Page 101 of Worth the Fall
“Uh-huh.”
“Does Santa have a house?”
“Yep.”
“What about the elves? Are there elves?” she asked, and I decided that maybe Thomas was right. Some things should be a surprise.
“Just wait and see,” I said as we walked hand in hand toward the main lobby.
As soon as it came into view, Clara stopped walking, and I heard her gasp. I felt the exact same way, seeing it again. Oversize snowflakes of all colors hung from the ceiling at varying heights. Each one was lit up with what looked like a hundred colored lights.
In the middle of the room stood the biggest Christmas tree I’d ever seen, decorated to match. There were giant ball-like ornaments sitting in a sea of red poinsettias that lined a makeshift walkway, which was made out of gingerbread and peppermint-wrapped candies. They led the way to a neighborhood, where multiple gingerbreads houses stood clumped together, with names likeWorkshop, Feeding Station, andToy Store, written on top in white cursive. Of course, it looked exactly like frosting.
The more we walked around, the more we saw. In another section sat a whole area for Santa Claus. The resort always brought in a Santa on the weekends to meet with the kids. It was another tradition that I’d grown up going to, and now, I was a part of it in a different way.
I smiled as I noticed the same massive red velvet chair, lined with gold, that always appeared year after year. A mock fireplace made out of candy canes with gumdrops placed next to the chair. And a nearby desk was covered in sugar cookies and a scroll of paper with a seemingly never-ending list of kids’ names. The whole thing was simply stunning. And made me feel like a kid all over again.
This year’s theme wasnostalgia, and the team had definitely nailed it.
Clara tugged on my hand, her mouth hanging open at the sight. “It’s like magic,” she breathed out.
“I know. I think so too.”
“Is there more?” she asked, clearly feeling the same way that I did.
I shook my head and pulled her down a hallway. There was another tree, surrounded by oversize presents and stockings for giants that hung in the air. The bigger things were, the more miraculous they seemed to appear.
We kept going, following the candy canes that led the way. In the distance, I spotted a bright red mailbox that readLetters for Santain white paint. On each side of the box stood a matching massive nutcracker standing guard. Behind them was another Christmas tree. With even more lights. And more massively sized decor.
It was never ending.
“This is the prettiest one.” Clara beamed.
“What part is your favorite?” I wondered.
“I think the gingerbread houses where the elves work. That was really neat.”
“I like that too,” I said right as my cell phone rang.
I glanced down at it, noticing that it was a call that I’d forwarded from my office line. “I need to get this real quick,” I said.
I watched as she wandered back toward the mailbox, opening the door and letting it close again. She did this a few times before she tried to poke her head inside. I bit back a laugh.
Without realizing it, I began to wander. I did that sometimes when I was focused on a call, and this person was asking a lot of questions. I walked in a circle before I headed down a hallway, my brain committed to the person on the other end of the line. Only once I ended the conversation did I realize that I wasn’t where I’d started out at.
I looked around and noticed that Clara hadn’t followed me and I’d walked pretty far away from where I’d left her. Hustling back to the nutcrackers, I ran to the mailbox, but Clara wasn’t there.
“Clara?” I shouted, but there was no response.
Before I allowed myself to panic, I noticed that the candy cane trail went in two directions—one led outside, and the other went back in the direction we’d come from. I ran toward the door and looked around for any tiny footsteps in the snow-covered walkway, but didn’t see any. Assuming that she wouldn’t go outside in the cold, I turned around and followed the trail back toward the front desk. But when I walked the entire length of the holiday decorations and still caught no sign of her, I had to admit that my heart started to race.
Clara knew the resort well, so I tried to convince myself that she had wandered back to Thomas’s or her Pops’s office. Or maybe she was sitting in mine, waiting for me to get back. I hustled that way first just to check.
“Clara?” I said as I poked my head into my office and noticed her pile of warm clothes still sitting on the couch.
But she wasn’t there. I sprinted to my desk and looked underneath it, but it was empty.
I ran into every restroom. I checked the gingerbread houses one more time to see if she was hiding inside one of them, but she wasn’t. Santa’s room was empty as well. She wasn’t under any of the oversize trees or hiding in the field of poinsettias.