A Valley Ridge Christmas

Aaron glanced down and realized he had picked up a cookbook. A very old cookbook. “No. No one special.”

Maeve nodded and looked at him expectantly. “Was there anything else?”

“Yes. If you meant what you said earlier, can I borrow your copy of The Hobbit?” he asked.

“I’m sure you can, but you also may,” she responded with a grin.

“Funny,” he said, which made her smile wider. “I’m not known for my social skills, but my mother taught me better than that.”

“Give me a minute to turn out all the lights and make sure everything’s locked,” Maeve said.

He waited at the door as Maeve walked through the library.

A few minutes went by before she grabbed a coat from behind the counter, slipped it on and joined him. “I’m only next door.”

After Maeve switched off the sign in the window, and locked the door behind them, she and Aaron carefully made it through the snow-covered parking lot and past the RV to her door. His sneakers had begun to dry out in the library, but were now soaked again.

Maeve paused for a mere second and said, “You might as well come in.”

They entered a tiny mudroom, and when she opened the second door, they walked into a small kitchen. There was a table, a woodstove and cabinets that looked as if they were original to the house, a circa 1960s laminate counter and basic white appliances that seemed ancient.

There were glowing embers behind the glass in the door of the stove. She flipped on a light and said, “It will only take me a moment.”

She went through the archway and turned on another light, this time illuminating a cozy living room. A living room where every wall was in actuality a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. The only breaks in the shelves were for doors and windows. And each shelf was bursting with books. It was easy to see that there were double rows of books on many of them.

“Wow,” he said.

She gave him her first genuine smile of the night. “I’m out of room again. My stepfather is giving me another wall of shelves for Christmas.”

There were no more walls available anywhere that he could see. Even in the kitchen, the walls were lined with cabinets. “Where will you put them?”

“My bedroom. Two of the walls are slanted from the roof line, but there are flat walls on either side. He’s building the shelf around the windows and my bed. I can’t wait.”

“What will you do for shelves after you fill those?” he asked because he was absolutely sure she’d fill them, too.

Maeve dragged the footstool from in front of the rocker over to the shelf that framed the front door and climbed up on it. She pulled out a large book. When she came closer, he could see that it was green leather and in a slipcase. “When I run out of shelves, I’ll think of something else.”

“You could start reading ebooks,” he said.

He waited for her to laugh at the suggestion, as he recognized the expensive book in his hand.

But she didn’t laugh. Instead, she sighed. “I already read ebooks. But my first love will always be printed books. A bound book is a work of art in itself. Speaking of which, hang on while I get a bag for you. I’d rather this one didn’t get waterlogged if it starts to snow or sleet again.”

The slipcase of the green leather book read The Hobbit and the spine was embossed with gold and red lines and decorative squiggles. “I can’t borrow this. I thought you were offering me a paperback. You’re right. A book like this is a work of art.”

She reached out and ran a finger over the leather binding, obviously savoring the feel. “I know. I found it while I was browsing through the bookstore when I was in college. I didn’t have any money to spare. I took a job as a housekeeper full-time at a hotel, did work study on campus and still had classes. No time, no money. I didn’t want this book, I needed it. I ate peanut butter and crackers for weeks to save enough money to pay for it. But it was worth it. What a wonderful way to read the book the first time round. Don’t get me wrong, I have plenty of paperbacks, but there’s something about a leather-bound book. The heft of it. The smell. There’s even the sound. That creak as you open the cover. It tells you that the book was stitched together, not simply glued. A book like this is meant to be enjoyed. Savored even.”

“I’ll be very careful with it.”

She took the book, tucked it into a plastic grocery bag, along with his cookbook, and handed them back. “There you go. And when you finish it, ask me to borrow my copy of The Lord of The Rings. It’s in red leather and equally beautiful.”

“More peanut butter and crackers?” he asked.

“No. I got that one later. I was past my peanut butter years then.” She glanced at the clock and said, “Speaking of late—”

It was a hint. A not so subtle hint that she was ready for him to leave. But he wasn’t ready to leave her. He stood there, with his plastic bag of books and his coat on and he didn’t want to go. Not yet. He struggled to find a conversational gambit. “So, you worked all day at the winery in Ripley—”

She gave him a sharp look. “How did you know that?”

It wasn’t the reaction he’d been looking for. He should probably face it—he didn’t know how to talk to women anymore. “This is Valley Ridge. I bet I could find out your birthday and who you took to homecoming when you were in high school by next week’s Riddlefest.”

That look of suspicion was replaced by a smile. “The sad truth of it is you probably could.”

He tried again. “So, now that you’re done working and volunteering for the day, what do you do with your time?”

She glanced at the clock again. “I’m going to watch A Christmas Carol. It’s on at eight.”

“It’s not Christmas yet.”

“I know. I thought about recording it, but there’s something about watching it live on TV that I like. There are so many versions of that movie. I’m planning to catch as many of them as I can, and then I’ll reread the book.”

She looked so pleased with her idea. He was confused. “Why watch them all?”

“I found ten television and movie versions. I want to see how each director’s vision of the story differed, what parts are universal to all the films.”

She seemed to sense his confusion and sighed. “Here’s the thing, if you told a story and I told the same story, there would be differences. Things that stood out for you might not be the parts that stood out for me. A few years ago, Harlequin—”

He must have looked confused because she clarified, “They publish romance books. One of the biggest publishers in the world. Anyway, they asked a group of authors to participate in a storytelling adventure. The authors started with the same paragraph, and then each had to write the rest of the story. Every author came at it from his or her individual perspective. One was humorous, one was historical... They were all different, despite the fact they all started at the same place. I thought that watching the same movie as envisioned by different directors and acted by different actors would be interesting, so—” She shrugged. “Why am I telling you this? Go read The Hobbit and let me get to my movie.”

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