Page 97 of Not Home Alone

MERRILY

ONE YEAR LATER

I was right. The Moody Estate Vineyard and Winery is a great venue for a wedding. They’re usually booked out half a year in advance for events in the spring, summer, and fall, but lucky for me, it’s winter—and I know a guy who gave me a discount on the location. Lucky for the guy, I’m the consultant for their events, so I gave him a discount on my services. Lucky us—we get to marry each other today.

Was it a tiny bit evil of me to choose this date for our nuptials? Claiming Christmas Day as our anniversary for the rest of our lives? Or did Grant suggest next February 14 as our wedding day, knowing that I would insist on December 25 instead? We’ll never know. Which is to say, of course he did.

Just as he knew that I would refuse to take a paid position as events coordinator for The Moody Estate Vineyard and Winery. But he did encourage me to start my own side hustle as an events consultant in Holly Grove—my own business, so if I choose to put a lot of effort into it—great! This way, they can hire me when I’m not too busy making The Christmas Barn a thriving business along with my dad, or directing Christmas plays with the Holly Grove Players throughout the year all over town, like theater pop-ups, hosted by our store.

I had the vineyard event space decorated in a Notcracker theme, and everyone in here is happy. Well, April is happy-adjacent. She was deeply disappointed to find out it isn’t legal for people to get ordained in Illinois until they’re eighteen, because she wanted to be our officiant. It would be more accurate to say that she was gutted to find out that we refused to wait another year to get married. But our neighbor offered to get ordained online so she could minister our wedding. When April found out we asked Mrs. Crowley to write our wedding vows, she forgave us immediately.

April, it should be noted, is having an exciting holiday season this year, as she not only starred as Clara in The Notcracker performance yesterday, she is also one of my bridesmaids. She refused to walk down the aisle with one of the groomsmen, though. Instead, she put casters on Ronald the Reindeer’s feet, a leash around his neck, and rode him as her aunts pulled them down the aisle.

There was a lot of cheering, because everyone is a little tipsy. Despite Grant hiring an excellent winemaker in January, and doing all the other sexy things he said he’d do if he were in charge of the Moody Estate business, they won’t actually be bottling delicious, quality wine for another two to five years. But once Ava and Todd found out that Grant had been cleaning up their messes all along and they saw the receipts—after holding a grudge for months because they wouldn’t have good reasons to visit New York several times a year—they let him make executive decisions for them at the winery and the ski resort.

During the cocktail hour, though, adult guests enjoyed samples from the microbrewery Grant ended up investing in. He let me come up with names for their new offerings. We served Frosty the Stout-man, Feliz Navi-draft, and The Grinch Who Stole My Pint. For the kids, we offered Warm Hug in a Mug and Jingle Juice. You don’t want to know what’s in the Jingle Juice.

My dad, after a few stops and starts down the aisle, because he kept pausing to cry, has now handed me over to Grant and joined Connie and my mom and her husband in the front row nearest the altar. I knew I looked good in my red velvet gown with white faux fur trim, but the way my groom is staring at me, we might not make it through the ceremony without him ripping it off me in front of everyone.

He refused to wear a Santa hat as I’d requested, but Robert did! Since he retired, he’s become more, well, not more fun so much as less uptight. He didn’t bring a date to the wedding, but he is slowly getting back out there.

Grant, who is never getting back out there again, is wearing a holly berry-red silk tie, red silk pocket square in his breast pocket, and a mistletoe boutonniere.

I hand my red, white, and green bouquet to my maid of honor, Joy, and definitely don’t notice the way Wyatt, who is Grant’s best man, is watching her every move. With perfect timing, the string quartet finishes playing a classical andante arrangement of “All I Want for Christmas is You.”

Nobody tells us to hold hands yet, but Grant takes mine in his as soon as they’re free.

Mrs. Crowley reads aloud from a large index card that’s labeled “Index Card.” “A note from the officiant… I wrote a play when I was eleven years old. It was the first and last play I’ve written, which is fine, because it was an immediate hit and an instant classic. I haven’t written much aside from lists or journal entries since penning The Not-Ballet Nutcracker. I was asked to write the vows for these two beautiful young people, but nothing would have stopped me if they hadn’t. I had been—as the kids today say—privately shipping them for eleven years. It was troubling to watch our groom break our bride’s heart on stage that time, but I knew. I could see it from the back of the house; I saw the way he looked at her before the not-kiss moment. I knew they’d end up together eventually. As always, it was a pleasure, being right. It is now time for Grant and Merrily to recite their vows. Pay attention. I worked on them considerably. Also—it should be stated that contrary to popular belief, I did not murder or eat my husband.”

Her date, Harold, cheers for her in the audience.

“But my boyfriend might not be so lucky,” she deadpans. Then she nods at Grant. “Go ahead.”

Grant clears his throat and squeezes my hands. “I, Grant Moody, take thee, Merrily Noelle Tucker, with full knowledge of what I’m doing. For even when I am behaving like a fool, I mostly know what I’m doing… I was a wooden man once. Not literally—that was acting—but in the ways that matter. I was stiff and stuck and in danger of staying that way, until thou threw thy slipper at the Mouse King of my life. Which is a metaphor. Though thou hast, on at least one occasion, thrown an actual slipper when thou wert frustrated with me, and that was also appreciated.

“I vow to believe in thee when believing is easy. And also when it is not easy. Even when it is the middle of winter and everything is cold and dark and it would be very reasonable not to believe in anything at all—I vow to believe anyway. That is what thou taught me. The anyway.

“I vow to walk with thee through whatever kingdoms come. I vow to love thee, not as a nutcracker loves—stiffly, woodenly, from behind glass—but as a man loves. With hands that move. With a heart that beats. With full knowledge that the ordinary and the wonderful are sometimes, if thou art very lucky, the same thing. Thou art my same thing. Thou art the bee’s knees. Thou art, in every way that matters… my anyway.”

And now I’m up. “I, Merrily Tucker, take thee, Grant Alexander Moody, which I had secretly wanted to do when I was seventeen, and even more so when I was twenty-seven, standing in a high school auditorium, in a costume that did not entirely fit, saying words someone wrote when they were eleven, and meaning every single one of them.

“I looked at thee and thought—there is someone in there who is trying very hard to still be there. I was right. Thou hast been there ever since. I intend to keep being right about this for the rest of my life.

“I vow to be thy Clara. Not the Clara who stands in the light and looks pretty—though I intend to continue doing that as well—but the Clara who comes downstairs at midnight, when everything is strange and uncertain, and stands in the dark anyway. Because something told her it was worth it. Thou art worth it. Thou hast always been worth it.

“I vow to push through every painted sheet with thee. To walk through every kingdom, real or invented. To stand with thee at the last one—the golden one—and say: Not yet. Not tonight. We still have time. And then I vow to say it again the next night. And the next. Until we have had all the time there is.

“I heard what thou whispered in my ear on stage last year. Every word. The whole auditorium wondered what thou said, and I have kept it like a thing in a cabinet that is mine and only mine. I believed it then and I believe it now and I will always believe. Merry Christmas, my prince. And Happy New Wife to you.”

Mrs. Crowley, who is smiling more than I thought she was capable of smiling, suddenly schools her expression and looks down at her large index card. Then she looks at the guests and back at the card and says, “I wrote a play once about believing in things. I was eleven, and I thought I was being very dramatic. It turns out I was just being accurate.” She looks at me and then at Grant. “You may kiss. The playwright recommends it. She feels strongly about this.”

We do too. We feel strongly about kissing each other. And we do it in the way we’ve been rehearsing it for over a year now.

“I love you, Merrily Moody,” my husband whispers in my ear. Then he licks his lips and says, “Damn. You vixen.”

I applied peppermint lip balm under my holly-red lipstick. That’s what he gets for not wearing the Santa hat. “Love you too, Baby Corn.”

Our guests and wedding party erupt in applause, and the string quartet strikes up Michael Bublé’s “Cold December Night,” Bublé-ing at exactly the right volume.

We’ve got a long night of celebrating ahead. Fortunately, my event coordinator apprentice—Quinn Whitmore—is handling everything tonight while I enjoy myself. We aren’t exactly friends, but she was looking for a new challenge, and it turns out she’s really good at not taking no for an answer when calling vendors to ask for availability or discounts.

Grant and I will be traveling to the Arctic Circle next week, for an ultra-luxurious and very cold, dark honeymoon adventure. Since there are sadly no resorts at the actual North Pole, he’s taking me to a Santa Claus village in Finland. We’ll be staying in a glass igloo and finding creative ways to stay warm. I am quite certain it will be romantic and magical, but I am also certain that there’s nowhere in the world as romantic and magical as Holly Grove. Not for us, anyway.

My mom, her husband, and my stepsiblings are staying with us at the house while they’re in town, so we will not be home alone tonight. And it’s not fine at all; it’s absolutely wonderful.

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