But he’s determined to carry out the plan that popped into his head last Monday night when he should have been working on his homework.
Operation Secret Santa, he calls it—-not that he’s even shared it with his friends. Well aware that he’s walking the fine line between pathetic loser and romantic hero, he figures no one will be the wiser if the plan fails. But if it works out, he’ll tell the world what he did, and the world will think he’s a genius.
Better yet, Brianna Armbruster will have fallen head over heels in love with him and dumped the college guy Zach told him about.
When that happens, everything—-even spending all the tip money he was saving for his ski trip and pedaling this uphill mile in freezing rain—-will be worthwhile.
Mick warms himself with thoughts of the future. When he and Brianna are married with kids, they’ll talk about Operation Secret Santa the way his own parents often talk about the good old days when they first fell in love.
It’s hard for Mick to even imagine Mom and Dad meeting and dating back when they were only a little older than his brother and sister are now. But he’s heard the story often enough—-about how they were both home in Mundy’s Landing for Christmas, and Dad was in Vernon’s Apothecary looking for a present for Grandma Mundy, and Mom was there buying “something embarrassing,” as she always puts it. Even if Mick had the slightest desire to know what it was, there’s no interrupting his parents when they volley the story back and forth.
“She heard me telling the saleswoman that I was browsing for something for my mom,” Dad says, “and for some reason, she decided to put her two cents in.”
“Because he was looking at the gaudiest earrings you ever saw.”
“And you wanted me to buy her perfume that stunk to high heaven.”
“It was Giorgio Armani. Your mother loves it.”
“Now she does—-”
“Thanks to me.”
“Thanks to you,” Dad agrees, “but I still think it stinks.”
“But you bought it for her. And you bought me a beer that night when we ran into each other again down at the Windmill.” That’s a local pub.
“And you dumped it on my lap.”
Mom would insist that it was an accident, and Dad would say it was on purpose. Then they’d argue about whose idea it was to go see a movie together on Christmas Day, because neither of them bothered to make sure the theater would be open. It wasn’t; nor were any of the restaurants in town. To salvage the date, they went skating on Milkweed Pond behind the high school. Mom remembers that they had the ice all to themselves and that it was snowing; Dad is convinced there were other skaters and that there was no snow.
The only detail that was never disputed by either of them: that even on that first date, they knew they would be together forever.
Mick locks his bike on the rack in front of the library and walks toward the shops and restaurants that line the village square. The Windmill is still there, a few doors down from Marrana’s.
Someday, he and Brianna will go there, and they’ll skate together on Milkweed Pond, and they’ll share their love story with their kids. It’ll start with the moment Mick fell off his bike in front of her that summer before freshman year—-they’ll leave out the fact that she was with another guy who called Mick a carrot top. The next part will be about how he left her anonymous little Secret Santa gifts every day for a week, and on Friday came the big gift, the one that won her heart . . .
What will it be?
Not a twenty--five--dollar gift certificate to Marrana’s, that’s for sure.
But he has a pocket full of tip money and all afternoon to figure it out.