That Old Emerald Mountain Magic Read online

  Joy watched their reactions, and every one of the Castillos paused. Even Mrs. Castillo, who seemed preoccupied with making sure that Aaron handled her luggage gently, stopped to slip her arm through her husband’s to look at the view from the large picture windows in the living room. The young woman’s mouth dropped open as she stepped into the cabin, and the younger girls demanded their phones back from their dad so they could document their luxurious surroundings.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Joy asked them, and Mr. Castillo let out a loud breath.

  “That’s an understatement.”

  While Aaron brought load after load of suitcases into the entryway, Joy walked the Castillos through the space, pointing out all of the luxury features from the gas fireplace to the chef’s kitchen and the Jacuzzi bathtub. There was a large Christmas tree in front of the picture windows– not quite as large as the one in the resort lobby but still plenty impressive – and the mantle was decorated with pine boughs and five stockings, one for each of the family members.

  “Wow,” Mr. Castillo said as he noticed this. “You people think of everything.”

  “We try,” Joy said with a smile, and then she winked at the younger girls. “I even think Santa came a little early and left a pre-Christmas treat in those stockings.”

  One of them rolled her eyes at Joy and said, “I don’t believe in Santa,” but then she went over to the mantle and put her hands on the toe of one of the stockings, feeling for its contents.

  “So is this your first trip to Emerald Mountain?” Joy asked, although she was pretty certain she already knew the answer.

  She watched the young woman walking through the cabin, going to the kitchen island where a tray full of Christmas goodies had been set out – sugar cookies and hot cocoa mix and candy canes. She picked up one of the latter and peeled back the plastic wrapper, and Joy had to look away before the girl put it in her mouth for fear that she’d blush.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Castillo said. “We usually go someplace warm for the holidays.”

  “Well, you’ve got this warm fire to come back to when it gets too chilly,” Joy said, “and all the hot cocoa, coffee, and tea you could ask for in the ski lodge.”

  “Sounds wonderful,” Mr. Castillo said. “We’re looking forward to an authentic, snowy Christmas experience.”

  “Great,” Joy said, noticing that Aaron was standing in the doorway – a good indication that he’d finally finished with their bags, which were now stacked neatly in the entryway. “Well, I’ll leave you to get settled in. If you need anything for the cabin, or if you’re looking for recommendations about things to do during your visit, don’t hesitate to call down to the front desk. My name is Joy if you need anything.”

  She made accidental eye contact with the young woman in the kitchen as she said this last part, and the candy cane in her mouth was every bit as tantalizing as Joy had expected it would be. For her part, the girl didn’t seem aware of the effect she was having, and Joy couldn’t figure out why she was so drawn to her. She patted Aaron on the shoulder and said, “Come on, I have to get back to the lobby.”

  December 18

  Five

  Joy

  Joy woke up with a start to the unfamiliar sound of her alarm clock. She hadn’t needed to set it in ages, and she didn’t like beginning the day with a jolt as her phone vibrated against the wood of her night table. She was used to hearing Danny playing his acoustic guitar, or plucking at the strings of his electric with the amp off. He got up early every morning and played for a few hours before his restaurant shifts, and that was always her cue to get up and begin her day.

  That kind of dedication had landed him this gig with The Hero’s Journey. She just wished he’d call her back so she wouldn’t have to keep scanning the news for Tennessee plane crashes. She’d sent Danny a half-dozen increasingly irritated texts yesterday asking him to tell her that he got to Memphis safely and everything was going well with the band.

  She had the morning free before an evening shift at the resort and there was no good reason to set her alarm, but she didn’t want to sleep her way through her leisure time, which was precious around the holidays. Besides, five years of waking up early to the musical stylings of Danny had conditioned Joy to get up early – she rarely managed to sleep in, even on her days off.

  So she got up and put on a heavy fleece robe to keep away the chill of the drafty apartment. It was an old building – most everything in Emerald Hill that wasn’t associated with the resort was old – but Joy had gotten used to the routine of being cold. She went into the kitchen and made herself a cup of her favorite peppermint tea, stirring a candy cane into it to sweeten it up.

  Her mind went to the girl she met yesterday – well, met was a strong word for it, but she had managed to make an impression on Joy. She probably wouldn’t look at a candy cane again the same way for the rest of the holiday season, anyway.

  Joy went into the living room as she sipped her tea, flipping a light switch on the wall to turn on the multi-colored lights of the Christmas tree she and Danny had purchased the day after Thanksgiving. He’d teased her at the time, telling her it was too soon (an argument they had every year), but she’d made him put it up anyway.

  “The needles are going to fall off well before Christmas,” he’d objected. “You’re supposed to wait until the middle of the month if you want a live tree.”

  “You said that last year,” Joy had answered as she passed him a string of lights and he started winding them around the branches. “It was still plenty green on Christmas Day, and this way we get to enjoy it longer.”

  It turned out to be lucky that she hadn’t let Danny sway her, because if they’d waited until he wanted to go get a tree, he would have ended up in Memphis and she’d have been stuck in an empty apartment with no Christmas cheer whatsoever. At least the tree, with its twinkling lights and festive pine aroma, brought her a little bit of comfort as she sat down in an overstuffed chair near it to finish her tea. She pulled her phone out of the pocket of her robe where she’d stashed it and checked for a message from Danny, but there was nothing.

  Maybe he’d gotten swept up in getting acquainted with the band and their songs, and there was no doubt he would have a million things to do to get ready for the tour, but Joy couldn’t stand not knowing what was going on with him. Danny was her oldest friend – they’d met in kindergarten and been inseparable ever since, and Joy was pretty sure that his parents still didn’t totally believe that nothing romantic would ever come out of their relationship.

  She liked to tease him about this sometimes, as if he was the one who had something to come out of the closet about, so when she called him and he didn’t answer, she left him a pestering voicemail. “Hey, it’s me. I’m going to tell your mom the true and shockingly platonic nature of our relationship if you don’t call me back. The suspense is killing me, dude.”

  It was only about eight in the morning in Emerald Hill, which would make it nine in Memphis, and Joy figured there was no way even the tamest of rock musicians were already hard at work at that hour. That meant Danny had no excuse but to find a minute to call her back. Joy finished her tea and decided that she’d spend the rest of her day on the slopes, sneaking in a few hours of snowboarding before the late shift started. She certainly didn’t want to spend that time sitting around her empty apartment, looking at Danny’s stupid action movie posters and feeling sorry for herself because her last Emerald Hill friend was moving on.

  She cleaned her mug and put it on the counter to dry, then went back into her bedroom to get changed. She put on a pair of thick snow pants – one of the most expensive pieces of clothing she owned, and well-worth the price tag for all the use she got out of them. Free access to the slopes was Joy’s favorite perk of working at the resort, and one of the reasons why she had never before considered a change of scenery. She loved the sense of peace that being alone on the mountain gave her.

  She put on a thin but warm undershirt, then a light
weight ski jacket that would keep her warm and dry no matter what the slope conditions were. She packed her work uniform into a duffel bag that she could keep in her car and change into before her shift, then she went into the living room and pulled a pair of boots out of the closet by the front door. She stepped into them, then retrieved her pride and joy from the back of the closet – the snowboard her mother had bought for her the day she graduated from high school.

  They had gone together to the sporting goods store right after the ceremony, and her mom had shaken her head at Joy as she watched her examine every single board in the shop. “You know you can’t use that until next year. Don’t you want something a little more practical for your graduation gift?”

  “This’ll be plenty practical in a couple of months,” Joy had objected as she pulled a beautiful board with a woodgrain finish off the rack.

  “Careful, honey, I think you’re drooling,” her mother had said with a laugh. “Is that the one?”

  “Yeah,” she said, running her hand along the smooth finish of the board. She’d boarded every single winter since then with it, and spent quite a lot of her free time with this board. It was just the thing to keep her mind off what was going on in Memphis until Danny finally found the time to call her back.

  Six

  Carmen

  Carmen and her family went down into the small town of Emerald Hill after they got settled into the cabin. It was about a fifteen-minute drive from the resort, and it seemed like most of the town’s businesses, restaurants, and shops were situated along one long stretch down the main road. They ate at the Indigo Restaurant, the twins taking about an hour to decide between the many items on the dessert menu, and in the end Dad told the waiter to bring a half-dozen things to the table along with five forks.

  Carmen was savoring a salted caramel-topped molten lava cake, the dark chocolate oozing across the plate as she tried in vain to fend off her sisters’ forks, when her dad pulled out the itinerary packet again to groans around the table.

  “Can’t we just play it by ear, honey?” Mom asked. “You’re the only one who enjoys highly structured vacations.”

  “Ah,” Dad objected, holding up a finger to motion for silence. “Tomorrow is shopping day. Do any of you really intend to complain about that? An entire day in Denver, where you can shop your hearts out and I will wait patiently and carry the bags and not complain, because I’ve got Christmas spirit.”

  “We’ve got Christmas spirit, yes we do,” Maria said, turning Dad’s words into a cheer. Marisol chimed in for the second half, and they said in unison, “We’ve got Christmas spirit, how about you?”

  Then the little snake, Maria, took a stab at the molten lava cake that Carmen had been trying to keep for herself.

  “Hey,” she objected, but in the end, she pushed the plate toward the center of the table and reached for a chocolate chip cookie with melting vanilla ice cream on top instead.

  This morning Carmen woke up to her mother gently shaking her shoulder.

  “Hey, honey,” she was saying, “time to get up. We’ve got a long day of shopping ahead of us.”

  “What time is it?” Carmen mumbled, putting her hand over her eyes. The early morning light was reflecting off the snow outside her window and it seemed impossibly bright despite the fact that she felt like she’d hardly slept. She had gone to bed around midnight, but then Brigid started inundating Carmen’s phone with pictures and videos from her arrival in Cancun, and she hadn’t managed to get to sleep until after one.

  “It’s still early,” Mom said. “But the drive into Denver is going to take about an hour, and I’m sure you’ll want time to get ready and have some breakfast. The resort sent a basket of scones.”

  “Five more minutes,” Carmen whined, wanting nothing more than to throw the blankets over her head and try to block out the light so she could sleep a little longer. She’d been working for her dad full-time ever since she graduated from college and sleeping late was a luxury she didn’t have in New York.

  “Okay,” her mom said in a tone that implied she didn’t understand her eldest daughter. Carmen knew that Marisol and Maria would never drag their feet when it came to an opportunity to spend money lavishly – it was their favorite hobby, and in that way they were their mother’s children. Carmen sometimes felt like an outsider in her own family, and sometimes she wondered if her mother even remembered the tiny, worn-down little house that Carmen spent the first thirteen years of her life in.

  Her mom left the room and Carmen pulled up the big, plush comforter to block out the sun, falling instantly back to sleep.

  The next time she woke up, the sun was higher in the sky and the cabin was unexpectedly quiet. Carmen sat up with a jolt, the feeling of oversleeping her alarm coursing through her as she realized it had been much longer than five minutes. She grabbed her phone off the night table beside the bed and saw that it was almost ten – according to Dad’s itinerary, they should have been in Denver by now.

  Carmen jumped out of bed and threw on one of the resort’s plush robes as she rushed into the living room, wondering if everyone was waiting for her, and if they were angry that she’d held them up. Instead, the cabin was empty and Carmen found a note on the kitchen island, leaning against the aforementioned basket of scones.

  Carmen,

  You were sleeping so peacefully when I came back in, I decided not to wake you. Get the rest you need and if you want to join us in Denver, call and I’ll send a car. We’re going to Sushi Den for lunch.

  Love,

  Mom

  By the time she finished reading the note, Carmen went from anxious to irritated. It was true that she hadn’t been particularly eager to spend the entire day buying unnecessary clothes, but she hadn’t expected her family to just leave without her. Being an adult still felt new to her sometimes, and she wondered if this was another byproduct – her parents never would have left her sisters behind, but now apparently she was old enough to need rest more than a new pair of boots, and they hadn’t thought much of going to Denver without her.

  Even if she was supposed to be an adult who was independent and unbothered by things like that, she felt a little hurt that they would have left without her. She went back to her room and pulled a pair of jeans out of her luggage, followed by a large, chunky knit sweater, and got dressed. She pulled her hair into a quick ponytail, then went back into the kitchen, reading her mom’s note again. She could spend an hour in the car to eat sushi in Denver, but she was feeling a little salty about the whole thing and she decided that she’d just fend for herself.

  She grabbed one of the scones – a cranberry one with orange glaze on top that practically melted in her mouth – and sat down at the island, texting her mom to let her know she was going to stay at the resort today.

  Then while she ate, Carmen habitually opened and scrolled through each of the social media feeds on her phone. They were all flooded with pictures of the beach, the ocean, and an equal number of couple selfies from Brigid and Bentley.

  Carmen rolled her eyes at the stupid faces he was pulling, but under one of the pictures she typed, “So cute. Hope you’re having fun, Brig!”

  Before she’d even polished off her scone, Brigid was messaging her back.

  Thanks, it’s seventy-eight and sunny – wish you were here!

  Carmen laughed, thinking that at this particular moment she kind of wished she was in Cancun, too, even if Bentley was there. She and Brigid messaged back and forth for a few minutes, and Carmen couldn’t quite bring herself to tell Brigid that the mountains were beautiful and the food was good but that she was feeling lonely right now. They hadn’t had that kind of close relationship since college, so she settled for sending Brigid the picture she’d taken yesterday during the ride into the mountains.

  Are you a snow bunny yet? Dominate any black diamonds lately?

  Brigid’s reply made Carmen laugh, until the next message came through.

  Ugh, sorry, Bentley grabbed my phone
. He’s so goofy.

  Then before Carmen realized what she was doing, she started typing a response. She wasn’t going to let Bentley poke fun at her from all the way across the Gulf of Mexico, so she wrote back, “Actually, I’m about to go for my first run of the day. I’ll snap a picture for you from the top of the slopes.”

  Then she smacked herself in the forehead. It was too late because the message had already been sent, but that definitely had not been on her to-do list today. Brigid sent back a final message, and Carmen just laughed.

  Oh wow, you’re really embracing the winter vibes, huh? Well, I can’t wait to see that!

  She sighed and put down her phone, polishing off the last crumbs of her scone and washing it down with a small bottle of orange juice that she found in the refrigerator. At least now she knew what she’d be doing today, thanks to her big mouth.

  Carmen called a resort transport van to take her over to the lodge, asking to be dropped off at the ski rental area. It was packed and a little overwhelming, dozens of people making their way through the line and loading up with rental skis and snowboards in order to hit the slopes. She couldn’t help feeling a little bit grumpy at the sight of all the families here – meanwhile her own family was in Denver.

  She was a big girl, though, and she reminded herself as the line inched slowly forward that she didn’t like marathon-length shopping trips, anyway. Carmen looked out the windows while she waited in line, and from the ski rental area on the ground floor of the lodge, the mountain seemed like nothing more than a snowy hill. The windows down here weren’t tall enough to showcase the full majesty of the mountain, and all Carmen could see was the bunny slopes with a few dozen novice skiers making their wobbly way down the hills.