Together for Christmas (41 page)

“Hi! Merry Christmas!” she said.

The man startled. He blinked at her through his eyeglasses. The usual expression of amazement struck him. “Hey! Aren’t you . . .”

Magnanimously, Heather waited for him to identify her. This happened a lot. Thanks to her music videos, her appearances on TV and the Internet, her cosmetics endorsement deals and awards-show wins and new-perfume-launch activities, she’d cast a pretty wide net, media-wise. Sometimes it took people a while to pin down exactly where they’d seen her world-famous face.

“You’re
Kristen’s
sister!” the man said. “Helga Miller.”

Now it was Heather’s turn to be startled. This was the first time anyone had identified Heather as
Kristen’s sister!

He couldn’t be serious.

An instant reply rose to her lips—something along the lines of:
Have you been stranded on Mars? How can you not recognize me?
—but then Heather realized that this must be a test of her turning-over-a-new-leaf commitment. So she only smiled.

“That’s me! Helga.” She looked at the fat manila envelope in the man’s hand. “You’re not a process server, are you?”

“Me? No.” The man smiled back at her. “I’m a banker.”

“Oh. Well. Good for you!” Heather glanced at her to-do list.
Chat up bankers
was not on it. “Well, have a nice night.”

She began flouncing away, then belatedly realized that
flouncing
places was no longer her M.O. She turned back to him.

“Can I help you with something?” she asked kindly.

“Actually, Helga,” he said. “I think you can.”

Chapter 24

Kismet, Michigan
4½ smooching, hugging, memory-making, love-filled days
until Christmas

Even though Walden would have liked to have spent the holidays with his family, he had to admit—as he lifted a beer to his lips and looked around the festively decorated Galaxy Diner—that Yuletide Drunk Yahtzee night was turning out to be pretty memorable. Already, he’d seen Avery perform karaoke Christmas carols, Gareth perform a dance routine to go along with Avery’s karaoke Christmas carols, and Talia cheering them on with a suspiciously expert routine that turned out to have been the result of her hidden past as a high-school cheerleader.

Looking at her elfin-punk demeanor, piercings, and lavender hair, Walden had been disbelieving. Talia had way too much indie street cred to have taken part in something as traditional as cheerleading. Then she gave him a pert smile and executed a perfect Herkie jump, and Walden became a believer.

“I’m totally bangin’ a hot cheerleader!” he exclaimed.

“Wait.” Talia squinted at him. “You recognize that move?”

“Former band geek.” Jauntily, he pointed at himself. “I saw a lot of the sideline cheerleaders during football season.”

“Ah.” Smiling, Talia kissed him. “I love you, band geek!”

“I love you, too, hot cheerleader!” Walden said. Sobering, he added, “Then you’re not disappointed in my dorktastic past?”

“Are you kidding? I love it. Being musical is cool,” Talia assured him. “Are you disappointed in my ultratraditional past?”

Walden shook his head. “It’s part of you. So I love it.”

They kissed again. Someone nearby groaned theatrically.

“
Come on!
At least find some mistletoe first, willya?”

As Walden turned to see who’d spoken, he saw a tall, lanky, very ordinary-looking dude wearing glasses and swilling beer. Tipsily, the man weaved toward him and Talia.

“You two,” he said, using his beer to point at them, “are ruining it for all the rest of us with your overt
happiness
.”

Talia frowned at him. “What’s wrong with happiness?”

“What’s right with happiness is more like it,” the man complained. “Love doesn’t work out.
I
faked chicken pox to get close to the girl
I
loved, and she
still
didn’t want me!”

Chicken pox
. Walden exchanged a glance with Talia. They knew two people who’d had chicken pox lately. Only one of them had been a man. The other, of course, had been Heather.

“You must be Alex Taylor,” Walden said. “Heather’s guy.”

“You were
faking?
” Talia asked him at the same time.

A nod. “For all the good it did me,” Alex said. “Heather started spying on me. She thought I was up to something.”

Walden and Talia traded another glance.

“Dude,” Walden said, “you
were
up to something.”

“You were faking chicken pox,” Talia added, reasonably. “Maybe Heather detected an undercurrent of subterfuge?”

Alex scowled at them both. “So? I
loved
her!”

Unsteadily, he put down his beer bottle. He whipped out his cell phone. He poked at the menus. He waved his phone in their faces. “Look. That’s her. She’s beautiful. See?”

Walden and Talia both looked at the photos he’d offered.

After the first three, Talia recoiled. “Yikes!”

But Walden only nodded knowingly. “Nice! I especially like that one where Heather’s wearing a bathrobe and pink calamine lotion on her face.” Appreciatively, he took another look. “And that one, where she’s laughing at the TV and dribbling popcorn.”

Fondly, Alex looked at the photo. “Yep. I love it. It’s so ‘her,’ you know what I mean? It just makes me smile.”

He and Walden both nodded. Talia crossed her arms.

“You two are
nuts,
you know that?” She chanced another glance at the photo Alex was brandishing. “If you had pictures of me looking like that,” she warned Walden, “I’d ditch you.”

“Uh-oh.” Alex elbowed Walden, giving him a mischievous look. “Better not show her your cell phone, dude.”

“Or my computer. That’s where I archive the videos.”

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure every guy has a stash like that.”

“What?” Talia shrieked, looking appalled. “I thought men’s ‘stashes’ were porn! You mean you’re secretly archiving all those ‘impromptu’ videos you take of me? But I don’t wear make-up or strike a cool pose or even look
normal
in some of them.”

“That’s what makes you look real and lovable, baby.”

Even as Walden said it, Alex was nodding in agreement.

Talia shook her head. Then she glanced sideways, spied someone else in the party crowd, and hauled her over.

“Heather, back me up,” Talia said to her newly grabbed compatriot. “Candid photos are the worst, right?”

Caught in the midst of their conversation, Heather went still. She blinked at Talia, glanced at Walden . . . then saw Alex.

While Heather gazed longingly at Alex, Walden hastily filled her in on the discussion so far. He ended with, “. . . but it’s all from a place of love, of course. Every guy knows that.”

Eagerly, Alex nodded. His gaze never left Heather’s face.

“I
do
love you, Heather!” he said. “I was scared you wouldn’t love me back, because I’m not famous or anything.”

“Fame is overrated.” Looking giddy, Heather took his hand. “I’m planning to throw away mine, in fact. That’s item number three on my new to-do list.” She glanced at Alex’s cell phone photos. Admirably, she didn’t even flinch. “Do you think I can use some of those snapshots, now that I know what they’re for?”

“Everything I have is yours,” Alex swore. “I love you.”

Heather beamed. “I love you, too,
amore mio
.”

Alex looked at her in confusion. “You speak Italian?”

“I had to learn something new once I mastered all those Words of the Day,” Heather said with a shrug. “It turns out, I
love
knowing stuff! I can be smart. Thanks to you, I learned
that
about myself. Also,” she added, “‘learn Italian’ is number twelve on my new to-do list. I’m turning over a new leaf.”

Happily, Alex kissed her. “Any way I can help with that?”

“Only by being you,” Heather assured him fondly. “And by forgiving me for doubting you. Also, you could help me track down my sister. Because someone from the bank is here to give Kristen her new paperwork showing that her diner mortgage is in the clear.” She nodded toward a bespectacled man standing near the mulled cider bowl. “That’s Ernesto. He’s a very nice man.”

As Walden, Talia, Alex, and Heather glanced toward him, Ernesto the Banker spotted them. He waved a big manila envelope.

“Kristen will definitely want that paperwork,” Walden said.

Talia agreed. Then she looked at Heather. “What did you mean, you’re going to throw away your fame?” she asked.

“Oh, that.” Joyfully linking arms with Alex, Heather nodded. “Well, it turns out that my holiday TV special was so overbudget and behind schedule that there was just no way to make it work. So Shane and I talked about it, and we came up with a whole new plan!” She leaned conspiratorially nearer. “We’re breaking the news tomorrow. We’re going to broadcast an entirely new live performance—a
real
homecoming performance—streaming online, independent of the TV network and the production company and all the traditional media. I’ve already given back the money they gave me for my TV special to pay for the overages we ran up, because that’s item number four on my to-do list,” she went on. “I’ve decided it’s time to just have a little faith in myself—without all the fake stuff my management insisted on. Also, we’re going to sell DVDs ourselves afterward from my Website, for five dollars each.”

Walden was surprised. “Five dollars? That’s pretty cheap.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Heather agreed. “But I remember what it was like to be struggling financially. That was my
real
down-home background, growing up. I want to help out my fans. I want to restart my career in an
authentic
way, with no Auto-Tune, no lavish sets, and no fake outs. Just me singing.”

While they all stared in amazement at her—having never heard anything quite so down-to-earth come from Heather’s mouth—the former diva herself spotted someone else in the crowd.

“Whoops! There’s my mom and dad, talking to Kristen,” Heather said. “I have to go ask them something about their@Heather_Hotline Twitter account.” She stopped and looked at Alex. Then she kissed him. “Don’t go away, cutie. I’ll be back.”

While Heather left, Alex mooned after her. Then he turned back to Walden and Talia with a sheepish grin. “She’ll be back!”

“Yep,” Talia confirmed wryly. “That’s usually how love works. It’s hard to keep a relationship going otherwise.”

“Aw, don’t be so hard on him,” Walden said, making his dreadlocks sway as he nudged his chin toward Alex. “He doesn’t know what’s hit him yet. I haven’t even told him about the secret guy code of always letting your girl win at board games.”

“Hey.” Talia gave Walden a censorious look. “I
totally
smoked your butt at Scrabble the other night.”

“Whatever you need to believe, baby,” Walden said. “Next you’ll be telling me that KATIPO really
is
a real word.”

“It is!” Talia insisted. “It’s a poisonous spider native to New Zealand. I heard a comedian making a joke about it.”

“Well, everybody knows all the best educations come from watching YouTube comedy videos,” Walden joked. “I stand corrected.”

Then, because Walden knew he
did
stand corrected—and was only preserving his pride, which Talia generously allowed him to do—Walden gave his favorite Scrabble expert a wink, slapped Alex on the back, and went back to enjoying his first-ever Christmas in Kismet. And he couldn’t have been happier to be doing it.

Kristen knew that something unusual was up when she glimpsed Heather barging over to where Kristen was talking with her parents at her Yuletide party at the diner. Because instead of just jumping in and dominating the conversation in the divalike way she usually would have done, Heather actually hung back for a second—with respect and consideration and absolutely
no
glam squad—and waited for a natural lull in the dialogue.

Then
Heather jumped in with both feet. But only to say . . .

“Did you just tell Kristen you’re
proud
of me?” Heather blurted, gazing in apparent astonishment from their mom to their dad and back again. “I could have sworn I just heard—”

“Of course we did,” their mom said. “We always do.”

“We do always do that,” their dad agreed, nodding.

“They
really
always do that,” Kristen added morosely. “Seriously. They cannot stop talking about how incredible you are. Have you not seen their bragtastic Twitter account?”

“Yes, but—” Heather shook her head, clearly skeptical. “I thought that Twitter account was to repay me for all the trips and things I give you,” she said. “And I want you to shut it down, by the way, because thanks for helping me and everything, but you deserve to enjoy your retirement. And the important thing is,” she went on breathlessly, “that all you ever say to
me
is how Kristen did
this
clever, amazing thing or
that
ingenious, talented thing, and how superproud you are of
her!
”

Kristen gawked, not believing a word of it. “They do not.”

“Oh, they do, too!” her sister said with a vehement nod. “They won’t shut up about their ‘smart, accomplished’ daughter.”

Their parents shrugged. “You are smart and accomplished, Kristen,” their mom said. “So are you, Heather.”

“We’re proud of both of you,” their dad added with another shrug. “And we’ll shut down that Tweety account tomorrow.”

Kristen stared, dumbfounded. She’d been moping around all day, missing Casey, but frankly, this incredible news cheered her up. “Mom! Dad! You could have told
me
this! I thought you were only proud of Heather. You can’t shut up about her.”

“Really?” Heather appeared strangely pleased. “They can’t?”

“We’re proud! So what?” Their parents seemed befuddled. And a little bit harassed. “What’s wrong with that?”

Kristen exchanged an awestruck look with Heather. She could tell that her sister was as stunned by this as she was.