The Holiday Switch(8)
I look up from my bowl to the others at the table and meet Mom’s eyes, which crinkle in a smile. Dad is as predictable as the Grinch is grumpy. His next question will be about tinsel.
“Why do we keep buying tinsel when it gets everywhere?” he huffs.
And then, of course, the lights.
“Ay nako, these lights! We need to buy another box. Maybe two.”
A giggle rises up from inside me—I can’t help it. Dad always does this, while Mom hangs back, makes a cup of coffee, and allows him to do his thing until he relinquishes control. Then Mom will wrangle the rest of the decorations with great stylistic precision. Everything will go up smoothly in the end, and it will be beautiful.
Reliable, just the way I like it.
My phone rings in my pocket—it’s the theme song from Holiday by the Lake, which means it’s Ms. Velasco. Mom flashes me a look—a meal at the table means no phones. Even if it is from her best friend and my boss.
“Please?” I stick out my bottom lip. “Maybe it’s about more hours.”
She presses her lips together, but after a beat of silence, she nods.
Yes. Pressing the green button, I stand and head toward the hallway. “Hello?”
“Lila, dear. How are you?” Ms. Velasco’s voice is like a mouse’s with its toe pinched in a trap.
“Fine.” I frown. “Is everything okay?”
“Overall, yes. Specifically? No. We have a leak at the Inn, and we’re short-staffed. I need to stay on the Inn-side because I have the plumbers coming. Can you come in and relieve me at the gift shop? I know it’s last minute.”
I open my mouth to accept, but then I turn back to the scene in the living room. With Dad leaving for work soon, and Irene perpetually not in the mood, Mom will need my help to put all of these boxes away before her 11:00 p.m. shift. Cleanup is the other half of this yearly event. I bite my lip.
Mom hovers at the end of the hallway, a steaming refill of soup in hand. “What is it, Iha?”
“Ms. Velasco needs help at the gift shop. The Inn has a leak.”
“Tell her you’ll go, so long as you’re back by ten.”
“Really? Thank you!” With that, I confirm my arrival with Ms. Velasco, and after letting Carm know, I head to my room to change into my uniform.
Minutes later, as I step outside the front door, Mom holds me back. “Lila?”
“Yeah?”
She gives me a meaningful look. “Remember that with struggle, there’s opportunity.”
It’s the same thing she told Dad when he almost lost his business four years ago. It’s meant to be motivational, but I also remember that, for Dad, things got worse before they got better.
And worse is not on my to-do list.
My mother’s advice echoes through my head as I leave my neighborhood and enter downtown, passing a wood and stone marker that says HOLLY, NY. HOME OF HOLIDAY BY THE LAKE.
Holly has a population of 14,533, a statistic I’ve memorized because it’s part of my job. (Tourists are very interested in these little pieces of trivia.) It’s also on the map as one of the most festive places to be during the holidays, which is immediately evident from the town’s decorations. Holly doesn’t play with measly decor. Each light post is wrapped in a netlike array of colored lights and has a snowflake fixture hanging from it. LED lights outline awnings and window frames that blink in coordination with the music being piped through downtown. From afar, the trolley rings its bells, and carolers positioned at opposite ends of the town sing holiday tunes. The town square’s Christmas tree, a fifty-two-and-a-half-foot majestic spruce, is lit by twenty-five thousand bulbs and sports a star that’s about five feet across. (More trivia!)
And it’s not just for Christmas and New Year’s. Holly’s holiday decor is up half the year, only to be replaced by Valentine’s Day, Easter, Independence Day, and fall themes.
But it doesn’t mean that the joy is always year-round. Four winters ago, a bad snowstorm caused a massive branch from an ancient oak tree to fall onto Dad’s store, collapsing the roof. We scraped by because of Mom’s job, but our family struggled in the subsequent years.
The struggle was facing Christmas with no presents. It was watching my parents field phone calls from banks and insurance companies. It was seeing gossip spread like wildfire in town. After Ms. Velasco set up a HelpFund that exceeded its initial goal, people speculated that the accident could have been avoidable. Dad should’ve trimmed his trees like a good citizen, they said. Why should he benefit from all that free money? Maybe he even did it on purpose.
Even worse than the gossip? The fact that my family was doxed. Someone posted our home phone and address in one of the local community boards. It was taken down, but not before a person, or people, took note. We lost our privacy. Mom and Dad were constantly receiving nasty snail mail. We had to disconnect our landline.
Once, after getting dropped off late from Carm’s house, I came across someone lurking near our house, though they ran off when Mrs. Ferreira parked. She called the police from inside her locked car—it wasn’t the first time the police would be at our home. But no one could say for sure who it was and why they were there. Though it didn’t matter, because the damage was done. I remember feeling afraid for a long time. My parents hovered protectively over us and were ultra-cautious of their surroundings; they forbade us from participating in social media. To this day, my parents are jumpy about anything to do with sharing personal information.