Page 13 of The Holiday Hate-Off
“He’s horrible,” I complain into my cell phone to Charlie as I stride across town to my apartment building. Thank goodness the call went through, because I absolutely need to vent. “Can youbelievehe said that?”
“Which part?” she asks distractedly, and I can tell without asking that she’s working on one of her Etsy portraits. I feel a pull of longing for the short time we’d lived together, our shoes next to each other on the rack, her paint brushes constantly drying by the sink—an annoyance then, a fond memory now. Living by myself feels strange. There’s no one to take care of, no one to cook for, only the empty press of space without bodies in it.
“All of it,” I say with vitriol. “He said I’m an outsider, and I’ll always be one. He obviously meant it. My only comfort is that he obviously didn’t know about the big event they’re holding at Hook, Wine, and Sinker tonight. Of course I didn’t tell him. I’d like to see his face when he finds out after the fact.”
Maybe it would help banish the memory of the way he looked at me when he told me I didn’t belong. His conviction practically radiated from those intense, brooding eyes.
As I near home, I reach into my coat pocket for my keys. They’re there, but the crackle of paper I’d felt earlier is notably absent. I fish around for the pink slip of paper. Nothing. With increasing alarm, I turn my pockets inside out. Empty except for my keys, wallet, and a gum wrapper that falls onto a pile of dirty snow.
“Oh no,” I say with dawning horror as I stoop to pick up the wrapper. “Oh no, oh no.”
“What’s wrong?” Charlie asks, her voice more alert.
“I think…”
Oh, it’s too awful to say out loud.
This morning, I had a wonderful feeling of anticipation as I opened the first door of the Advent calendar Eileen lovingly constructed for me, having decorated each of the little doors with gorgeous, thick holiday paper. I’ve always loved Advent calendars, so much so that I’ve been known to buy them off season so other months can feel special too. The one Eileen made for me is even more special, because she made it out of love. I felt that love when I opened the first door earlier, the same way I had every time I picked one of the prompts out of my mother’s magic ball. Optimism had thrummed through me as I removed the little pink paper, scrawled down my plan, and tucked it into my pocket. That optimism had been buoying me up all day, but now that wonderful feeling has been tainted byhim.
I imagine Enzo Cafiero finding that deeply personal note. Unfolding it. He would read it with an intense expression, but then his face would transform with laughter.
He’d be laughing atme. The dumb little girl who thought she could choose a new home without it choosing her back. The naïve virgin who doesn’t understand relationships or sex but still gives advice to others.
The lonely woman who wants a home so badly she fools herself into thinking she’s found one.
The lost woman who followed her friend into her new life like one of the puppies she paints.
I swallow the bitter thoughts, then say, “I think I may have dropped Eileen’s prompt from the Advent calendar on or around the bridge. This isverybad.”
“Why?” Charlie asks. “No one will know…Oh. You’re worried Enzo will find it.”
“I have to go back and get it,” I say, already dreading the cold walk. What if he’s still there? What if he’s waiting with the note so he can shove it in my face and laugh, his perfect handsome eyes crinkling with mirth?
“Well, that’s okay,” she says. “It just told you to make a wish, right? Nothing weird about that. He must have been there to make a wish too. Lots of people go to the bridge to make wishes.”
I’d told her about it earlier, but I’d kept quiet about the line I’d penned beneath the prompt.
Swallowing against my dry mouth, I ask, “What do you thinkhewished for, an alliance with Satan?” It’s hard to imagine a man like him having a wish. He probably has everything he needs or wants, and if he doesn’t, I’d bet he’d find a way to take it.
And now, maybe he has my wish.
She laughs. “Let’s hope not. Last week, I went there to wish for an engagement ring?—”
“That was quick work.”
“I know, right? So if he wanted an alliance with Satan, he probably got it. Then again, he might have gone to the bridge to watch people messing around beneath it.”
I release an exasperated breath. “Am I the only person who didn’t know about that?”
“Probably,” she says, and I can practically feel her smile. “You can take one of the Santas down there tomorrow night.”
“Right,” I repeat woodenly, my mind glued on that paper.
I can’t explain how perfectly awful it would be for Enzo to have found that paper, because I haven’t told my best friend the real reason why I no longer know how to date.
A twenty-one-year-old virgin isn’t all that surprising. Most people would assume she hasn’t found the right guy yet, or that she’s holding onto it for someone special.
But a twenty-eight-year-old virgin?
