What Light

I moan around the first bite. “Oh my, yum . . . These are delicious!”

  “Enjoy them now,” Mrs. Richardson says, “because next year I’m going back to the Pillsbury version.”

  Caleb catches a crumb falling from his lips. “These are amazing.”

  “A lady at work says we should try some peppermint bark,” Mr. Richardson says. “She says even the kids can’t mess it up.” He tries to reach into my tin for a cookie, but Mrs. Richardson grabs his elbow and pulls him back.

  Caleb snags another cookie and I shoot him a look. “Excuse me! You have now exceeded your allotment.” I know he would love to tease me for saying allotment, and it is fun to watch him struggle, but he would rather eat the cookie.

  “Eat all you want,” Mrs. Richardson says. “I can give you and your boyfriend the recipe and—”

  Mr. Richardson touches his wife’s arm at the word boyfriend. I smile at him to let him know it’s okay. Besides, one of their children is now screaming outside.

  Mrs. Richardson sighs. “It’s been lovely seeing you again, Sierra.”

  Mr. Richardson nods at us both before leaving. Once outside, he shouts, “Santa sees you, Nathan!”

  Caleb steals another cookie and pops it in his mouth.

  I point at him. “Santa sees you, Caleb.”

  He holds his hands up innocently and walks to the drink station for a napkin, which he scrubs across his mouth. “You should come with me on tonight’s tree run,” he says.

  I nearly choke on my cookie mid-swallow.

  He tosses the crumpled napkin into the green plastic trash can. “You don’t have to if—”

  “I’d love to,” I say. “But I work tonight.”

  He looks me in the eyes, his expression shallow. “You don’t have to make excuses, Sierra. Just be straight with me.”

  I step toward him. “I work until eight. I told you that, remember?” Is he always this defensive?

  He bites his top lip and faces outside. “I know there are things we should talk about,” he says, “but not yet, okay? Just, if you can, don’t believe everything you hear.”

  “I will go with you another day, Caleb. All right? Very soon.” I wait for his eyes to look at me. “Unless you don’t want me to.”

  He picks up another napkin to wipe his hands. “I do. I think you’d really like it.”

  “Good,” I say, “because it means a lot that you want me to go.”

  He stifles a smile, but his dimple gives it away. “You grew the trees. You deserve to see what they bring to these families.”

  I wave my candy cane toward the trees. “I get to see it every day.”

  “This is different,” he says.

  I stir my drink with the candy cane and study the spirals it forms. It feels like this will be more than two people simply hanging out. It feels like I’m being asked out. If he did that, having nothing to do with trees, a part of me would love to say yes. But how much do I honestly know about him? And he knows even less about me.

  He pulls out his comb and wags it in front of him. “This isn’t getting used until you commit to an exact date.”

  “Oh, now you’re playing rough,” I say. “Let me think. This weekend is going to get real busy here, so I’ll be exhausted after work. Can we go Monday when you’re done with school?”

  He looks up, like he’s checking the calendar in his head. “I don’t work that day. Let’s do it! I’ll come get you after dinner.”

  Caleb and I leave the Bigtop together, and I decide to show him some of my favorite trees on the lot. Whatever tip money he wants to spend today, I’ll make sure he gets the best. I begin walking toward a balsam fir I’ve had my eye on, but he starts heading toward the parking area.

  I stop. “Where are you going?”

  He turns around. “I don’t have any money for a tree right now,” he says. His smile is warm but mischievous. “I got what I came for.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Things slow down Sunday evening, so I retreat to the trailer to chat with Rachel and Elizabeth. I open my laptop and slide apart the curtains by the table in case I’m needed outside. As my friends’ faces appear onscreen, my heart aches from being so far away. Within minutes, though, I’m laughing as Rachel describes how her Spanish teacher tried to get the class to make empanadas.

  “They were like burnt hockey pucks,” she says. “I’m not lying! After class, we literally played hockey in the hallways.”

  “I miss you guys so much,” I say. I reach out to touch their faces on the screen and they touch the screen right back.

  “How are things?” Elizabeth asks. “Not to be pushy, but any news about next year?”

  “Well, I did bring it up,” I say. “My parents really want to make it work here, but so far I don’t know if things are heading that way. I’m sure that makes you all a little happy, but—”

  “No,” Elizabeth says. “No matter what happens, it’s going to be bittersweet.”

  “We would never want the tree lot to end,” Rachel says, “but of course we’d love you to be here with us.”

  I look out the window. Three customers are all I can see moving in the trees. “It doesn’t feel like we’ve been as busy as last year,” I tell them. “My parents analyze our sales every night, but I’m too afraid to ask.”

  “Then don’t,” Elizabeth says. “Whatever happens will happen.”

  She’s right, but every time I leave to do homework or even take a break, I wonder if I could be doing more. Losing this place would be so hard, especially for Dad.

  Rachel leans in. “Okay, is it my turn? You will not believe the ridiculousness I’m dealing with for the winter formal. I’m working with a bunch of amateurs!” She launches into a story about sending two freshmen to a craft store for supplies to make snowflakes. They came back with glitter.

  “That’s it?” I ask.

  “Glitter! Didn’t they realize we’d need something to put the glitter on? We’re not throwing it in the air!”

  I imagine being at a formal like that; classmates in gowns and tuxes flinging up handfuls of glitter as they dance. The glitter cascades down, lit by the swirling lights. Rachel and Elizabeth laugh and spin with their arms out. And I watch Caleb, his head tipped back and his eyes closed, smiling.

  “So . . . I met someone,” I say. “Sort of.”

  There’s a pause that feels like forever.

  “As in, a boy?” Rachel asks.

  “Right now we’re just friends,” I say. “I think.”

  “Look at you blush!” Elizabeth says.

  I hide my face in my hands. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s nothing. You know, he’s—”

  Rachel interrupts. “No! No-no-no-no-no. You’re not allowed to get fussy over what’s wrong with him. Not when you’re in full-on crush mode.”

  “I’m not being fussy this time. I’m not! He’s this super sweet guy who gives Christmas trees to people who can’t afford them.”

  Rachel leans back and crosses her arms. “But . . .”

  “This is where she gets fussy,” Elizabeth says.

  I look from Rachel to Elizabeth, both in their little boxes on my screen. Both waiting for me to tell them the downside. “But . . . this super sweet guy may have gone after his sister with a knife.”

  Their mouths drop open.

  “Or maybe he just pulled it on her,” I say. “I don’t know. I haven’t asked him.”

  Rachel touches a fist to her head and then unfurls her fingers like her brain went kaboom. “A knife, Sierra?”

  “It could be just a rumor,” I say.

  “That’s a pretty serious rumor,” Elizabeth says. “What does Heather think?”

  “She’s the one who told me.”

  Rachel leans close to her screen again. “You are the pickiest person I’ve met when it comes to guys. Why is this happ
ening?”

  “He knows I heard something,” I say, “but he shuts down whenever it comes up.”

  “You need to ask him,” Elizabeth says.

  Rachel points a finger at me. “But do it in a public place.”

  They’re right. Of course they’re right. I need to know more before I let myself get any closer to him.

  “And do it before you kiss him,” Rachel adds.

  I laugh. “We have to be alone for that to happen.”

  I feel my eyes go wide, remembering that we will be alone tomorrow. Sometime after Caleb gets out of school he’s taking me with him to deliver a tree.

  “Ask him,” Rachel says. “If it’s all a misunderstanding, it will be such a good story to tell when you get home.”

  “I am not falling for a guy so you have something to tell your theater friends,” I say.

  “Trust your instincts,” Elizabeth says. “Maybe Heather heard the rumor wrong. Wouldn’t he be in some sort of special home if he stabbed his sister?”

  “I didn’t say he stabbed her. I don’t know what happened exactly.”

  “See?” Elizabeth says. “I messed up the rumor already.”

  “I will get a chance to ask tomorrow,” I say. “We’re going out to deliver a Christmas tree together.”

  Rachel leans back. “You live a weird life, girl.”

  Even though Mom and Dad are still inside the trailer finishing a late dinner, I can feel their eyes watching Caleb and me as we walk to his truck. With their eyes on us, and Caleb’s hand one outstretched finger from mine, this feels like one of the longest walks of my life.

  I climb into the passenger seat of his truck and he shuts my door. Behind me in the bed of the truck is another Christmas tree. It’s a heavily discounted—sorry, Dad—noble fir, and we’re about to drive to wherever this tree is wanted. In all my time on this lot, season after season, I’ve never followed a tree from the time it left our possession to its eventual home.

  “I was telling my friends about this tree distribution of yours,” I say. “They think it’s very sweet.”

  He laughs as he starts up the truck. “Tree distribution, huh? I always thought I was delivering them.”

  “It means the same thing! Are you still on me about my word choice?” I don’t mention that I kind of like it.

  “Maybe I’ll pick up some of your vocab tricks before you head home.”

  I reach over and nudge his shoulder. “You should be so lucky.”

  He smiles at me and puts the truck in gear. “I guess that’ll depend on how much I get to see you.”

  I glance at him, and as his words register, warmth runs through me.

  When we reach the main road, he asks, “Any thoughts on how often that’ll be?”

  I wish I could give him an answer, but before I make projections on our time together, there are things I need to know. I just wish he’d bring it up, like he said he would.

  “It depends,” I say. “How many more trees do you think you’ll give out this year?”

  He looks out his window into the next lane, but his smile reflects in the side-view mirror. “It’s the holidays, so my tips are decent, but I must say, even discounted trees get expensive. No offense.”

  “Well, I can’t discount any more than I am, so maybe you’ll need to lay on the charm extra thick at work.”

  We pull onto the highway heading north. The ragged pyramid of Cardinals Peak is silhouetted against the darkening sky.

  I point toward the top of the hill. “I bet you didn’t know I have six Christmas trees growing up there.”

  He glances at me briefly and then looks out the window to the dark and looming hill. “You have a Christmas tree farm on Cardinals Peak?”

  “Not exactly a farm,” I say, “but I’ve been planting one a year.”

  “Really? How did you start something like that?” he asks.

  “It actually goes back to when I was five years old.”

  He puts on the turn signal, checks over his shoulder, and then slides us into the next lane. “Don’t hold back,” he says. “I want the full origin story.” Headlights of passing cars light up his curious smile.

  “Okay then.” I hold on to the seat belt strapped across my chest. “Back home when I was five, I planted this one tree with my mom. Before that I had planted dozens of trees, but this one we kept separate. We put a fence around it and everything. Six years later, when I was eleven, we cut it down and gave it to the maternity ward of our hospital.”

  “Good for you,” he says.

  “It’s nothing like what you’re doing, Mr. Charity,” I say. “Giving them a tree was something my parents did every Christmas to say thank you after I was born. Apparently it took a long time for me to agree to join this world.”

  “My mom says my sister was fussy at birth, too,” Caleb says.

  I laugh. “My friends would love to know you just described me that way.”

  He looks at me, but there is no way I’m explaining that one.

  “Anyway, this one year we decided to plant a tree for them that would be specifically from me. At the time, I loved the idea. But skip ahead six years and I had taken such good care of that tree for its entire life—for almost my entire life—that when we cut it down I cried so hard. My mom says I knelt in front of its stump and cried for an hour.”

  “Aw!” Caleb says.

  “If you like sentimental, wait until I tell you that the tree cried, too. Sort of,” I say. “When a tree grows it sucks up water through its roots, right? When it’s cut down, sometimes the roots keep pushing water up to the stump in little droplets of sap.”

  “Like tears?” he says. “That’s heartbreaking!”

  “I know!”

  Headlights shining into the cab reveal a smirk on his face. “But you have to admit, it’s also kind of sappy.”

  I roll my eyes. “I have heard every sap joke you could think of, mister.”

  He signals again and we drive to the next off-ramp. It’s a tight curve and I hold on to the door.

  “That’s why we cut an inch from the bottom of the trees before we let people take them off the lot,” I say. “It gets you restarted with a clean cut that will keep pulling up water. It can’t drink when it’s sealed with sap.”

  “Does that really . . . ?” He stops himself. “Oh, I know, that’s a smart thing to do.”

  “Anyway,” I say. “After we brought my tree to the hospital, Dad gave me that inch-thick slice he’d cut from the base. I took it to my room and painted a Christmas tree on one side of it, and I still have it propped on my dresser at home.”

  “I love that,” Caleb says. “I don’t know if I’ve ever kept anything that symbolic. But how does that lead to your little farm on the mountain?”

  “So the next day, we were getting ready to drive down here,” I say. “Actually, we’d already pulled away from the house and I started crying again. I realized that I should have planted a tree to replace the one we cut down. We had to get going, though, so I made my mom pull up to our greenhouse and I grabbed a baby tree in a pot and buckled it into the backseat.”

  “And then you planted it here,” he says.

  “After that, I brought a tree down with me every season. My plan has always been to cut that first one down next year and give it to Heather’s family. They always get one from us, but that one will be special,” I say.

  “That is a great story,” he says.

  “Thanks.” I look out my window as we drive past a couple of blocks of two-story hotels. Then I close my eyes, wondering if I should say this. “But what if . . . I don’t know . . . what if you gave that tree to someone who needed it?”

  We drive another block in silence. Finally, I look over at him expecting to see a sincere smile on his face. I just offered to let him give away the first tree I planted in Cal
ifornia. Instead, he stares at the road, lost in thought.

  “I thought you would like that,” I say.

  He blinks and then looks at me. A cautious smile passes his lips. “Thanks.”

  Really? I want to say. Because you don’t look very happy about it.

  He rolls down his window a crack and the air plays with his hair. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I was picturing your tree in a stranger’s house. You already had plans for it. They were good plans. Don’t change that because of me.”

  “Well, maybe that’s what I want.”

  Caleb pulls the truck into the parking lot of a four-story apartment complex. He finds an open spot close to the building, steers into it, and parks. “How about this: I’ll keep an eye out all year for the perfect family. When you come back, we can bring it to their place together.”

  I try to conceal any uncertainty about next year. “And what if I don’t want to hang out with you next year?”

  His face shutters, and I immediately regret it. I had hoped for a sarcastic comeback, but instead I scramble for a way to recover. “I mean, what if you don’t have any teeth next year? You do have that addiction to candy canes and hot chocolate . . .”

  He smiles and opens his door. “Tell you what: I’ll brush my teeth extra well all year long.” The heaviness falls away.

  I climb out of the truck smiling and walk toward the back. Most of the apartment windows are dark, but a few of them have Christmas lights around them. Caleb meets me at the tailgate, which he lowers, hiding the Sagebrush Junior High bumper sticker. He begins to pull out the tree by the trunk, and I reach into the branches to help.

  “Now that I’m improving your hygiene and your vocabulary,” I say, “is there anything else you need help with?”

  He gives me a dimpled grin and nods toward the apartments. “Just start walking. You’d have to clear your entire schedule to help me out.”

  I lead the way, and we carry the tree toward the building’s entrance. I close my eyes and laugh, not believing what I almost blurted out. I look back over my shoulder and somehow suppress telling him, “Consider it cleared.”