalTexan, cold weather gear was more about aesthetic than function.
Just as I was wrestling with my key to lock the door to my room, my phone vibrated in my pocket.
Four unread messages and two notifications.
Sunny Dee:Call me tonight! I want all the deets. ??
Mom:You need to call your mothers.
Mama Pam:Honey Bee, Mom is worried about you. She knows you get pukey during landings. Did you ask the flight attendant for a paper bag? You shouldn’t be embarrassed. They deal with that sort of thing all the time. Give us a ring.
Teddy:Best. Behavior.
ClosedDoors:20,440 likes on your video
ClosedDoors:3,262 comments on your video
It was hard not to buy into the immediate gratification of an app like ClosedDoors. I also liked that it catered to everyone from porn stars to even socialites and influencers with a naughty streak. And it paid my bills and then some. Every person who subscribed to my page paid a monthly fee. It was enough of an income that I got to choose exactly what porn I wanted to do, which also meant other performers did as well. Body positivity might have been having a moment (more than that, I hoped), but there were still plenty of performers who didn’t want to scene with me because I didn’t fit their brand. Message received loud and clear.
I shot off a quick text to both my moms, promising them that I was okay and that we’d FaceTime soon. Sometimes they’d text me like someone else had my phone and I was being held hostage and the only way to prove to them that I was okay and alive was to show them my face. This was one of those times.
I took the stairs back down and took my time strolling tomy costume fitting. The whole little village reminded me of an Old West town I visited in middle school when we took a family vacation to the Grand Canyon. I couldn’t seem to tell who actually lived here and who was in town working on the movie. From what Teddy told me, they had yet to announce Winnie’s UnFestival-related absence to the whole cast and crew, but since she wasn’t the only one he’d have to replace, I couldn’t imagine that secret lasting for long.
It was also a little hard to tell which businesses were real and which were part of the set. Finally, though, I found a coffee shop with a line and safely assumed that the people in it were real.
After getting actual sustenance at the real coffee shop, I walked with my caramel latte and chocolate croissant to the end of the square, where I’d been told I would find the fake toy shop storefront that would also double as the costuming department.
“Hello?” I called as the bell chimed overhead. “Is anyone here?”
“Oh my gah,” a voice moaned from the back. “For the last time, this is not an actual toy store. And if it were, these are not the kinds of toys I would—” The voice fizzled out as a tall person in a wool kilt with leather pants underneath and a black knit sweater with simply the wordNOon it turned the corner.
I gasped.
He shrieked.
“Luca!”
“Bee!”
I dropped my bag and raced behind the counter to hug him. “What are you doing here?” I asked in a whisper, like Teddy might have somehow found out that one of his porn crew members had cropped up on the set of his wholesome Christmas movie.
“Uncle Ray-Ray flew me out,” he said.
I rolled my eyes. “Teddy. His name is Teddy.” The name of Teddy’s studio was a poor-taste decision made when Teddy was in his twenties, and now he was too cheap to bother changing it, despite the way his whole body cringed when he heard it spoken out loud.
