“Is that your boyfriend?” Austin asked, his eyebrows furrowed.
I laughed. I’d known Casey since kindergarten. My butterflies flittered to attention, however. What does that tone mean? Jealous or just curious?
“Just a friend,” I said. He seemed to relax. Now you better relax, Jamie. He has a hot girlfriend.
“Hey Case,” I said. “Thanks for offering a ride, but I have another way back to Chester.”
He smiled.
“Great, now I can get home even faster and out of this costume.”
Something about the word costume made something click.
“Hey are you still in that band?” Casey and a few other guys in high school had played together for a few years. “You would dress up in funny costumes during your shows.”
He nodded.
“Yeah, sometimes, but we don’t have a lot of places to play.”
I looked to Austin, eyebrows raised in a significant gesture.
“Would you guys be around to play on the 23rd?” he asked, catching on quick as lightning. “It’s a charity show, so we can’t pay you…”
“No, that’s great!” he said, looking excited. “We haven’t played in ages. A gig is a gig. I’ll call the guys tonight. Jamie, I’ll text you later?”
I nodded, as he turned to leave, his phone already out of his pocket.
Austin beamed at me. The butterflies did a happy dance so big that it threatened to burst out of my mouth.
“Still have time to eat?” Austin asked.
I nodded with my mouth closed tight, not wanting an errant butterfly to escape.
Chapter 11
Later that evening, Miranda texted me:
* * *
Miranda: Hey, what’s up? I thought it was Elf night?
* * *
Jaime: He bought me dinner!!
* * *
M: What?? So no more Maddie? That was fast. What did you wear to the church last night, your Cat Woman costume?
* * *
J: Um, no to both. He had time to kill after my shift and wanted to get something to eat while we talked about the event page for the show.
* * *
M: Okay…
* * *
J: And since Casey was supposed to give me a ride, I walked down to tell him, and then remembered he was in a band.
* * *
M: Oh, right. The Weird Al/OK Go group. OK Al? Was that their name?
* * *
J: No idea. Don’t care. But Austin was THRILLED I found a band for the show!!
* * *
M: Yayyy!
* * *
J: So he insisted on buying my burrito to thank me.
* * *
M: Awww, free burrito = <3.
* * *
J: Shut up.
* * *
M: So what did you guys talk about, other than your mutual love of Mexican food?
* * *
J: He wanted to know if I’d ever done a show like this before.
* * *
M: Uh oh. So what did you say?
* * *
J: I talked about the shows in high school, duh.
* * *
M: Oh, yeah, those were fun. Remember the one with all the dancers dressed as flamingos and hippos?
* * *
J: Failed Fantasia, lol.
* * *
M: Come over tomorrow for Elf?
* * *
J: Of course.
* * *
M: Sweet dreams ;-)
* * *
J: Stoooop.
Chapter 12
Miranda and I watched Elf two more times that week. Austin had stopped coming by the smoothie bar (I suspect Maddie had something to do with that) but he texted me a few days after the burrito to let me know they had the supplies. He wanted to know when I could come by again to help set it all up.
Now that most of the schools were done with end of semester quizzes, and getting into their own holiday show preparations, my tutoring lessons slowed way down. I only had three planned that week instead of my usual ten. I definitely wanted to help Austin as much as I could, but I was getting nervous about how low my income would be for the month of December. It had been a stroke of pure luck that he’d paid for my burrito, so at least I’d have enough to get my mom and Miranda something. A very little something.
After calling all of my usual students to double check they didn’t need any extra lessons, I called Miranda to see if she needed help at the salon.
“I wish we did, but it’s for the hairdressers, not so much you,” she said. “You know I wish I could give you more, but the schedules are already so crazy, I don’t think that we can mess with it too much.”
I sighed.
“It’s fine, I’ll figure something out.”
“Hey, are you coming over here Christmas day?”
Her mom had said something about it during our second Elf session. Very casually, but I could tell she was worried. I hadn’t even brought it up to my mom. We both seemed to be avoiding the topic. How were we supposed to celebrate this year, just the two of us? I tried not to think of last Christmas, and how happy everyone had been, my sister, her new boyfriend, my mom. My dad.
“I haven’t really thought about it,” I lied, my voice tight, blinking back tears.
“Well, just let me know. You and your mom are always welcome.”
“Thanks M,” I said. “I need to head over to the church.”
The least I could do with all this free time is help with the show.
Chapter 13
If I had thought that seeing Austin would make me feel better, it did, for about ten minutes. As we started sorting cables and hooking things up, we stopped every so often to take pictures to post on the event page I’d created. He’d been good about updating it, and so far a hundred people had said yes.
“I mean, a hundred is pretty good for Chester, and there’s still two weeks to go, and Casey hasn’t even invited his friends yet, so this could get really big really quickly,” I babbled as we tested the equipment one by one.
“Hey Jamie, can I ask you something?” His voice was amplified on the backup microphone I had insisted they get. You never knew when someone would walk off with a mic.
Anything you want.
I tried to keep my smile normal, my heart pounding in beat with my butterflies.
“Sure.”
“Could you head to the mall with me when we’re done here? I need to pick something out for Maddie, and I’m not sure what she’d like.”
I kept my smile plastered on as my heart sank into my toes. To tease or not to tease?
“You don’t know what your girlfriend likes?” I tried to keep my tone joking instead of accusatory, but I’m not sure it came through. His face fell, and he stepped off the stage to come closer.
“I do,” he said defensively, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I mean, sort of. Back home I’d have one of her friends go with me, just to double check, and I’m not about to spend hours on the phone with one of them to figure this out.”
“Oh,” I said, not wanting to think about what Maddie’s friends must have looked like. “Of course.”
The dimples made an appearance.
“It’s so great I met you. You’re turning out to be all sorts of useful.”
If only he needed the one thing I actually wanted to be of use to him for.
Chapter 14
It had been great to spend more time with him, but it had been really hard. I had nearly cried on the phone to Miranda telling her about it. It wasn’t just that the gift was for his girlfriend, but being in stores, seeing all the Christmas music, thinking about how I couldn’t even afford gifts for everyone…I don’t know if he’d really noticed my less than enthusiastic participation in the event, but hopefully he just thought it was because we were shopping for his girlfriend. I didn’t exactly go into all my drama and pain.
Speaking of drama and pain, I thought as he walked in the auditorium a
few days later.
Austin was angry. He stormed around the stage moving around props with violent force, knocking things over just to pick them up again and slam them back down.
Yikes, what happened? I guess she didn’t like the bath stuff I helped him pick out. Do hot girls not take baths? Just shower in unicorn tears and rainbows?
I didn't say anything. I knew from past experience with my college roommate (and mother and sister) that jumping in when someone was like this wouldn't do any good until the person was ready to talk. So I waited.
He bustled around a bit more, losing steam pretty quickly once he'd rearranged everything twice.
He plopped down in the chair next to me with an exaggerated heaviness and a sigh.
"Maddie left."
"Oh." Was that all? Geez, I get it, you love her and hate when she’s not around, way to shove it in my face. "I'm sorry. She'll be back for Christmas though. "
"No," he said, running his hands through his hair, already a mess from his antics on stage. "She left, like, she left me."
"Oh," I said again, my heart starting to beat faster. I bit my tongue, knowing he'd tell me more if I stayed silent than if I asked tons of questions.
"She said it's someone she met when I first came up here," he said after an unbearably long pause. “We were apart for all of three weeks, and she wants to give up two years?”
He sighed and covered his face with his hands. He didn’t say anything and I wondered if he was about to cry.
What the hell am I supposed to do with a crying guy? Hug him??
He wasn’t crying, just rubbing his eyes, which I realized looked really tired. I guess it had been a long, late-night conversation.
“She came up as planned for Thanksgiving to see if things could work,” he went on. “I guess they didn't for her."
"For you they did?" Hmmm, not the best open-ended question. I wracked my brain for other ideas, but having only taken the required Psych 101 and several sessions of grief counseling, I wasn’t sure what else to say.
He started to nod, then stopped.
"They were working, but I could tell something was off. I guess it had been for a while, and I tried to ignore it."
I waited to see if there was more.
“She kept going on about how I could never pick out gifts for her without someone’s help, that I didn’t get her or know her at all.”
“I’m sorry!” I said, my face turning beet red. Not the way I’d have preferred to cause a breakup. “I shouldn’t have helped you. I suck at gifts.”
He shook his head.
“It’s not you, don’t worry,” he said. “She was always so insecure about me spending time with other girls. She didn’t even want me to come up here in the first place.”
I didn’t say anything for a minute. What could I say?
“That sucks she broke up with you,” I said finally. “She’s an idiot.”
He let out a forced laugh.
“Yeah, well,” he trailed off, staring off at the stage. “I was going to surprise her and go down for Christmas, see my parents, but I guess now I’ll just stay here and help my gran finish packing up her house.”
“When is she set to move?” Focus on a new topic, good plan.
“Right after New Year’s,” he said. “So I was heading back down then anyway, but it would have been nice to see everyone a few weeks sooner.”
“You miss your family?”
He nodded.
“What about you?” he said. “Is that why you’re not in school? You missed your family too much?”
Woah, where did that come from? I’d never really talked about me during the few times we’d hung out, focusing on music or movies, or some safe topic. He’d told me a bit about his different business ideas that failed, but he hadn’t ever asked about my college and career stuff.
“I…I…“ I stuttered. I took a deep breath. You don’t have to tell him just because he asked. “No. Well, kind of.”
“I’m sorry, that’s none of my business,” he said, looking away. “I’m just having a crappy day. Trying to find someone to commiserate with.”
I searched desperately for a good reply to this. Come on brain, think!
He took a look at my panicked face, sighed and stood up.
“It’s fine, Jamie, I didn’t mean to dump all my problems on you,” he said. “You’re not here to solve them all. Just to help with the show.”
“Yeah, the show,” I said lamely, standing up as well.
We didn’t speak much as we finished the final preparations. There wasn’t much else to do now until the three rehearsals we’d scheduled started the following week.
When he offered to drive me home, I declined. I wanted the time to think.
I made my way home in the cold, grateful for my much more practical and weather appropriate shoes than the first time I’d made the walk. My thoughts were all over the place.
He’s single now.
Yes, but going home in a few weeks. Georgia. That’s not exactly a quick drive.
Besides, just because she dumped him doesn’t mean he wants you.
Why on earth not? An awkward, college dropout who works at a smoothie bar. I’m a total catch!
I went back and forth, never letting myself get fully excited about thinking that maybe something could be possible. Christmas miracles only happen in cheesy T.V. movies.
My phone buzzed, and my heart leapt despite myself. Did Austin want to talk more?
It was my mom.
* * *
Mom: Caitlyn called. She’s not coming for Christmas.
* * *
I felt a few tears fall, immediately cold on my face in the winter wind. I made a left, instead of right, and headed towards Miranda’s house without a second thought. I realized now how I should have answered Austin’s question: I still miss my family, even though I’m technically “home.”
Chapter 15
“Between my mother, and Austin, and work, and the show, I just can’t. I can’t.”
I had gotten to the end of the recap of the evening’s events and was sobbing into Miranda’s pillow, not caring if her parents heard me. It wouldn’t be the first time.
“Hey, it’s okay,” she said, rubbing my back. I thought about how many times we’d been in this position over the past six months: me crying and her comforting me. She deserves the biggest Christmas present on the planet. Which I can’t give her. I sobbed even harder.
“My sister,” I started, my words muffled by the pillow and distorted by the sobs.
“Shhh,” she said. “Explain later. Get it all out now.”
She let me cry myself out, which took a while. I had been holding quite a bit in lately. When I finally raised my head, snot streaked across my face (oh, and her pillow, ew), she handed me a spoon. A tub of ice cream had appeared from somewhere.
“My mom,” she said in response to my confused face. I hadn’t even heard her come in. I must have been crying louder than I’d realized.
“I wish I could get you a new pillow,” I said sadly, looking down at the mess I’d made on her nice, clean sheets: green and red, always matching the season. It’s why I liked their house so much. It always felt like a house should feel around the important holidays: spooky at Halloween, fresh for Easter, merry and bright at Christmas. My own house had been so empty and sad for so long. If it weren’t for my mother, sometimes I think I’d never go back.
“Don’t worry about it, it’ll wash,” she said with a wave of the hand.
I gave her a smile that didn’t quite reach my tear-stained eyes.
“Now, I can’t do anything about your jerkface sister,” she said, taking a bite of ice cream.
“But why are you so upset that he’s single?” she said, her face totally serious, but her lips pressed tight, trying to hide a smile. Or maybe brain freeze. “I’m not sure I quite understood your reasoning on that one.”
“I’m not upset about that,” I said, crossing my legs under me a
nd leaning back against the wall. I took a bite of ice cream. “He’s going back to Georgia in a few weeks, so even if he did like me, which he doesn’t, it’s pointless.”
“Pointless to what, try?”
“Try what? Telling him I’ve been dreaming about his hot bod since the first time I laid eyes on him at the smoothie bar?” A giant spoonful of ice cream disappeared.
She let out a small chuckle.
“Well, it would certainly be the most direct way of doing things.”
I threw the gross, snotty pillow at her. She laughed louder this time, batting it away.
“I get it, he freaked you out with his question about your family,” she said. “You don’t have to tell him your life story. But please let yourself be a little excited about this?”
My mouth turned down in a frown.
“Excited… to do what, exactly?”
“Pull out the big guns,” she said, throwing her arms out wide. “Make liberal use of your charm, and the push-up bra I bought you for your birthday. If you want him, go get him.”
“Just for a few weeks, so he can leave?” I said. I’ve already lost so much.
“Jamie, you deserve a few weeks of happiness,” she said.
“But he’ll leave.”
“Will you be sadder if he leaves and you have kissed him, or if you haven’t?”
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