Start Reading the Festive Rom-Com ‘Finding My Elf’

Single All the Way  meets  Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda   in this festive romcom about Cam, who’s trying to find the “the one” and also trying to find himself—while spending winter break working at a hectic Santa’s Village. 
Escaping to NYU for college didn’t turn out the way Cameron planned—he’s flunking his theater classes, about to lose his scholarship, and he still hasn’t found anyone he can call his “people.” When he gets home for winter break, he’s so desperate to avoid a Conversation with his dad that he takes the first acting job he can get—as a mall elf. Despite how Scroogey he feels, the plus side is that there’s a cash prize for the most festive of Santa’s helpers.
But the competition is fierce—especially from fellow elf Marco. Christmas spirit oozes out of his veins. At first Cam is determined to see him as nothing but a rival, but as they spend more time together, Cam starts to second-guess himself. What if he’s finally found his people here—in the fakest consumerist nightmare place on Earth, where he least expected it?
Start reading Finding My Elf now!
TWO DAYS TILL ELFMAS
No one can accuse my dad of being subtle. He loves Christmas the way most guys in the Pioneer Valley love the Patriots. Instead of team jerseys, he has a collection of ugly holiday sweaters that would be kind of impressive if it wasn’t so embarrassing. (Seriously, the llama one lights up. I can’t.) So I shouldn’t be surprised that when I arrive home for my first, or maybe last, winter break from college, the house looks like, I don’t know, Frosty Con. Snowmen everywhere .
I’m so not in the mood.
Don’t get me wrong: I like Christmas well enough. Even though Halloween is my favorite holiday because of the costumes, I love all the twinkling lights, and you can’t really overplay “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” But it’s been a long day on the bus from NYC, and before it was a long day, it was a long week in a long semester. Not that I’m ready to admit that to my dad.
I purposely chose a bus that would get me home to Lindell while he was working. Yes, it’s, like, almost two miles from the bus stop in front of the old town hall to our place, but dragging my bag for forty minutes was worth it for the chance to come home to an empty house. I need some time alone in the privacy of my room before Dad gets here and I become the grinch, the carol killer, the fly in the eggnog.
I have to tell him that I’m failing out of school.
Okay, that’s not entirely true. I’m passing freshman English and bio, which is a total shock based on my high school science grades. But I’m failing where it matters: my theater classes. They matter not just because that’s my major but because I’m on scholarship. Or was . By the time grades come in, that scholarship will be past tense, and probably my NYU future along with it.
It’s a huge relief to open the door to my bedroom and see that my dad is still honoring my personal space. Not a snowman in sight.
I don’t even unpack before throwing myself across my bed, which looks exactly as I left it. When I boxed up stuff for college, I kept almost everything in my room as it was. New York is the biggest city in the country—why lug stuff with me when I can find whatever I want there? Besides, I was going there to reinvent myself, to start a different life from Cam here in Lindell, so why not wait to let the new me figure out my room? I thought City Cam might change his hair, his clothes, his vibe. City Cam’s friends might get him hooked on some new fandom, make him a stan for something Lindell Cam had never even heard of. City Cam—
City Cam’s life didn’t look like that at all . And now I’m back in Lindell, same as I ever was.
It’s embarrassing how good it feels to be in my room again. It’s small—our house is a Cape, so my room is where the attic used to be; the walls slant in on both sides. Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone dance across one on an oversized La La Land poster. Another wall is a shrine to all the Broadway shows I’ve seen in my life; there are ten Playbills, starting with Matilda and ending with Six . (There’s plenty of room for adding shows I appear in someday.) A pride flag, the good one with the trans colors and the BIPOC triangle, covers the space above my headboard.
My eye falls on the mirror, which is framed by two pictures: to the left is me as Harold Hill in the Music Man my freshman year. In the photo, I look happily shocked, and for good reason. My dad—who loves gift-giving—found Hugh Jackman’s agent online and begged him for an autograph to give a fellow Harold Hill. Hugh’s that kind of guy, so right after curtain, my dad handed me a note that read: “The only trouble we got right here is finding the next show. Cheers, H. J.” It felt like he was passing me the baton.
On the right side of the mirror, I am a very goth-looking Hamlet. The photo is black and white, which ramps up the kohl around my eyes and the glow of the lanterns we used instead of stage lights. I look older, more intense, not a silly kid singing about trombones, but a serious actor. Which is who I had become. After a summer acting intensive at a local college following my sophomore year, I ditched the Annie -loving musical theater kid I had been and focused on drama. I finagled my way into a workshop at Shakespeare & Company and got a part in 12 Angry Jurors at Mercerville Community College the summer after my junior year. By the time I convinced Ms. Kropp to stage a futuristic Hamlet at Lindell, my transformation was complete. I was so proud of that production photo, I submitted it with my application to NYU.
Looking at it now makes me want to cry.
I roll onto my side, but the view’s no better there. I’m facing an empty photo frame that used to hold a picture of Leroy, my last (okay, only) boyfriend, and me at prom. Leroy looks exactly like Corbin Bleu from High School Musical , which my dad put on TV like a babysitter when I was little so he could make dinner in peace. Leroy has a smile that melted me every time it broke across his face. And when he held me in his arms, I felt like a character in a rom-com.
So what did I do? I broke up with him after graduation because I didn’t want Lindell Cam to get in the way of City Cam’s whole new life. Everybody tells you not to do long distance in college, right? Leroy said he understood, but he still wouldn’t talk to me for weeks; he gave me the silent treatment right until he started dating the next boy, Shay, a sun-kissed blond lifeguard from his summer camp job. As far as I could tell, they had nothing in common, and I had a sneaking suspicion it was pure revenge romance—which was fine by me. I had my next life to look forward to.
I kept the frame so that when I came back from school, I could put a photo of City Cam’s boyfriend in it. But City Cam didn’t have a boyfriend. He barely had dates. There were some cute boys at parties and a near miss with a guy from bio, who was an enthusiastic texter but a terrible kisser. There was never a chance of him filling the frame, which sits there empty.
Ugh. My own room is mocking me.
There is only one thing to do. Under my bed, a 1960s carry-on bag hides behind a clothes storage bin. I push the bin away and pull out the tote, which I’ve always pictured as belonging to a flight attendant with big hair and a cute scarf. Inside are two things: Kat Bizarro and a bag of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.
Kat Bizarro was a find at a flea market when I was maybe five or six. Imagine a black Siamese cat—something which, I was bummed to learn, does not exist in real life—made of thickly knitted yarn. Green glass eyes are the only features on its diamond-shaped head, which sits atop a skinny neck connected to a bowling-pin-shaped body. There are three red buttons down its chest, as if it is wearing a suit, which it is not. It’s heavier than it looks—I think the filling is dried beans—so maybe it was a doorstop in its first life. But at six I saw only a cat that liked dress-up, clearly a kindred spirit. I slept with it every night until I left for college, but I left it behind because I couldn’t imagine showing it to a roommate. And boy, have I missed it.
With Kat Bizarro liberated once more, I rummage in the bag of peanut butter cups. I’m not so good at stopping once I get started, but I keep an emergency stash on hand at all times because Reese’s is the food version of therapy. The bag is not small. It’s still half-full from this summer. I purchased it moments after I left the Berkshire Twin Cinema, where I’d ended up sitting behind Leroy and his BF, and discovered I was less cool with my post-Leroyness than I thought. On an average day, a handful of these babies would be enough, but tonight I’m going to kill the bag.
Then I call Jazz, whose break from UMass Amherst started yesterday.
“Finally,” she says by way of answer. “You know if you’d gone to school in state, we coulda hung out last night, right? Why you had to go all the way to New York . . .”
“It’s not that far!” I protest, mostly out of habit. Jazz always thought it was foolish for me to go to New York when I could save a ton by staying here at one of the state colleges in Massachusetts. She used every tactic: guilt (reminding me that I have a single dad who pays the bills by working two jobs), fear (Lindell is farm country by Massachusetts standards, so I have zero city-living skills), and shame (calling me a snob for thinking I’m too good for Lindell). I was determined that when City Cam came home all shiny and new, she’d see I was right.
This is going to suck; my pride is already wounded enough.
But here I go. “Actually, maybe you’re right.”
“Huh?” Jazz’s voice switches from teasing to suspicious. She doesn’t hear “you’re right” that often from me.
“Maybe I’ll come home . . . uh, stay home.”
“What? WHY? And don’t tell me it’s ’cause you miss me.” She knows me so well: that was going to be my exact joke. “CAM. . .”
“I . . . I suck.” I don’t mean to cry, but I do as I tell her the whole deal. How I’d gotten placed into ETW, the supercool contemporary theater program, just as I’d hoped, only to discover I don’t know much about contemporary theater and that I am not cool by New York standards.
“Come on,” she says. “You got Lindell High to do Urine- town !”
I groan. “That’s just it. What passed for bold and edgy in drama club here counts as tired and old-school there. These kids are doing one-person shows about their sex lives and absurdist comedies I don’t understand that make fun of things I’ve never heard of. This one kid, no joke, did a modern-dance interpretation of AOC giving a speech.”
“That’s theater?” Jazz sounds genuinely puzzled.
“Right? That’s what I’ve spent my whole semester asking myself.” I start pacing around my bed. “Do I even know what theater is? And my teachers seem to be asking the same thing.”
“ Damn , Cam!” This is her favorite expression of sympathy, and it feels good to hear it, even though I know I have to turn down the offer coming next. “How fast can you get to Buzz?” Lindell has two coffee shops: the world’s smallest Dunks—which, naturally, my dad loves because we come from two different planets—and Buzz, which has this kind of ’90s alt vibe going on. The logo is a cup of coffee being held by a wired-looking skater drawn by Rena, the owner. If I’d lived in the ’90s, I think I’d have been more NSYNC than Nirvana, but I like Buzz because it’s the closest thing to a queer space in this town. All of us (like, ten people, maybe?) and our friends hang out there.
Everyone else hangs at Denny’s in the strip mall where Lindell meets Mercerville, which has like ten thousand people and feels, comparatively, like a metropolis. Denny’s booths fill up with hungry Lindell High kids about twenty minutes after last bell on weekdays. And whenever there’s a basketball or hockey game, the place is packed, win or lose. Late-night study sessions, pre-prom pancake runs—Denny’s is a core part of Lindell High life. Even though I put in my time working there, Denny’s was never my spot. Being a Buzz regular instead has always been a point of pride to me; it tells you who I am and who I am not in this town.
“I can’t go now,” I tell Jazz. “My dad’ll be home soon, so . . .”
“Ohhhh.” If wincing makes a sound, that’s what I’m hearing.
“What’re you gonna say?”
I throw myself back on my bed, holding Kat Bizarro to my chest like a shield. “Um, ‘Hey, Dad, for Christmas, can I have a new life?’”
“Seriously.”
Ugh. “I don’t want to say anything .”
“Then don’t. I mean it,” she says firmly. I sit up—that isn’t what I expected, so I’m listening. “First, make Dad dinner.” (Yes, she calls him Dad too, though she has one of her own.)
That’s genius. When I was growing up, he did his best as a single parent, cooking every night after working all day. But I got pretty tired of homemade mac and cheese, chili, and taco night, which I know makes me a bad human because we had plenty to eat and all from scratch. But he loves habit like he loves tradition, so we pretty much ate the same six meals over and over—seven, if you count takeout from Lucky Sun, where our order never varies. I started teaching myself how to cook when I was in ninth grade, and it was a big win. Dad loved it, no matter how much I screwed up, and I could guarantee that there would be at least one meal a week that we hadn’t eaten the week before.
I’m already on my way to the kitchen as Jazz goes on. “Let him have a good night—you don’t have to lie, but only tell him the parts that don’t suck for now. Like, tell him you met a cute boy or you climbed the Statue of Liberty or whatever. And then meet me at Buzz when it opens tomorrow. We’ll figure out the rest there.”
After reminding her that she is THE BEST, I start in on carbonara, Dad’s favorite. I put water on to boil before going to the fridge for bacon, eggs, and cheese. When I swing the door open, I hesitate. The lone carton of eggs only has four left; I need three. If Dad plans any early baking for the Cookie Party next week, he’s screwed. I forge ahead and snag all but the last even so.
I tell Siri to play All-Christmas Radio. The room fills with Brenda Lee, and soon I’m the one rockin’ around, slicing bacon into little strips to sauté with wine, whisking garlic and Parmesan cheese into the eggs. Carbonara is, like, the easiest thing to make that still always seems impressive. I heat the water now so that as soon as Dad walks in, I can throw the pasta in the pot, and we’ll only have ten minutes of awkward conversation before we’re eating.
By the time the water is at a boil, I feel less blue. Kelly Clarkson is belting “Wrapped in Red,” and I am too, metal spaghetti tongs for a microphone. I do a spin around the bar in the mid- dle of the kitchen and sing for all I’m worth. I can’t wait to meet a guy who will appreciate it when I serenade him. Leroy found my singing embarrassing, something to endure because he loved me. For now, my audience is limited to snowmen, listening with button eyes and goofy fake coal grins.
“Cam-Cam!”
My dad’s voice startles me so much I whirl on him, brandishing the tongs like a weapon. My heart pounds. Lost in the song, I hadn’t heard the door.
“Dad!” Surprising both of us, I give him a hug, a real one. Mostly these days he gets a quick squeeze and a grimace when he kisses me on the cheek. Tonight, between the song and the smell of bacon and the being home of it all, well, call it a momentary lapse in cool, but I hold on tight for a minute.
When I pull away, there are tears in his eyes. God, he’s corny. “I—I’m making carbonara,” I stammer, even though this is perfectly obvious.
“My favorite!” he says on cue. If there is any chance of me getting through this night, sending him into a lipids coma with cheese and bacon is my best bet.
Dad being Dad, he dives in before I have even gotten the spaghetti into the boiling water. “Tell me!” he says, rubbing his hands together. “Tell me everything.”
Thinking about Jazz’s plan, I try to convince myself that it’s not a crime to omit a few facts as long as everything I do include is true. (Honestly, that practice got me through high school.) So I tell him about Kai, the Orientation Leader who flirted with me, and then about the teacher who said my voice was soothing. I recount the time I made my audience cry with a monologue about how Otto, our schnauzer, died. My dad laps it up, not knowing that Kai didn’t know who I was when I ran into him in the dining hall the next day, or that the teacher who said my voice was soothing was criticizing me for a lack of intensity. My dad’ll never know that the “audience” for my monologue was my RA, who cries at every Pixar movie and sometimes even a good commercial. They would so get along.
Dad is totally enrapt: he’s barely eating his pasta. He has no idea I’m putting on a show, and his happiness keeps me going. If nothing else, it’s the best acting I’ve done all semester.
But when I finish the tears-for-Otto story, my dad doesn’t follow up with a question. He just looks at me, eyes still brimming. Fear flashes through me. Oh god—is he sick? Did he lose his job?
“Dad?” I’m afraid to ask what’s wrong, and yet I have to.
“Cameron . . .” Oh no. He never says my full name. Does he know I’m failing? How would he? “I’m just so . . .” Disappointed. That’s what he’s going to say. I brace for it.
“. . . happy for you.” He’s so choked up he can barely eke out, “You finally found your place. It’s all been worth it. I can’t wait to call your tías!”
Now he eats, digging into the pasta with gusto, but I’ve lost my appetite.
Because he doesn’t know the truth: his son the actor is really his son the liar.

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