The whole mess started when I lit the church on fire.
To be precise, I didn’t strike a match, and it wasn’t the church proper, but the barn beside it. The one that Main Street Methodist used to store all the equipment for the annual Christmas pageant. Well, the barn they used to use.
Put this on your list of things to know: the combination of tinsel, baby angel wings, and manger hay burns like weed at a Miley Cyrus concert.
My questionable reputation was established in the first grade. Vaughn Hatcher, the boy who covered the class rabbit with paste and a liberal coat of glitter and set him loose in the faculty lounge. It turns out, teachers think of glitter as the herpes of the craft world—impossible to contain or exterminate. Hippity Hop was sent to a petting zoo, and I was sent to the principal’s office. But it was too late. I’d already experienced the hijinks that could ensue when my creativity was put to good use. I was hooked.
I was the guy who taught the other kids how to egg houses, roll yards, and glue mailboxes shut. And the older I got, the more elaborate my pranks became. In middle school, I filled the clinic with Styrofoam peanuts. Last year, my junior year of high school, I decorated the town Christmas tree with neon thong underwear.
My list of achievements is quite impressive, if I do say so myself.
My failures equal one.
If I could justify casting off blame, it would belong to Shelby Baron. Shelby is a boy, by the way, and before I was kicked out of organized sports, he was the first-string quarterback. I was third. In basketball, he was starting center, and I cleaned up spilled Gatorade behind the bench. All of that, and he dated Gracie Robinson. He’s just always been better than me, so therefore I don’t like him. At least he’s not better looking. He’s Beefy Viking. I’m Tall, Dark, and Inappropriate.
On the day of the incident, I drove by the church and noticed that Shelby happened to park his Mini Cooper—seriously, a dude named Shelby who drives a Mini Cooper—underneath a tree. Said tree had a large flock of pigeons roosting on its branches, and there I was with a glove compartment filled with fireworks. I saw an opportunity, I predicted an outcome, and I had to see how it would all go down.
A lot of bird shit went down.
And, thanks to a wayward spark, I set the church on fire.
For the first time in my life, I was in real trouble. The juvenile system kind of trouble. But then something even more unexpected occurred—the pastor of Main Street Methodist swooped in and made a deal with the authorities. I was given a choice. If I’d agree to give up my Christmas break and help the church reboot the pageant, the incident would be expunged from my record.
For forty hours of community service.
I’d mowed a zillion lawns to save up for a winter-break trip to Miami. If I took the deal, I’d have to cancel it. No beaches. No nightlife. No bikinis. The most frustrating part was that I wouldn’t be able to get out of celebrating Christmas with my family.
All two of us.
But my alternative was possible probation or worse. I had the grades to get into my top college choices, but way too many admissions counselors were concerned about my reputation, and I was concerned about getting any letters of recommendation. Setting a church on fire is the kind of news that gets around. College would get me out of this town. Away from my house. Away from my reputation. The judge said I had a choice, but it wasn’t a real choice.
It had to be the pageant.
I couldn’t stop staring at Gracie Robinson’s pregnant belly. Well, not hers, exactly. Mary, mother of God’s.
Gracie has dark hair, innocent blue eyes, and skin like butter. She’s not yellow. I’m just sure if I ever got my hands on her skin, it would be soft. Not that I was planning on touching her or anything. Her father was the pastor of Main Street Methodist—the same pastor who was the reason why I was here, at the Rebel Yell, two days before Christmas.
The Rebel Yell was a dinner theater show that served fried chicken and beer in feed buckets. It featured a rodeo complete with clowns, tricks, and stunts, as well as rousing musical numbers. The theme pitted the Union against the Confederacy. Patrons picked sides and rooted for their favorite team—basically reducing the Civil War to a football rivalry. I hated generalizations about the South, but the Rebel Yell did make me embarrassed for my home state of Tennessee.
Though the church wouldn’t be sharing a venue with these carpetbaggers in the first place if I hadn’t destroyed their barn.
Twenty-nine hours down. Three pageant performances to execute. Opening night—tonight—and two tomorrow, for Christmas Eve. Eleven more hours, and I would be free from carrying wood, painting sets, sweeping floors, and climbing on catwalks to replace burned-out spotlights. The opening-night curtain would go up soon.
Yet somehow I’d found time to kill, just so I could be near Gracie. She’d always been nice to me—especially nice—but not the kind of nice that makes you wonder what percentage is actually pity. Since I started my community service, I’ve had exactly seven encounters with her. Not that I was counting. I caught her watching me a lot, but it was always while I was in the act of watching her, or while her boyfriend was around, so I tried not to obsess about it too much.
Her boyfriend wasn’t around right now.
Even though I’d looked for opportunities to talk to her, when she’d sat down beside me on a bale of hay, my mind had gone completely blank. I believe that saying nothing at all is better than saying something stupid, so I waited for her to start the conversation.
And waited.
And waited.
I’d been fidgeting with a tangled string of fairy lights and giving her belly the side eye for at least five minutes when she reached into her fuzzy purple robe, pulled out a watermelon-shaped piece of foam, and handed it over. “Please,” she said. “Inspect my womb.”
“It’s . . . nice. Plushy.” I gave it a squeeze and handed it back to her. I wasn’t up on faux-womb etiquette. I couldn’t even believe she’d said the word womb.
“Thanks to you, I got upgraded to cooling-gel memory foam. I can’t wait to see the rest of my costume.” She smoothed down the lapels of her bathrobe. “Assuming they get it made in time.”
I glanced around. Moms and dads were frantically putting the final touches on costumes that were replacing the ones that I’d turned to ashes. From what I could gather, robes and halos weren’t too difficult, but angel wings were a real pain in the ass. Possibly because of the glitter, but I didn’t offer up the herpes analogy. ’Cause you know. Church.
“I’m sorry.” I stared at the lights in my hands. The past week had been enlightening. Main Street Methodist had been presenting the nativity play for twenty years, and I’d wrecked it in one minute. “I keep waiting for the thunderbolt.”
“Stop looking over your shoulder. I didn’t say that to make you feel bad.” Gracie touched my knee for a split second before pulling away and tucking her hand into her robe pocket. “If my dad’s forgiven you, the Lord certainly has.”
I stared at my knee. “If the Lord and I started talking forgiveness, I’d be in a confessional for the rest of my life.”
She grinned. “Methodists don’t have confessionals.”
“Your father did more than forgive me,” I blurted out. “He kept me from going to jail. On Christmas.”
So, so awkward.
“Good thing, right? I don’t know if Santa visits juvie.”
“He wouldn’t come for me anyway. I’m on the naughty list.”
She should have been furious with me. Her acceptance rendered me as impotent as a vice president.
Gracie Robinson was simply nice.
Her reputation was the exact opposite of mine. She was captain of the safety patrol in elementary school, a student council rep in middle school, and, most recently, homecoming queen. She was currently in line for valedictorian of our senior class. She always had an extra pencil, and it was always sharp. Girls like that and guys like me don’t mix. Except when there’s a pending court order.
“It’s too bad we couldn’t get the barn repaired in time,” she said. “We tried.”
A pang of guilt, somewhere below my left rib. Maybe I could work in some public self-flagellation. I doubted it would help. I gestured to the confederate flag and the mini-cannon, which were shoved into a corner. “How exactly did you guys end up . . . here?”
I didn’t say Rebel Yell, because I couldn’t without wincing at the Civil War–as-entertainment reference.
Gracie pursed her lips. “We ended up here thanks to Richard Baron.”
Father of Shelby.
“He owns this franchise,” she said, not meeting my eyes.
Right. Of course he did. He bought his son a Mini Cooper. Obviously, sound judgment climbed high in that family tree.
She continued, “When we figured out we wouldn’t get things running in time, he offered us the venue for the two nights of the pageant. It’s the only place around here that’s big enough.”
“I’d say.” It had stadium seating and a huge, dirt-floor arena.
“Even so, claiming our own territory has been hard.” She shook her head. “But I guess you’d know about that.”
The job parameters of my community service ran the gamut. I’d done everything from helping the church move in the remaining props that I hadn’t set ablaze to serving as a stagehand for the actual production. Sorting out what belonged to whom involved pawing through an eclectic mix of Confederate memorabilia, oversized scrolls, and shepherd’s staffs. I still didn’t know if the trumpets belonged to the Civil War buglers or a heavenly host of angels.
“I’m surprised your father didn’t cancel it,” I said.
“It would’ve been easier, but this is the pageant’s twentieth anniversary. So many people were looking forward to it that Dad didn’t feel like he could turn down Mr. Baron, especially after he offered to pay for all the new materials we needed.”
Put another jewel in the Baron family crown. “Why did he offer?”
“Shelby is playing Joseph.”
“Gotcha.”
Just then, Gracie’s father rushed to the center of the stage, holding a clipboard and an enormous cup of coffee. He looked too young to head up a congregation of five hundred people. Like, boy-reporter young. Gracie shared his dark hair but not his eyes. They looked older than the rest of him.
He waved to get the attention of the people arranging the set. “Okay, let’s finish blocking these scenes so we can do a run through. I’m sorry, but that horse—when it’s replaced by a donkey—will have to take a left, behind the Wise Men, after they approach the Holy Family. Can you move that bale of hay to make it easier? Donkeys don’t jump.”
As adept as I am at predicting outcomes, I had to ask the obvious question. “What happens if that horse poops?”
As if it had been cued, the horse lifted his tail and took his evening constitutional.
“Wow,” Gracie said.
Pastor Robinson’s coffee sloshed onto the ground as he tucked the clipboard under one arm. I waited for the anger—for him to yell at someone to clean it up, to throw the clipboard, or to slam down his coffee cup. I’d never seen him show anger, but that’s what would happen if someone screwed with my dad when he was conducting business.
I heard Pastor Robinson’s reaction before I saw it. It didn’t register because it was illogical, to me at least. When he lifted his face, it was wet with tears.
A horse dropped a dump in the middle of his rehearsal, and the man was laughing.
“Not . . . what I expected,” I said. Humor wasn’t a typical emotion at my house even when my dad lived with us. Especially when he lived with us.
“If you don’t do bathroom humor, we can’t be friends.” She elbowed me in the side. When I didn’t respond, she said, “It’s funny, so he’s laughing. People do, you know.” Like she knew what I was thinking. Like she understood the differences in the ways we were raised.
Pastor Robinson’s hand rested on his shaking, Christmas-plaid-covered stomach. His wedding ring shone on his finger. It surprised me. Gracie’s mom had died when we were in the second grade.
“Vaughn?” She touched the top of my hand. “You can laugh, too.”
“Right.”
I pulled away and grabbed a shovel.
My family didn’t react to calamity with laughter.
My dad left when I was eight, and my mom never recovered. I’d tried to convince myself that it wasn’t my fault he left, but I never succeeded. I was hell at eight, in trouble all the time, and I’d always wondered what kind of strain my behavior put on their marriage. I had a distinct feeling that my dad didn’t like me, but he’d always been the one to handle the teacher’s conferences and suspensions. He made sure I had food and money, but that’s where penance for leaving his family stopped.
On the medication wagon, my mom could handle things like balanced meals and clean clothes. When she was down, she could barely take care of herself, much less her kid, and when she was up, she was a lightning strike—beautiful and unpredictable. I worked hard to keep her condition private, which is not a thing a kid should have to do. Fodder for country ballads, but also the reality of my life.
Shame leads to secrets, and secrets lead to lies, and lies ruin everything. Especially friendships. No kid wants to explain that his mom can’t bring snacks to class because she ran out of Xanax before the pharmacy would refill the prescription. Other parents stop inviting you to birthday parties, because you don’t reciprocate. No one asks you to join sports teams, because you never meet the registration deadlines, and if you do, no one ever remembers to pay your league fees. Soon enough, people forget you altogether.
So you do things that make them remember.
I kept my head down as I scooped the horse’s early holiday gift into a rusty wheelbarrow. It had seen its fair share of manure. The wheels squeaked, but it rolled just fine. The wooden handles were worn and sturdy. I shook the contents into the compost pile, turned the wheelbarrow up against the wall, and washed my hands in the utility sink backstage. I jumped when Gracie’s fingertips grazed my shoulder.
She was a toucher. I hadn’t noticed before.
“Why did you do it?” Gracie asked.
“Um, the displeasing aroma?” I yanked on the paper towels too hard, fifteen came off in my hand, and the roll detached from the holder. “Because all the church robes drag the ground? Because somebody had to?”
“You know what I mean. The firecrackers.”
I studied the paper towels, lining up the edges as I rolled them back onto the cardboard. “I do lots of things without a specific reason. I was bored. I wanted to see what would happen.”
“Experiments are why you take a chemistry class, not why you blow up a bunch of pigeons.”
“I wasn’t trying to blow them up.” I faced her. “I don’t abuse animals.”
“Hippity.” She raised one eyebrow. “Hop.”
“That wasn’t abuse. That was art. Unfortunate, six-year-old art. As for the birds, I just wanted to scare them out of the tree.”
“It worked.”
“And they all lived.”
Gracie took the roll of paper towels from my hands and hung it back up. “You still haven’t told me why you did it.”
Pointed questions were not part of my plan. My plan was to make it through the next two days and get a pass from the judge, not to reveal my longstanding crush or expose my deviously jealous ways. My mind raced, desperate for another way out besides the truth. “Okay. So have you ever seen Sherlock Holmes?”
Her eyes narrowed at what she assumed was a subject change. “Television or movies?”
“Either,” I said.
“Both,” she answered.
“You know how Sherlock sees things that shouldn’t go together on the surface, but once he makes all the connections, the answers become obvious to him? The camera always shows it as a fast pan from one subject to another.” I gestured for her to follow me back to the tangled lights.
“Ugh. That kind of camerawork makes me nauseated.” But she smiled and crossed her arms over her womb. “So, what you’re saying is that your mind works faster than everyone else’s.”
“I’m just saying . . . I’m good at seeing connections that could cause trouble.” I sat down on a wooden crate and took stock of our surroundings. “For example, lighting. I could change the directions of all the spotlights. Or I could switch up the tape on the stage that marks the places for the actors. Rearrange the props table or just hide it all together. Mixing up the angels’ wires could cause all kinds of interesting problems—not for the baby angels, of course, but for a free-swinging adult in wings? That sounds like a party.” And a little dirty.
“So, chaos. Is that your ultimate goal?”
“Those were examples, not intentions. Is it your goal to play Mary for the rest of your life?”
“Definitely not.” She stood. “But when your dad is a pastor . . . well, people have expectations.”
“I assume the flawless skin and baby blues kick it over the edge?”
Her nose crinkled at flawless. It was an expression I’d seen before, usually when someone paid her a compliment. “Maybe. But the real Mary was Middle Eastern. And closer to twelve. The real Joseph was probably thirty.”
“Gross.”
“The Wise Men were astronomers, and they didn’t show up until Jesus was around two, and no one knows how many there were. The manger was likely a cave.”
Gracie was getting fired up, speaking faster and gesturing with her whole body. “And I’m pretty sure Jesus cried,” she said. “He was a baby. It’s ridiculous that we have to keep perpetuating these myths because of people’s commercialized expectations.” She thumped back down on the wooden crate beside me.
“Then why do you participate?” I looked at her. “Because of your father?”
“You’d think it’s because he makes me. But he doesn’t.” She dropped her face into her hands, and then she peeked at me through splayed fingers. “You’re going to think I’m terrible.”
I paused, waiting for the middle school choir to pass. Once they were through, I said, “It’s impossible to think badly of you, Gracie Robinson.”
She sat up straighter. Maybe she blushed a little. I’d paid the compliment with too much admiration in my voice. “It’s just . . . sometimes it’s nice to be the one everyone pays attention to.”
I tilted my head to the side, all cocker spaniel. “You were homecoming queen.”
“That was a fluke. If Ashley Stewart and Hannah Gale hadn’t been suspended for breaking into the principal’s office and e-mailing all the teachers to tell them they were fired, I never would’ve won. They were the shoo-ins for the homecoming court.”
I took a moment to check out my cuticles.
Her eyes widened. “Vaughn.”
“I made a suggestion. Flippantly. And, possibly, handed over a skeleton key.” Sometimes it’s nice not to be the one everyone pays attention to.
She punched my arm. “Did you do that for me?”
I rubbed my bicep. “It wasn’t entirely coincidental.”
Her mouth dropped open, and her expression told me she was trying to figure out if she should yell at me or thank me. “I don’t need to be front and center. I know I’m loved, and that I shouldn’t seek out approval. But secretly?” She sighed and lowered her voice. “I suspect I tell myself that so I’m not sad when I don’t get noticed.”
“Do you want to be noticed or not? Because it sounds like you’re talking out of both sides of your mouth.” I dared to nudge her shoulder. “I’m not criticizing.”
Gracie didn’t move away. “When you’re a pastor’s daughter, guys tend to put you in the ‘untouchable’ category and never look at you again. I just like to feel special every now and then. You know?”
“Anytime you need to feel special, you come find me.” The words were out before I could stop them—a cartoon bubble over my head that wouldn’t burst.
Her brows pulled together in a frown. “Are you flirting with me?”
“I’m sorry.” I felt my face getting red. My face never got red. “Did I take it too far?”
“No. You took it exactly far enough.” The frown slipped into a grin. “I’m just trying to figure out the most effective way to flirt with you.”
A rush of adrenaline shot through my body. I didn’t know how to volley back, so I changed the subject. Because I was a chicken. “Speaking of flirting, where’s your husband?”
She blinked.
“Your fictional husband. Your real-life boyfriend.”
“My . . . you mean Shelby?” Gracie groaned. She slid her hands into her hair, clutching her head like it ached. “He is not my boyfriend.”
“Oh, really?” I crossed my arms and sat back to listen to this one.
“Have you ever seen us holding hands? On a date? A real, official date that wasn’t church-sanctioned or a school event? No, you haven’t. Because we’ve never been on one.”
“Then what’s the deal?”
“I’m a cover for Shelby’s real girlfriend.”
I almost fell out of my seat. “His real girlfriend?”
“She’s a very nice, liberal, feminist Christian named Ellie from New Jersey. They met at Bible camp two summers ago.”
“Do they make liberal feminist Christians?”
Gracie rolled her eyes. “They make all kinds.”
I understood why Shelby would need to use Gracie as an alibi. The father of a good old Southern boy would lose his mind if his son dated someone from New Jersey, let alone a liberal feminist from New Jersey.
“If you’re just a cover, why is he so protective? Protective to the point of being an ass”—I quickly corrected myself—“mean to anyone who looks at you?”
“He feels brotherly toward me, and my dad takes advantage.” She paused, watching a volunteer bedazzle the gift box that held the myrrh for baby Jesus. “What’s Shelby ever done to you, anyway? I know he’s a football player, but he’s not a stereotype. He’s not cornering you in the bathroom and giving you wedgies, is he?”
I shook my head.
“Does he stuff you in lockers? Duct tape you to flagpoles? Put Bengay in your jock . . . er . . . yeah. That kind of thing?”
I grinned. “You’re cute when you blush.”
“Don’t change the subject.” She was forcing herself to keep her eyes on mine. “Why don’t you like Shelby?”
The conversation had come this far, might as well see it through to the end. “The fact that he had you seemed like reason enough.”
“Oh.”
I stared at her foam belly. Unbelievably, it was the least embarrassing thing in the room. “I’m guessing if I asked you out, your father wouldn’t exactly be okay with that. I’m not a liberal feminist from New Jersey, but I can’t rate much higher.”
“Have you forgotten that Dad went to court for you?”
Look at the womb. Concentrate on the womb. “I haven’t forgotten. But there’s a big difference between bailing someone out of trouble and then letting your daughter date the troublemaker.”
“Give him some credit. He’s not like Shelby’s dad. I mean, I’m sure Dad and I would have a serious talk beforehand, but I’m smart enough to know right from wrong. Dad knows that, and he trusts me. As far as you go, he believes in what he does, and in second chances. He loves people. I’d go so far as to say he loves you.”
Loved me? “Why? I don’t follow the rules. Aren’t religious people into rules?”
“Rules make people feel safe. But they can turn into judgments. Condemnation is easy, Vaughn. The harder choice is love, and it’s one my dad makes every day.”
“He still wouldn’t let you spend time with someone like me,” I argued, mostly because I wanted her to convince me.
“You act like what I want doesn’t matter.” She didn’t sound pouty, she sounded strong. Certain.
My adrenaline was pulsing now. “Would you?” I stopped. Considered. Continued. “Ever want someone like me?”
Gracie leaned in. She smelled like . . . wood smoke. And fabric softener. “If you pulled fewer pranks and paid more attention, you’d know the answer to that.”
If she meant what I hoped she did, I’d never pull a prank again.
Probably.
The backstage door opened and closed with a bang. A cold wind rushed through the curtains, catching the pages of the director’s playbook. It held the prompts for every scene, the diagrams for all the stage markings, and possibly the location of the Holy Grail. We sprang to our feet to chase them down.
Gracie shivered, pulling the bathrobe tighter as she caught another flying page. “We’ll never find them all.”
“Sure we will. Then it’ll be as easy as putting them back in order.”
“I don’t think so.” She showed me the papers she’d grabbed. “No numbers. Mrs. Armstrong is going to freak out when she has to reorder them. It’ll disrupt her precious schedule.”
Mrs. Armstrong was proud of her director gig, and she made that clear with the laminated ID badge she wore around her neck. “Why wouldn’t she number her playbook?”
Gracie laughed. “Job security. If no one else knows exactly how the scenes are supposed to go, or where everyone is supposed to stand, or where the tape is placed on the stage, she’s necessary.”
I was on my knees, checking under the table of fabric. “Why would you need job security for a volunteer position?”
“To place yourself on the highest possible rung of the social ladder.”
“Church people are weird.” The moment I said it, I felt like a jerk. “Sorry. I have this blurt circuit that can’t be tamed. You might have noticed. Can we go back to when I wasn’t insulting?”
“That far?” she asked.
“How far?” I stood.
“Third grade.”
“What happened in third grade?” I pushed a box of halos aside to retrieve another wayward page.
“You broke all the pencils in your pencil box, and then told the teacher I did it. I had to write ‘Abraham Lincoln is on the penny’ five hundred times.”
I laughed. “I’m sorry.”
Gracie’s eyes sparkled. “So was I.”
The door opened again, and playbook sheets flew back into the air. Gracie ran to the right, lurching between the Dixie flag and a pile of scrolls. I ran to the left, onto the stage, dodging between hoop skirts and the trough that served as the manger. A horse—Confederate cap nestled between his ears—stood in the middle of the arena. He was flanked by General Robert E. Lee, who was in full Confederate regalia, down to his Smith & Wesson. There were five soldiers behind him, and they were in deep conversation with General Grant.
Pastor Robinson joined them with a smile. It melted like Frosty in the hothouse.
“Uh-oh,” I said.
“Uh-oh, what?” Gracie peeked around me, putting her hand on the small of my back. I focused on standing up straight and wondered where putting my arm around her would fall on the awkward scale.
“Why are they here?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” I leaned forward, trying to catch the tone of their conversation.
After a brief and heated discussion—during which Gracie’s delicate hand never left my back—her father climbed the stage steps. He was smiling, but it wasn’t a real smile. I sensed panic.
“The Rebel Yell has a show tonight,” he said.
Gracie handed me her pages and stepped into his line of vision. “We have a show tonight,” she disagreed.
“Mr. Baron never removed tonight’s Rebel Yell performance from the website, so people were still buying tickets online.” Pastor Robinson gestured for us to follow him, and we made a beeline for the box office. After a brief discussion with the attendant, he turned around. “Not only are we double booked, but the Rebel Yell is sold out. And every single ticket for the nativity was distributed last Sunday. I . . . I don’t know what to do. The show is supposed to start in two hours. What a catastrophe.” Pastor Robinson ran his hand over his face. He looked so defeated and only twenty minutes ago, he’d been laughing.
Guilt swallowed me whole. But it was followed by a chaser of hope.
“Sir?” I stepped closer to him, clutching the playbook in both hands. My voice was the pitch of a tiny, wide-eyed Disney mammal. “I think I can help.”
“Really?” he asked. “How?”
“Catastrophes are my specialty.”
“I can’t believe you did that.” Gracie’s awe could have powered me through a triathlon. “What now? You’re just gonna throw stuff out there and hope something takes?”
“Pretty much. It’s like that spaghetti thing—throwing it at the wall to see if it sticks.”
“I wonder if that’s real,” she mused, tapping her finger against her chin. “Like, do you think the Olive Garden has a spaghetti wall? Do you think the wait staff has to draw straws to see who has to peel it off at the end of the night?”
I grinned. “Get to work.”
Gracie made a list of the traditional media outlets, and I drafted an announcement for the social ones. “I’ll call the radio stations first,” she said. “HOTT FM is playing Christmas carols, so I’ll start with them.” She winked at me before she turned away.
They’d played nothing but Christmas carols since the day after Halloween, and I predicted most of the population had retreated to gangster rap to escape the merriment. But I didn’t contradict her. She looked so hopeful.
A voice interrupted my thoughts. “We can manage the crowd, but the parking is another story.”
Pastor Robinson was beside me, and I hadn’t even noticed. I was thankful Gracie was still wearing the purple bathrobe, or he’d have caught me checking out her departure.
“We’ll have to round up someone to direct traffic,” he said. “Maybe there are some orange cones . . . we could make signs for entrance and exits . . .” He trailed off as his eyes scoured the junk backstage, seeking solutions.
“You work all the time, don’t you, Pastor Robinson?” I asked.
“Dan. You can call me Dan,” he said.
No, I couldn’t.
Then he frowned. “I don’t have office hours on Friday or Saturday.”
“I mean . . . you’re always on. Things don’t filter through your brain by going in one ear and out the other. There’s always something to process.”
I could see him doing some processing right now. After a moment, he nodded thoughtfully. And then he gave me the kind of answer that adults usually avoid. An honest one. “I do quite a bit of reading, studying, counseling. Lots of speaking. I can put those things out of my mind, especially when it comes to Gracie. But you’re right. There are always people who need caring for, and I can never turn that off.”
I wanted to thank him for leaving it on for me, but I didn’t know how. “Gracie said you believe in what you do.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“That’s . . . cool.” We looked at each other like we didn’t know where to take the conversation next.
I had questions, but I couldn’t drum up the nerve to ask them. Why had he chosen to be so kind to me after I’d screwed up his whole December? What made him arrange my second chance? Why did he have such an amazing daughter?
“Pastor Robinson!” The voice carried over the mayhem of the crowd. Rebel Yell versus Main Street Methodist. What were the odds? A woman holding three sets of angel wings and a fake golden brick waggled her foot in front of him to draw his attention. “We have a situation. It’s bad news/bad news.”
“Can we just pretend I know?” He rubbed his temples and closed his eyes. “Do you have to tell me?”
“Yep. Even though you can’t do anything about it. This one will need to be handled divinely.”
He opened his eyes. “Go ahead.”
“It’s snowing.”
There was a flurry of activity by the stage door, and it opened wide. Our town looked like a snow globe being shaken by a toddler. The flakes whirled in circles and spirals, but they were making solid landings. A layer of sparkling, icy white covered everything, including the road, and it was growing deeper by the second.
Winter had come early this year, and it had been unseasonably cold, but no one in our town had expected snow. The only time anyone worried about that kind of weather was if they were traveling. If this kept up, no one would move for days.
There wasn’t even time to hoard bread and milk. Or toilet paper.
“Hopefully . . . it will stop . . . soon,” Pastor Robinson said. He looked like he might face-plant at any moment.
“I don’t think so.” Gracie entered, sans womb, with her bathrobe open over her street clothes. “One hundred percent chance. Some sort of vortex situation. The meteorologists are ecstatic—you know how they love weather drama—and the kids are all mad since they’re already out of school.”
I felt a little giddy myself. As rare as it was, snow definitely created drama.
Kids in our town spent their childhoods perpetually frustrated by the pink radar line on weather forecasts that never dipped far enough south to bring snow, yet always included us in tornado warnings. I wasn’t far enough away from “kid” to subdue all my excitement, but I tried, thanks to the current situation.
“That’s not all.” Gracie approached her father and gently laid a hand on his arm. “The interstate north of us is already locked up, and the camels are stuck.”
“The camels.” His voice was dull, as if he’d just awoken from a nap. “Are stuck?”
“Yes, the camels,” Gracie continued. “And the sheep.”
“The . . . sheep?”
She broke the rest of the news quickly. “And the donkey and the ox. The traffic isn’t moving and neither are they. PETA will jump our ass—our literal ass—if we push for transport in this kind of weather.”
Everyone in Gracie’s general vicinity dropped chin. I didn’t know the church’s stance on alcohol, but Pastor Robinson looked like he could use a margarita. He took a deep breath, the kind that every teenager recognizes and fears. “Grace Elizabeth Robinson. I know that was a play on words, and your attempt at levity is noted, as is the time and the place you chose to attempt it. Now you owe the swear jar a dollar.”
Before she could reply, his phone rang. He answered, and the crowd around us broke up.
I stared at Gracie. “You just said ass.”
She shrugged. A grin followed. “I can usually get away with that one, since it’s in the Bible.”
“You said ass.”
“I’m aware of this.”
“You guys have a swear jar.”
She slid out her arms from the bathrobe, revealing a blue sweater that fit so well it deserved a vacation home in the Bahamas. “It’s an old pickle jar we keep on our kitchen counter. My mom made it mandatory for my dad when he was in seminary, and he made it mandatory for me.”
“Your father swears, too?”
“Not anymore. Last year, he emptied it to fund a trip to the Harry Potter theme park in Florida.” Her grin went full blown. I wanted to kiss it right off her face.
“You wicked girl. You’re not at all who I imagined you’d be.”
“Ditto.” She hung her robe on a wall hook. “How many days has it been since you pulled a prank? I had no idea you could behave for such an extended period of time.”
“Maybe I’m trying to change. I’ve managed a streak of good behavoir before.” I glanced at Pastor Robinson, who was pacing while he talked. “Remember the Good Citizenship Award in fourth grade? And how every single kid was supposed to get it?”
She nodded and leaned against the wall.
“I tried so hard. Everyone had been giving me crap, saying I’d never be good long enough to get it, but during the last month of school, I earned it. I proved that I could handle myself. And then Mr. Weekly passed me over at assembly. I know my name was on the list, but he said every name but mine. No one would believe me. That’s when I realized everyone had already made up their minds about me. Why disappoint them?”
“Why not work harder?”
“I was nine,” I said drily. “ ‘Work harder’ sounds like parental advice, and I didn’t have the kind of guidance that you did.”
“I’m of the opinion,” she said, tucking her arm around mine, “that if you let a single life event define you, then all you need to change things—if you want them to change—is another.”
I stared at her arm on mine. And then, when I looked up, she was staring at me.
A loud commotion erupted around Pastor Robinson.
Gracie turned her attention to him. “What now?”
Mrs. Armstrong had slipped on a set of icy stairs, and she was on her way to the hospital with a broken foot. The pageant had lost its director.
“How about that,” Gracie murmured. “Double-booked venue, freak snowstorm, trapped animals. And now no director. Things are getting worse by the second.” She clucked her tongue. “It would be easy to give up. No one would blame us. Or . . .”
“Or . . . ?”
She let go of my arm, practically bouncing. “You know how to make things go wrong. You excel at it.” From anyone else, I’d have taken that personally. “Tell me you can’t figure out how to make tonight happen.”
“Are you trying to find a way to make your father accept me or something?” I didn’t think so, but I had to ask. “Are you trying to fix me?”
“Why? Are you broken?”
Gracie tilted her head.
Parts of me were. I felt like Gracie could see every single torn-up edge. I shrugged.
“You said you were trying to change,” she reminded me.
“I said maybe.”
I was glad she wasn’t holding my hand. My palms were a rain forest.
“You’re so blinded by negative expectations that you can’t see the truth. Pranks, jokes—they don’t make you bad.” She angled her body toward me. “They make you you. You have a lot to offer, Vaughn. And Christmas is about new beginnings.”
“What about you, Gracie? Since I have so much to offer, would you be willing to start something with me? Or are you afraid I’ll ruin your reputation?”
“What makes you think that I won’t ruin yours?”
I choked on my own spit.
Gracie gestured toward the chaos onstage. “So?”
I counted the people backstage, the props. Thought about the possibilities “Let’s make it happen.”
“Hell, yeah!”
“Another dollar,” Pastor Robinson hollered, before returning to his phone call.
I laughed. “Isn’t that one in the Bible, too?”
“He’s not been very forgiving lately,” she said through her smile, as she gave her father the thumbs-up. “I think he’s aiming for Hawaii next summer.”
I had a flash of Gracie in a bikini, followed by one of Pastor Robinson in Speedos. I shook my head in a reflex action to push both pictures out of my brain. “You should get into costume. Where’s your foam child?”
“One of the baby angels is using it for a pillow.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me toward her father. “Hey, Dad! Vaughn has an idea.”
Pastor Robinson agreed to go forward.
The traffic reports from the north of town were growing worse by the second. Things to the south weren’t much better, but the traffic was moving. Pastor Robinson’s phone lit up with calls from stranded cast members. Gracie and her dad were trying to figure out exactly which cast members were missing.
I was listening, but I was also thinking. Crazy-Sherlock thinking. Looking from the Civil War soldiers to the nativity costumes, from the arena to the stage.
Gracie watched me. “You’re doing it again, aren’t you? You’re doing your brain thing. Right now.”
I ignored her. “If the pageant is going to be short of players, and the Rebel Yell is, too, we could make a hybrid.”
Pastor Robinson frowned. “You mean like General Grant and General Lee and Santa should give the presents to the Christ child?”
I hadn’t meant that at all, but I stopped for a moment to picture it.
“No, Dad, the Wise Men costumes are here,” Gracie explained. “We could just get someone from the Rebel Yell to put them on.”
“That could work,” he said.
“And,” I was rolling now, “if both casts are down by half, maybe the audiences will be, too. We could combine the shows. And since your congregation can’t barrel race”—I looked to him for confirmation, and he shook his head—“then maybe we can get the Rebel Yell employees to volunteer for us.”
“I like that idea. I like it a lot. Let me feel them out.”
I didn’t mention that I was pretty sure I’d have to recruit waitresses to fill in for the missing angels. The baby angels. The waitresses would look more like prostitutes in their costumes.
At least we had shepherd’s hooks. If things got too scandalous, we could always pull them off the stage.
Gracie didn’t say I had to make a classy pageant happen. Just a pageant.
“Okay, what else?” She had a clipboard and a pencil. It was nice to see her taking my success so seriously, but the clipboard reminded me of a bigger problem.
“The playbook.” It still sat on the director’s stool, in complete disarray, pages sticking out everywhere. “We don’t know what order to put things in. The Rebel Yell people will need markers to know where to go.”
“I can help with that.”
The voice was deep, and it could only come from one person.
Shelby’s blond hair had grown out since his football season buzz cut, and it was sticking up everywhere. His face was unshaven, he had dark circles under his eyes, and his shirt wasn’t buttoned right. I’d never seen him look unkempt before.
“I’m sorry,” I said. In truth, I blurted it. I felt a little more kindly toward Shelby than usual.
“Excuse me?”
“I’m sorry I made those birds crap on your car.” I’d never apologized, and it felt right to do it now. “It wasn’t cool, and I didn’t have a reason. Not a valid one anyway.”
Gracie dropped the clipboard and stepped in front of me. “I told him about your girlfriend.”
“Did you tell him about the Mini Cooper?” Shelby asked, urgently.
Gracie shook her head. “That’s your issue.”
“Dude.” Shelby stepped around her and grabbed me, looking intently into my eyes. “I only drive the Mini Cooper because I have to. My dad gets weird ideas about things”—he jerked his head toward the lassos and clown wigs that were hanging on a nearby Peg-Board—“and that car is one of them. He surprised me with it, and he was so happy . . . I just wish you’d set it on fire instead of the church.”
“Relax, big boy. I didn’t mean to set anything on fire.”
Gracie stepped in front of me again and knocked off Shelby’s giant, sweaty hands from my shoulders. “But you forgive him, right?”
Shelby’s body was large, but his brain was quick. He looked from me to Gracie. “Seriously? You two?”
“Can you help with the book or not?” Her hands were on her hips. “Because I’m not having this conversation right now, but I will remind you that you owe me.”
“Very true.” Shelby dropped his head. “Fine, hand it over. I know I can put those stage markings in the right place. They’ve always looked like football plays to me.”
Gracie gave it to him, and he sat on the stool, heavily, as if he were exhausted. It creaked under his weight. “I’ll let you know when I’m done,” he called out. “And Gracie? We’ll be having a talk later.”
She waved him off and pulled me to the side of the stage. “That was an impressive apology from you. Unexpected.”
We were right beside a corner. A small, dark corner. A corner that wasn’t in her father’s line of vision. And she was impressed with me.
“Was it reward worthy?” I asked, looking from her to the corner and back again.
“You are cheeky.”
“I acknowledge advantageous situations.”
“Cheeky. And smart, too.” She grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled me into the darkness.
I was glad she hadn’t put her costume back on. It’s not like I had her pressed up against the wall or anything, but I was closer to her than I’d ever been. It exceeded expectations. Her hair smelled girly, like spring.
She still had my shirt wrapped around her fist.
“I know I’m trying to make better life choices,” I said, “but I’d commit a crime every day if it meant I got to do this.”
“That’s not logical.” She let go of my shirt. “If you committed daily crimes, the only time we’d have together would be an hour on Sundays.”
I wanted to make a conjugal visit joke, but I didn’t think we were there yet. “So you’re saying you want to spend time with me?”
She answered with a giggle. Gracie wasn’t a giggler.
“You’re nervous.”
“I’m . . . I’ve never . . . the only kiss I’ve ever had was with Milo Crutcher in sixth grade, and he stuck his whole tongue in my mouth. I understand his intentions now, but I didn’t then. So, I’ve just . . . sort of . . .” She gestured awkwardly with her hands. It was adorable. “I’ve avoided trying it again.”
She thought I was going to kiss her, and she wasn’t running away.
“That’s a shame.” I touched her face, ran my thumb along her cheekbone. “Although I’m glad he ruined it for you. I’ll be happy to be the one to set things right.”
“I b-bet you would.”
I removed my hand from her cheek. “Your teeth are chattering. I’m sorry—”
“Hey.” She grabbed my wrist. “I’m the one who made the move.”
“And I appreciate it.” I tipped up her chin with one finger. “But this probably isn’t the time or place for this, and maybe I want to buy you a steak first.”
“I’m a vegetarian,” she said, but she’d stopped shaking.
I smiled. “I’ll buy you a salad.”
Then I gave her a peck on the forehead and stepped into the light.
I’d behaved for thirty-one hours, shown restraint with Gracie, and had an intelligent conversation with her father. I’d found tablecloths to cover the legs of the waitresses-now-angels, persuaded Lee and Grant to put on wigs and robes (two of the Wise Men were stuck in traffic), and attached cotton balls to sawhorses to create sheep.
I’d wielded a glue gun to finish hemming Gracie’s costume—with no hit to my masculinity at all—and borrowed an eighth-grade gamer from the middle school choir to run lights. I’d untucked the robe from the back of an unaware shepherd’s pants, removed the Confederate caps from the horses-now-donkeys, and located Benadryl for a nervous stage mother.
Talk about your Christmas miracles. There was only one problem.
No Joseph.
“Did we make him mad?” I asked Gracie. We’d found the playbook, perfectly organized, but Shelby had disappeared. “Is this my fault, too?”
“No, he’s not that kind of guy.” She threw her hands up into the air. “We never dated, not even once. Something’s wrong.”
We didn’t have any extra bodies to stand in as Joseph. Gracie’s father was outside handling the tickets and the traffic, and . . . that would be gross, anyway. I couldn’t even pull an overgrown middle-schooler from the choir, because he was their only tenor.
I was at the end of my alternatives when Pastor Robinson reappeared. “We found Shelby,” he said. “Passed out under a pile of burlap. He’s running a high fever, and he’s delirious. Keeps talking about Democrats and New Jersey and kissing.”
“So we don’t have a Joseph.” Gracie kept her eyes on her father, but her hand moved to mine.
“No, we don’t.” He was very obviously not looking at me, either.
Oh, no.
“Come on.” I took a step back. “No way. No one in this town will buy me as Joseph. They’ll boo at the nativity. You can’t have people booing at the nativity. And I might be a troublemaker, but what I do is underhanded. Sneaky. I don’t like people looking at me. And people would have to look at me.” I was babbling, but the last thing I wanted to do was put on a robe and a fake beard and pretend to be the father of Jesus.
“It’s okay, Vaughn. You don’t have to do it.” Gracie squeezed my hand. “We have time to figure something out.”
“Ten minutes!” It was the eighth-grade gamer on the earpiece.
“We could use one of the Wise Men,” Gracie suggested. “Pull someone out of the crowd to take his place. All he has to do is stand there.”
Pastor Robinson nodded. “That could work. We might have to open the curtain a few minutes late—”
“I’ll do it.” Was that coming from me? It was. “I’ll be Joseph.”
“Son, you don’t have to. I promise,” Pastor Robinson said. He meant it, and not because he’d be ashamed for me to take the role. I could tell that he was thinking about me, my feelings. And he’d called me son. “Performing wasn’t a part of your deal.”
I looked from Gracie to her father, and all I saw on their faces was concern. Not judgment, not disappointment, not expectation. Nothing.
Just love.
“Directing the pageant wasn’t part of the deal, either,” I said.
“This is different,” Gracie said. “No one wants you to be uncomfortable—”
“I want to.” I held up my hand when Gracie started to argue. “No. I really want to.” I turned to her father. “The least I can do is put on a fake beard and stand up for what you believe in.”
Gracie was biting her lip. I might have seen tears in her eyes.
“Thank you,” Pastor Robinson said. And then he hugged me.
“Right.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “So where’s the beard?”
Gracie and I were alone on the stage, waiting for the curtain to rise, just a young couple from Nazareth on our way to Bethlehem to be counted in the census. Minus a donkey, but some things couldn’t be helped. Gracie told me the donkey thing wasn’t in the Bible anyway.
I was sweaty and nervous, but Gracie was smiling from ear to ear. It made the whole thing worth it.
“I’d say good luck.” I fiddled with a glue strip and slapped on the mustache. “But it’s ‘break a leg,’ right?” My beard flipped over. “Crap.”
Gracie laughed and reached out to fix it. Or so I thought.
“There are other things you can do for luck.” She stood on her tiptoes, lifted her chin, and placed a kiss on my lips. It was soft and sweet.
My knees went weak. Like, so weak I had to lean on her. “That was a surprise. Don’t get me wrong, a welcome surprise. But still.”
“I’m sorry. Did I take it too far?” she asked softly.
“No,” I said. The curtain began to rise. “You took it exactly far enough.”
