Page 8 of The Holiday Hate-Off
“Is this where you tell me no one’s good enough for me?”
“Oh, there are plenty of women who are good enough for you. You just have awful taste. But I love you anyway. I’ll drink some ouzo in your honor.”
Greek ouzo isn’t the same as the Italian stuff, but I don’t say so.
I also don’t tell her that I haven’t dated at all since Rachelle and I broke up four months ago. After our break up, I went back to New York City, and I barely had any downtime before I stepped right into another crisis, this one at work. The situation was more complicated than I’d let on, but I had, technically, quit my consulting job. By then, I already knew thingsweren’t going so hot in Hideaway Harbor. So I did what any good grandson would.
I came home to help fix them.
When you’re going through back-to-back crises, getting laid is the last thing on your mind. But the dominoes have all stopped falling—I’m not going to look for a new job until Hidden Italy starts turning a healthy profit—which means I’ve started noticing my months-long dry spell. It’s gotten bad enough that aVictoria’s Secretcatalogue can make my blood heat.
I know better than to screw around in my home town, though. I’ve made that mistake before. Won’t be doing it again.
“You do that.Saluti.”
“Down the hatch,” Aria replies, and I can tell she’s smiling. “Don’t be too much of a grinch.”
I make no promises as I end the call and then put on my outdoor things.
Here goes nothing.
I step out of the apartment, lock the door, and then glance down the hall at the door of the unit with the street-facing window. I know a woman lives there—the other night I was walking home and looked up from the street and saw her silhouette dancing. Her apartment was dark other than the glow of a Christmas tree, so I’d only seen her shadow, pirouetting gracefully and without any self-consciousness.
Until she looked down and spotted me on the street. She’d shut her curtains like I was some pervert, which had made me feel like one. But that wasn’t why I’d been watching her.
It was one of those stolen moments when you get a glimpse into a stranger’s life—not the polished version they show the world, but them, through and through.
I’m curious about her now.
I’d like to know why she was dancing at midnight, her body gliding in concentric circles.
Acting on impulse, I head back into the apartment and scrawl a quick note into a blank notecard. I fold it and then prop it against her door on my way out.
It’scold as a witch’s tit tonight, colder than it should be for early December, but instead of heading straight to Hidden Italy, I make my way to the stone bridge spanning the spring that supplies the town with water. It’s the famous Wishing Bridge. Locals, known as Hidies, and tourists have been coming here for years to whisper their wishes and express their love for their significant other or a secret crush by attaching a lock to one of the detachable metal spokes supporting the railing. They’re always covered with them, practically from top to bottom, even though the town removes them regularly.
It’s a place for desperate people, and I feel stupid as soon as I get there. I’m not a man who believes in wishes. Action is the only thing that matters.
But this place reminds me of the innocence of childhood. Of when I was young enough to think a jolly old man in a fancy red suit, trespassing, could solve my problems—or that a wish, made on a bridge, could change a life.
I’m not that person anymore. Still, I’m here, so I stand at the edge, looking down at the water—freezing my ass off, if I’m being truthful—and say, “I want a miracle.”
Then, louder, “I can make a miracle happen.”
Because I’m Enzo Cafiero, damn it. The man who makes miracles happen. I may have been humbled professionally, but my name still has to mean something. I need it to.
“Someone’s watching us,” I hear a voice hiss in an undertone nearby. “Put on your pants.”
I sigh, remembering this is also a make-out spot—andsometimes a public sex spot. I came here often enough when I was younger and looking for a place I could get some action without getting caught.
I turn to leave, and nearly collide with a woman.
It takes me only three seconds to registerwhichwoman. It’s the barista from Love at First Sip. The woman who took a hammer to my relationship and then questioned my virility in front of my neighbors.
She’s in a thick coat, mittens, and boots, but there’s nothing concealing her hair. It’s long and curly and lush, surrounding her face and covering her shoulders. Her hair’s what makes her look like one of Michaelangelo’s or Raphael’s angels. From the dim glow of the lights at either end of the bridge, I can see her eyes are a deep mossy green, a color that makes me think of being lost in the woods.
For a second, I’m speechless. Was she this beautiful four months ago? Surely I would have noticed. A man notices when a fist pounds him in the face, and that’s what her beauty is, a fist to the face, or maybe the gut.
Then again, the low lighting does something for her, along with the setting of the stone bridge. She looks unreal. As if she’s a Christmas angel sent in response to my wish…
