A Billionaire for Christmas

Dumas Street is the length of five cottages on either side, plus one—my parents’ place and family home—at the top of the cul-de-sac, right in the middle.

The Emma and Jesse cottage is on my parents’ immediate right as you’re looking at the house, and across the street from us is Alonzo’s cottage. Next to us is Tony’s place, and across from Tony’s place is Luke’s, which is now filled with some random holiday family because Luke is living a sexy dream life with Zach and naked girl right next door. The rest of them are all rentals.

The street isn’t very wide, and almost all of it is taken up with street vendors and food trucks, which are lined up down the middle. Yes, there’s shaved ice. There’s always a shaved ice truck. But we’ve got a beer garden, and a pizza truck, and even a pop-up Cuban restaurant. Not to mention a merry-go-round and a Ferris wheel at the bottom of the street and even some carnival games.

It’s a pretty big deal to rent one of the Dumas cottages during the annual tree-lighting ceremony. And while this is not really a city event, the whole island gets in on it. It’s just a big ol’ night of fun.

Back when I was a kid it was a block party. This was before my parents bought up the cottages and they were filled with neighbors. We had a potluck, and that tradition continues today, but it’s only for family and volunteers now. It happens in the back yard after the palm tree is lit up and the festivities are winding down. And all the kids back when I was little would play in the blocked-off street. Some years we had fireworks. That was the big deal back when this all started.

I can honestly say I never imagined it would turn into this.Later, Jesse and I walk next door to my parents’ house and immediately get a warm, over-the-top welcome from my mother—who wants to feed us everything in the kitchen—and suffocating bear hugs from my father. Alonzo punches Jesse on the arm way too hard, but Jesse laughs it off like a good sport, and then Tony does his famous hug swing when he shows up.

I watch Jesse as all this goes down.

My family is… big. Not big as in a lot of people, though four kids and parents is larger than most families these days. But big as in boisterous. We are loud, and we talk over people, and we are all very, very bossy.

But Jesse seems to love it. And I love that he loves it. He soaks it up. Takes all the hits my brothers throw at him in stride. And when we’re down here he never seems to stop smiling.

And my family loves him. Alonzo gives him a hard time, but I can tell Jesse is growing on him. Alonzo invited us to go deep-sea fishing with him this week. That’s no small invitation when it comes to Alonzo. He takes his swordfish seriously.

So I forget all about Karen. I see her and her family every now and then throughout the afternoon and evening. But she keeps her distance and that’s the best I can hope for, I guess.

It’s about eight in the evening when I break away from my job as vendor liaison and find Jesse standing in the shaved ice line.

“What are you getting?” I ask, sliding up next to him and slipping my hand in his.

“Cherry vanilla in a souvenir cup.” He winks. “Wanna share with me?”

“You bet.”

He orders. The girl—a teenager, just like I was that first afternoon when Jesse and I first met on this very island, just a few blocks away—smiles at Jesse like he’s the best thing to happen to her in her whole life.

I know the feeling, chickie. Trust me. I know the feeling.

She turns to us, handing the pink cup over, but then stops and gets a weird look on her face.

“Everything OK?” Jesse asks.

“Um… uh…” the girl stammers. And then she turns the cup around and points to the picture on the front.

It says ‘Dumas Street Tree Lighting’ and there’s a picture of me and my whole family on the front. Only this year Jesse’s face is on the cup too.

Jesse laughs. “Will you look at that?” Jesse says, taking the cup. “I’m family.”

“You’re family,” I agree.

We take the shaved ice and walk back over to our cottage and share it as we sit on the top step of the porch and watch the people all around us.

We sit in silence for a while.

Not that anything around us is silent. It’s nothing but noise, actually. But it’s the peaceful kind of noise. The bustle of happy people. The shouts of excited teenagers at the top of the Ferris wheel and the squeals of sugared-up kids as they chase each other in the grass of the cottage front yards.