The kid didn’t seem fazed by my request. He shrugged. “Whatever. But you’ll have to hop the fence. Security locked it up already.”
I glanced back at the carousel once again. There was a three-foot fence around it. It had been a long time since I did something like that. But hey, why not? “Okay.”
Somehow I managed to scale the fence without ripping my jeans. I started to walk around the colorful carousel, looking for what was beginning to feel more like a unicorn than a black horse with long blonde hair. I made it almost halfway around when I stopped in my tracks.
Oh my God.
There it was.
It was perfect! I clapped my hands together. Not only was it a black horse with a blonde mane, but all four of its hooves were raised in the air like it was midgallop—running like the wind.
I hopped the fence a second time and ran back to the ticket booth. The kid was just locking up the door.
“Can I please buy a ticket?”
He frowned. “Told you. It’s closed.”
“I don’t want to ride it now. I just want to buy a ticket. Two, actually.”
“I already closed out the register.”
I was so excited to have found my unicorn that I got a little carried away with myself. “I’ll give you fifty dollars for two tickets.”
The kid pointed to the sign stuck to the glass. “You know they’re still only three twenty-five a ticket, right?”
“I do. But I really need the tickets. Do they expire?”
He shook his head. “Don’t expire.”
I opened my purse and pulled out a fifty-dollar bill. Flashing the cash always worked to close a street deal in New York. Well, either that, or they stole your wallet when you took it out, and then they bolted. But that had happened to me only once. I held up the fifty-dollar bill between two fingers.
“Fifty dollars. Won’t take you more than a few minutes to open the register back up, I’m sure. Change is yours.”
The kid plucked the bill out of my hand. “Be right back.”
I felt like I’d won the lottery . . . overpaying for two carousel tickets by forty-three dollars and fifty cents.
Yup, I’d lost it.
After seven hours of traveling through three boroughs, four bad dates, and being stood up, I was giddy as I left the park with the tickets securely in my purse. I felt like I’d won a battle. But really, it was only half a battle. Because how the hell was I even going to get little Birdie to Central Park?CHAPTER 4
SADIE
I decided to leave the rest up to fate. I know, I know . . . after all that searching for the black horse and bribing a ticket taker at the park, something still felt wrong about writing to this little girl. So I placed the two carousel tickets into a box, wrapped them with the candy-cane-striped Christmas paper, and mailed them off to her. If she went, she went. And even if she did go, there was no guarantee that she’d figure out what I’d been trying to lead her to see. With no letter and almost two weeks having passed, I figured perhaps my days of playing Santa were over for the summer.
Until . . . I saw Devin walking down the hall. She’d become almost as invested in the crazy Santa-Birdie saga as I was. Every day when she brought me my mail, she checked for a letter before she left the mail room. Her long faces told me nothing had come before she stepped foot into my office. But today . . . she was literally skipping to my office wearing a full-tooth smile.
“It’s here!” She held up the envelope and waved it back and forth. “It’s here!”
What the hell is wrong with the two of us?
I wasn’t sure. But figuring it out was going to have to wait until I read the damn letter. I tore it open, and Devin came around my desk to read over my shoulder.
Dear Santa,
I love Central Park! I didn’t know there was a carousel! I asked my dad if he could take me last weekend, but we didn’t get to go because of the flood. Something happened to a rusty old pipe in the kitchen of his restaurant, and Magdalene had to come over. Magdalene’s my babysitter. She asked me if I wanted her to take me instead, but I really wanted to go with Daddy. Last week, my teacher for next year mailed all the kids in my class a welcome letter, so I told him the teacher included the tickets with her card. Anyway, I go to dance class at nine every Saturday morning, and Daddy said we could go right after. So I’ll get to go this weekend! Thank you for sending me the tickets for us.