Christmas with Nick Klaas

Part 2: Noël Noelle

Meanwhile, a few minutes earlier on the other side of the world . . .

Up close, the lights on the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree were almost blinding. The thousands—even tens, maybe hundreds of thousands—of twinkling red, blue, white, and green bulbs dazzled, but surprisingly gave off no heat at all. They were probably those power-saving LED kind, which was great for the environment, but no help in warming up Noelle Nixon's frozen fingers.

Grasping the neck of her violin with one hand, Noelle tucked the bow under her arm and blew warm air into her clenched fist. Playing an outdoor concert just four days before Christmas in eighteen degree weather ahead of an impending blizzard was the true definition of insanity. Especially when the one thing the twenty-four year old musician hated more than the upcoming holiday was snow. Sure it could be pretty, but to the woman who grew up on a forty-foot sailboat in the eastern Caribbean, everything else about frozen water that fell from the sky when daylight became scarce was—quite frankly—abhorrent.

Snow was cold. It also hurt against your skin, and it blocked roads and sidewalks. Even when trampled down by those brave—or stupid—enough to go into it, the fluffy stuff packed into ice. And ice was slippery, leading to more than Noelle's fair share of bruised tailbones since coming to New York nearly six years ago. So in spite of all those wintry chick-flicks where the cosmopolitan girl returned to her roots only to fall in love with the small-town boy who had been right in front of her all along, Noelle could never be persuaded to find snow romantic. At most it was a necessary nuisance to be tolerated. But tonight—on what also happened to be the longest night of the year—Noelle was hoping against hope that she wouldn't even have to do that. Maybe the spirits of the Equinox would take pity on her, and the blizzard would turn away.

Exhaling a warm breath into her fist once more, Noelle looked around. There were too many people in red velvet Santa hats, too many festively decorated cups of peppermint-drizzled coffee, and too many pots of poinsettias, which aren't even real flowers, but mildly toxic leaves for her liking.

She was no Scrooge, of course. Nor did she consider herself a Grinch for her long-held disdain of Christmas. It certainly wasn't happiness she begrudged others in a world that could actually use a lot more of it. But there was something to be said for the overwhelming materialism of the season that both Charles Dickens and Dr. Seuss rightly pointed out in their classic tales. Materialism that couldn't have been more evident than by this year's "it" pop star who at that very moment was lip-syncing a trite, country-meets-house remix of "Sleigh Bells" on the stage.

"She's amazing, isn't she?" The question made Noelle jump. Looking over her shoulder from her spot in the wings, she eyed the pretty blonde while giving a raised eyebrow and a forced pout. But in spite of the attempted visual mockery, Avery Boone—wrangling a double bass nearly a foot taller than her—kept on smiling. And, unfortunately, talking.

"You know she's from Dallas, which is only about an hour away from where I—"

"Nice story. Can't talk." Noelle cut her off before turning away.

It wasn't that she disliked the woman; she just didn't like her. There was a difference. Like with mushrooms on a pizza. If it were already there, she wouldn't waste her time picking it off. But never would Noelle actively choose to order it on a slice.

The thing was, the woman with the perfect ringlets in her golden blonde hair, the Fifth Avenue wardrobe, and the supermodel looks without the snooty attitude was always friendly, cheerful, and sweet. And that was . . . well, it was just unnatural. No one in their right mind could ever be as care-free, genuine, or downright content without acting or playing at something.