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"Broke both legs skiing at Whistler, poor thing. She's gonna be out for months."
"Oh no," I said, picturing how difficult two broken legs would make the wearing of an elf costume. Then something else occurred to me. "Wait, you said, 'I'm it'? For the Christmas show?"
"The whole shebang. Trial by fire. Go get Jingle-y, April. They need you on location this week. Little town in Maryland, evidently they really go all out for Christmas. Need everything wrapped up by the middle of the month to get the footage all set for the hosts to do their review show on the 23rd."
The turnaround was crazy. I knew the Christmas show operated on the tightest timeframe of theHomesepisodes, since I’d heard Uncle Rob talk about it before. From what he said, the home footage was edited almost daily as they gathered it. The hosts stayed in Los Angeles and filmed their segments, reviewing the décor just before airing on Christmas Eve.
"You can do this, right April? It's not gonna be too much for you?" My uncle had begun to look skeptical. The last thing I needed was for him to second guess my last chance. I needed this to be a home run if I wanted to stay in television and not end up back in my college job at Tacos Loco, where the manager said I had been the best taco assembler he’d ever had. I hoped my tombstone might bear something more illustrious than “Master of beef and cheese in a crunchy shell.”
"I can do it," I said, stress pulling my shoulders tight as visions of reindeer and candy canes drifted through my head and I wondered if I really could.
* * *
"Singletree," I repeated for the third time to my best friend, raising my voice and shouting into the rental car's overhead microphone.
"What kind of name is that for a town?"
"I don't know, Lynn, but the name of the place was not really the point of this story." I let out a slow breath as I guided the car down a curving two-lane road lined with huge trees dropping leaves that ranged in color from dark green to blazing gold. It was like every postcard of what fall was supposed to look like I’d ever seen. A far cry from the screaming freeways and swaying palm trees in Los Angeles. "I think the bigger picture here is that I'm in Maryland. To produce the Christmas show." I hissed the word Christmas as if it burned my tongue.
"I know how you feel about the holidays, April. But maybe this will help you get past all that." Lynn was an eternal optimist. We’d been friends since kindergarten, and Lynn had always been the bright shiny yin to my skeptical darker yang. "Maybe a season in Littletree is exactly what you need."
"Singletree."
"You said the name of the town wasn't the main point, remember? The point is that your hatred for all things red and green needs to die. You're missing out."
I sighed again as I maneuvered through yet another traffic circle that felt like it had me literally driving spirals into the heart of nowhere. I looked down at the phone to check the directions, but the screen had switched to my call, and I had no idea if I was going the right way. "Damn," I said. "Lynn, I need to go, I think I chose the wrong exit from the last circle of death."
"Circle of death?"
"They have all these crazy traffic circles here. I have no idea how I'm supposed to do those...just give me an eight-lane freeway any day!"
"Adventure, Apes. Remember, it's an adventure."
"I miss Los Angeles. And it's not an adventure, it's a Christmas show."
"There's a reason why most people like Christmas."
"Right. Well."
"Love you," Lynn's sweet voice said. "Go now so you don't get lost and end up in Doubletree instead of Singletree."
"Love you too." I ended the call and swiped my phone's screen back to my directions. Miraculously, I was still going the right way. Nothing outside the little car's windows looked anything like Los Angeles. The roads were narrow and winding, the vegetation was thick and green, and dense gray moisture hung in low clouds that hugged the sprawling fields around me. I wondered for a moment if I’d driven into some picturesque no-man’s land, where there were no towns, no people… only this never-ending farmland draped in fog. I shivered. Fifteen twisting green miles later, I saw signs for Singletree and breathed a sigh of relief.
Singletree wasn't big, and despite my trepidation, it was hard not to be just a teensy bit charmed as I made my way to the center of town. I drove slowly down the main street feeling like I’d been transported to another world—one that existed in some earlier, simpler time. There was a town square surrounded by quaint shops with storefronts lovingly maintained and painted in yellow, white, and light blue, and buildings of brick and stone that looked like they'd stood for hundreds of years. They probably had. The central area was a grassy square that stretched several blocks between the buildings, featuring manicured lawns and neatly trimmed bushes, low-hanging trees and a central gazebo. There was one huge tree in the middle of the square, and I shook my head as I drove by the impressive group of people gathered beneath it with ladders and strings of holiday lights ready to drape the tree, which I guessed was pretty normal even though it was technically still November. They'd probably barely had time to put away the gravy boats after their Thanksgiving feasts, and they were already here, tossing around shiny bulbs. I sighed in dismay.
I drove slowly down the long street that stretched behind the central square, turning in when I saw the sign for the Candlelight Inn, the hotel where Juliann had booked the crew. Despite Juliann's absence from the day-to-day production of the episode ofHoliday Homesshe was supposed to handle, she'd done most of the legwork and had passed her extensive notes and plans on to me. From here it should be simple—check in to this hotel (which looked like it could have been constructed of gingerbread and spun sugar, thanks to some seriously overeager Victorian styling), and begin visiting the homes Jules had identified to finalize contracts. Jules had assured me there would be no issues becauseHoliday Homeswas a well-known franchise at this point, and homeowners practically bent over backwards to have their homes featured. It increased their resale value, and if they were looking to sell after the episode aired, it usually resulted in multiple offers and sometimes in a bidding war. And if they weren't looking to sell, I knew that having their homes identified as "special" gave folks something to feel good about, and something to lord over their neighbors if their personalities leaned that way. As for the decorating, the homes that were selected generally went over and above for the holidays even when they weren't going to be featured on television.
"You're just there to keep things running smoothly, that's all," Jules had assured me from her hospital room when we’d spoken on the phone.
I parked and took a deep breath, and stepped out of the car.
"Hello there," a young man in a dark red uniform greeted me as I approached the front entrance of the hotel with my roller bag. "Welcome to the Candlelight Inn."
"Thank you," I said, distracted momentarily by the intricate scrolling woodwork that seemed to garnish every free surface of the building. The Inn looked a lot like a castle, except that it was a soft yellow color. The turrets and wide-open front porch were like nothing I had ever seen up close.
The attendant took my bag from me and escorted me up the stairs to the front door, pulling it open with a flourish and a smile.
I thanked him and gaped at the army of workers busily wrapping railings in evergreen boughs and erecting an enormous tree in the middle of the front lobby. The interior was probably normally dim compared to the daylight outside, but this had been solved by the hundreds of strands of holiday lights a woman was holding at the far side of the space. Two other workers were arguing loudly about how best to erect the small cottage they were working on—a cottage that was made to look like gingerbread but could hold life-sized actual humans. My stomach turned as the sheer Christmasness of it all engulfed me. I stepped around the ladders and tools, tinsel, and a standing army of nutcrackers, and approached the desk.
