At four, her phone buzzed. “Hey, can you come over and watch the stand for fifteen minutes? I gotta deliver a tree to a customer.”
“What if the guy moves the car while you’re gone?”
“Then you put out the traffic cones and wave away anybody who tries to park there,” Murphy said.
* * *
“Prices are color-coded by those ribbons tied on the trees,” Murphy instructed. “Red’s the most expensive, that’s eighteen hundred dollars for a fourteen-footer. Cheapest tree is sixty bucks for one of the tabletop trees. It’s all on the signs.” He untied the nail apron he was wearing and handed it to her. “You’ve got enough cash in here to make change. Anybody wants to buy with a credit or debit card, they’ll have to wait until I get back, cuz I need to take my phone with me.”
“Wait. We have trees that cost nearly two thousand dollars?” Kerry asked.
“Yeah. But there’s only four, well, three now, because I sold one earlier and her son’s coming back to pick it up this afternoon. Okay, I need to go.”
He hefted a six-foot tree onto his shoulder and looped a wreath around his wrist and left.
It felt good to be out of the truck. Kerry made her first sale, a four-foot tree to a thirty-something redheaded woman with a toddler in tow. “Just ask Murphy to bring it up to my place when he gets back. I’m Skylar. He knows where I live.”
Twenty minutes later, when her brother returned, the Mercedes still hadn’t moved.
“Better grab something to eat now,” Murphy said. “Whoever owns that car is gonna have to move it in the next hour, or risk getting a ticket, and that’s when you need to be ready.”
Kerry was hungrier than she’d realized. But Anna’s was closed, so she walked across the corner to a bodega called Happy Days, bought herself a large bag of Fire Doritos and an extra-large cup of burnt-tasting coffee.
She sat behind the steering wheel of the truck, inhaling the chips, staring at the Mercedes, willing it to move.
Minutes ticked by. People strolled by the Christmas tree stand, stopping to pet Queenie, or to examine the trees. The temperature dropped and she started the truck and ran the heater for ten luxurious minutes, anxiously watching the truck’s fuel gauge, which showed she only had a quarter of a tank of gas.
Her phone rang. “How’s it going?” Birdie asked.
“Swell,” Kerry said. “I’m freezing my ass off in the truck, waiting for some dude to move his Mercedes so we can park Spammy by the tree stand and hook up the electricity. In the meantime, I’ve been inhaling carbs like it’s my job, and Murphy’s snores kept me awake most of last night.”
Her mother laughed. “Just like his father. I’d forgotten how loudly Jock snores. Now I understand why Brenda jumped ship.”
“How’s Dad feeling?”
“Cranky. I threw away his cigarettes and I’ve been making him get up and walk around the house every couple of hours. And he’s bloated. The pain meds make you constipated—”
“Too much information,” Kerry said hastily.
“You did ask.”
“Hey, Mom, do you remember Lombardi’s?”
“The Italian restaurant on the corner? Of course. We used to eat dinner there every Saturday night. Is it still there?”
“Yeah. The granddaughter runs it with a cousin. Last night, I was sitting at the bar, eating soup, and I had this flashback to when I was a kid, and this nice old lady showed me how to twirl my spaghetti on the back of a spoon.”
“Anna. The owner. She spoiled you rotten, stuffing your pockets full of her amaretti cookies. And Matteo, her husband…”
Kerry was watching the activity across the street as her mother reminisced. The tall man in the puffer jacket was back.
“Gotta go, Mom,” she said, disconnecting.
She sprinted across the street, dodging traffic.
Puffer Coat Man was now sitting in the car, talking on the phone.
“Excuse me,” she said, pounding on the driver’s side window with her fist. He glanced over at her and raised one finger, like, Hang on. Unlike you, I’m a super-busy self-important CEO-slash-rock-star-secret-agent man of mystery.
“Hey!” she hollered. “Are you gonna move this car, or just use it as a phone booth?”
His eyes narrowed and he lowered the phone, and then the window.
“Is there a problem?”
“Hell yeah, there’s a problem. I’ve been waiting for this parking spot since yesterday. I’ve already gotten two tickets and been propositioned by some skeevy dude who seems to think I’m turning tricks from my trailer. I’m living on stale Doritos and deli coffee, so my blood sugar’s low and my bladder is full, and I’ve really, really gotta pee, so I need you to move this car. Like, now.”
Mercedes Man removed his mirrored aviator glasses and looked her up and down.
It wasn’t a pretty picture, Kerry knew. Her long brown hair was greasy, so she’d shoved it up under a trucker hat she’d found in the trailer. There were dark circles under her eyes, and she’d been wearing the same grubby clothes—for the past two days.
Naturally, Mercedes Man had blue eyes the color of the Caribbean and the perfect amount of chin stubble and those Bambi eyelashes God always wasted on men who already had too much going in their favor.
“Find another parking spot, why don’t you? The city’s full of ’em.” The window started to slide upward, and he returned to his secret agent phone call with a dismissive nod in her direction.
Kerry was not proud of what happened next. She pounded on the hood of the car with her fists and kicked the tires. “I. Need. This. Space,” she shrieked, her fury boiling over like a pent-up stream. She started slapping at the driver’s side window, but suddenly, she felt a thick arm wrap around her waist and physically lift her off the pavement.
“Whoa! Whoa, little sis!”
She turned her head. It was Murphy, who’d heard the ruckus.
“Calm down, Kerry,” Murphy was saying. He lowered her to the ground. “Get ahold of yourself, will ya?”
Mercedes Man was out of the car now. “Murph, do you know this lunatic?”
“Afraid so,” Murphy said. “Patrick McCaleb, meet my little sister, Kerry. She’s, uh, worked up because we’ve been waiting for this spot to open up. You know, because it’s where we always set up the trailer, in front of the tree stand.”
Patrick looked over at the tree stand, and then at the trailer. He slapped his forehead. “Oh, man. Sorry. Of course you guys always park here. My bad. I wish you’d said something earlier. I feel awful.”
“I didn’t realize this car was yours, or I would have,” Murphy said. “But, uh, would you mind? We need to park the trailer here so we can run the power line from the café.”
“Moving it right now,” Patrick said. “And, uh, I do apologize.” He held out his hand, gloved in fine leather, to Kerry, whose fingertips were stained orange from the Doritos.
“Yeah, I’m sorry too,” Kerry said, wiping her hands on the back of her jeans. “Guess I kind of lost it there. Nice to meet you, Patrick.”
“Likewise,” Patrick said. He got in the Mercedes, started the engine, and pulled into the street.