Page 20 of The Summer of Christmas

“So, you’re not a couple that is out in the open, because you still have some doubts,” Carol psychoanalyzed.

“Darn your psych classes,” Ivy said. But she was laughing. “Yeah, we decided that we would keep our relationship on the down low until the film wrapped. Don’t need to confuse the crew.”

“I guess this means you’re finally over Nick.”

“Yes, Nick broke up with me. And yes, I am over him. And yes, I’m now dating Drew who…” Ivy stopped. She was looking out her window, and there on the sidewalk in front of her house was none other than Drew. She couldn’t have been happier to see him.

She stuck her head out the window and called out, “Drew!” He looked up at her and waved. Ivy noticed that her parents were outside with him. They were all looking up at something on the roof.

Ivy twisted her head farther out the window to see what they were looking at, and she saw her. It was Vera, the indie film director, standing up on the roof over the garage. Vera was a tiny dynamo.

“I love it! So authentic!” Vera called out to Drew. She lifted the director’s eyepiece that was around her neck and peered through it with a Dutch angle—which was really just a fancy word for tilted angle. “If we’re going to fake Christmas in July, it might as well look real!”

Ivy called out to everyone below, “What are you all doing here?”

Drew looked up at Ivy and motioned for her to come down. She loved how his eyes twinkled with happiness when he saw her. “Vera and I were at the production office and we were going over the location photos, and I realized that I should just bring her over to see the actual house that we’re filming in.”

“What?” Ivy was shocked.

“Your dad said we could film inside your house,” Drew said.

“I thought you were just going to film the exteriors and cheat the interiors in a studio.”

“That wouldn’t be authentic,” Vera called out.

Ivy was starting to hate how Vera threw around the wordauthenticall the time. “I don’t think my parents would like that.”

“It’s cool, honey. I told Drew that we wouldn’t mind.” Mitch smiled.

Even Linda gave Ivy a thumbs-up. “It’ll be fun!” Linda grinned. Ivy couldn’t remember the last time her mother had used the wordfun. What was happening to her family? Who were these people, because she didn’t recognize them! Was it really the excitement of having a movie filmed in their hometown?

“And Vera’s thinking about putting me in the movie!” Mitch called out.

“What?” Ivy almost fell out of her window in shock.