Dreaming of His Pen Pal's Kiss - Jessie Gussman Page 0,45
weightlifting world where things the experts had thought worked later turned out to not work or at least not as well.
“Have I offended you again? Is this another area where we have to agree to disagree?”
“No. Actually, I was thinking about different things I know of where you’re exactly right. Things we used to think were right that we eventually figured out aren’t true.”
“Really? So this is an area where we agree?”
“I think so.”
“That’s great. I wonder if we should find something that we can argue about though, because I think the Christmas tree turned out pretty well, and maybe we just, you know, do well when we’re dealing with some controversy.”
He laughed. “That’s definitely an interesting way to look at it. Maybe we should experiment, see how well we do whenever we’re agreeing on something.”
Chapter 17
It turned out they didn’t have too much time to talk.
When they got to the gift-wrapping station, there was an attendant at the table, Malley Stern, and she held the jar out from which they could choose the slip of paper which would tell them what gift they were to wrap.
“Someone already got the tricycle. That was one of the hardest.” She snapped her gum. “But the hardest by far is still in there. Choose wisely,” she said, her eyes blinking as she lifted her brows.
Journee glanced at Dante. “You do the honors?”
“You go ahead. I can’t take the pressure.”
“That’s fine.” She shifted her neck to the left with a satisfying crack, then looked back at him. “I can.”
He laughed at her giddiness, and she stuck her hand in the jar, pulling out a slip of paper. What could be harder than a tricycle?
Holding the paper up, she closed her eyes for a moment, hoping that she’d misread. She looked at the paper again.
“That look doesn’t bode well.”
“No.” Her lips flattened, and she looked up at him. “It doesn’t.”
“What do we have? A porcupine?” Dante said in a tone that said he didn’t think whatever it was could be too bad.
“A greased pig. We’re supposed to wrap a greased pig.”
“Can you say pie target?”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking. I’m gonna request chocolate cream.”
“Oh, don’t do that. You’ll never get the chocolate stains out of your clothes. You want to wear something nice since you don’t want to get up in front of everybody looking ratty,” Malley said. Then she looked Journee up and down. “You do have slightly better taste than your sister.”
Her loopy earrings bobbled in her ears as she snapped her gum again. Long chains of necklaces roped around her neck, and her shirt was tied in a knot at the bottom, showing just a slice of midsection over her short jean skirt.
Her bracelets jingled as she lifted an arm and indicated a small pen behind her. “Your pig’s back there. He’s a cute little thing if I do say so myself.” Her bracelets jingled again as she swiped an arm over the table in front of her. “Pick your color paper, grab your scissors, and the tape’s there too.” Her long lashes wiggled at Dante. “If you need me to hold your hand, technically I’m not allowed, but I’ll make an exception for you.”
Normally, Journee would have laughed, because Malley flirted with everyone. But for some reason, she didn’t find it funny today. Maybe because of the looming specter of the chocolate cream pies, but she kinda doubted it. It was probably something a little bit more low class and catty. Something she really didn’t like in herself.
She smiled at Malley anyway. “Thanks for the instructions.”
“Sorry about your luck,” she said, not sounding sorry at all.
“Do you have a preference on color?” Journee asked Dante, looking at the three rows of wrapping paper that were left.
“I think I’d better. Since I allowed you to choose the gift, and it’s hard for me to imagine something worse than trying to wrap a greased pig.”
“I thought porcupine sounded pretty hard actually. Nice guess, anyway.”
“Yeah, it was, wasn’t it? Hard to think of anything harder.”
“A blue whale, maybe?”
“Oh yeah. I guess anything from the water. It could get messy.”
“Good point. Slime might be hard to wrap. Or a bus.”
“Shh,” he said, looking around. “Don’t give them any ideas for next year.”
She grabbed the tape and scissors. “Why? You think you’re going to be around next year for this?”
“Possibly. I’m actually having fun.”
“You sound surprised. I take it you weren’t expecting to enjoy this?”
He chose the black paper with gold stars, and one side