Page 8 of Christmas By The Shore

“You’re in reading mode, are you not?”

Cat laughed. It warmed her heart that her mother knew the ebb and flow of her work as a publishing agent. “I am. Thanksfor remembering. I’m done with all the cold calls, so now I’m working my way through the pile of books from authors we’ve worked with in the past.”

“Anything good so far?”

“Actually, yeah. There are a couple really good literary novels and a fantasy book that’s really taking some big risks. I’m a fan so far, but I’ll let you know when I finish it whether or not I think it’ll be published by SparkPlug.”

“You know how I love me some good fantasy. If only you were more open to breaking the rules and letting me read books that haven’t been published yet.”

“That wouldn’t be fair to the authors,” Cat said. “Though I have a stack of new books I’ll be bringing with me, advanced reader copies, so you really can’t complain.”

“Fair enough.”

“Anyway, I’m calling to talk to you about Thanksgiving.”

Her mother groaned. “Oh my goodness, don’t even get me started. It’s not like I thought this trip was going to be simple, but I definitely didn’t realize it was going to bethisinvolved. They sent a packing list and everything, not that we’ve even started on that.” She laughed. “I told him to get the suitcases out of the basement days ago, but of course he forgot, so now I have to drag them upstairs and hope to avoid the spiders.”

“Packing?” Cat frowned. “For what? Did you just say you were going on a trip?”

“Yeah, the cruise, remember?”

“Cruise? I don’t know anything about a cruise.”

Her mother paused a moment, then sighed angrily. “Did your father also forget to call you and let you know? That was another thing I asked him to do, but I should’ve double checked that he actually followed through! On Halloween, when he mentioned he was texting you, I said, ‘Don’t forget to tell Cat that we’re not going to be in town for the holidays this year,’ and he assured me he wouldn’t.”

“Wait—back up. So you two are going on a cruise? Over Thanksgiving?”

“Yeah,” she said excitedly. “We got a really good deal, and we’re going to see a bunch of countries that are on my bucket list.”

“When—when do you leave?”

“Tomorrow! And then we’ll be back on the second.”

“Of December?” Cat clarified.

“No, of January,” said her mom. “It’s a holiday cruise. It goes through Christmas and New Year’s as well. Isn’t that fun?”

“Wha—huh?” Catherine wasn’t sure what to say. Her parents had never gone out of town for the holidays like this, and while she wanted to be happy for them, she was also feeling a little left out all of a sudden.

“I said,doesn’t that sound fun?” Her mom raised her voice, clearly thinking that it was some kind of bad connection that caused Catherine’s confusion.

“Oh–er. Yeah. No, totally.” She pushed some humor into her voice. “That sounds like a blast!”

“We thought so, too. I really wish your father would have mentioned it to you sooner, though. I hope you weren’t planningon coming home for Thanksgiving or Christmas this year. We just sort of assumed, after the last few years, that you were going to be too busy with work anyway. Of course, if you were thinking about coming home, then we would perhaps?—”

“No, I wasn’t,” Catherine said before her mom had a chance to continue. She could tell that the woman was going to say she’d call the whole cruise off if Catherine wanted to come home and see them that holiday season, but Cat couldn’t let them do that, especially after missing so many years of spending quality time with them for really no good reason.

“Are you sure?” she prompted.

As much as it pained Catherine to admit, this was a fair assumption on her parents’ part. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d been home for both of the major winter holidays at the same time. Plus, the fact that she often did a lot of work when she was in Cape May anyway, there was no reason for her parents not to think she would be busy.

“Yes, absolutely,” she said quickly, clearing her throat of emotion. “I am swamped, so it’s not a big deal. I wasn’t sure whether or not I’d make it back for Thanksgiving, but then McKenzie asked if she could come along, so I thought I would try to make it for her sake, but it looks like we’re just going to have to figure something out between the two of us.”

“Again, I’m sorry this is so last minute.”

“Really, it’s all good. A relief, actually. Now I don’t have to feel bad about working through the holiday.”

“There you go!” Her mom laughed. “That’s what I thought. Well, anyway, I’ll text you the details of our trip so you have them, and we’ll call you whenever we have service if that works.”

---