“Good idea. Meanwhile, I was planning on catching some of the pre–Black Friday sales. There are a number of them going on this week. Want to go with me?”
Since Tarvish was no longer on my plate as a problem, I agreed. After leaving a message for my grandmother, Ari and I headed out for some much-needed retail therapy.
Chapter Twelve
Downtown Moonshadow Bay was hopping. I had brought my grocery list to stock up for Thanksgiving so that I wouldn’t have to fight the crowds next week, but we decided to start with shopping for the solstice.
I had been trying to think of what to give to Killian. We had been dating for nearly a year, so I wanted my gift to be special, but I knew he was hoping to officially propose soon and—as much as I cared about him—I didn’t want to encourage it yet. I wanted to have a solid eighteen months to two years on my own before blending my life with someone else’s again on a permanent basis.
“I don’t know what to get him. Though I did hear him complaining because his TV’s on the blink.”
“You’re going to buy him a new television set?” Ari asked, glancing at me. “Isn’t that a bit of a big-ticket item?”
I thought about it for a moment. “I’ve been hinting for a black opal ring. I’ve always wanted one and I know they aren’t cheap. But yeah, that may be a bit much.” I paused as we passed a pet store.
There, in the window, was a litter of rescue puppies. The pet store sold gerbils and hamsters and the like, but they made it a point to avoid selling dogs and cats except for ones brought in by the local rescue shelters. There, in the front window, were a litter of what looked like gorgeous German shepherd–golden retriever mix puppies.
“Oh, aren’t those cute? Killian had a dog he loved in California. She was a golden retriever. I wonder…”
“No,” Ari said. “You know better than that. Never buy a pet for another person. You don’t know if their chemistry will mesh. You don’t know if they want another pet. There are so many things that could go wrong. Besides, I thought you said he prefers cats.”
I bit my lip. Once again, Ari was right. “Yeah, he does, and you’re right. I wouldn’t want somebody else picking out my pets unless I asked them to. I don’t know why this is so hard.”
“You want your gift to be special,” Ari said. “You want him to look at it and think about you, right?”
I snorted. “Maybe I should buy him underwear. Then he’d be thinking about me in all the right places.” I laughed and Ari joined in. “What are you getting for Meagan?”
“That’s easy. She’s been asking for a stand mixer. She loves to bake—and boy is she good at it. So I thought I’d get her what she wants. Didn’t Killian ask for anything?”
I couldn’t remember him saying anything except… “Well, he did mention that he needs a new drill and bit set. That seems so stereotypical, though. Okay, kitchen supply store first, then I’ll decide whether to get him the drill or to keep thinking.”
“Yeah, Beelmeyers is having a sale on all their kitchenware.”
We passed the bookstore, then a stationery stop. “Oh wait—I want to look for a new planner,” I said. “I need one for the new year and I haven’t decided what kind I want. There are so many of them, and I’m looking for one that has a daily agenda as well as monthly.”
Ari mentioned a website. “I found exactly what I wanted there. Unless you want to look through the shop.”
I loved office supply stores, but stationery stores were another matter. “Nope. I’m good. If you say they have a wide choice, I’d rather be able to take my time and browse through. Oh, there’s Beelmeyers. Let’s go.”
As we entered the kitchen supply shop, my gut shopping instinct kicked in and I looked around, feeling like I was in a candy shop. The store had any and every kitchen gadget you could think of. As Ari began looking over the stand mixers, I snapped my fingers.
“I almost forgot. I don’t have a roasting pan big enough for a turkey. I was going to buy a disposable one, but I’d like one for other uses too.”
Ari pointed out the pots and pans section and then dove into reading the specs on the different mixers. I began sorting through the multitude of pans.
There were soup pots, roasting pans, sauce pans, brazier pans, stock pots, Dutch ovens, griddle and grill pans, woks, and that didn’t even begin to count the general bakeware. When you got into cake and cookie pans and pie plates, there were a gazillion different shapes and sizes. I tried to limit myself to the roasting pans but after I found one that fit a twenty-five pound turkey and also had a lid, I began sorting through the bakeware. By the time Ari had chosen a mixer for Meagan, I was standing in the checkout line with a bag of cookie cutters, four new cookie sheets, two Pyrex deep-dish pie plates, the roasting pan, and a wok.
Ari stared at the cookware and then at me. “Opening a restaurant?”
I avoided her gaze. “You know better than to leave me alone with gadgets. Apparently that goes for cookware, too. I thought about buying a restaurant-quality blender, but I have a blender, an immersion blender, and a mini-bullet blender. I talked myself out of the Mix-A-Tron 2000.”
We paid for our purchases and then stored the bags in the back of my SUV, covering them with a blanket, then headed out again. As we neared the center of town, the sound of music caught our attention.
“Let’s go see what’s going on.” I led the way, crossing the street over to the town square.
Moonshadow Bay’s town square was directly across the street from the City Central complex. In the center of the four-way intersection was a large square with a fountain. The “square” was actually a circle, used like a roundabout. The fountain had plenty of room for pedestrians to walk around it, and benches to sit on when the weather was nice. During winter, the fountain was turned off and covered, and the holiday tree was set atop the cover.
The tree was up. I suspected they used a fake one because though it looked perfectly natural, it didn’t seem to need water at the bottom, and it looked the same from year to year.
City workers were standing on tall ladders. One was in a basket on one of those trucks that had a movable crane, like the ones tree pruners used to reach the very tops of tall trees. He had put a large pentacle atop the tree, and was checking the numerous lights that were strung around the tree. The lights were on, but they hadn’t done the official tree lighting ceremony yet—the workers were checking to make sure all the lights were working.
Ari and I strolled past the tree, enjoying the activities. The music was coming from a band run by Clyde Baker, the man who had given me Xi and Klaus. He was in a steel drum band, but they had changed out instruments for the holidays. Clyde was playing a harp, while his bandmates were on keyboard, drums, and violin. They were playing carols, though not the annoying Christmas plastic music that seemed to fill every elevator. These were old Celtic songs, and I suddenly found myself humming along and realized they were playing “Greensleeves.”
When they finished the song, Clyde called for a break. I walked over and gave him a hug.
“Hey, how are you? I didn’t know you could play other instruments besides the xylophone.”