Page 53

The Blossom Avenue Snow Globe

Windows rolled up, volume turned all the way down, I wait for the ringing emanating from Ma’s car speakers to finally stop as she drives slowly over patches of black ice and puddles of dirty, slushy snow lining Blossom Avenue.

Nearly every house on our block has at least one strand of multicolored Christmas lights strung on the gutters or wound around wrought iron porch gates.

Too many have those inflatable characters like Mickey Mouse Santa Claus or Snowman Baby Yoda, which I find lazy.

There used to be two houses with the best light displays on the block: big, chunky retro lights framing each window and both roofs, old-school animatronics robotically waving candles in every front-facing window.

Now, it’s just one. The Lemon house with our washed-out Italian and Pride flags.

The other used to belong to the DeLucas. Before it sold last August, after the wedding. End of an era, if you ask me.

Our house might not win any prizes for light displays, but it’s home.

Snowflakes gently flutter to the ground, making Blossom Avenue look like a giant suburban snow globe.

Ricky’s voice patches through the speakers.

“Finally, what took you so long!” I shout.

“Hi, sweetie! Guisy here, you’re on speaker!” Ma bellows. “How’s Seattle?”

“Cold and rainy,” Ricky says. “I’m guessing that means you landed?”

“Didn’t you get my texts?” I ask. “I messaged you as soon as I landed! And again at baggage claim. And again while waiting for Ma.”

“Sorry, I was finishing up a new project, and the woodshop is a—”

“Dead zone, I know,” I finish.

“How was the flight from London?” he asks.

For the past eight weeks, I’ve been interning at Out of This World as a marketing and PR assistant for Michelin-star chef Mars Lyon after I won the @FoodForChange contest. My account has grown tremendously, and all the new content has either been directly behind-the-scenes Out of This World food sustainability reporting or Avello Family Lemon Groves content that Nic Jr. has been sending me to keep raising awareness.

It’s been so rewarding switching gears, and though I miss going to restaurants and food trucks and trying new places and reviewing, I feel like I’ve found my calling.

After the holidays, when I fly back to London for the final month of filming, I finally get to be on-air for the guest judge spot, which I’m super stoked about.

It’s exhausting with long filming hours, living on my own, having to learn on my own, and navigate this world, but I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything.

Ricky and I have done our best to FaceTime when we can, but the time difference has been difficult.

After spending a week together in Amalfi, I could only imagine how magical two months would have been with Ricky in London, exploring the English countryside, touring foggy castles, and eating fish-and-chips.

All of which I had zero time for, but still.

I am nothing if not a dreamer. That was enough to keep me going.

Knowing that Ricky and I would be together again, somewhere, at some point, whenever and wherever that may be.

“ Long! Being in the back of the plane next to a screaming kid and mom who scrolled Instagram the entire time gave me such a migraine. But it’s so nice to be home.

I miss you. I can’t believe I’m not seeing you for Christmas!

” Ricky flies from Seattle to South Carolina to his parents’ new house tomorrow morning for Christmas.

I wonder if Sienna and Topher are coming to town for the holidays, or if they’ll end up going to South Carolina.

Neither Ricky nor I know because Topher makes day-to-day decisions based on what direction the wind blows, so getting an answer from him over the last few weeks has been a futile effort.

“I know, but we’ll be together for New Year’s,” he says, voice full of excitement.

“I can’t wait!” I say, smiling ear to ear. “What time does your flight get in on the twenty-eighth? Noon, right?”

Ma pulls into the driveway, unbuckles her seat belt, and grabs her purse. “Merry Christmas, Ricky! I’m going inside. Wish you were freezing your ass off in New York with the rest of us!”

“Ha ha, me too! ’Bye, Queen G! Merry Christmas!”

Ma slams the door and walks to the side of the house. Nonna opens the door, and a beacon of light floods the driveway. Clad in her favorite Mrs. Claus apron, Nonna waves me over emphatically.

“Ricky, Nonna’s making sauce!”

“FaceTime me and show me,” Ricky says. “I miss that woman’s sauce.”

“Yes, please! I miss your face,” I whine. I glance over to the old DeLuca house, which has one small light on in the living room, but a driveway full of strange new cars.

“Actually, go, enjoy the fam. Tell everyone I said hi.”

“How dare you rush me off the phone!” I scoff.

He laughs and my heart beats faster. “Cam and Benny are about to pick me up anyway. A little Friendsmas dinner.”

I roll my eyes. Thankfully we’re not FaceTiming so Ricky can’t see.

I know what you’re thinking, dear reader: How can Ricky be friends with Cam?

How can Fielder “allow” this? What’s going on here?

Let’s clear up a few things. I’m totally supportive of them being friends.

Cam apologized to me for trolling my Clock channel, and I owned up to trying to break them up in Amalfi.

Cam and I are never going to be besties, but we don’t have to be.

We’re cool. Ricky and Cam find value in each other’s friendship, and I love that for them.

What matters is that I trust and love Ricky, and he needs Cam as a friend.

Also, yes, you did hear that correctly. Cam and Benny. Infer what you wish.

“That’s nice. I’m glad he has you,” I say. “Tell them I said hi.”

“I hear the eye roll,” he says. “I love you! Tell the Coven I love them, too.”

“Love you too, Ricky DeLuca.”

“Love you more and most, Fielder Lemon.”

From outside the tangy smell of Nonna’s sauce is immediate, luscious, and warm. The closer I get to the side door, the louder everything gets. Pots and pans banging and scream-talking and—

Matty!

In the window. Waving like the golden retriever he is. My heart races, and I nearly slingshot myself up the steps. He said he wouldn’t be home from his first semester at Stony Brook until tomorrow!

Zia Rosa and Zia Gab sit at the kitchen table, laughing.

I race up the stairs. Topher and Sienna are stirring Nonna’s saucepot, and behind them, Ricky’s parents sip wine, his dad pouring a glass and handing it to Ma, who strains snow out of her hair.

Flinging open the door, Matty throws himself at me. “Thank god you’re back. I have so much to tell you. So much has happened. I think I failed English, don’t tell my ma. Oh, and the two guys I was dating kind of found out about each other, and . . .” His cheeks turn red. “ So much to tell you.”

He doesn’t get the chance to say more because everyone else crowds me like I’ve been gone ten years.

“What are you all doing here?” I rip my jacket off and hug Topher and Sienna. “I didn’t think—” All the emotions rush to the back of my throat, and I fight back tears.

Everyone hurls questions at me about London and the internship at once as if they all don’t call me multiple times a week, and I can barely focus. Suddenly Nonna breaks through the noise and asks, “Pasta Dolce, be a good kid and go grab the Bluetooth speaker from your room. We need some music.”

“More noise? Really, Nonna?”

She smacks me upside the head. “Did I stutter? Disgraziato!”

“All right, all right, Madonna mia!”

Sienna delicately clutches her belly. She gives me a knowing look as if I caught her doing something I’m not supposed to see, and her eyes plead.

My lips are sealed. Though, the Coven collectively is far more perceptive, so this should be an interesting Christmas.

Nonna shoos me down the hallway.

My bedroom door is cracked open, and the light is already on.

Nudging it open, the first thing I see is Ricky holding a small present.

“What—” I throw my bag to the floor and sprint into his arms, jumping on him and wrapping my legs around his waist.

Burying my face into the crook of his neck, I melt into him. “Nice cover.”

“Yeah, I had to get off the phone before you came into the house.” He nuzzles me back and squeezes tight. “You said you missed my face. How much?”

I pull back. “More than you know.” I kiss every square inch of his beautiful face.

He’s beaming, his dreamy brown eyes so full.

Sliding out of his arms and back to the floor, I hold my arms out. “Present?”

He laughs. “Some things never change. So, hear me out. I’d been racking my brain forever thinking of a way to come into my own as a woodworker.

Find my voice. I still don’t totally know what I want to focus on, but I’m leaning more toward custom art and more practice pieces whose intention is to make a difference.

” Between his fingers dangles a small wooden lemon carved from oak to resemble a Sfusato Amalfitano, the bulbous and beautiful Amalfi lemon.

At its bottommost tip, it’s painted yellow with flecks of metallic gold and sealed with epoxy, resembling the ceramics we saw everywhere in Italy.

At the top is a thin white gold chain. He hands it to me.

On the left side is a small hinge, nearly invisible, and a latch on the other. I open it, and inside is a tiny packet of lemon tree seeds, and an excerpt of one of the poems I found in his journal, which he let me keep, repurposed:

“If love is a tree

Who planted its seed?”

It’s a perfect reinvention and reinterpretation of us, his past turmoil and our ability to rebuild. All it took was for both of us to tend to each other, help each other grow.

“You inspired me with the whole @FoodForChange stuff,” he says.

“And I wanted to help. So I figured maybe we can sell these, with all different seeds since you can’t grow a lemon tree in the Northeast, for example, and donate all the proceeds to the Avello farm, and others like it in Italy? ” He’s bouncing on his heels. “And—”

“I love that idea!”

“You do?” He’s surprised, as if he thought he’d have to sell me.

“We’re a team, I’m always behind you.” My nose grazes his. “Except I am mad at you for not telling me you were coming home.”

He pecks my lips, refusing my ire with his cuteness. “What fun would that have been? I missed you too much, Field. You didn’t think I would spend one more Christmas without you, did you?”

“You played a good game.”

He tips an invisible hat to me. “One last game.”

I move to kiss him, but he jerks away.

“I’ve never done this before . . . kissed a dude .” His voice is husky and low.

“Neither have I.” My words are hazy, lost in a dream of a Christmas four years ago. “You wanna kiss a dude?”

He grabs a fistful of my shirt and pulls me into him.

I could stay lost in him forever.

If not for Matty, who knocks politely three times but doesn’t wait for an answer and instead bolts to my bed and jumps on the mattress.

“Okay, I know you guys haven’t seen each other in months, but we’re all starving and waiting for you to have your reunion to eat, but y’all could be in here fucking for hours and I’m not about that life.

” Before he can get in another word, Ma peeks her head in.

“I love having a full house again; it’s been so quiet!”

“What am I, chopped liver?” Nonna asks.

“What are we doing in here?” Zia Gab pushes Ma out of the way. “I’ve been waiting to hear about Fielder’s trip, and I’m not getting any younger!”

Zia Rosa trails behind and yells, “Gabriella, I was talking to you!” She sits right next to Matty, clearly without any intention of leaving quickly.

“Leave the piccioncini alone!” Topher calls out.

This noise and chaos is a comfort I’ll take with me wherever I go.

Ricky slips his hand in mine.

We’re home.