I laugh. “Is that supposed to be how I sound?”
She smiles and tosses me a pinecone from her bag. “Just butter a pinecone, Patrick.”
And butter pinecones we do.
“Is there an order of operations here?” I ask.
“This isn’t algebra class, there isn’t a recipe in a book. It’s peanut butter and all the toppings, in no particular order.”
I sit back and pull out the dried bags of fruit and tear them open. Then I pull out my phone. “Favorite Christmas song?”
Without hesitation, she answers, “ ‘White Christmas.’ You?”
“ ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’.” I try to keep a straight face as I watch hers scrunch up.
“Are you serious? You know—”
“I know it got a bad rap—it’s a song. But I also knew it would get you going, and I’m not gonna lie, Savvy. It’s becoming a hobby.”
“Such a jerk,” she says with no sort of conviction.
“The real answer? I don’t have one favorite.” I tap my music app and add a new playlist, loading it up with different artist remakes of ‘White Christmas.’ Then I hit play and put it on speaker. “Now, let’s pick out your favorite rendition.”
“Bing Crosby,” she answers before hearing any of the others. “On vinyl.”
“You’re a vinyl girl, huh?”
She nods.
As we decorate the peanut butter covered pinecones with dried fruits and birdseed, we listen to ‘White Christmas’ on repeat and talk vinyl.
She’s definitely stuck on the 70’s and 80’s music and knows some pop stuff, due to the fact that she listens to the only station that comes in on the radio at The Bean.
After placing them on the branches of the smallest pine tree in this part of the forest, I have to practically beg her to let me take a picture and promise on my life not to post it on social media. I ended up taking several, making her move around, telling her the lighting wasn’t good or some shit, just to get a few different faces of Savvy Sutton. I’m going to guess the majority are her being annoyed, which will definitely be the ones I save. And then I get her to take a selfie with me.
On the way back to the house, where our dough is being refrigerated, because as much as she’s against rules and hates boundaries, so far, she’s insisted we follow the recipes she chose to the T, she asks, “Are you sure we don’t need anything else at the store for the cookies?”
I love that she’s excited about doing this. Like I legit feel an energy I’ve caught waves of it coming off her every time I’m around her, but it’s been like this all day. She’s still holding back, which is cool; I just hope to get to see her fire ignite when all that passion she feels for so many fucking things is focused on whatever she decides her true purpose is. For now, I get to relish in the fact that I’m sitting front row, watching it all come together.
“Pretty sure we’re good.”
She nods and sits back.
“Favorite season?” she asks.
“Summer and fall.”
“If you had to pick one?” She says the same shit I’ve been telling her every time I ask her a question and she gives me a not so precise answer.
Was always summer, but that’s recently changed. “Touché. Fall. You?”
“Winter,” she says without even thinking.
Not going to lie, that’s definitely not what I was expecting. “You like cold and snow?”
“I like the season in general.”
“Care to embellish?”
“I like snow, because it covers up the dead and rotting mess fall leaves behind. I like the landscape, the bone structure of winter, if you will. It’s a time when even the trees seem lonely, but they still stand, which breeds inspiration and hope. It always seems that, after the holidays, everyone seems to slow down a bit. Like the pressures put on them by society lifts off their shoulders. The cold, the snow, and then the real cold, it tends to literally chill people out, makes people less nasty.”
“Makes sense. Not many people want to be out in it, so no one is clawing at each other or climbing over top of each other to reach that ladder they perceive leads to success. They aren’t chasing the dollar; they’re reflecting. A blank canvas. Interesting … I get it. I like it.”
She leans back and smiles, looking out the window.
“Favorite representation of winter and why?” I ask.
“Snowflakes. Anyone who doesn’t see their beauty hasn’t stood in the cold nearly long enough, which causes them to misunderstand the splendor of the first flowers of spring or appreciate the heat of the summer sun.” She turns and looks at me. “Have you stood in the cold?”
“No longer than it takes to build snowmen, shovel a path to a vehicle, or clear a sidewalk.”
She cringes. “Ouch.”
“But I will now. I look forward to it, actually.”
She turns and looks thoughtfully out the window again. “Promise me, when you look at a bare tree, you won’t feel sad for it.”
“Why would I?”
She looks back at me inquisitively.
“I see how strong they are.”
“When snow covers them, don’t feel sorry for them either.”
“Why would I?”
She cocks her head to the side in question.
“It gets the first kiss of the snow and blanketed in its beauty.”
She smiles and turns away.
* * *
Lying beside her in my bed, a bowl of popcorn between us, remote in my hand, I look over as she scrolls through the pictures thatI took on my phone and deletes most of them.
“Why aren’t there more of you?”
“You didn’t take any.”
“I don’t have my phone.”
“Yeah, about that. You—”
“We’ve been through this twice already. I got it. Don’t leave my wallet and phone in an unlocked vehicle. I’m smart. I retain information easily.”
“Yeah, well, you left keys off the list.”
“If they steal it, there’s insurance, and I won’t have to keep putting a quart of oil in it every time I drive it or—”
“Sell the thing.”
“Or feel guilty about selling my mom’s
