Hot Cocoa Hearts Read online

  “Come back here, Happy Feet!” one of them hollered.

  Alex and I looked at each other, then burst out laughing.

  He started walking again, calling over his shoulder, “See you around, Scrooge!”

  I stared after him, surprised by how much I had laughed today.

  “Break time’s over,” Mom said, tapping me on the shoulder. “I need you to help set up the next shot.” When I hesitated, Mom handed me a basket of candy canes. “Well, come on, Em! Get over there and spread some cheer.”

  I sighed. This was going to be the longest holiday season of my life.

  “There should be a law against this,” I said, staring at the front of Fairview Middle School. Giant paper snowflakes were plastered on the walls, with twinkly lights surrounding them. A human-sized inflatable snowman greeted me as I walked in. I felt like I was in a winter wonder-nightmare.

  I grimaced at my best friend, Jez, who was trying to give me a sympathetic look through her giggles. I’d spent our walk to school filling her in on my traumatic experience at the North Pole Wonderland. “And to think I was actually looking forward to school today. I figured it couldn’t possibly be worse than all that deck-the-malls madness.”

  Jez tugged one of my teased-out pigtails, a sign of BFF affection she’d been giving me since elementary school. “Oh, that reminds me!” she exclaimed. “I wrote you a consolation poem.” Jez loved to write haiku, and they usually involved stuff like flightless sparrows or barren wastelands. They were good, even if they were depressing. Now she flipped open her notepad and read, “Minimum-wage elf, candy canes stuck in your hair, next year … Hanukkah?”

  “Hilarious.” I gave her a good-natured eye roll.

  “What can I say? I try.” She fluffed the crinoline on her lime-green tutu. Tutus were Jez’s signature article of clothing, and her way of rebelling against her very traditional Indian parents, who made her wear a sari at every family get-together she had to attend. “Come on.” She took my arm and led me into the main hallway.

  Miniature wreaths and blue-and-white menorahs hung from the ceiling. It wasn’t as bad as the mall, at least.

  “Good morning, ladies!” Principal Michaels greeted us as he passed our lockers. “Be sure to check out the cafeteria’s hot lunch! Holiday-themed this whole month. Today’s special is mistletoe meat loaf with Yule-log yams.”

  I shook my head shut and clenched my eyes. “Please. I can’t take anymore.”

  “Sorry, Em,” Jez said with a laugh as she steered me to my homeroom door. Then I felt her elbow me.

  I opened my eyes. There was Sawyer, walking toward the classroom with that brooding lope of his, head low, headphones on, like he was puzzling over the world’s greatest mysteries and he wasn’t about to let something as ordinary as school get in the way. He exuded the sort of easy nonchalance that made teachers nervous, and made me weak in the knees.

  I held my breath as he neared. Maybe today would be the day. Today, he’d glance up, our eyes would meet, and there’d be the zing of an instant connection between us. He’d wonder how he’d never noticed me before, and without even needing to speak, we’d both realize how perfect we were for each other. He’d lean toward me …

  “Emery!” Jez’s voice broke through my daydream just as the bell rang. I blinked and saw that the hallway had nearly emptied out. Sawyer had breezed right by me into the classroom without even a nod. “I’ve got to go,” Jez said with a mischievous grin. “Have fun Sawyer gazing. See you in gym!”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I mumbled. The fact of the matter was Sawyer was about as untouchable as a star, and gazing was all I’d ever had the courage to do.

  I sat down at my desk just as Mrs. Finnegan walked in wearing a flame-red sweater with kissing polar bears on it and earrings in the shape of tree ornaments. Criminy. I should’ve guessed Mrs. Finnegan would go all out for Christmas. She was the sort of person who wore themed sweaters for every season—not just the holidays.

  “Season’s greetings, ladies and gentlemen,” she said as soon as the morning announcements were finished. “Now that the holidays are approaching, I thought we could all participate in a fun project to get into the spirit of giving.” She clapped her hands enthusiastically, and expectant whispers flew around the room. “That’s right,” she singsonged. “It’s Secret Santa time!”

  “Ooh, I love Secret Santa!” Nyssa Vanderfeld cried, giving a thrilled golf clap. “We do it every year at Daddy’s country club party, and last year I got a Coach clutch.”

  “How … generous,” Mrs. Finnegan said politely, and I almost laughed. Nyssa was the prissiest girl in our homeroom, but because she had an amazing voice that had won the glee club every competition it had entered, she had a slew of admirers, including some of the faculty. Rumor had it that her dad, a music-industry mogul, was trying to land her a recording contract. She lived in a mansion-adorned part of town called Hillcrest Abbey.

  Mrs. Finnegan, though, never seemed starry-eyed around Nyssa, and now she cleared her throat as she surveyed the rest of the class. “For our Secret Santa, the maximum amount you may spend on gifts is thirty dollars.”

  “Oh.” Nyssa’s tone drooped in disappointment. “Well, will the whole eighth grade be participating?” she asked. I guessed she was hoping she might pull the name of one of her many crushes who was in some other class.

  “This is just for our homeroom,” Mrs. Finnegan said.

  Nyssa’s lips pursed, and she gave a sigh. Her attitude wasn’t surprising. Nyssa seemed to have a superiority complex that could rival any royal’s.

  I slumped down in my chair, my mood instantly darkening. This was exactly why I hated this sort of thing. Why couldn’t teachers accept that walls built by cliques couldn’t be torn down with cheesy, forced gift giving?

  “There are four weeks until winter break,” Mrs. Finnegan went on, “and you’ll give your Secret Santa one gift each week. Each week will have a different theme.” She turned to the Smart Board at the front of the classroom, and wrote a list:

  Week 1: The Gift of Food

  Week 2: The Gift of Fun

  Week 3: The Gift of Craft

  Week 4: The Gift of Heart

  “The themes are fairly self-explanatory,” she continued, “but in case you need clarification, week one can be a tasty treat—it doesn’t have to be homemade, unless you like to bake. Week two can be a gag gift. In good taste, of course.” She raised an eyebrow at Vince Gould, the class prankster, and he gave her an innocent “who me?” look back. “Week three should be something handmade, and week four will be the biggest gift, which will be exchanged during our holiday party on December twenty first, the Friday before winter break.”

  Then Mrs. Finnegan pulled a Santa hat out from under her desk and began walking down the rows with it, letting students reach in to pull out a name. Everyone around me was twittering excitedly, giggling like kids half their age. Except for Sawyer. He was watching the Santa hat circle the room with an expression of impassive amusement on his face.

  My heart warmed with a feeling of kinship, and then a thought struck me. What if I pulled his name out of the hat and became his Secret Santa? As unenthused as I was by the idea of Secret Santas, my heart still sped up at the idea of getting Sawyer. If that happened, I could finally show him just how well I understood him, and how perfect we were for each other.

  “Now, remember, the name you get should be kept an absolute secret. No spoiling the surprise,” Mrs. Finnegan was saying. She stopped next to my desk and held the Santa hat out to me, smiling encouragingly. I reached in, a vision of Sawyer’s name dancing in my head. But when I read the name on the slip of paper in my hand, my heart sank: Nyssa. Of all the people, I’d gotten stuck with her.

  I sighed, wondering how I was ever going to think up gift ideas for a girl who had everything. Then I watched as Sawyer pulled a paper from the hat. A furtive smile crossed his face as he read the mystery name, and I felt a pang of jealousy toward whichever lucky person could br
ing something so rare to the surface. Sawyer’s smiles were fleeting and few.

  “All right,” Mrs. Finnegan said when the hat was emptied of names, “your first gift should be delivered by this Friday. It doesn’t have to be given during class. The time and place are up to you.”

  Great. How about nowhere, and never?

  “The whole world is conspiring against me,” I grumbled to Jez on our walk home from school. “I mean, look at this place.” I motioned to the lights and garland strung around every lamppost on Main Street. “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” was blasting from speakers mounted on the roof of the town hall, and there were carolers dressed in Victorian costumes singing along on the front steps, way too merrily. In the hours I’d spent at school, Fairview had transformed itself. It may have been a small New Jersey town, but what it lacked in size, it made up for in spirit. It never skimped on Christmas.

  “Come on, Em. It’s no different from every other year,” Jez said.

  “I don’t remember seeing them last year, do you?” I jerked my head toward the town hall, where a trio of people dressed in overstuffed snowmen costumes were jingling sleigh bells and handing out flyers.

  Jez gave them a side glance and giggled. “Uh-oh. They’re headed straight for us.”

  “Omigod. Walk faster,” I whispered. Too late.

  The tallest snowman jabbed a flyer right in my face.

  “No, thanks,” I muttered, ducking my head into my coat. In the glimpse I’d gotten of the flyer, I’d seen that it was advertising Fairview’s Holiday Stroll. On the Saturday before Christmas, hundreds of folks descended into the town square for the annual tradition. People “strolled” through the streets, drinking hot chocolate and oohing and aahing at decorated houses and ice sculptures.

  “I’ll take one!” Jez said cheerily.

  “Hey! You don’t even celebrate Christmas!” I pointed out.

  “So? That doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate it.” She smiled, casting her gaze up and down Main Street. “The lights, the music. It’s all so cheery.”

  I shook my head. “My best friend. A wannabe Cindy-Lou Who.”

  Jez shrugged as she turned onto Millstone Lane toward her house. “Talk to you later!” she called over her shoulder.

  I waved back and then walked the two short blocks to Willow Court, my street. The second I spotted my house, I stopped dead, staring.

  It was true, I should’ve been expecting it. It happened around this time every year. But still, the eight-foot inflatable snow globe looming in the middle of our front yard seemed even more garish than I remembered. A few feet from the snow globe sat Santa’s workshop, a plywood cottage Dad had built complete with an animatronic Santa building toys inside. And the whole yard was littered with storage bags and enormous boxes overflowing with light-up reindeer, singing polar bears, glittery plastic penguins—every Christmas decoration in the universe.

  My dad was balanced precariously on a ladder leaning against one of our house’s three gables. Only his head was visible above the tangled mass of blinking colored lights he was holding.

  “Hi, honey!” He smiled at me as he climbed down the ladder. “Guess what I’m working on this afternoon?”

  “The Holly Jolly House,” I mumbled.

  “You got it!” my dad said with a snap of his fingers.

  The Holly Jolly House was Dad’s name for the sprawling display that he and my mom set up in our yard every Christmas. It grew each year as my dad constructed more elaborate backdrops and choreographed more complicated movements for all of the animated parts. In truth, the Holly Jolly House could’ve outdone any ride at Disney World, and it had achieved a surprising amount of fame in Fairview. Our house was in the historic district in town, and with all its eves and gables, it was an ideal house to dress up with thousands of lights and decorations. People stood in line for hours during the Holiday Stroll for a chance to walk past our house in all its yuletide glory.

  Dad dug through one of the boxes and pulled out a three-foot plastic mouse peeking out of a stocking. “What do you think? Should I put Hector on the front porch this time? Last year I think he felt left out of the action, stuck over by the hydrangea bush.”

  “Um, sure,” I said flatly, wanting to sink into the ground and disappear. My dad also had this completely mortifying habit of naming every creature that was stirring in his Holly Jolly House, and he was always ready with assessments on their emotional well-being, too.

  Now he wiped sweat from his brow. “This old Kriss Kringle could really use your help. My back’s not what it used to be. How about you trade in your book bag for a hammer, hon? It’ll be like old times.”

  I hesitated, looking into his expectant face. There had been a time, years ago, when I’d been so excited about setting up the Holly Jolly House that I begged for it as early as Halloween. But I wasn’t little anymore, and where I’d once seen magic in the lights and music, now I saw fading, cracked plastic and cheap lawn ornaments.

  “Actually, Dad, I have a lot of homework.” I stared at the ground. “I was really hoping to get some time in with my camera later, too …”

  “Sure, sure,” Dad said in a quieter voice, “homework comes first, of course. No problem.” He turned back to the box full of decorations. “Better go in and get started on it. We can catch up at dinner.”

  “Okay,” I said with a mixture of relief and guilt. I hated disappointing him, but didn’t he see that I wasn’t a gullible little kid anymore? As I walked past him to the front porch, I caught a glimpse of Mom watching us from her studio window.

  When I opened the door, she was waiting for me in the foyer, messy papers clutched in her arms. “Hey there,” she said, “you haven’t seen a pile of invoices lying around, have you? I promised your dad I’d find them so he can finish up this month’s accounting for the business. I thought I had them in a red folder … somewhere …” She scuttled past me into the family room to thumb through another of the perpetual piles of paperwork that sprang up all over our house.

  “Haven’t seen them,” I said. “Sorry.” I tried to avoid her eyes, but she paused midsearch, giving me a scrutinizing look.

  “What happened outside just now?” she asked. “Your dad told me he was hoping you’d help with the decorating. Now he looks like someone who’s just been told there’s no such thing as Santa.”

  “Mom,” I said, incensed, “there is no such thing as Santa.”

  “Careful.” She wagged a finger at me. “You don’t want to be on the naughty list.”

  “Argh! Don’t you start, too!” I threw up my arms. “I have homework, so I took a rain check on the decorating. That’s all.”

  “Oh, Emery.” Mom didn’t have to say aloud that she was disappointed in me. Her soft, sagging tone said it all. “The Holly Jolly House means so much to your dad. When he was growing up, there were so many years when his family couldn’t afford Christmas gifts, or even a tree. But your grandma always found a way to make the holiday magical—”

  “Mom,” I started, hoping to cut her off. My heart stuttered at the mention of Grandma, and a memory struck me. I was six and tucked snugly beside Grandma in my twin bed on Christmas Eve. She’d promised to cuddle with me until I fell asleep, but I was so excited for Santa that I couldn’t get my eyes to close. So Grandma read The Night Before Christmas at least a dozen times, missing most of the holiday party that Mom and Dad were hosting downstairs. Finally, when my eyes drooped, she slipped from the covers, whispering, “Listen for Santa’s sleigh bells tonight, my sweet girl. They’ll jingle through your dreams.” Later, as I glided into sleep, I was sure I heard them chiming softly through the swirling snow.

  Grandma and I had shared the same pointed chin, dark hair, and sharp gray eyes, and back when I was little, the same quirky giggle that Dad called the “turkey gobble.” Grandma used to say that the two of us were kindred spirits. “We go together like marshmallows and chocolate.” She’d laugh and pat her soft, huggable belly, adding, “I’m the marshmallo
w, of course.”

  Remembering made an ache start in my chest. I tried not to think about her this time of year, because if I did, it usually ended in waterworks. Without Grandma, Christmas didn’t feel right anymore. Now I suddenly wanted more than anything for this conversation with Mom to be over, before she brought more memories to the surface.

  “I do actually have homework to do, you know.” I hadn’t meant it to come out sounding so obnoxious, and I cringed.

  Mom opened her mouth to argue, but at that second, Dad blew in through the door, declaring he needed more extension cords, and Mom dropped the subject. As I climbed the stairs to my bedroom, there was a sinking in my stomach as I thought back to Dad’s disappointed face. I didn’t want to let him down, but I couldn’t pretend to be someone I wasn’t, either. I just wish my conscience understood that.

  “Well, if it isn’t Anti-Claus!”

  I glanced up from my camera lens to see Alejandro—Alex—Perez waving from Cocoa Cravings, a cup of hot chocolate in his hand. Mom and Dad had let me off work early from the photo booth so that I could go find a gift for Nyssa, since our first Secret Santa gifts were due tomorrow. So far, though, I’d completely avoided shopping, opting to take photos instead. I sighed, reluctantly left my camera dangling around my neck, and headed in Alex’s direction. My mom may have dropped the subject of the Holly Jolly House for the time being, but there was another, much more persistent champion of Christmas pestering me now: Alex.

  “Hello,” I said to him, playing up the annoyance in my voice for all it was worth. It was no use. He was still smiling, completely immune.

  “Can I just say, I love that I bring out the grouch in you.” His eyes glinted teasingly. “Here.” He handed me the hot chocolate. “I call this one the Cocoa of Christmas Past.”

  “Clever,” I quipped. “But if you expect me to take a sip and start sobbing over the year I didn’t get that vampire doll I wanted, you’ll be disappointed.”