Approximately Yours (North Pole, Minnesota #3)(40)

She nodded slowly, and Danny got the sense that she still didn’t believe him. “If you say so.” She was testing him.

“I do say so.” He started walking again, and so did she.

“Well, since you’re all in on this creepy supernatural North Pole stuff, then I bet you’ve gone looking for some things, like the goat man.”

“You actually believe there’s a goat man?” he asked.

“Don’t you?”

Danny was a total cynic. He’d lived here his entire life, and he’d heard all the stories before. He’d never once seen a ghost or a goat man or even a ghost of a goat. He’d assumed Elda was just like him. The girl he’d been texting with had come off as pragmatic as he was. She would’ve been able to see through all of Craig’s bologna. She probably would’ve been right next to him making jokes about it. Or maybe Danny had misread her earnest words as sarcasm. It was hard to interpret tone in a text message.

Again Danny met Elda where she was instead of dragging her over to his pessimistic side. It’s the same way he would’ve acted with Star, saying what she wanted to hear instead of voicing his own opinion. Evidently he was going to have to keep doing this for his entire dating life. “Remember how you fooled me by saying you didn’t remember my favorite movie? I was just trying to fool you by pretending the goat man wasn’t real,” he said. “He totally is. The goat man graduated from high school with my mom, actually.”

Elda folded her arms, watching him again. “I know you’re kidding,” she said. “But I’m going to pretend you’re not because it’s more fun that way.”

Danny followed Elda down the street. He was never, ever going to find someone who totally got him. He’d keep working his ass off to understand others, but no one was ever going to try to understand him.

…

Holly’s gingerbread replica of her grandma’s house was really taking shape. And it was a great distraction from the fact that Elda and Danny were out on their date right now. The baking was done, and she’d moved on to constructing the showstopper out in the garage. By herself. Away from people, just the way she liked it.

But Holly wasn’t completely alone. Her grandmother was with her. Holly sensed her presence in the air. This was what she was meant to do. She was supposed to recreate this house that had meant so much to Grandma and Holly and the rest of the family. They were about to hand the keys over to someone new, and this would be Holly’s last opportunity to honor their past, to show the entire town what this place had meant to all of them.

She was just adhering the turreted roof when Elda came in, wearing a pair of old jeans from when Aunt Vixi was in high school and an oversize men’s undershirt. She waved and went right over to Grandma’s workbench, hunting for tools.

Holly checked her watch. Almost six. “How was your date?”

“Um…fine.”

“Fine?” Was that really all she had to say? Maybe it was enough. Holly’s mind was stuck between wanting to know and wanting to run away screaming with her fingers in her ears.

Elda slammed a drawer shut. “I’ve got to go to the hardware store.”

“What for?”

Elda wrapped an old tool belt around her waist and threw her long, dark hair up in a ponytail. “Pipe dope and water-pump pliers. The valve seat in the bathroom sink is rough.”

Holly only understood about half the words in that statement. With her life on the line, Holly would have no idea where to start on a sink. She’d probably flood the whole house. Her parents were terrified of pipes and drains and faucets. Holly’s dad had never attempted anything more difficult than unclogging a drain.

Elda came over and crouched down next to Holly, hiking those baggy jeans up over her slender hips. “Wow. This is really coming together.” Elda ran a hand over the turret’s cone-shaped roof. “How’d you even do this?”

Holly was super proud of the roof. While baking the walls of the house, she’d hemmed and hawed about how to do the turret. Then she found a can in the recycling bin, around which she baked the rounded wing of the house. Then she used a scrap of sheet metal from the garage to form the mold for the cone-shaped roof. It turned out perfectly on the first try, like Holly had experienced divine baking intervention. Thanks, Grandma.

Elda picked up one of the tiny gingerbread fence posts Holly had been working on earlier. An actual gingerbread house wasn’t the sexiest, most out-of-the-box idea, but she was going to create such a perfect replica no one would be able to accuse her of taking the easy way out. “I’m impressed.”

“Hopefully the judges will be, too.” Holly wiped her sticky hands on a wet towel and grabbed a sip of water from the “World’s Best Grandma” mug. “So, please, tell me about your date.” She didn’t really want to hear, but she had to know.

Elda popped a gumdrop in her mouth, and Holly swatted her hand away from the bowl. She needed every last piece for this showstopper. “Like I said, it was fine. I just…I don’t know if we’re compatible.”

“Sure you are,” Holly said. “You could be the king and queen of North Pole.”

Elda pulled up a chair next to Holly’s at the table. “He’s pretending to like the things I like.”

Holly shrugged. “That’s how it works, right? You pretend to like the stuff he likes, he pretends to like the stuff you like, and by the time you figure out you have nothing in common, it’s too late.”