Page 7 of War on Christmas

Jeremy takes his eyes off traffic to look at my face, and he breaks into a wide grin that makes me curse his straight, white teeth.

“All right,” he says, reaching to turn on the radio. “Christmas music it is.”

He’s going to drive me out of my goddamn mind.

Six

JEREMY

ShebreaksbetweenKenoshaand Milwaukee. The playlist—combined with my enthusiastic and entirely off-key singing—was carefully curated for exactly this result. It starts out with oddball artists for Christmas music—Snoop Dogg, Weezer, Bad Religion—designed to give her false hope she might be able to withstand it. Then, an hour in, I hit her with Dave Matthews Band. Her musical nemesis. The first bluesy notes fill the car, and she slams her hand into the stereo’s power button. I swallow my smile and admire her long, slender fingers stretched across the clock, her fingernails a dark, glossy purple.

She always did have pretty hands.

“Fine,” she grunts. “What do you do?”

We spend the next two hours catching up. It’s the big stuff. Nothing too personal. College and jobs. Career highlights and vacations. When she says she’s single, something constricted relaxes in my gut, a clenched fist releasing its hold, but I ignore it. Because as attractive as I find the woman sitting next to me—as much as my attention keeps flitting to the long sweep of her lashes and the way her dark hair grazes the pale skin of her cheek—I’m determined not to make the same mistakes again.

She stays guarded. Which isn’t surprising. The only time Freya’s cool, indifferent mask cracks is when I recognize the name of the theater she works at.

“The Sphere?” I echo, a note of excitement creeping into my voice. “I was just there for the burlesque show. This past Tuesday.”

Her gray eyes flash, just for a moment.

“Oh?”

My smile falters. Maybe she doesn’t care for the burlesque shows? But now that I know Freya works there, I canseeher in it. Not on stage, obviously. In high school, she’d always preferred working behind the scenes. But the show’s quirkiness? Its dark humor and its drive to subvert expectations? They all carry Freya’s witchy fingerprints, her unique brand of magic.

“Yeah,” I admit, turning my gaze back to the road.

“And…” She pauses. “What did you think?”

For a moment, I consider making up some bullshit Puritanical answer about the evils of sexuality, just to see her reaction. But I don’t. Art is vulnerable. It’s a vehicle for our deepest truths, and I want to honor her question with an honest answer.

“I thought it was brilliant,” I say. “What I saw was funny and smart and plowed right over the edges of decency. Like good art should.”

Her lips twitch into a brief smile. If I’d blinked, I would’ve missed it.

“What you saw?” she asks.

“Yeah…” Now it’s my turn to look uncomfortable. The conversation has been easy so far. Light and surface level. I don’t want to bring up Gary. “I only got to stay for the first three songs.”

She nods, then changes the subject to myjob. Unfortunately, I don’t have anything half as interesting as fantasy-themed burlesque to talk about.

When I exit Highway 41 and drive through Northview’s historic downtown, we both fall silent. Chicago gets really decked out for Christmas. It’s an urban winter wonderland. But even the evergreen-draped stores of Michigan Avenue can’t hold a candle to Northview at Christmastime.

Legend has it that on the eve of its founding in the 1870s, the town was gifted with a dazzling performance of the northern lights, inspiring the town’s planned name, Springtown, to be replaced with Northview. (Ironically, the exceptional views of the aurora borealis were a one-time fluke.) Then, through the generations, a process of association took place that went something like this: northern lights come from the North Pole; the North Pole equals Christmas; Northview equals Christmas.

That’s right. Freya and I grew up in a town that’s the next best thing to the North fucking Pole.

In the passenger seat, Freya sighs as we drive past brick storefronts drowning in garlands. The ice rink crawling with families. Old-fashioned lampposts twisted with white and red ribbons to look like candy canes.

For most people, Northview must seem downright magical during the holidays. For a kid like me, whose stepdad made a point of not “wasting” money on decorations or presents—“not dropping my hard-earned cash on another man’s bastard”—it felt…not so magical.

I ease to a stop at a crosswalk, allowing shoppers to cross with piles of bags, and notice how white my knuckles are against the steering wheel. I stretch my fingers.

“How long since you’ve been back?” I ask.

“Four years,” she says, her voice flat. Her answer catches me off guard, but before I can press for more information, she asks, “You?”

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