"Elena can help me," Mikey said, as if this had been decided in a prior meeting with minutes and a gavel.
Elena blinked, then felt something warm and unexpected settle under her ribs.
"I can?"
"You have a gold clip," Mikey said seriously. "Snowflakes need sparkle. Also you didn't laugh mean when I fell that one time by the cones. You laughed nice."
Jake mouthed sorry over Mikey's head. Elena mouthed it's fine, and meant it more than she expected, which was becoming a theme of the night.
Before the phone call and after the first cocoa, while Mikey practiced stopping at the cones with the concentration of a person defusing joy itself, Elena stood at the rail and watched the room the way she watched the diner during a rush: looking for the story under the noise. Starlight Roller Palace on Christmas Eve was a museum of small braveties. A father taught his daughter to fall without crying. Two old women in matching sweaters circled slowly, holding hands, arguing affectionately about whether the DJ had played this song last year. A boy in a too-big jersey kept trying a jump he would not land until February. The mirror ball did not care who was lonely. It threw light at everyone with the democracy of cheap beauty.
Jake joined her at the rail, careful with his weight.
"You look like you're taking notes," he said.