Bright Lights, Big Christmas(12)

Murphy stretched, rolled one shoulder, then the other. “Oh hey, Austin. What’s up? Did you get kicked out of school?”

“No!” The boy giggled. “School’s over. My dad said it was okay if I helped you out.”

“Cool.” Murphy shook his head. “I was just thinking we could use some cheap labor around here. Right, Kerry?”

“Definitely.” She closed the steno pad.

“Good job on the Christmas lights,” Murphy said, gazing around. “But it doesn’t look like you sold too many trees. Maybe we need to make Austin here our sales manager.”

“Okay by me,” Kerry told him. “I did sell one tree. To Taryn Kaplan. She said her husband will come by after work to pick it up. And, she said we can shower at her place? Something you somehow forgot to mention to me?”

“Oh yeah,” Murphy said carelessly. “Did she leave the key?”

“She did,” Kerry said. “And tonight, I intend to take the longest, hottest shower in the world.”

“Good for you.” He glanced at his watch. “Almost four. Business should start picking up pretty soon.” He pointed to a pile of fir branches he’d trimmed from the trees, then a wooden crate beneath the cash stand. “The clippers and wire are in there. Rolls of ribbon too. Maybe you could make some more wreaths. You remember how, right?”

Kerry rolled her eyes. As a teenager, she and Birdie had crafted the Christmas wreaths Jock and Murphy sold during their holiday stay in the city, wiring the prickly fir branches together into long garlands, forming some of them into a circle, then attaching sprigs of blue juniper, red-berried holly, and white tallow berries foraged from the woods surrounding the tree farm. In a good year, Jock would pay her five bucks apiece for her handiwork, money she eagerly saved to buy the clothes and makeup Birdie couldn’t (or wouldn’t) buy her.

“I think I can figure it out again,” she drawled. Kerry pulled out the supplies.

“What can I do?” Austin piped up.

Murphy dragged a large black plastic trash bag from the bed of his pickup truck. “This here is full of mistletoe. You can break off some of these pieces, like maybe three pieces to a bunch, and wrap some red ribbon around ’em. And tie a bow. You can tie a bow, right?”

“Sure thing,” Austin said. “That’s easy.”

“Don’t eat any of those berries. Okay? Cuz they’re poison. And your dad’s likely to get real annoyed with me if we have to take you to the hospital in an ambulance and pump out your stomach.”

“I never been in an ambulance,” Austin said, perking up.

“You ain’t going on my watch,” Murphy told him. “No sirreebob.”

Kerry wrinkled her nose when she saw the roll of cheap ribbon Murphy handed Austin to tie around the sprigs of mistletoe.

“Don’t you have anything else?”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Where’d you get this crap? A truck stop?”

He shrugged. “We been using it for years. No complaints.”

“How much do you get for wreaths these days?”

“Twenty-five bucks, same as always.”

“I’m gonna find some decent ribbon. Nice, wide, wired grosgrain. Did you bring any other greenery, like Mom and I always used to use?”

“Look, just make the wreaths and tie on the damn ribbon. It don’t need to be fancy.”

Austin looked uneasily from Murphy to Kerry, his cheeks reddening.

She gave the little boy’s shoulder a reassuring pat. “It’s okay, Austin. Murphy isn’t mad at you. He just doesn’t like taking advice from a girl.”





chapter 8





The next day, while it was still dark and Murphy was snoring away in his bunk, Kerry set out walking to the wholesale flower market that was less than a mile away. She’d done her research online, knew what she wanted, and where to get it.

Happily wandering the flower stalls with a steaming latte in hand, she picked out bundles of seeded eucalyptus, glossy holly branches with fat red berries, and blue juniper. She bought green floral wire and spools of ribbon in luscious colors.

Back at the tree stand, she set out her materials on the card table and started wiring the greenery to one of the plain wreaths she’d created the day before. By the time Murphy emerged from the camper she’d created half a dozen wreaths loaded with the variegated greenery and luxe ribbon she’d bought at the flower market.

“Where’d you get all that?” he commented, glancing at her creations. “And what’d you spend?”

“I went to the wholesale market. I spent what I needed.” She finished plumping the gold satin ribbon on a wreath and held it out for his inspection. “What do you think?”

“How much?” he asked.

“I looked in the window of a fancy florist on Greenwich Avenue. They sell wreaths like this for a hundred and fifty dollars, and their greens aren’t anywhere near as fresh as ours,” Kerry said. “I’ve got about twenty dollars of materials in these, so I’ll price these first half dozen at ninety-nine apiece. And if they don’t sell, I can always reduce the price, right?”

Murphy shrugged and walked away, toward the bakery, muttering to himself.