I’m currently at my brother’s house—he’s out of town for work—sitting at the kitchen counter watching Sarah pour glasses of wine for all of us. She lives with Jared now, along with her little sister Andie, and I love it. It’s like they’ve become a part of our family, and I totally trust Sarah. I like to come to her for advice. Like tonight. Though the friends she invited over are of course, the most intimidating ones: Stella and Caroline.
“What type of plan are you talking about?” Sarah asks as she hands me my glass.
“I need to convince a man I want to help him, not torture him,” I say before I take a sip.
They all start laughing, which only makes me scowl. And feel the slightest bit silly for saying that. See what I mean about these women being intimidating? They all have their crap together while I most assuredly do not.
“I’m being serious,” I tell them, speaking loudly so they can hear me over their laughter. “I’m in an awkward situation and I’m trying to make the best of it.”
“Please explain your awkward situation to them,” Sarah says, nodding toward Stella and Caroline. I filled Sarah in with what was going on a few nights ago, the day of my faint/fall. I called her to let her know what happened.
“Yes, do tell,” Caroline encourages.
I take a couple more swallows, inhale deeply and exhale slowly before I launch into my story. How Isabel Sullivan asked me to help her son. Meeting Charlie and how he was two parts nice, two parts grumpy toward me. And how super reluctant he is to do anything that involves interacting with people during the holiday season.
I info dumped like crazy, even letting Stella know Charlie was the same guy she was so rude to that morning when I fell.
“What a coincidence,” she says, shaking her head. Her gaze narrows. “I didn’t like his looks.”
“What do you mean?” I’m surprised. Charles Sullivan is very handsome.
Stella makes a face. “He was extremely good looking.”
Like that’s a bad thing.
This perks Caroline up. “Oh really? I need more deets, please.”
“One of those rugged, outdoorsy types,” Stella says. “A little unkempt, not on purpose, and definitely not slovenly, but the look really worked for him. Dark hair, green eyes.”
“You noticed his eyes?” This surprises me. Though I guess it shouldn’t, since they were the first thing I noticed too.
“Who wouldn’t notice those eyes? They were gorgeous.” Stella mock fans herself, making them laugh again.
I don’t laugh, though. I keep my feelings to myself. Those eyes are gorgeous. Everything about him is attractive. Not that he seemed to notice me like that. He’d been more than happy to kick me out of his truck the moment we arrived at my house before tearing out of there, hoping he’ll never have to see me again.
Okay, I’m being dramatic. He was a perfect gentleman and he walked me to the front door. He even walked me into my house to make sure I’d be okay. When I reassured him my stepmom was on her way, and that I was just going to sit on the couch and watch Netflix until she came home, he finally did leave.
So see? He’s not that bad. He must have a sense of decency somewhere inside him. It might be buried deep, but it comes out of hiding every once in a while.
“You’re really not helping,” I tell them irritably, shocked that I’m being so blunt, but dang it, I need their input to concoct a plan. I’m desperate.
“Sorry, sorry.” Stella sits up straighter, clearing her throat. “What sort of plan do you need to come up with?”
I pull out the double-printed piece of paper I created earlier on Google docs and pass it to Sarah first. It’s a calendar, and it lists all of the social events during the remainder of November and throughout December. I highlighted all of the events in different colors according to their importance. Yellow being the least important to light green being extremely important. The red highlight indicates there’s no arguing, you must attend this event. I even made a color key to explain what each one meant.
“What is this?” Sarah asks as she glances my calendars over.
“Those are the upcoming holiday celebrations in the area,” I explain. “I highlighted them by importance.”
“I see that.” Sarah sends me an odd look as she passes the calendars to Stella. “There’s a lot going on.”
“Holy shit, I’ll say.” Stella barely looks at the calendars. She just hands them over to Caroline, who skims them over with an amused expression on her face.
“You go to every one of these events?” Sarah asks.
“Most of them.” I shrug, feeling defensive.
“How do you manage it all?” Caroline asks as she hands me the calendars.
“I have a lot of time on my hands. I don’t work. I volunteer a lot, and I feel like I have to make appearances everywhere, since I’m such a big supporter,” I say.
“Don’t you think all that volunteer work allows you to beg off a few of these events? Such as…” Stella’s voice drifts and she grabs the calendar again, glancing over it. “Flute Christmas?”
She has a funny expression on her face. I have a feeling it’s called judgment.
“I’ll have you know that’s a fun event with lots of beautiful music. Plus they encourage you to sing along,” I say indignantly. “And it’s free. All because of generous donations.”
“Like yours?” Sarah asks pointedly.
I lift my chin. “Yes. Like mine.”
“Hey, we’re not here to make fun of Candice going to Flute Christmas, we’re here to help her,” Caroline says, making her my favorite person in this room. She faces me. “What sort of plan do you want to put together? We’re here for you. We’ve got your back.”
Her encouragement means everything to me right now.
“I wanted to show Charlie the calendar—” I start, but all three of them are furiously shaking their heads. “Are you saying I shouldn’t show him the calendar?”
“Not as it stands.” Stella points at it. “Almost every single square is full.”
“But that’s how the holiday season is.”
“Not to a normal person,” Sarah says, making me flinch a little. I’d like to think I’m a normal person, but maybe I’m not.
I mean, really, I’m not. I don’t work. Volunteering and going to charity events is my job. And that’s not normal, at least not with my friends. They have careers and boyfriends and a social life that involves spending time with people that are their age. I’m getting there, but I will never be one hundred percent like them.
Sadness threatens to engulf me and I mentally shake myself. I can’t tell them the real reason that I throw myself into volunteering—I need to occupy my mind so I won’t be sad and miss my mom. If they knew the truth, they’d just pity me and worry.
“So you’re saying I should delete a few events?” Dang, that’s going to be tough. Maybe I could have my own calendar and a Charles Sullivan calendar…
“You should delete a lot of them. I mean, really.” Sarah picks up the calendar, scanning it yet again. “How many tree lightings does a person need to go to? I see five listed here.”
“All five of those trees are from the Sullivan Farm,” I tell her. I did my research. I Google searched a lot. Made a few phone calls. I found out a lot of information.
Still not much on Charlie himself, though.
“He should be there,” I say when the rest of them remain quiet. “As a representative of his family.”
“Take him to some fun events where it’s better if you have a date,” Stella suggests. “I have a feeling he could be a fun date.”
She’s done a complete one-eighty regarding her feelings about Charlie, which makes no sense. But I decide not to question her.
“He’s fun if you like to argue. Besides, don’t you think he’s too good looking?” Whoops, I sort of questioned her.
Stella frowns. “True. Those types are usually nothing but trouble.”
I get the sense Stella likes general
izing.
Snatching the calendar out of Caroline’s grip, I crumple it into a ball and let it drop on the counter. “This won’t work. I’ll only be able to cut a few events, he’ll still think it’s too much and he’ll tell me to go kick rocks.”
“Go kick rocks? Are you being for real right now?” Caroline asks.
Sarah sends her a look. “She doesn’t like to curse.”
“I don’t. I try to stay as positive as possible.” My mother never said a bad word. Daddy always says that, and I try my best to emulate her behavior since I look so much like her.
“Sometimes you gotta let the negative out, Candice,” Caroline says. “Or you might explode.”
She does have a point.
We drink more wine. Talk a little bit about Charlie and the calendar, but that gets old so I change the subject and ask Caroline what’s going on with her boyfriend, the rich and gorgeous Alexander Wilder. This launches an entirely new discussion about creative sexual positions and their comments make me feel totally boring.
I also inform Sarah that while she can talk about sexual escapades, I don’t ever want to hear her say, “And Jared has a…” or “Then Jared sucked…”. Or anything of that nature. The very last thing I want to hear about are my brother’s sexual adventures with his girlfriend, AKA my friend. It would be too gross, something I could never erase from my brain no matter how hard I tried.
While they’re all laughing and sharing funny stories as we wait for the pizza Sarah ordered only ten minutes ago to arrive, I open up my Google Drive app and start messing around with the calendar.
“How about you, Candice? You’ve been awfully quiet,” Stella says.
Glancing up, I see all three of them are studying me intently. “What about me?”
“No crazy sex stories? No situations where a guy made some weird request? Or something funny happened?”
I slowly shake my head, setting my phone on the counter. “I’m pretty boring.”
“Boring how?” Stella is full on inspecting me, as if she’s looking for my second head or my third eye.
“For the many, many times that I’ve had sex.” I pause. I’m totally exaggerating, I could count on less than two hands the number of times I’ve had sex. And I’ve only had sex with two men. One being my high school boyfriend from my senior year, who I broke up with right when we graduated, and the other being a guy from my not-so-distant past who broke up with me because I think…
God, I’ve never admitted this to anyone but…
I think I bored him.
Realizing they’re waiting for me to finish, I continue, “I’ve always done it missionary style. Well, once we tried to do it lying on our sides, facing each other, but his penis was too small and it kept falling out.” I wrinkle my nose, thinking of my high school boyfriend, who meant well, but we both had no idea what we were doing.
They explode with giggles that turn into full-blown laughter in seconds. I guess I do have a good sexual story to share.
Who knew?
Once the laughter has calmed down and they start talking about regular stuff like work and how customers make them crazy during the holiday season—all three of them work in customer service—and I’m quietly on my phone messing with the aggravating calendar, do they finally ask me what I’m doing.
“Trying to fix the calendar,” I tell them.
“Let me see it.” Sarah wags her fingers at me in the universal gimme sign.
I hand the phone over and she looks it over, frowning. “Still too much stuff on it.”
Sighing, I hold out my hand and she slaps the phone in my palm. “I don’t want to cut everything from the calendar. I need to be somewhat realistic.”
“Why? That’ll just send him running. Sometimes you have to ease men into these types of things. For instance, make him his own calendar and send it to him as bare bones as you can,” Stella says, voicing the very idea I thought of earlier. “Then you can gradually add to it as the season continues.”
“That’s good. I like that.” I make a copy of my calendar, name it Charles’ calendar, and start deleting pretty much everything.
“When are you going to give him this schedule?” Caroline asks, her brows raised.
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “I was going to meet with him soon.”
“The man who doesn’t even want to do this, who claims he doesn’t have time, is going to meet with you?” Sarah asks.
“I hope so.”
“No confirmed meeting time or place?” This is from Stella.
I shake my head.
“Do you have his number?” Caroline asks.
Another shake of my head.
They all sigh.
“Wait a minute!” I open up my phone, find Isabel Sullivan’s number, and shoot her a quick text.
Can you send me Charlie’s phone number please?
Within seconds, it appears, accompanied by a smiley face emoji.
“Got it,” I say smugly, flashing my text thread to them.
“You should text him the calendar now. Well, wait. Let me look it over first.” I hand my phone to Stella, who nods with satisfaction as she returns it to me. “Perfect. There are only two events on that thing.”
“You told me to break him in slowly,” I remind her.
“I did. And this is perfect. You don’t want to send him into shock. He’ll bail on you completely.” Stella waves encouragingly toward my phone. “Text him.”
“Right now?” My stomach churns with sudden nerves. I can’t. What if he tells me leave him alone? How embarrassing.
But then again, it might be good to have witnesses in case he acts like a complete jerk. That way they can back me up if I ever need to complain.
“Wait a minute. This situation is giving me serious Sarah vibes right now,” Caroline says, glancing over at Stella, who nods solemnly. “I need to ask you an important question, Candice.”
Unease slips over me. “Go for it.”
“Are you sure this guy is on the up and up? That he’s a decent person? You’ve not heard any creeper stories or anything like that about Charlie, have you?” She looks around. “Have any of you?”
I absorb her words, thinking over her questions. “I don’t think he’s a terrible, immoral person, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Okay. Okay, good.” Caroline nods, and I’m hoping I’ve reassured her.
“Plus, his family owns a Christmas tree farm. That’s about as wholesome as you can get,” I add.
“Or it’s the perfect ruse.” Sarah’s expression is full-blown skepticism. “He could be a secret serial killer.”
They all say this sort of thing. I don’t understand their fascination with serial killers.
The doorbell rings, meaning Uber Eats is here with our pizza and breadsticks order from Tuscany, the Italian restaurant Caroline’s brothers own in Carmel. Once we’ve grabbed everything, set up plates and napkins and poured more wine, we eat, drink, talk a lot more, and by the time I’m stuffed and ready to fall asleep? That’s when they start applying the pressure.
“Text him,” Stella says, draining yet another glass of wine. She’s drunk a lot tonight. I’d drink more, but I still need to drive home. Maybe Sarah would let me crash here.
“Now?” Here come the nerves again, making me nauseous, since I just ate.
“Yes, now. You’ll never work up the courage when you’re home alone.” She’s so right. I feel stronger having them here with me. “Do it. Send him a quick message along with the calendar. Something like, ‘Here’s what I have planned. Don’t freak out on me.’ He might find that funny.”
“Yeah, tell him he needs to grow some balls and just do this,” Caroline chimes in.
More like he’d find that insulting. I can only imagine him seeing the calendar, despite the fact that there only three events on it—I had to add another one, it didn’t look right—and telling me no.
I get the sense he plans on fighting me every step of the way.
&nb
sp; “Send it!” Sarah yells, and then all three of them start chanting.
“Send it! Send it! Send it!”
Over and over and over again.
With a sigh, I add his number to my contacts and include his name, then send him a quick text.
Hi.
I’m going for an air of mystery.
His response is almost immediate.
Who is this?
It’s Candice
???? is his reply.
Oh my God, he is totally faking this. He knows my name.
Candice Gaines? The woman you drove home a couple of days ago?
Right.
That’s all he says. Lord, he’s frustrating.
I attach the calendar I made for him and send it to him, along with the caption:
Here are the things we need to go to.
“What’s he saying?” Sarah asks.
I glance up to find all three of them are watching me expectantly.
“He said he didn’t know who I was at first,” I tell them.
“He’s lying!” Stella practically shouts. She points at me. “See? I told you guys like him are nothing but trouble.”
My phone buzzes and I check my text from Charlie.
Only three things? I find that hard to believe.
Crap. He’s already on to me.
Only three things for now, I type. We’ll keep it simple.
I’ve heard that before.
A little growl escapes me as I tap out my response.
We can meet for coffee tomorrow and discuss it?
Can’t. Work.
I roll my eyes. “He’s trying to avoid me,” I tell my friends.
“Don’t let him get away with this,” Sarah says. “Stay persistent.”
“Okay.” I nod, then start texting.
How about lunch? You have to eat lunch, right? And if not tomorrow, maybe this weekend?
Sorry. Busy.
Aw, come on.
I send him a smiley face and he doesn’t respond. Not for the rest of the night!
Deciding I need more wine and a sleepover, I overindulge. We bash on Charlie and men in general, especially Stella and I, the single ones. Caroline and Sarah rave about their boyfriends, and I roll my eyes hard when Sarah talks about how great Jared is because I know the truth (he’s not that bad, it’s just fun to make fun of my brother).
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