My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories(36)

However, this Christmas Tree Lot Boy possessed something that the other boys all lacked. Something she needed that only he could provide.

She needed his voice.

The first time she heard it, she was cutting through the parking lot that lay between her apartment and the bus stop. Every holiday season, Drummond Family Trees (“Family Owned and Operated Since 1964”) took up residence in the northeastern corner of the lot, which belonged to an Ingles grocery store. It was the most popular tree-buying destination in Asheville. Lots were everywhere in the mountains of North Carolina—this was Christmas-tree-farm country, after all—so to distinguish themselves, the Drummonds offered friendliness and tradition and atmosphere. And free organic hot apple cider.

Asheville loved anything organic. It was that type of town.

The boy’s voice had stopped Marigold cold. He was unloading slim, straitjacketed trees from the back of a truck and shouting instructions at another employee. Marigold crouched behind a parked minivan and peered over its hood like a bad spy. She was shocked at his youth. He looked to be about her age, but the voice issuing from him was spectacularly age-inappropriate. Deep, confident, and sardonic. It seemed far too powerful for his body. Its cadence was weary and dismissive, yet somehow a remarkable amount of warmth and humor underlay the whole thing.

It was a good voice. A cool voice.

And it was the exact missing piece to her current project.

Marigold made comedic animated short films. She’d been making them for herself, for fun, since middle school, so by the time she launched an official YouTube channel last year—her senior year of high school—she had the practice and talent to catch the attention of thousands of subscribers. She was currently trying to catch the attention of one of the many animation studios down in Atlanta.

She did most of the voices herself, getting additional help from her friends (last year) or her coworkers at her mother’s restaurant (this year). But this film … it was important. It would be her mother’s winter solstice present, and her ride out of town. Marigold was cracking. She didn’t know how much longer she could live here.

She needed this boy’s help, and she needed it now.

It was an unusually blustery night. Marigold searched between the trees—free organic hot apple cider clutched between her hands, she was not immune to its lure—and strained her ears over the sounds of laughing children and roaring chain saws. Under any other context, this combination would be alarming. Here, it was positively merry. Or it would’ve been, had her stomach not already been churning with horror-movie-like dread.

“Can I help you with anything?”

There. In the far corner. Marigold couldn’t hear the customer’s reply, but the boy’s follow-up said enough. “No problem. Just flag any of us down when you’re ready.”

She barreled toward his voice, knowing that the only way this would happen would be to place herself before him with as much speed as possible, so they’d be forced to interact. Cowardly, yes. But it was the truth. She hurried through a row of seven-footers, recently cut and plump with healthy needles. The boy rounded the corner first.

She almost smacked into his chest.

The boy startled. And then he saw her face, and he startled again. “You’ve been here before.”

Now it was Marigold’s turn to be surprised.

“That hair.” He nodded at the thick, stylish braid that she wore like a headband. The rest of her coal-black hair was pinned up, too. “I’d recognize it anywhere.”

It was true that it was her signature look. A sexy twenty-something with an eyebrow scar had once told her it looked cute. She felt cute in it. She did not feel so cute in this moment. She felt like someone who was about to upchuck.

“You know,” he said over her silence, “most people only have to buy a tree once.”

“I live over there.” Marigold pointed at the apartment complex next door. “And I catch the bus over there.” She pointed at the street beside the grocery store.

“Ah. Then I won’t stand in your way.” Though he didn’t move.

“I’m not going to the bus stop.”

“So … you are buying a tree?” He looked at her as if she were somehow askew. But at least he didn’t seem frustrated. His brown eyes and brown hair were as warm as chestnuts. He was even larger up close, his arms and chest even broader. He was wearing a red plaid flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up, the uniform of Drummond Family Trees. Was he a Drummond or a seasonal hire?

It wasn’t that Marigold didn’t want a tree. She did. She really, really did. But her mother was saving for a new house, and she was saving for an apartment of her own in Atlanta. Her brain scanned for another way around this situation. She needed time to suss him out—and time to show him that she was a totally normal human being—before asking him the scary question. Unfortunately, a tree seemed to be her only option.

“Yes,” she said. “Well, maybe.” Better to qualify that now. “I was wondering if you guys had any … you know. Charlie Browns?”

The moment she asked it, she felt sheepish and ashamed. And then further ashamed for feeling ashamed. But the boy broke into an unexpected grin. He took off, and Marigold hurried after him. He led her to a gathering of pint-size trees near the register. They came up to her kneecaps.

“They’re so … short.” It was hard not to sound disappointed.