The Wishing Bridge
Once the hottest mergers and acquisitions executive in the company, Henrietta Wegner can see the ambitious and impossibly young up-and-comers gunning for her job. When Henri's boss makes it clear she'll be starting the New Year unemployed unless she can close a big deal before the holidays, Henri impulsively tells him that she can convince her aging parents to sell Wegner's--their iconic Frankenmuth, Michigan, Christmas store--to a massive, soulless corporation. It's the kind of deal cool, corporate Henri has built her career on.
Home for the
holidays has typically meant a perfunctory twenty-four-hour visit for Henri,
then back to Detroit as fast as her car will drive her. So, turning up at the
Wegner's offices in early December raises some eyebrows: from her delighted, if
puzzled, parents to her suspicious brother and curious childhood friends. But
as Henri fields impatient texts from her boss while reconnecting with the magic
of the store and warmth of her hometown, what sounded great in the boardroom
begins to lose its luster in real life. She's running out of time to pull the
trigger on what could be the greatest success of her career...or the most
awkward family holiday of her life.
With unabashed
winter charm, The Wishing Bridge sparkles with the humor and heart fans
of Kristy Woodson Harvey, Nancy Thayer and Jenny Colgan love most.
Includes the
bonus novella Christmas Angels.
About the Author
VIOLA SHIPMAN is the pen name for internationally bestselling
LGBTQIA author Wade Rouse. Wade is the author of fifteen books, which have been
translated into 21 languages and sold over a million copies around the world.
Wade writes under his grandmother’s name, Viola Shipman, to honor the working
poor Ozarks seamstress whose sacrifices changed his family’s life and whose
memory inspires his fiction.
Wade’s books have been selected multiple times as
Must-Reads by NBC’s Today Show, Michigan Notable Books of the
Year and Indie Next Picks. He lives in
Michigan and California, and hosts Wine & Words with Wade, A Literary Happy
Hour, every Thursday.
Author Links
Twitter: @Viola_Shipman
Facebook: Author Viola Shipman
Instagram: @Viola_Shipman
The Wishing Bridge by Viola Shipman takes readers on a journey to Frankenmuth, Michigan. I enjoyed the descriptions of the town decked out for Christmas. I felt transported to this Bavarianesque town. I had mixed feelings about Henri (I believe that is the idea.) I was not a fan of some of Henri’s choices and I had to wonder what she was thinking (she needed an intervention). We get to see Henri look at her family, the town, and the family business through the eyes of a mature adult. I enjoyed Henri’s memories of the Sears Wish Book as well as the JCPenney and Montgomery Ward Christmas Catalogs. I looked forward to their arrival just like Henri. Henri’s mentions a couple of items in the catalog that would not have been available in 1975. Like other girls of that time period, I was a fan of Shaun Cassidy (I watched the Hardy Boys), and his first album was not released until 1977. The Simon Says electronic game was released in 1978 (one of my cousins got one for Christmas) and the Star Wars figures came out in 1978 (I had a cousin who got the whole set, and we had fun playing with them).
There were some good characters in the story. I especially liked Henri’s parents, Bea, and
Mabel, the family dog. The store that
Henri’s parents started was wonderful.
It is a Christmas wonderland (it would takes days to go through the
whole place). Henri’s high school
boyfriend is divorced and the chemistry between the two is still palpable. In a small town, they are bound to run into
each other. Henri is getting a second
chance not only with her family but with a special fellow. The Wishing Bridge is a heartwarming holiday
tale that will appeal to those who love Hallmark’s Christmas movies (you never
know, it could be one someday).
Excerpt
December 7
I hit the brakes, my car fishtailing on the
slippery road. I came to a stop just inches from the car before me.
Ah, the hazards of winter in Michigan and
Detroit drivers who think snow is a reason to hit the gas.
I cock my head and see an accident just a few
cars in front of me. A man is out of his car, screaming into the window of the
car he hit.
Merry Christmas!
I take a breath, sip my coffee—which
miraculously didn’t spill—hit my blinker and wait to merge into the next lane.
That’s when I notice it: the abandoned house I
drive by every day to work.
There are many abandoned homes in many forgotten neighborhoods in this proud city whose shoulders were slumped by the mortgage crisis, layoffs in the auto industry and never-ending winters that used to be as brutal and mind-numbing as a Detroit Lions football season. Neighborhoods stand like ghost towns, and, in winter, they look even sadder, the grass dead, the green gone, broken glass shimmering in the sun before the snow arrives to cover their remains.
This particular home is a three-story redbrick beauty that looks like a castle. The windows are broken, the walls are collapsing and yet the wooden staircase—visible to the world— remains intact. I slow down just enough every day to admire the finials, worn and shining from the hands that have polished them over the years.
There is a line of
shattered windows just above the ground, and as you pass by, you catch a
glimmer of red in the basement. Coming the opposite way, you swear you can see
a man smiling.
I stopped years ago
to investigate. I parked, careful to avoid nails, and wound my way in high
heels through the weeds to the broken window. I knelt and peeked into the
basement.
Santa!
A plastic molded
Santa smiled at me. It was a vintage mold—like the one my grandparents centered
in the middle of a wreath on their front door every year—of a cheery Santa with
red cheeks, blue eyes, green gloves, holding a candy cane tied in a golden bow.
I scanned the basement. Boxes were still stacked
everywhere.
Tubs were marked Christmas!
In the corner of the basement sat a sign overrun with cobwebs that read Santa’s Toy Shop!
December 1975
“They’re here! They’re here!”
My voice echoed through my grandparents’ house. I ran to the front door, grabbed the first catalog, which seemed to weigh nearly as much as I did, and tottered down the steep basement stairs. Back up I went to retrieve the next one from Mr. Haley, the postman, who looked exactly like Captain Kangaroo.
“Don’t move!” I
said, disappearing and returning moments later.
Then back down the
stairs I scrambled once again.
Mr. Haley laughed
when I returned the final time, out of breath.
“Last one,” he
said. “Oh, and a bunch of Christmas cards for your grandmother.”
I bent over, panting, as if I’d just done wind
sprints on the track.
“Tired?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No! Think of what Santa
carries! Not to mention what you carry every day!”
“You got me there,”
he said. “Here’s the cards. I’ll see you tomorrow. Merry Christmas!”
I watched him
trudge through the freshly fallen snow, just enough to dust the world in white.
If there’s one thing we never had to worry about in our town of Frankenmuth, it
was a white Christmas. My dad said it was one of the gifts of living in a
Christmas wonderland.
“Merry Christmas,
Mr. Haley!” I yelled, my breath coming out in puffs.
I shut the door,
tossed the cards on the telephone desk sitting in the foyer and hightailed it
back down to the basement.
I looked at the
catalogs where I’d set them on the shag carpet and ran around them in a happy
circle doing a little jig.
I turned on the
electric fireplace. It was so cool, fake brick, and it just faded into the
Z-BRICK walls. The flames seemed
to dance, even
though they weren’t real.
I went over to the
card table where my grandparents played games—bridge, canasta, hearts—and I
grabbed my marker from a cup.
The red one.
The one I used
every year.
The one Santa would
recognize.
I took a seat on
the orange shag and arranged the catalogs in a semicircle around me: the
Christmas catalogs from JCPenney and Monkey Wards, and my favorite, the Sears Wish Book.
The catalogs were
heavy and thick, big as the Buick my grandpa drove. They were brand-new and all
mine. I began to f lip through the crisp pages, turning quickly to the ones
that showed all the toys, clothes and games I wanted for Christmas.
I was lost for hours in the pages, dreaming,
hoping, wishing. “Yes, yes, yes!” I said, my marker in constant motion.
“Are you using a
red marker so Santa will see?”
I looked up, and my
dad was standing over me. He was tall, hair as fair as mine. He had just gotten
off work. He was an accountant at a car dealership, and he never seemed happy
when he got home from work.
Until he came down to my grandparents’ basement.
“Of course!” I
said. “Finn gets green. I use red!”
“So what do you
want Santa to bring you this year?”
I patted the carpet, and my dad took a seat
next to me. I began showing him all the things I’d marked in the wish catalogs.
“I want this eight-room dollhouse, and, oh!
this Shaun Cassidy phono with sing-along microphone and this battery-operated
sewing machine! It’s the first ever like this!” I stopped,
took a deep breath and continued, “And this
dress, and this Raggedy Ann doll, but—” I stopped again, flipping through pages
as quickly as I could “—more than anything I want this
game called Simon. It’s computer controlled,
Daddy! It’s like Simon Says, and you have to be really fast, and…”
“Slow down,” he
said, rubbing my back. “And what about your brother?”
“What about him?”
“What does he
want?”
“He’ll want all the
stupid stuff boys like,” I said. “Stars Wars figurines, an erector set, a Nerf
rocket and probably a drum set.”
 |
| My cousin had the whole set including the Millennium Falcon |
My father winced at the last suggestion.
“Maybe a scooter instead,” my dad suggested.
“What do you think?”
“Good idea, Daddy.”
I placed my hands over my ears.
He laughed and
stood up.
“Hey?” I asked.
“What do you want for
Christmas?”
My dad headed over
to the workshop he had on the other side of the basement. We lived in a small
ranch house on the other side of town that didn’t have a basement, much less
any extra room. My grandparents let my father convert this space a few years
ago so he could pursue a second career and his true passion: Christmas.
“You know what I
want,” he said with a smile.
My dad picked up a
sign and turned it my way. It was a hand carved wooden sign that read Frohe Weihnachten! Frankenmuth is a
Bavarian town filled with all things German: a wooden bridge flowing over a
charming river, a glockenspiel that—on the hour—played the Westminster chimes
followed by an entire show complete with dancing figurines,
a cheese haus and competing chicken-and-noodle restaurants. I was named Henrietta, my father Jakob, my brother, Finn. Only my mother, Debbie, escaped the German name game with the very American moniker.
“What’s this mean, Henri?” my dad asked.
“Merry Christmas,” I said.
“And what do I want?”
“Christmas all year long.”
“Exactly,” he said. “Just like you. Except as a grown-up.” He looked at his sign.
“That’s my Christmas wish.”
For a long time,
everyone thought this was just a hobby of my father’s, sort of like other dads
tinkered on car engines, went fishing or coached baseball. For an even longer
time, people thought my dad was nuts.
Why would a man spend all of his time
creating Christmas signs in July, or designing ornaments in March?
They didn’t know my
dad.
They didn’t how
serious he was, that he often worked until three in the morning from October
through December and countless weekends the rest of the year.
“You have a good
job, Jakob,” friends would tell him. “Don’t ruin your life over some silly
notion.”
But my mom and
grandparents believed in him just as much as I believed in Santa.
I watched my father
work. As he did, he began to whistle Christmas tunes.
The world was
finally catching up with my father’s dream.
He was now creating
window displays for two of the biggest stores in town: Shepherd Woolen Mill and
Koch’s Country Store.
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