Christmas at Fireside Cabins - Jenny Hale Page 0,30
way too much hype around it to leave without experiencing it.”
“I second that.” Lila nodded toward the white tables with bright green umbrellas set up to shield them from the sun coming in through the glass ceiling.
They went in and took a seat at one of the tables. Not long after, a waitress came over. “Welcome to the Sugarplum Café,” she said, placing a gold-wrapped candy on the appetizer plate that sat in front of each of them. “Take a minute to look over our menu and let me know if you have any questions. I’ll be right back with some hot cocoa and a glass of water for everyone.”
“I’ll never have enough space in my stomach for the Christmas Bomb if I eat this,” Piper said, holding up the gold-foiled sweet.
“I agree,” Eleanor said, “but you need to at least open it. There’s a little message inside every one.”
Lila unwrapped hers, revealing a butterscotch candy. She set it on her plate and spread the wrapper out to read her message. “Mine says, When faced with a choice, choose to believe. It’ll change your life.”
“Ooh,” Edie said, squinting her eyes in contemplation.
The more Lila thought about the statement, the more she realized that she’d spent her whole adult life believing in everyone else but herself. She’d believed in Razz, in her friends, in the kids she had worked with, but what was true about her? What was she capable of? She’d never tested her limits to see. She’d always taken the easy route: staying in a city she wouldn’t have necessarily chosen for herself, taking a job that her boss himself had said could be filled by any warm body as long as they were willing to undergo the training. What did she really want in her life?
Just then the waitress returned, setting down mugs with a candy cane protruding from a pile of marshmallows. “Are you ready to order?” she asked.
“I think we’ll all do the Sugarplum Christmas Bomb,” Piper said.
“All of you?” the waitress asked. “You could probably share.”
The three of them consulted Eleanor.
“Oh, go on,” Eleanor urged them. “Why not get your own? You only live once, right?”
Piper turned back to the waitress. “Four Christmas Bombs then.” Once the server left their table, Piper said, “I love my fortune! My message says, Trust in yourself and you’ll reach your dreams.” She hugged it to her chest. “Maybe my expansion of Scented Spirit will be a good move. I needed to hear that right now.”
“Mine says, Take time for yourself and you’ll find love on the horizon. Maybe things will go even further with Jarod,” Edie said. She lifted her hot cocoa to her mouth and took a sip before turning to Eleanor, who was already misty-eyed. “What does your say?”
She read her message. “Take time to look around you to see the goodness in people. There are angels everywhere.” She smiled at each one of them. “That is so very true. I am sitting with a table full of them right now.”
“Aw,” Piper said, patting her hand.
As they fell into conversation, Lila pondered the message in her candy wrapper some more, and she couldn’t get it out of her head. She wanted to tell herself that it was just a cute Christmas note for kids, which didn’t really mean a thing, but the words kept rolling through her mind.
“Here we are,” the waitress said, pulling Lila from her thoughts.
The woman set down a dish the size of a small fishbowl in front of each of them. It was full to the brim with vanilla ice cream, which sat on something bright purple and crumbly. Piled high on top of the ice cream were so many different toppings that she could hardly focus on one at a time.
“What’s in this?” Lila asked the waitress.
“We start building it with our sugarplum pie. It’s chopped almonds, figs, sugared blueberries, and our house-made sugarplum filling baked into a buttermilk pie crust, warmed and placed below the ice cream and then topped with candied blueberry truffles, white chocolate cubes, brown sugar graham cracker wedges, sugar cookie morsels, and finished with a drizzle of our famous sugarplum syrup plus a big dose of whipped cream and a cherry.” The waitress handed her a spoon. “Enjoy,” she said with a grin.
They all dug into their own personal bowls. Lila took a bite, the warm spicy crunch of the pie mixing with all the toppings and the cold vanilla like a burst of holiday cheer.