“Thank you,” Mitzi says. She would have gone to the baptism even without Kelley’s permission, but it feels better to have asked. And two seats in the family pew is more than she dreamed of.

“You’re welcome,” Kelley says. “Forget what I said about Jennifer. I’m the nicest person alive.”

Mitzi hangs up the phone just as George steps out the back door of the hotel.

“I’ve been looking all over for you,” he says. He waves two tickets in the air. “Are you ready for the Holiday House Tour?”

Bart Bart Bart Bart Bart. Mitzi always says his name five times in her mind, like a prayer.

One of Mitzi’s pen pals, Gayle from Tallahassee, draws on God’s strength in order to go about her normal day. Gayle works in a pediatrician’s office and dealing with sick children and their parents helps keep her from dwelling on her son, KJ. Mitzi’s other pen pal, Yasmin of Flatbush Avenue, stays in bed most days. She admits that she just can’t return to business as usual. She quit her job as a security guard at the Barclays Center. She has a hard time doing anything but watch Dance Moms on TV.

Mitzi falls somewhere in between these two women. When she hears George say, Holiday House Tour, a part of her thinks, Ooooooh, how Christmassy! She had always wanted to go on the Holiday House Tour, but she’d never been able to get away from the inn on the Friday of Christmas Stroll weekend. Now that she has no inn and no guests, she can finally go. But then, the other part of her thinks, Holiday House Tour? How can she admire other people’s festively decorated homes—the greenery, the candlelight, the precious family heirlooms—when Bart is missing?

Peace on earth, good will toward men. She will go on the Holiday House Tour. But first, for the love of all Harry, she will make George find that tequila.

AVA

Scott Skyler has done it! He has found the ugliest Christmas sweater in all the world.

He shows it to Ava in his office, after all the children and most of the staff have left school for the day. He makes her close her eyes as he puts it on. And then, she can tell, he turns off the lights in his office. Scott and Ava have been hot and heavy all year, but one thing they have not dared to do is have sex in the school. They kissed on the bench of Ava’s piano back in the spring, which almost led to… but they stopped themselves. They climbed up to the school roof together in the middle of summer to gaze at the stars, and they almost… but they stopped themselves.

“Okay,” Scott says. “You can open them.”

Ava screams—half in horror, half in delight. It’s a red wool sweater with a poufy white tulle Christmas tree on the front, decorated with actual lights that blink and flash. Ava starts to cackle. The sweater is only made better by Scott’s deadpan expression; it requires someone as big and authoritative as Scott to properly pull it off.

Nathaniel would have looked ridiculous in that sweater, Ava thinks. And furthermore, he wouldn’t have been a good enough sport to wear it.

It’s a year later, and she still thinks about Nathaniel. He moved to Martha’s Vineyard in the spring to build a house on Chappaquiddick for some spectacularly rich folks, and on clear days Ava squints at the horizon and wonders what he’s doing over there—if he likes it better than he likes Nantucket, if he’s met the Martha’s Vineyard equivalent of Ava Quinn, and if he’s ever coming back.

She kisses Scott. He is simply the best, truest, most excellent guy for agreeing to help her plan the Ugly Christmas Sweater Caroling party for that evening. Ava’s sweater is yellow, with an embroidered picture of Jesus on the front. Jesus’s hands are raised over his head. The front of his white tunic says BIRTHDAY BOY. Ava was proud of her sweater… until she saw Scott’s sweater.

At seven o’clock on Friday night, Ava and Scott and their fellow caroling comrades gather out in front of Our Island Home, Nantucket’s assisted living facility for elders. Ava’s best friend Shelby, the school librarian—who is now roundly pregnant with her first child—is there, as is one of the high school English teachers named Roxanne Oliveria.

Roxanne has either forgotten or ignored the fact that this is an Ugly Christmas Sweater Caroling party, because she is wearing a rather fetching red mohair wrap sweater that shows off her fake breasts. Hmmmmm, Roxanne, Ava thinks. Roxanne Oliveria, called “Mz. O” by her students—the O salaciously drawn out to indicate “orgasm”—is of Italian descent with gorgeous thick dark hair, olive skin, and a Sophia Loren beauty mark.

Despite working two schools over, Ava has heard her fair share of gossip about Mz. Ohhhhhh. Mz. Ohhhhhh suffered through two broken engagements and as such has ended up unmarried at forty years old. She’s known as a “cougar” among the kids; she prefers younger men. She dated the athletic director at the Nantucket Boys & Girls Club who was only twenty-seven at the time, and she is vaguely inappropriate with the seniors on the football team.

Ava pulls Scott aside. “How did Roxanne get invited to this?”

“I asked her,” Scott says. He takes note of Ava’s expression and quickly starts explaining. “I bumped into her in the hall outside the pool, and it just sort of popped out of me before I realized what I was saying.”

“Does she swim laps, too?” Ava asks.

“Um… yes?” Scott says.

Swimming laps is Scott’s preferred method for staying in shape. He was a backstroker at the University of Indiana, and still holds two relay titles there, a little-known fact that Ava loves about him. But now she imagines Scott swimming laps one lane over from Roxanne “Mz. Ohhhhhh” Oliveria. Does Scott admire her stroke, or her flip turns, or her fake breasts in her tank suit?

Ava takes a deep breath and thinks, Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la. As she discovered in her relationship with Nathaniel, Ava has jealousy issues. But she will not succumb to jealousy now and ruin their fun party. She will not.

She smiles brightly at Roxanne and hands her a songbook. “Here you go!”

“Oh, I won’t be needing that,” Roxanne says. “I don’t sing. Scott just invited me along to be the eye candy.”

The eye candy? Ava thinks. She snatches back her songbook, eighteen of which she painstakingly printed out on the school computer, and then stapled to red construction paper covers and decorated with gold glitter lettering.

She goes back to Scott and pokes him in the middle of his tulle Christmas tree. It looks like he swallowed a tiny ballerina. “Roxanne tells me you invited her along to be the eye candy!”

Scott laughs nervously. “Your brother is here,” he says.

Saved by the bell. But Ava will not forget. She will be watching Roxanne.

“Hey, sis,” Kevin says. He gives Ava a squeeze. “I’m ready to get down and carol.” Brilliantly, Kevin has shown up in one of Mitzi’s old sweaters, salvaged from a box in the attic. It’s so old, Mitzi didn’t even bother taking it with her when she left with George the Santa Claus. The sweater features embroidered dancing reindeer with candy-cane-striped top hats. It barely fits over Kevin’s chest, it ends mid-abdomen and at his elbows.

Kevin is followed by their sister-in-law, Jennifer, who is wearing a blue mohair sweater with an elf on the front. It says: Take me Gnome Tonight. Jennifer is on Nantucket for the weekend with her and Patrick’s three boys, who are presently at home playing age-inappropriate video games. Jennifer was a good sport to come, considering Patrick is serving jail time for insider trading at a minimum-security facility in Shirley, and he won’t be released until June. But Jennifer is all about family, and there is no way she would miss the baptism. Some women, Ava realizes, would crumple in a pile and feel sorry for themselves, but not Jennifer. Jennifer puts on her gnome sweater.

Ava grabs Jennifer. “Public enemy number one tonight is Roxanne, with the boobs.”

“Roger,” Jennifer says.

Jennifer is the best kind of sister-in-law. She is a competitor, and when it comes down to woman-against-woman warfare, she is always in Ava’s foxhole with a grenade, ready to pull the pin.

“Point her out,” Jennifer says. “Nope, never mind. I see her.”

They are joined by other teachers and aides from the school until they are nineteen people in all. Ava is short one caroling book, and so she decides to share with Scott.