Jayda’s Christmas Wish

  Copyright © 2018 Amy Sparling

  All rights reserved.

  First Edition November 2018

  Cover design © Designed with Grace

  Cover image Bigstock – mne_len

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems -except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews-without permission in writing from the author at admin@amysparling.com.

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination and are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter One

  “The weather outside is frightful…” I frown, turning up the volume on my phone. “But the fire is so delightful...”

  I stand back and look at it, the two-year-old dinged up cell phone that can only be described as a piece of crap, while it tries to play some Christmas music.

  “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.”

  I frown. The music is distorted, tinny, and too quiet. Last year we played Christmas music on the television using one of those cool satellite TV music channels. It filled the whole apartment with clear, quality sound. Max, Mom, and I danced around the kitchen while we made our holiday sugar cookies, as per family tradition.

  Mom cancelled the cable TV three months ago. But the tradition must go on, so I’m trying to fill the air with some holiday spirit from my piece of crap phone that seems to have a speaker that was made only for people with supernatural hearing. I press the volume button again, even though it doesn’t get any louder.

  Come on, holiday spirit. You can do it!

  This is so not working.

  “I love this song!” Max says as he rushes into the kitchen, fully dressed in his snowman pajamas that are clearly a size too small since they’re from last Christmas. There won’t be any new holiday pajamas this year. He grins. “Can you turn it up louder?”

  “No,” I say, moving my phone to the kitchen table as if that will somehow make it project the music better. “This is as loud as it gets.”

  My little brother makes a face but he quickly gets over it when he sees all the ingredients for sugar cookies laid out on the counter. “Where’s the sprinkles?” he says, dragging a chair over so he can stand on it and be taller.

  “Where’s Mom?” I say. “We can’t start making cookies until she’s here.”

  Max shrivels up like he does when he’s in trouble. “She told me she’s not coming.”

  I roll my eyes. Of course she’s coming. It’s tradition. Mom, Max, and I always make Christmas cookies a couple of weeks before Christmas. We use the ancient set of cookie cutters that Grandma passed down to us and we make dozens and dozens of sugar cookies topped with sprinkles and icing and candy bits and then we snack on them, making sure to save a few for Santa on Christmas Eve.

  It’s only one of two traditions we have, the other of which is going to Harris Christmas Tree Farm to pick out a tree. Mom already broke the news to us that we can’t afford the tree this year, so we’re down to one tradition. I’m not going to let it get canceled too.

  I point at Max and give him a warning look. “I’ll go get Mom. Don’t you even think about eating the chocolate chips.”

  I walk to Mom’s bedroom. The door is closed, so I tap on it lightly. “Mom?”

  “I’m sleeping,” she calls out.

  “Sleeping people can’t tell you that they’re sleeping,” I say.

  “I’m about to sleep,” she calls back.

  I crack open the door. Mom is lying face down on her bed on top of the sheets. She’s wearing paint splattered leggings and an old baggy T-shirt that’s seen better days. Those are her cleaning clothes.

  “We’re making the cookies tonight,” I say.

  “You can handle it, Jayda.” Mom rolls over in bed so that she’s no longer facing me. “I’m tired.”

  “But it’s tradition,” I say. “We always make them together.”

  From down the hallway, I hear Max belting out, “Let it snow!”

  Mom doesn’t even crack a smile at it. If anything, she seems more annoyed.

  “Jayda, I’m just not in the mood for Christmas stuff,” she says, heaving a sigh. “Please close the door behind you.”

  I leave, taking a moment to breathe before I head back out to the kitchen donning a fake smile for my little brother’s sake. Mom has never been like this. She’s always been a great mother, loving and supportive, happily taking on the burden of a family after my dad left her six years ago. But she was laid off from her job as an administrative assistant four months ago, and that’s when everything started to suck.

  We ran out of money quickly and Mom hasn’t been able to find a job. In order to keep the rent paid, she struck a deal with our landlord and now she cleans empty apartments for him in exchange for the rent.

  Now she’s tired all the time, and grumpy, and just no fun to be around. I was really hoping that making the sugar cookies would bring all of us together again as a happy family. Cookies are supposed to summon Christmas magic, right? But I guess I’m wrong.

  “We need sprinkles!” Max says.

  I survey the counter filled with flour, sugar, butter, and two packs of icing. I’d bought the cheapest brands the store had in order to save money, but the Christmas sprinkles were crazy expensive so I’d left them out of my cart. I hoped Max wouldn’t care, but clearly I was wrong.

  “Let me see if we have some in the pantry.”

  I stand up on my toes and check the top shelf, where we keep the spices, cupcake wrappers, and other random kitchen items. My hand closes over a container of Christmas sprinkles—half empty—and all these memories of last year come back to me suddenly. It feels like Santa’s sleigh just fell on me, crushing any happiness I had just a moment ago.

  We bought these sprinkles last Christmas. Last Christmas was the first time we broke tradition, because it wasn’t just the three of us making the cookies.

  Ricky was here. Mom had invited him. We’d been dating for eight months and I was stupidly in love the way a high school sophomore can get when a cute boy asks her out. Now that I’m a junior, I know better than to make that mistake again.

  Mom had made the dough and I rolled it out and Max and Ricky cut out the shapes with Grandma’s old cookie cutters. Ricky decorated two gingerbread-shaped cookies to look like us. Mine had long blue hair because Max was using the red icing, and Ricky’s cookie was wearing a poorly drawn basketball jersey made of icing and fruit roll-ups.

  Last Christmas was fun. Mom still had her job and money wasn’t a constant strain or awkward topic. We had cable TV and pizza Fridays and I had Ricky.

  Now the only thing left of last Christmas is this half-empty jar of sprinkles.

  I set them on the counter and Max claps, delighted that I found them. But now I’m not really in the mood to make cookies. I guess I understand why Mom decided to sit this one out. While Max and I were in school today, she cleaned out apartments that were recently vacated. She had to scrub and wash an
d crawl through every single inch of the space to make it absolutely spotless for our landlord who wants everything perfect for the new tenants.

  Then, she comes home and spends all afternoon trying to find a job using the free Wi-Fi at the apartment’s clubhouse because we had to cancel the internet bill too. Mom lost a lot over the past year. I lost Ricky when he broke up with me and then started dating another girl on the track team.

  Now I have to see them in the hallways at school, walking the same halls we used to walk, holding hands the same way we used to, sitting at the same lunch table that no longer welcomes me.

  Suddenly, I don’t mind that the Christmas music on my phone sounds like crap. A quality sound system would only be a lie. This year sucked, and this holiday will suck.

  “Are we making the cookies or not?” Max says, putting a defiant little hand on his hip. Unlike me, he didn’t inherit Mom’s coppery hair. His is dark brown, the same color as Dad’s, and it sticks out in all directions no matter how much you try to brush it or hold it down with hair products. Max is lucky because he’s still a little kid that thinks the world is okay. He doesn’t know about job loss or breakups, only coloring books, recess, and sugar cookies.

  If Mom can’t pull herself together enough to keep up the family tradition, I guess I’ll have to.

  I smile and reach for the measuring cups and the bag of flour. “Mom isn’t feeling well so it’s just going to be me and you tonight.”

  Max shrugs. “That’s fine. I just want my sprinkles because I have a good idea for decorating my cookies.”

  Oh, how lucky he is to be so blissfully happy.

  I know the sugar cookie recipe by heart, so I start measuring out ingredients and mixing them into a bowl. Max starts singing along to Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer, and I sing along too, putting on a fake smile every time he looks over at me.

  Even if all of the Christmas spirit has been sucked out of my life by broken hearts and bad times, I smile anyway. I do it for my little brother, because he’s the only person in this family who still believes in holiday magic. Maybe that’s the most I can hope for right now.

  Chapter Two

  Last night was the worst. Mom broke down and cried in front of me. I’ve never seen her cry before—not even when she and Dad got divorced. I mean sure, she’s gotten teary eyed at a sad part in a move, but that is not even close to being the same. After Max had gone to bed, Mom came into my room and told me there would be no Christmas this year. I already knew that money was tight, and I wasn’t expecting any gifts—I mean, we don’t even have a Christmas tree. But apparently my mom still clung to some hope that she’d find a way to buy gifts, and it wasn’t until last night that she lost all of that hope.

  I didn’t know the full details of our precarious financial situation until last night. Mom told me that she’s sold off all of her jewelry, antiques, and anything of value that she had just to keep the bills paid. While rent is covered as long as she cleans apartments, we still have groceries, the light bill, the cell phone bill, and stuff to pay for. Mom’s credit cards are maxed out and there’s still no hope in sight that she’ll get a job any time soon. She used to search for admin assistant jobs to replace her old job, but now she can’t even get a call back from a fast food restaurant.

  I knew things were as bad as they could get when she told me that she had reached out to Dad. Their divorce was quick and simple. Dad found a new woman he liked better than Mom, and he let her keep everything, which wasn’t much since we had recently sold our house and moved into an apartment so that Dad could fund his new business venture.

  Spoiler alert – the new business failed. Now he lives with his girlfriend and he never calls us or offers to visit Max. When Mom was crying on my bed last night, she told me that Dad had apologized for not sending in any child support money and said that he was also out of work and had nothing left to give. So that’s it, my mom said – Christmas is cancelled.

  Well there are still two weeks left until Christmas, and I refuse to believe that.

  I lean back in my chair in English class and look up my town’s local Facebook page on my phone. The best part about being in school now is the free Wi-Fi. Now that we don’t have internet at home, I soak it up all that I can in class. There’s a jobs page on here where people post odd jobs they need to be done. I scroll through it looking for something I can do to earn some money, but it’s all stuff that’s out of my skillset. I could totally mow someone’s lawn, but the people who are posting those jobs want you to bring your own mower.

  After finding no good jobs to do, I decided to make my own post. I offer to do babysitting, laundry, or any odd job that someone wants to be done. It feels weird putting myself out here like this, but maybe someone will hire me and then I can buy Max some gifts and my mom will smile again. I smile to myself as I think about it – saving Christmas. How cool would that be?

  A shadow falls over my desk. “Are you finished, or should I wait longer?”

  I look up and see my English teacher, Mrs. Castell, glaring at me. Uh oh. I swallow and put my phone down. “I’m finished.”

  “Phones aren’t allowed in class,” she says, turning on her heel and walking back toward her desk. “You’ll stay after school and help with cleanup.”

  I groan to myself and ignore the stares from my fellow classmates. We’re not even doing anything in class right now! Everyone was supposed to finish their expository essays and then we’re free to do homework until the bell rings. All I was trying to do is save Christmas. And now I have detention.

  Mary Hart High School is a teensy tiny school in the Texas hill country. Our whole town has a population of just under four thousand people, so there’s not much tax dollars going to fund the school. Because of that, detention is called Clean Up Duty. After school, you have to report to the cafeteria and help wipe down tables, sweep, mop, that kind of thing.

  So although I’d rather be out trying to earn some money, when school is over I slowly make my way down to the cafeteria so I can work and not get paid for it. How annoyingly ironic. To make matters worse, we have to leave our phones at the door and can’t take them into detention, so I have no idea if anyone has replied to my post online yet.

  I’m in the process of turning off my phone at the cafeteria doors when I see him. Tall and tan, with dark hair and a dimple in his left cheek that I used to see a lot when he’d smile at me. But Ricky is smiling at her now.

  They’re holding hands and walking toward the student parking lot. They don’t see me, luckily, but I still have to see them. Even now, months after the breakup, it still sends a jolt of pain right through my heart when I see my ex-boyfriend with her. He looks so happy. I wonder if he ever looked that happy when we were dating?

  I study the girl. Her name is Braylin, but I prefer to think of her as Boyfriend Stealer. She’s pretty, and also tan, and she’s in all AP classes. I still don’t see what makes her so much better than me, though. Is it because she drives a shiny black sports car? I roll my eyes and turn away, wishing the pain in my chest would go away so I can focus on the pain of detention instead.

  I drop my phone in the bucket next to Mrs. Powell, the cafeteria lady who is also in charge of Clean Up Duty. She’s wearing a bright red sweater with Christmas lights embroidered on it.

  “I don’t see you in detention very often,” she says, eyeing me as she checks my name off on her chart. “What’d you do?”

  “I tried to save Christmas,” I say bitterly.

  She gives me a weird look, then checks something on her paper. “You can be on table cleaning duty with Connor.”

  In the cafeteria, my fellow delinquent students are already getting to work. There’s a few guys mopping the floor, one girl cleaning the windows, which is odd because I can’t picture her ever getting into trouble, and then Connor Devos, who is staring tentatively out at the cafeteria as if he forgot something.

  I watch him for a minute before I approach him. He’s a junior like me, with a musc
ular build from playing softball, and light brown hair that’s shaggy and slightly curly. I know the coach hates his hair being so long because he always yells out, “Cut your hair, Devos!” when he passes him in the hallway. I think it looks good, though. His hair is playful and cute, making him seem more approachable than some of the other jocks who sport buzz cuts and act all intimidating in class.

  I know Connor a little bit because we live in a town the size of a Christmas ornament. Because of this, everyone knows everyone, and I’ve had classes with every student in my grade since I was in kindergarten. Connor and I have worked on science labs together, and we’re always on the volunteer group to make the floats for the homecoming parade each year. But we’re not really friends.

  “I’ve got table duty with you,” I say, walking up.

  He startles a bit, then smiles. “Hey, Jayda. You have detention? What did you do?”

  The surprise on his face makes me laugh. I put my hands on my hips. “What? You think I’m not a rule breaker? You think I’m too good to get in trouble?”

  He laughs and rocks back on his heels. “Nah, I just never see you. It’s only December and I’ve somehow found myself here like ten times already.”

  I fold my arms over my chest. “What did you do?”

  “Tardies mostly.” He rolls his eyes. “If you’re even half a second late to Mr. Lynn’s class, he gives you a tardy.”

  “Lame.”

  “So what’d you do?” Connor asks again.

  I shrug. “It’s a long story.”

  He pretends to look at a watch even though he’s not wearing one. “I have time. We can talk and clean tables.”

  My stomach tightens. I’m not telling him that I tried to save Christmas and got in trouble for being on my phone. I’m not going to tell anyone that. It’s too embarrassing and sad and I don’t need pity. I need to just get out of here and go find a paying job. “Let’s just clean, okay?”

  “Sure thing,” he says, dropping the subject. He hands me a towel and a spray bottle of cleaner. “You want to take every other table?”