Page 24

Then a man stops behind her. Then two teenagers. Then a whole family. The front door is propped open for the window walk, and the waltz spills out onto Prospect, and people keep stopping until there's a crowd on my sidewalk, ten deep, all looking at my grandfather's carousel in my grandmother's window.

I've walked past that window every day for four Christmases and never looked at it.

I look at it now.

Then I turn around and look at Noelle.

She's standing at the door, under Gran's sprig. She has her coat on—both arms now, the top button still missing—and her duffel over her shoulder, the one that's been under her counter all day. Her face is white. Her eyes are wide, fixed on the window.

I walk to her. The stragglers part to let me through. Nobody says a word. The carolers have stopped drinking their cider.

I stop in front of her, close enough that I can see the bent candy cane sticking out of her coat pocket. She took it back. Sometime before she walked away from her counter, while I was looking at the shelf, she took it back.

"You put it in the window," she whispers.

"It belongs in the window." My voice comes out rough. "It always did. I was the one who couldn't stand to have anybody see it."

"Arch—"

"I offered you a job last night. A room. I've been handing out letters and windows and bows to this whole town for four years so nobody would notice I never ask for anything." I swallow. "I'm asking now."

She stares at me.

"Stay," I say. "Not for the counter. Not for the room. Stay because I want you. I knew at two minutes after nine on Saturday morning, and I've known every minute since. I'm in love with you, Noelle. I don't need until Tuesday to be sure. I won't need until next Christmas. I'll be sure every Christmas after this one."

Her lips part. Tears spill over and run down her cheeks.

Behind me, in the window, the waltz slows. The notes come farther and farther apart.

It stops.

The crowd on the sidewalk groans. The girl in the pink hat turns to her mother, looking crushed.

Noelle looks past me at the window. At the stopped horses.

For a long moment, she doesn't move. I don't breathe. I know what she's thinking, because she told me herself, last night, at the wrap counter. It stops. Then what's the point?

She steps around me.

She walks to the front window, through the stragglers, in her coat with her duffel bag still on her shoulder. She leans into the display, over the cotton snow and the circling train, and she puts her hand on the key.

She turns it.

Once. Twice. All the way, until it won't go anymore.

She lets go. The waltz starts again, bright and sure, and the horses rise. On the sidewalk, the girl in the pink hat claps both mittens together, and the whole crowd cheers.

Noelle turns around. She lets the duffel bag slide off her shoulder and onto the floor.

"You wind it again," she says, her voice shaking. "That's the point."

She walks back to me. She stops in the doorway, right where she stood on Sunday morning, under Gran's sprig.

"I'm scared," she says. "I'm so scared, Arch. Everything I ever wanted got packed in a box."

"I know."

"I want this anyway." She lifts her chin. "I want you anyway. I'm staying."