Page 6

Four Christmases since anyone turned that key.

I take my hand back.

Noelle saw. Of course she did. She's on the stool, nearly eye level with the shelf, close enough that her shoulder nearly touches my arm.

"You can't even keep your hand on it," she says quietly.

"It's fragile."

"It's tin."

"It's old tin."

She looks at the carousel. Then at me. She doesn't push, and I don't know what to do with a woman who sees that much and lets it be.

"What's in Denver?" I ask, because I need her eyes somewhere other than that shelf.

She steps down off the stool. "A job. Front desk at a hotel out by the airport. I start Wednesday."

"And a place to live?"

"A room in somebody's apartment. Month to month, if I make the deposit."

"Month to month."

"I don't sign leases."

"How did you end up in Copper Peak?"

"Shay offered her couch, and Copper Peak was on the way."

"On the way to Denver from where?"

"From the last place." She picks up the dustpan and crouches to sweep the scraps into it. "It doesn't matter where. It's never the same place twice."

She says it flat and fast, like a line she's used before, so nobody asks the next question. I want to ask the next question more than I've wanted anything in years.

Instead I hear myself say, "The counter's yours through Christmas if you want it."

That isn't what I meant to offer. It's what I always offer. The window, the wrapping, a candy cane from the jar. Somebody else's Christmas, tied up in red cord. I hand the whole town its magic and keep the rest of me on the shelf.

She stands up with the dustpan. "I'm not staying."

"I heard you the first time."

"Then why offer?"

"Because I want you to."

She dumps the scraps into the trash can. She takes longer than she has to. When she turns around, her face is careful.

"You don't know me."

"I know you can wrap fourteen rolls of paper before six. I know you count things. I know you don't believe a single thing in that window."

"None of it's real."

"The snow outside is real."