“I would not,” she answers simply.
“I figured. I have a present for you, though. And my mom sent me home with presents for you too.”
“She didn’t have to do that. Now I feel bad that I didn’t get her anything.”
“She doesn’t expect anything from you. She knows you’re poor.”
Lilly scowls at me. “Gee. Thanks.”
I smile. “No fighting the truth, Hendricks. If it makes you feel any better I grew up poor. If I didn’t know how to catch a football and take a hit, I’d still be there. I’ll probably be there again someday.”
Her face softens, her scowl fading. “I’ll still love you.”
“Oh yeah?” I chuckle, loving the sound of those words from her voice.
“Yeah,” she confirms. She reaches out to drape her hand over mine where it rests on the gear shift. “We’ll be poor together.”
“I’ll have to let Maria go. Thank God you know how to cook.”
“I hope you know how to hunt.”
“And fish.”
“We’re set for life.”
I turn my hand over, threading my fingers through hers, and bringing the back of her hand to my lips. “Man, I hope so.”
She blushes. I knew she would. She looks beautiful with her cheeks flushed pink, the snow falling white and downy outside her window onto black trees.
The world is black and white but Lilly is vivid color. That’s how it feels to be with her. Like I was living fast and furious for so long until she came along and showed me what it is to slow down. To settle down. To look at the world around me with new interest and new eyes. And the view from where I’m sitting right now? It’s breathtaking.
We get into Leavenworth just as it’s getting dark. It looks like a fairly normal small town when you first roll into the outskirts. Some of the buildings have that Bavarian look to them; neutral colors on the outside with thick brown trim around the edges and cutting across the front. That gingerbread house look that screams Christmas. There are banks and a McDonalds mixed in with the hotels, all of them covered in snow and Christmas lights, but nothing really special. It’s not until you turn down a side street to head back toward the river that you get the real deal. That you step out of America and straight into a small Bavarian mountain village. Every storefront has signs written in both German and English, the words in a scrolling, curling font. Hotels, hat shops, bakeries, bars – all ornately decorated with multicolored lights, thick garland, and banners wishing us a ‘Frohe Weihnachten’.
“Whoa,” Lilly whispers, her eyes wide. “This is beautiful.”
I shake my head as I slide us into a parking spot across from the park. There’s a gazebo on one end of it that’s lit with hundreds of small, white lights that hang like icicles from the snow covered roof. “I didn’t expect it to be this cool.”
“No, me either. How’d you here about this?”
“Lowry. He’s from Washington. He said he used to come to this with his family every Christmas.”
“I can see why.”
We step out onto the street, our shoes crunching loudly on the snow that keeps on falling. It’s in my hair, on my coat, in Lilly’s long eyelashes making her laugh and blink the flakes away. I take her hand to lead her down the sidewalk toward the nearest pub. I’m dreaming of a cold beer and warm schnitzel, but I go slow. I set the pace and we take it easy because I’m photographing this moment in my memory. I’m memorizing the snow and the glow of the lights and the rose in her cheeks. I’m drinking in the sound of her voice as she points out pastries in a bakery window, asking if we can come back to them later. I’m getting drunk off the excitement in her eyes and the love in her smile, and I’m thinking I don’t need that beer after all.
We make our way through the streets doing every touristy thing we can find to do, the cheesier the better. We eat a delicious dinner by a huge brick fireplace. We stop to listen to a Bavarian folk band playing in a bar. We get a caricature of us drawn in an art studio; me in my football jersey, Lilly in an apron and chef’s hat getting ready to throw me a baguette downfield. It makes Lilly laugh but I’m framing it when we get home. It’s going on my bedroom wall. We stop in a bakery where Lilly talks shop with the woman behind the counter for a good twenty minutes before scoring a recipe for something called Schneeballen, a flaky dough ball that’s dusted in powdered sugar to look like a snowball.