Ginger Krinkles (9 page)

Again with the holiday music. I put on my apron and a better attitude. I had enough ingredients for a double batch that I could dole out to Lauri, Frankie, Violet, my sister Melissa, Olive, and if I ever got a chance, I’d love to give a gift to Joe.

If that wasn’t celebrating the spirit of the season, I don’t know what was. The directions and measuring, beaters ready to go, filled me with a buzzy kind of purpose. That felt a little bit like hope. I mixed and stirred and felt cozy in a hot-chocolate-sipping glow of letting go.

I set up the ingredients. The aroma of cinnamon and ginger swirled around me. The molasses was a thick, viscous crude oil-like addition that I guessed smelled okay. I wasn’t going to get all sappy and mix in that super special ingredient of love. I lowered my expectations and settled for just trying to be thoughtful. “Here’s to you, Busha, for whatever reason you gave this to me, thank you.” As I sniffed the molasses, I had a flashback. I remembered my grandmother baking these cookies. And I remember reaching to taste the dough and she had smacked my hand away.

“Ginger,” she told me, “These cookies are like life. The dough is bitter and not very sweet, but when you combine the exact right ingredients, and bake them at the right temperature, when the time is right, you have a delicious cookie. Not too sweet, not too rich, not too fancy, but just right. Like your life is supposed to be. Spicy and good. Can you say thank you?”

“I didn’t get a cookie yet,” I told her, not understanding. And when those crackled, brown things came out of the oven, they looked nothing like what the five-year-old me was holding out hope for. I only had eyes for frosted cookies.

My brother and sister had been too busy laughing at her, and I went along with them. She had been a pretty ferocious woman, but none of us ever wondered about her, or what her dreams had been. Surely she had been young and in love with our grandfather. They had to have shared romance. I ached that we never asked about her childhood, or what story she wanted to leave behind. I’m pretty sure spoiled, ungrateful grandkids, a son who tolerated her and wife who did not, was not what she had imagined.

I remember after she had baked her cookies, I reached for a still-cooling cookie, and again she had slapped my hand. I remember the pout of my lip and the quiver between my eyebrows, and her giving a chuckle. “Patience, little one. Too hot.” She had placed the back of her hand against my cheek, quickly, but I remember the feel of her cold fingers, for a split second pressed into the softness of my face and a look in her eyes I couldn’t identify. I had been too scared to cry, and right then my mom came, the memory dissolved, and I never tasted those cookies.

Since I spent my last tip money on holiday tins, I cut snowflake doilies out of the parchment paper, and doled out the spicy brown crunchy cookies. I ate one to test it. It was delicious. Not too sweet; maybe my palate had finally matured. I appreciated the warm, spicy cinnamon and molasses blend as the ginger cookie crumbled. “Thank you, Busha.”

I took my first shiny tin of cookies to Lauri, who took a bite to prove how much she loved my present. She closed her eyes and chewed, and when she opened them, they sparkled like that little kid tasting ice cream for the first time, grabbing onto one second of awesome from the universe.

I took cookies to Frankie who gave me a bear hug. He ate three before he could tell me they were delicious. “I never knew you could bake. You never baked before. Where have these cookies been all my life?”

I dropped off a tin to V. Hickle at my old job. Vroom vroom. She wasn’t there so I just parked them on her desk. I was done.

I returned Olive’s rolling pin along with her tin.

Melissa drove down after work to see me, and really made such a fuss over me baking cookies that it became insulting. We talked about our mom, and then Busha and she laughed at me when I told her I was worried I was like our grandmother. She laughed harder when I told her sometimes I think I am an elf.

“Come on, Ginger. You don’t really believe that?”

She stopped laughing when she had a cookie. “Wow. Not bad. Not that this is saying much, but this is probably the best present you’ve ever given me.”

“Thanks.”

“Seriously. You are dumb as a duvet cover when it comes to gift-giving.”

“Putting your bedding issues aside, didn’t you once give your husband a gift certificate for waxing?” I held up my hand. “Before you go all big sister on me, can we stop the dish-it-out-but-can’t-take-it routine?”

“Fine.” She pushed her hair behind her ears. “You know, Ginger, maybe Busha did sacrifice her happiness for Dad, and for us. She let it make her bitter, and that’s sad. That’s probably the one thing our whole family can agree on.” Melissa ate another cookie. “We bonded over how mean she was.”

She licked a crumb off her lip. “Maybe you are an elf.” Then she laughed some more and voluntarily knocked her shoulder against my arm. Our version of hugging.

“How can I laugh when I’m so sad?”

“It takes way more muscles to frown.”

“Seriously, Miss Know It All? Do you ever stop?”

“You don’t know me at all. I’m Facebook friends with the Dalai Lama. You effed up.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Quit torturing yourself. You’re not a bad person. We all make mistakes.”

“Even you?” I mocked her.

“I’m smart enough to know when I goof up, and learn from it.” She leaned in and pinched my ear. “You need a pinch of forgiveness.”

I jerked my head back. “Stop it.”

“Busha always used to pinch your ears.”

“I know.”

“I always wanted her to do that to me.”

“Really?” Melissa moved off the couch away from me to a side chair.

“Ginger. Grow up. Nobody has the fantasy family you think everyone else has. Especially during the holidays. Like Busha always said, ‘You’ll get nothing and you’ll like it.’”

I laughed. “She was pretty fierce. Do you remember going to her house?”

Melissa nodded. “Duh.”

“I remember sitting in the bathroom, swinging my foot over her tile. There was this spot on the floor that looked like the outline of Santa.”

“Oh, brother. Spare me. If you didn’t take anything in there with you to read, I guess you had to entertain yourself somehow.” She had another cookie. “This from the woman who seeks guidance from cloud shapes, dot, dot, dot. Color me surprised.” She waved her fingers at me.

“Well, I showed the tile to Busha once and she told me there was no such thing as Santa Claus.”

“And you freaked out.”

“I was a little kid. Why would she do that?”

“Did you not know Busha?” Melissa smirked. “God rest her soul.”

“God rest her soul.” I hesitated. “I guess I forgot all about it. But now I remember when I showed her the tile, she looked at me, really scary.” I used an accented voice. “Everyone is magic, but most of us never see how our spells work out.” I stopped the accent. “She said something about elves being wish gatherers.” I tried so hard to remember. “No Santa, but she was all about the elves. Something about them having limited powers, and that they bring joy. And Melissa, she told me elves had a duty to use their magic all year ‘round. Then she pinched my ears again.”

“You do have cute ears,” Melissa said.

“What about that poem? About me being an elf?”

Melissa tapped her finger on her lip, not taking me seriously at all. “Are you sure she didn’t say elephant?”

I leaned back and put the lid on her cookies. “You are getting sickeningly sweet, you’ve had enough. I’m cutting you off.”

She blew a raspberry at me.

“What a good big sister.”

Melissa brushed off her hands and stood up. “I’m sorry about not being closer.”

“I don’t have to hug you do I?” I stood up.

To my surprise, she leaned over and hugged me.

I had one final tin of cookies. For Joe. I didn’t know if I would see him again, and if not, they were in his honor anyway. I made a little gift card that read, To: Joe Noel from The Elf on The Shelf. Happy Holidays! I debated for two hours on the final, restrained one little X and O, Ginger.

($599.00 Sushi)

’Twas the eve before Christmas Eve day, I headed to my last shift ever with Frankie and that stupid Tood Fruck. Which I realized I had become kind of fond of. I scrunched my eyes and blinked and refused to cry.

“Hustle up, Ginger Krinkles,” I heard Frankie yell. There was a huge crowd around his truck. Oh my gosh. Was he throwing me a going away party? I cannot deal. My throat spasmed.

“Hurry up.”

I climbed in and started to protest. “Frankie, please, don’t.”

He threw my apron at me. “Shut up. Order up. Look at that crowd. They’re hungry. It’s going to be a long one.”

“Oh, I thought …” I stopped.

“What? You thought these people came to see you?” He laughed. “Ah, in a way. My commercial is a hit, and my app is blowing up.”

“Tood Fruck,” I called out. “Good food with attitude.” The people waiting in line actually cheered. My eyes were shiny but I blinked and got to work.

The crowd was fun, festive, and apparently famished. Maybe because it was for the last time, the hours flew by.

“We’ll be back again someday,” Frankie jokingly sang. “Good job, Ginger. You’re going to miss me, aren’t you?” I couldn’t answer and just turned and fled.

I walked into my house, squeaked on the third step in and went and put on some tooth-whitening strips. Thank you, meditation app.
A bright smile is the universal language of love
. I tongued the sticky films in place and heard a knock on my door. I opened it a crack. “What are you doing here?”

“Why are you talking so funny?” Frankie said.

“Shut up. What do you want?”

“I want you to come outside.”

“No. Leave me alone.” I tried to push him back but he caught my wrist.

“Ginger.”

“Frankie.”

He pulled me outside. “Thtop.”

Frankie’s truck was parked out front.

Olive joined us in the front yard, carrying a plate of her famous “Oh, Fudge.” I did a double-take, because the older firefighter with the twinkly eyes, Robert, who rescued me from the tree was beside her, manhandling folding chairs. He placed them around a table already set up. I recognized one of Olive’s embroidered tablecloths that made me want to wear my apron.

Out of nowhere, V. Hickle appeared. I waved, but couldn’t figure out what she was doing here. She sat down next to Olive and I took the chair next to her. Frankie stood behind me.

“Move it,” he said and dumped me out of my chair.

I scooted over as Frankie sat next to Violet and put his arm around her shoulder.

“You’re dating?”

Frankie pushed my chin up to close my mouth and whispered in my ear, “Zero to sixty in four seconds, babe.”

Lauri and Melissa walked up to join us. I was seriously going to cry. My eyes were prickling and the lump in my throat strangled my greeting. “Hey.” I stood up to hug them both, while trying to hide my mouth.

“I can’t thank you all enough for throwing me thith going-away party. I wath beginning to think no one cared.”

“It’s not, and we don’t,” Frankie said.

Melissa was staring at me and waved her hand in front of my face. “And what’s going on? What are you doing?”

I turned my head to surreptitiously peel the whitening film off of my teeth. I don’t know if it was because they were an off-brand, but the foamy strips weren’t budging. I finally found an end of the top one and managed to insert my entire hand in my mouth to yank it off. Everyone made their own special, personal sound of disgust.

“And that, ladies and gentleman, may be why my sister is still single.”

“Oh, sit down Ginger. It’s not a going away party,” Lauri said.

“Eat, drink and be merry,” Frankie said. He scooted a plate of cheesy-stuffed mushrooms toward me as I reached for a piece (or three, I knew who my competition was at that table) of Olive’s fudge. Melissa was already sitting there rubbing her stomach in anticipation.

Frankie uncorked a bottle of champagne as Olive passed out her crystal glasses. “You’re celebrating that I’m moving away, though?” I said. “Thanks.”

“Wrong again.” Frankie filled his glass last and held it high. “I’ll go first. To me! I’m getting a second truck.”

We all ching-chinged our glasses and congratulated him. “Ginger, you are a terrible food service person, but apparently, not so bad on the promotion side of things.” He held out his glass to me.

Lauri piped up. “And I’m in talks with Guru International to expand Yogasm. And I owe it all to you, my friend.” While everyone toasted, Lauri came and hugged me.

“I am so proud of you,” I told her. She squeezed me back.

“I’m going to miss you so much.” I had to squint my eyes. She just smiled at me.

“Let me at her,” said my sister. “And I had to show up in person, to let you be the first to know: you’re going to be an aunt.”

The tears were just leaking out of the sides of my eyes. I was laughing and happy but sadder than I had ever been in my life. “I don’t want to leave you all.”

“Can the waterworks,” Frankie said, passing me a handkerchief from Olive.

“I don’t need it back,” said Olive. Everyone laughed.

“Why are you holding his hand?” I said to Olive and her new firefighter beau, trying to deflect attention as I sopped up my face.

V. Hickle jumped in. “In case you haven’t noticed, no one has bothered to say goodbye to you, because we don’t want you to go anywhere.”

“People in hell want ice water.”

Melissa laughed. “You sound just like Mom.”

Violet shook her head. What is with that eyebrow of hers? “First of all, thank you for helping me out on the charity for Children’s Hospital. Your campaign helped them break a record.” She smiled at me. Maybe her eyebrow was always swooped up like that. Maybe she’s not trying to be superior.

“That’s great. I can’t tell you how that makes me feel.”

She nodded. She knew. Frankie was gazing at her adoringly. Mind blown.

She continued. “You have quite a fan club here,” she said, looking around the table. “We’re not going to let you go that easily. Haven’t you ever thought about opening your own business? We all need you. And we’re all ready to hire you. I want to put you on a monthly retainer as a consultant.”

“And Frankie and I need PR now, more than ever,” Lauri said. “And we only want you. Say you’ll stay?”

My hands were folded in prayer at my heart, which was beating a million miles an hour. “Namaste,” I told them. The wish I hadn’t even dared to name was the one that could make my dream come true—I could stay. We clanged glasses and talked into the night, and toasted every good thing we could think of.

“I never did rent out your apartment, Ginger. I knew things would work out,” Olive said.

“To Ginger Krinkles,” yelled Lauri. “The best cookies I ever had. I think they were magic.” More cheers, more toasts.

“What are you going to call your new company, anyway?” Frankie asked. “PRostitute? with the P and R both capitalized? PRomiscuous?”

“PRosper,” I said. Maybe I had been thinking about it. My friends clapped.

Frankie actually let V. Hickle drive his Tood Fruck, Fireman Robert looked snuggled in for a long winter’s nap, and Melissa was going to take Lauri home. I hugged them all, so tight.

“It’s a Christmas miracle,” Melissa said, hugging me back.

“I knew we couldn’t get through this without someone saying that.”

It was cold and dark by the time I went inside my apartment, that was still mine. God bless Olive. I stood on the squeaky spot and just teetered back and forth.

I turned on the twinkle lights and saw Joe’s tin of cookies. I thought about eating them, but I was too full from the day’s news and drinks.

I looked around at all the taped up boxes that I could start unpacking. There was a knock at my door. I looked through the peephole. It was Joe. Not Noel. Wearing a Santa cap.

“Open up, I know you’re in there. Have you been naughty or nice?”

I hugged myself and leaned against the door. “I’ve been a very good girl,” I said from my side of the door.

“I have a lump of coal for you.”

“No thanks. I’m a good little elf. I do have something for you, though.”

I opened the door. He looked so good. Olive thought he looked like a husky Adam Levine. But he was solid and real, not some imaginary wish from elf dreams.

“Come in. I am so glad you came by. I made you some cookies.” He had a package in his hands, which was beautifully wrapped in swirly silvery foil paper with a glittery gold bow. I can’t even tell you how much the old me hates glitter. Those freaking sparkles get all over everything. A nightmare for those who are good housekeepers, so as you can imagine, I would be finding pixie dust until the Summer Solstice. But I smiled, because it was pretty, and the new me was filled with anticipation to see what was in that beautifully wrapped package. Oh. Another metaphor.

Joe read my note and opened the tin. He sniffed the cookies and took a big bite. “The best cookies of all time,” he said. “Go on. Open your present. I know how much you like to bake.” He smiled, and ate another cookie in two bites.

I didn’t burst his bubble and ripped open the paper and pulled off the top of the box. It was a … “What is it?”

“It’s a cookie plate,” he said with his mouth full. “I made it. It’s blown glass. See, that’s supposed to be a heart, if you squint your eyes it is almost anatomically correct.”

I laughed. “It’s hideous. I love it.” It was red, and orange, and purple, and blotched, and bubbled, and awesome.

He chewed and brushed the crumbs off of his lips. “Go on, put some cookies on there.”

I shrugged. “All gone.” I tapped the side of his cookie tin. “Yours are the last ones.”

We both smiled. “You can make more,” he told me. “I’ll be the official taste tester.”

“That’s probably not going to happen. I have a confession. Make that two. I’m not a baker. I hate to bake. Those cookies? They were my gifts this year, in a one-time only deal. Don’t get me wrong, they were pretty awesome. Or so I’ve been told.”

He finished another one. “They’re delicious. Wait. You didn’t eat any yourself?”

I shook my head. “No. They were for presents.” I took a breath. “Well, I tasted one, just to make sure they were edible.”

He gave me a thumbs up.

“They might even be magic.”

He nodded.

“Seriously, I think there really is something extra special about them.”

He waited.

“I might be an elf.” I flicked my hair behind my ears, wondering if he could see they were definitely pointier.

“Can’t say I disagree with that, either,” he said.

“Everyone I gave cookies to had some amazing dream come true.” I watched him. “Lauri is expanding her Yogasm studio, Frankie’s Tood Fruck is a big hit.” He smiled. “My sister is going to have a baby.” I hugged myself. “I can’t believe I’m going to be an aunt. Olive is in love with her fireman, and even that little hot rod V. Hickle seems so happy dating Frankie. And all this good news, great things, everyone’s hearts’ desire, happened after they ate my cookies.” He ate another cookie.

“My grandmother was pretty mean. But, I’m sure she wanted good stuff for our family. And whether she meant to send me a message or not, she gave me Ming, and that molasses, and that crazy poem. She gave me a second chance to not be like her. I kind of like giving people good wishes, and isn’t that what elves are supposed do?”

He finished another cookie. He nodded and stood up. He wasn’t smiling. Why do I like that so much? He pulled me into a hug and kissed the top of my head. He pushed me two steps back to position us under the mistletoe. He leaned down to whisper in my ear.

“I got my wish, too.”

Winter Solstice Salutations from the universe.