Page 2 of Merrily You

“Better you than me,” Danny said, getting off the counter when I handed her the can opener. I almost never let her cook, but she could open a can as well as the next person.

She opened the cans and drained the beans, rinsing them in the sink before setting the bowl beside the stove for me.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Anytime, H.” Danny was the only one who called me that. My parents had never really explained why they’d decided to name me Holiday (my secret suspicion was that I’d been conceived at a Holiday Inn, shudder), but I’d always gone by my full name. People always tried to shorten it to Holly, but that just wasn’t me. I wasn’t a Holly, sorry. When people in school had tried to make that nickname happen, Danny had called me H and that had stuck. But just for her.

Danny got out the big bowls with handles that we always used for chili and I put the cornbread in the oven. I browned the meat and threw everything in the pot to simmer. I should have started it earlier in the day and let it hang out in the crockpot, but I hadn’t gotten my act together this morning to do that. One of these days I would succeed at meal prep, but today hadn’t been the day.

The two of us ate on the couch, blowing on hot spoonfuls of chili and cramming cornbread in our mouths. Danny ate more delicately than I did, but she was the kind of person who never spilled anything on her shirt. It was a skill I’d never learned.

“There’s a new episode,” I said when I turned on the TV as Danny loaded the dishwasher. We tried not to watch our favorite shows without each other. It had caused too many fights in the past so now we just waited and avoided the drama.

“Yeah, sounds good.” Danny sat down with a sigh. Her forehead had just the tiniest wrinkle in it that you wouldn’t notice unless you had looked at her face every day for years.

“What’s up?” I paused the show and turned my full body toward her.

“Nothing. Just thinking about Christmas. With Raquel getting married, everyone is going to be on me about settling down and not being alone and I’m already tired of it.” She pressed against her forehead and I leaned closer to rub her shoulders in the way I knew she liked.

“God, I know. Mom was pestering me about it too. But it was just the same old song of thinking that we’re together when I’ve told her that we’re friends. I think we might need to wear shirts or something. We are not together, stop asking!”

Danny snorted. “They still wouldn’t get the hint. We’d have to do something drastic to get them off our backs.”

“We should just pretend we have to work and then book a cruise or something,” I said. The idea of just me and Danny ona cruise for Christmas sounded amazing. No personal questions. No avoiding uncomfortable topics. Just cold drinks and smooth sailing.

Danny made a face. “You know I would never set foot on a cruise ship.” She visibly shuddered. “I can’t go on one after that documentary I watched.” I rolled my eyes. The documentary had been about how cruise ships functioned, but to Danny it was a horror film.

“Okay, not a cruise then. How about a remote cabin with a wood stove? But not so remote that there isn’t a decent grocery store or hospital nearby.” Danny was all about being prepared. If there was someone who always had a band aid, or pair of tiny scissors, or a tire jack, it was her. Good thing for me because I was constantly forgetting my keys, phone, etc. whenever I went anywhere.

Sometimes I wondered if Danny and I were made to be best friends. If some cosmic force out there had said “yes, put those two together” that had led us to being in the same class in third grade after Danny’s family moved to town.

“You know our families would have our faces on the news if we did that. They’d have search parties out,” Danny said.

I laughed. They would. If I didn’t immediately call my parents back when they called me, their assumption was that I was dead in a ditch somewhere. My mom had gotten really into true crime in her retirement and that had made things even worse. She was always warning me that I was just one supermarket trip away from being kidnapped or something. No matter how many crime statistics I shared with her, I couldn’t temper her paranoia that something was going to happen to her baby. The perils of being an only child. I’d never really felt like that since so many of my cousins were around my age and all lived nearby. Lots of people assumed we were siblings when they saw us together.

Now a bunch of them were married and had babies and it was weird as hell to see the kids I used to play tag with now had children of their own.

Danny yawned and leaned against me.

“Can’t we just fast-forward to January? I’m ready for this year to be done.”

“Me too,” I said. “We’re on the same page.”

I breathed in the familiar scent of her peach conditioner and sighed.

Chapter Two

Danny

Time never passed the way you hoped it would. When you wanted it to slow down, it always moved faster. Before I knew it, I was cleaning out the fridge at work so nothing went rotten while everyone was gone for the holidays.

We’d had a little party, but it was mostly an excuse to hire a caterer and buy everyone lottery tickets. You wouldn’t think that a company full of finance experts would be into lottery tickets, but every year I got a bouquet of them.

At least I’d have Holiday with me. We’d made a pact when we went to college together that we would always go with each other to our family Christmas events. Hers put more of an emphasis on Christmas Eve, and mine was all about Christmas Day, so it worked out perfectly. That way, when we were ready to tear our hair out, there was someone who could be a refuge. The two of us had saved each other more times than I could count.

It was worth it, even when people assumed we were together and asked a million questions about why we weren’t together. Holiday and I had it mostly down to a science by now, but this year the pressure was even worse.

My sister, Raquel, had recently gotten married, which left me as both the youngest, and the only one still single. Michael, my oldest brother, had married his husband four years ago and they’d had my little nephew last year. This would be the first Christmas that baby Nicholas might actually be aware of and I was looking forward to sharing the magic with him.

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