A Winter Wonderland Read online

  A Winter Wonderland

  Daniela Reyes

  Torres Press

  Copyright © 2019 by Daniela Reyes

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Afterword

  Also by Daniela Reyes

  Chapter 1

  Holly hated the itchy beanie on her head.

  She almost hated it as much as she hated Jack and his inability to stop smiling at customers.

  “Thank you for coming to our Winter Wonderland,” he said to a little girl and her mother. He handed them each a complimentary hot chocolate, the stupid smile never leaving his face. “Remember to leave your Christmas wishes with Santa before you go.”

  The little girl beamed and then dragged her mom toward the line to meet with Santa.

  “It’s like he was born for this,” Lola said.

  Holly turned away from Jack's booth to see her coworker, and the only sane person in this entire festival, holding a bowl of mini marshmallows.

  “I haven’t seen him crack once,” Holly said. She pointed to the bowl. “Need help restocking the hot chocolate stations?”

  "Nah," Lola said. She adjusted the bowl in her hands. "We have plenty of hot chocolate, just running low on the marshmallows. Watch our booth till I get back. And please, don't snap at any customers, okay?"

  Holly sighed. Last week she'd snapped at some woman who kept coming back for free hot chocolate. Technically, the hot chocolate was only for kids under 13, but sometimes they could slip a parent a cup like Jack just had. However, the woman had no kids with her, and she came back five times before Holly told her she couldn't have any more hot chocolate. Holly's patience was gone by the time the woman insisted on talking with her manager.

  It was a month-long winter festival that was barely making any profits as it was. They didn't have any managers, just a bunch of part-timers who'd been here longer than the new hires and knew how things ran, Jack being one of the most annoying ones.

  He'd stepped in to calm the woman, and then he'd had the audacity to give her a sixth cup of hot chocolate. That was why this week, Holly was working the information booth. She mostly handed out pamphlets to guests with maps of the festival. It wasn't terrible, except for the head to toe, white snow angel uniform.

  Yes, the workers were referred to as snow angels. And the uniform was mandatory regardless of what booth she worked.

  Holly scratched at her beanie.

  “Where are the bathrooms?” a man asked.

  She pointed to the right of her booth. "Keep walking that way. It'll be the wooden building decorated with the snowflakes." It wouldn't be hard to miss since it was the only closed off building at the festival. Holly spent most of her shifts trying to think of her house back in Florida, right across the beach, to keep warm.

  To think she’d been excited about seeing snow.

  The man nodded and practically ran to the bathroom. Holly went back to staring at Jack’s hot chocolate booth, which had been her booth until he’d had to butt in. When she looked up, he was gone. There was only Lola there, refilling the marshmallow bowls.

  Holly discreetly turned to see where Jack had wandered off to. Maybe he'd decided to pay a visit to the Santa line, to tell Santa that he wasn't friendly enough with the kids, or perhaps to the snow angel area to show everyone how to craft a snow angel properly.

  “How’s the information booth treating you?”

  Holly jumped. Jack stood behind her, a full smile on his face. He wore his white beanie perfectly, not even tilted to one side. It almost matched his unnaturally light blond hair.

  "It's quiet," Holly said. She reined in her thoughts. Her mind was the only place she could be rude to Jack. Since, while they didn't have managers, he was a snow angel level above her. So she guessed that just like he'd hired her, he could fire her.

  “It’ll get busier tomorrow,” he said. “You’ll run out of maps by midday. Trust me.”

  Holly nodded.

  Jack pointed to her beanie. “I think you stained your halo.” Yes, he called them halos.

  “It’s all white, bound to get stained with something,” Holly said.

  “We have some extras in the snow globe booth if you want any.”

  “I’ll be fine, can’t abandon my post. Who knows when someone will have a question.”

  "Very true," Jack, seemingly oblivious to Holly's bitterness. "Since I'm on break, I'll get you one. Do you want hot chocolate too? Actually no, better not. You might stain your uniform, and we don't have any extras of those. And honestly, hot chocolate stains are the worse."

  “Right,” Holly said. “Thanks.”

  Jack just smiled at her and left to get her a beanie. She waited until he'd walked far away enough to sigh as loudly as she could. She didn't need a beanie, hers was fine. Who was he? The uniform police? He needed to make sure everything was as white as the fake snow outside the festival.

  Holly took off her beanie and double-checked it. There was a speck of dirt on the right side of it. Lola walked into the booth right then.

  “Did Jack make you paranoid?”

  “No,” Holly said. She slipped the beanie back on. “I was just adjusting it.”

  Lola set down her empty bowl. She placed it next to the giant bag of marshmallows they kept in the booth since the hot chocolate booths didn't have enough room to store them.

  "Whatever you say," Lola said. "Don't worry, though. I hear it's his last year working here. He's going off to some fancy college next year outside of Glensford, so we won't have to deal with him."

  "I'm going to college too," Holly said. Technically, she was seventeen, but she'd skipped a grade in elementary school and was, therefore, not a junior alongside her twin sister, Laurel.

  “Oh,” Lola said. “You look fifteen.”

  “Thanks,” Holly said.

  "Okay, sixteen, maybe a generous seventeen. Also, if you want to work your winter break here next year, you should. You can enjoy my lovely company without having to worry about Jack Frost."

  “Jack Frost?”

  "That's his nickname since he loves this place so much."

  "It fits," Holly said. She wished she'd learned it sooner — that way, she could've used it behind his back for longer.

  She didn't tell Lola that she would not be here next year. The only reason she was working this break instead of staying home with her twin was to get enough money to go to Europe this summer.

  Holly only had to last two more weeks until she had enough for her plane ticket.

  She just needed to keep her focus on that.

  “Where’s your bathroom?”

  Holly looked up. It was a teen girl this time. She looked pale and had a hand clasped to her stomach.

  “Keep going that way. It’ll be the wooden building-”

  The girl ran off before Holly could finish. Lola walked up beside her.

  “Guess she really had to go.”

  “A guy just stopped and asked the same question,” Holly said. Which wouldn’t have been weird, but most guests didn’t use the bathrooms at the festival. There were much warmer, indoor ones if they walked back toward the entrance to the Glensford Country Club, which paid for the festival.

  Holly didn’t even use the bathrooms here.

  Sh
e ignored the thought.

  "Probably too much hot chocolate," Lola said. She turned as a woman stopped by to take a pamphlet. Right then, Jack ran up to the booth.

  For the first time since Holly had met him, he wasn't smiling. And he didn't have the beanie he'd intended to get.

  “What marshmallows have you been using for the hot chocolate?” he asked. His cheeks were red.

  Holly pointed to Lola. “She’s been using the ones stored here.”

  Jack ran into the booth and pulled the bag out from its storage spot. He lifted it in search of something. Then he stopped.

  “We have a problem,” he said.

  Chapter 2

  “Expired marshmallows?”

  Holly watched Jack pace, the half-empty marshmallow bag dangling from his hands. He looked devastated.

  “Yeah,” he said. “That’s the only common link I can find between all these people getting sick.”

  In the ten minutes they'd been doing damage control, Jack had explained the situation to Holly. All those people asking where the bathroom was, hadn't been a coincidence after all. They were rushing there because they were sick. And expired marshmallows were to blame.

  “Wouldn’t we all be sick, though?” Holly had seen all her coworkers drink their fair share of hot chocolate too.

  "I don't think every bag was expired. Or if they were, this one, in particular, is getting people sick. I checked the bag we used yesterday, and it wasn't expired. I don't know about the day before. I'm hoping we're lucky, and this one was the only expired one used."

  "Not that many people have gotten sick," Holly said. She didn't know why, but she was feeling a little sorry for Jack right now. Why didn't he just smile again?

  "So far, we've had six customers complain about feeling sick. It's too many already."

  “They’ll be fine,” Holly said. “We’ll give them free passes or something, right?”

  Jack stopped pacing. He shot a pitiful glance at Holly. “They won’t want to come back. And we probably ruined their experience, their kids’ experience here. They’ll tell people not to come back. The last thing they’ll want is a free pass.”

  "We don't know that," Holly said. She tried to mimic Laurel's positivity. Her twin sometimes had the patience of a saint. "Look, Lola's going around to check who's sick. I bet you it was only those six-"

  Lola popped into the conversation. She had two empty bags of marshmallows in her hands. And for once, she didn't look like she had everything under control.

  "I picked these out from the other two hot chocolate booths; both expired a year ago. Also, I counted at least another eight people rushing to the bathroom; five of them were our staff."

  Jack shook his head. "We were already understaffed for today." He paused. "Also, that's three more sick customers." He paced again.

  Lola shrugged. For a brief pause, no one said anything. There were only the sounds of the festival around them, of kids running, parents running behind kids, and the ever-present sound of the fake snow machines.

  "How about I go check on the sick customers, and you two figure out how to keep people from drinking more hot chocolate." Lola paused. "I'll go see if I can get some other snow angels to help me with the sick customers. Do you know if the country club nurse is on duty?"

  Jack stopped pacing when he realized the question was meant for him. He nodded. "She should be working a shift at the club's gym. I'm sure we can get her over here, discreetly, of course. Did it look like the other customers noticed the issue?"

  Lola shook her head. “No one seemed to notice, right now, but if more people get sick, I doubt we’ll be able to keep this under control. Okay, so step one, let’s keep more customers from getting sick.”

  “And step two?” Jack asked.

  "We'll think of it when we finish step one," Holly said. She gave Lola a nod, and then Lola ran out, ready to face the event unfolding before them. Jack looked lost now.

  "We need step two."

  “Jack,” Holly said. She sighed and placed herself right in front of him. It took him a minute, but he finally looked up. There was definitely no smile now. “We’ll figure it out.”

  Jack's eyebrows drew together. "And if we don't?"

  Where was Jack Frost when you needed him?

  "We'll figure it out," Holly said, even though she wasn't sure if they would. It was something she always said to Laurel, a line their older sister Gloria had taught her. Laurel needed that line a lot more than Holly did. And it looked like Jack did today too.

  Fine. She could put aside the last two weeks of hating his inability to stop smiling and his strange love of this festival if it meant they could keep more people from getting sick. Holly didn't like her job, but that didn't mean she wanted kids and parents to end up in the hospital.

  “Okay. Let’s go stop people from drinking hot chocolate.”

  Jack paused and then gave a nod. “Lead the way.”

  Holly wasn't sure if she preferred this petrified Jack over the smiling one she'd been dealing with for the past two weeks. He looked younger than eighteen with the way he stood now, waiting for Holly to move.

  She finally moved. The festival became a blur as she rushed through the crowds to find the first of four hot chocolate booths. She only knew the way to this one because it was the one she'd worked in her first week. She noticed one of the staff members handing a cup, filled to the top with marshmallows to a little girl.

  Holly ran, and without thinking, she grabbed the cup before it could reach the little girl's hands.

  The staff member, her name tag read Melody, gave Holly a strange look.

  “What are you doing?”

  Jack stepped in behind Holly. When Melody saw him, her face calmed.

  The little girl tried to grab the cup from Holly's hands. Holly pulled back just in time.

  “Give me my hot chocolate,” the little girl said.

  “Don’t you want to make a snow angel?”

  The little girl shook her head. She jumped up and snatched the cup. Holly snatched it back. The little girl started to cry, getting her mom to run over. Jack was probably busy telling Melody what was happening because they didn't step in to help.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” the mom asked. Her eyes blared with fury.

  “This a misunderstanding-”

  “I just saw you snatch that cup from my daughter’s hand twice. What is your problem?”

  Holly sighed. She didn’t want the little girl to get sick, but that didn’t mean she had to take this either.

  "If your daughter drinks that hot chocolate, I"m pretty sure she'll get sick."

  “What?” The woman held a hand to her chest.

  "We have an issue with the expiration date on the marshmallows. Why don't you pass the news along to the other parents?"

  Jack approached Holly then. The woman grabbed her daughter and tossed out the cup of hot chocolate.

  “Did you tell her what was happening?”

  “Yeah,” Holly said. “Am I fired?”

  “No,” Jack said. “It was a good call. We need to tell everyone. It’s better than trying to hide it. We’ll do damage control after. Melody went to go tell the other booths.”

  Holly turned away from the mom, who was now spreading the news of the expired marshmallows. She noticed then, how blue Jack’s eyes were.

  “Seriously? You’re okay with me telling that woman?”

  He nodded. “Seriously. It would be impossible to keep it from everyone.” He smiled again, which broke the moment. Jack Frost was back.

  “What do we do now?”

  “Let’s close this booth up and then help Lola with the people who are already sick.”

  Chapter 3

  Holly sat back against the booth. It was freezing.

  She didn't know how, but they'd managed to get the situation under control. It hadn't been easy, and from the snippets of blurred memories she had, it'd taken all afternoon. There'd been a lot of running and too much ap
ologizing. Eventually, they'd gotten the nurse to look at the people who were sick, who had ended up totaling fifteen, eight guests, and seven employees of the festival.

  Holly's back ached. She wrapped her coat over herself, wishing she hadn't taken this job at all, that she hadn't spent her savings on a car instead of just using it for her trip.

  “Cold?”

  She looked up. It was Jack. He looked as tired as she felt. He held out a steaming cup to Holly.

  “If that’s hot chocolate, then I know you’re trying to poison me,” she said.

  He smiled. How did he have the energy to smile, especially after the day they’d had? Jack took a seat on the ground beside Holly.

  “It’s coffee,” he said. “Lola went to get some for all the employees who stayed late. The country club’s festival committee gave her the money for it.”

  "Wow, we finally get benefits," Holly said. It was a joke she'd heard Gloria say after she'd taken on her first full-time post-grad.

  Jack laughed. “Perks of the job.”

  Holly sighed. She took the coffee cup from him and finished in five big gulps. It warmed her throat.

  "Thanks," she said. Even if Jack was on her last person, she wanted to be left on earth with list, she could be polite.

  “No, thank you,” he said.

  “What?”

  Holly leaned closer. Had she heard him correctly? The guy who thought he knew everything about this place was thanking her.

  "You helped out a lot today, and you stayed calm

  , couldn't have done it without you."

  "Yeah, you could've. You're like the honorary manager of this place." Holly thought back to what Lola had told her during Holly's first week. Jack had worked at A Winter Wonderland every winter since his freshman year of high school.

  “I guess it’s an automatic designation since I’ve been here the longest.” He crossed his arms. “I can’t believe it’s my fourth year.”