—and Dahlia attempted it now in the car with the cupcake atop her belly. When she reached the penultimate line, the silly self-dedication—
Happy birthday, dear Dahlia!—she sang it at the top of her lungs. What should she wish for? Money? Pills? A decent job? For Russell to stop being such an uptight prick? For a new guy, hotter and smarter and all-around better than Russell—or, better yet, several guys? Dahlia wanted all of it. She inhaled deeply and, with one forceful breath, extinguished the flame and wished for the world. Then she ate the cupcake, melted wax and all.
I fling the book on the floor, thinking, Utter blasphemy. What next? Dahlia finds some sexy trucker with my late father’s name and we’re treated to pages of their disgusting groping? My office doorknob turns, and I rush to unlock the door. My boss, Natalie, stands on the threshold. “Everything okay in here?”
I nod profusely, hoping I don’t look as deranged as I feel. “I was just reviewing today’s interviews.”
“Any luck? How about that candidate you said seemed really promising?”
I don’t know how to explain, so I just shake my head.
“Rats. Well, we’ll find someone great in the New Year. In the meantime, have a wonderful break.”
“Thanks, you too.” It feels like a miracle that I can pull off participating in such a mundane exchange.
That night, instead of eating dinner and packing, I drink a bottle of wine, stare at who-knows-what on TV, and mull over Talia’s description of her relationship with “Gabriel”: a passion so powerful and pure it nearly killed them. It’s the language of soap operas, melodramatic and maybe meaningless. But, I can’t shake it. The moment Gabe’s plane is scheduled to land, I text him, Did you tell Talia you’d pay her royalties?
He pings back: Deplaning, will call you in a minute.
I text back: Yes or no?
He responds: Complicated.
I take that as a yes. Unbelievable. I ignore his call in favor of a second bottle of wine and a private dance party to music turned up so loud I can’t hear myself think. I flail my limbs and bang my head until I can no longer feel a thing.
• • •
The sun eventually stirs me. My phone flashes with three more missed calls from Gabe. I splash water on my face to fight the sludgy feeling behind my forehead. I blink to see couch-cushion creases decorating my cheeks like river tributaries. I race to pack, and I manage to get myself to midtown just in time for my bus home to Maine.
The stop-and-start traffic out of Manhattan leaves my stomach jiggly like undercooked egg. It worsens when I consult my email. Gabe’s note is a lengthy explanation about how earning any royalties from the book is unlikely considering his advance, and how he only told Talia he’d think about giving her a cut, and how he only did that to calm her down so she’d stop making threats. Threats of what nature, he doesn’t specify, but since he doesn’t ask how I know about any of this, I imagine at least some of them concern me. At this point, I don’t know what to believe.
My response is terse:
Glad you landed safely. And what about the dedication? Was it supposed to be to Talia?
Eleven minutes pass before Gabe’s call. I don’t pick up; I can’t bear the idea of having this conversation aloud right now, especially with the rest of the bus listening on. I text back:
On bus, can’t talk. Courtesy counts.
I laugh at my little joke, as if that’s all Gabe needs—a little lesson on courtesy.
He responds, Dedication for what?
Unbelievable. I write back: And what about Talia singing happy birthday in front of the mirror as a kid? Is stealing the story I told you in confidence supposed to be another touching tribute? I thought this was FICTION!!!
Huh? Gabe responds.
I mean Dahlia.
Gabe’s text window fills with bouncing ellipses—they disappear and then reappear and then disappear again.
But I’m suddenly sick of talking about Talia and Dahlia and Gabe’s book, and sick of weighing and evaluating and trying to rationalize away my many worries and suspicions. I shut off my phone, chuck it in my bag, and close my eyes. It’s hours before I see Gabe’s reply:
Are you okay, Molly-moo?
Chapter 18
I’M BACK IN my hometown, pedaling the familiar streets, the frigid air whipping at my ears and numbing my fingertips. I find it refreshing. The snow is like fairy dust, the lightest blanket settling on my hair and the sidewalks. It’s just my mom and me for these two days, since Leo and Lana aren’t scheduled to arrive until Christmas Eve. I came home to her doing the dishes and botching up the lyrics to “Little Drummer Boy,” and it took just fifteen minutes for me to grow antsy and claustrophobic, and to go fetch my old bike from the garage. I can’t tell if I’m breathing especially hard or if seeing my breath in the air just makes it seem that way. Muscle memory leads me on the familiar path across town.
And then I’m on the street, and then I’m in front of the house. I’m not even sure his parents still live there, until I spot the green Subaru in the driveway. My stomach seizes. I run my fingers across the “Save the Dolphins!” sticker peeling off the back windshield, the same one I used to touch as a good-luck charm. I walk to the backyard, stand below his bedroom window, and look up—even this particular angle of neck crane is a potent memory. The lamplight is a beacon. I stay very still, steeling myself for movement above, hoping. And then it happens: I catch a glimpse of the back of Charlie’s head. My heart leaps. I find a pebble on the frozen ground and wind up to lob it. I’m trembling, my fingers like icicles. It’s a perfect shot, pinging against the glass. Charlie turns to look outside, and I dart out of his sight.
I bike home so fast my heart feels like it’ll pounce free of my chest, but my legs are spinning so ferociously they wouldn’t even notice.
• • •
Christmas was my father’s holiday, and for a long time my mother did her best to keep up the celebration in his memory. But we’ve slacked off in recent years, half-heartedly stringing up tinsel, then ordering Chinese food with the rest of the Jews.
My mom and I are many pours into the eggnog, weepily pitying Charlie Brown and his tree, when the doorbell rings. Leo stands alone in the doorframe, shouldering a small duffel and a take-out bag that steams with smells of sesame oil and soy sauce.
“Where’s Lana?” my mother asks.
“Greetings to you, too, Mom,” Leo says. “With her recovery, it was too much to travel here and then to her parents’ place.” So, it’s just us, the original three.
I spend the meal drinking wine and pushing broccoli around on my plate, then the three of us move to the couch and I open a new bottle of wine. My mom turns to me: “Molly, since you’re now affianced”—she uses an exaggerated French accent—“I wanted to share something your father and I did on our wedding night, in case you and Gabe want to steal it.” At the mention of Gabe, my missing him becomes a physical ache; it makes me feel pathetic to be so mad at him and also still long for him.
Leo groans. “Mom, I think I speak for both of us when I say we don’t need to hear the details of your wedding night.”
My mom slaps his wrist. “Not sexual intercourse, silly. Your dad and I wrote letters about our hopes and dreams. His was about building his own firm, and mine was about wanting two kids, a boy and a girl.”
“You both got what you wanted,” I say.
My mom’s eyes turn liquid. “It’s true.” She squeezes Leo’s and my hands. “Your father always worked so much, and I was always with you kids, elbows-deep in diapers and Play-Doh. I assumed things would change when you both got a little older.” Things did change, of course, though none of us says so.
“Oh, Mom.” Leo hugs her from one side, and I tilt her head onto my shoulder from the other. It’s a relief to focus on someone else’s emotions for a change. My mother dips into sleep for a minute, before jolting upright and exclaiming, “What? Where’s Santa?” Leo and I burst into laughter.
“Ok
ay, Mom,” Leo says, “It’s past your bedtime.” He helps her upstairs, and I help myself to more wine.
“Let’s stay out of Mom’s way in the morning,” I say when Leo returns.
“Yeah, that’s not going to be a pretty picture. Hey, wanna take a walk, see if we can spot Santa’s sleigh?”
My insides feel toasty enough to manage it. “Sure.”
Outside, the air is crisp. It’s stopped snowing, and the moon is a sliver. As Leo and I trudge down the block, the only sounds are our footsteps’ muffled crunches in the snow. I kick a chunk of snow in his direction. “It feels like months since we’ve hung out.” I think about all that’s happened, how nice it is to be so far away from it, up here in my sleepy hometown.
“I know,” Leo says. “I’ve been working nonstop. After Lana’s accident, I used up all my time off and called in every favor so I could stay home with her. Now I’m making up for lost time.” I think of Lana alone in that hushed museum of an apartment. “It’s been rough. Lana can’t go more than a few hours without pain meds. She barely sleeps. I hate to say it, but I’m looking forward to a few nights without her tossing and turning next to me.”
“So, you’re not joining her in Chicago?”
“I couldn’t get the days off. Don’t tell Mom, okay? I don’t want her to worry.” I nod, though it’s too dark for Leo to see. “What about you? Did you stop eating or something?”
“What?” I’m not used to my brother noticing how I look. “I’m getting married, remember? Every bride diets.” Leo’s snort is skeptical. I add, “I’ve been stressed, okay? Did I tell you Gabe’s novel is all about his total nut of an ex-girlfriend, Talia?”
“Yeah, but it’s fictional, right? Gabe is marrying you, Molly, not this Talia person.” He makes it sound so simple.
Leo pulls out his phone, so I check mine, too. There’s a “Merry Christmas” text from Sam, but predictably, no word from Gabe; he and his folks are up in the mountains, with no cell service or Internet.
“Charlie just invited me over for a nightcap,” Leo says. “Wanna come?”
I start panicking—did Charlie see me the other day outside his window? Did he tell Leo? Did Leo tell Gabe? Is this some sort of a test? I suddenly wonder if I’m being watched. I feel desperate to be back in the house. “I’m tired,” I tell Leo.
Back in my childhood bedroom, I text Sam back: Merry Christmas. I hesitate, before adding: Not so merry for me, actually. Gabe’s being a total prick, and it just took all my restraint to say no to drinks with Charlie.
Sam responds immediately: WHAT?! Tell me exactly what’s going on! Are you ok? I demand details!
Over the course of the next ten minutes, Sam sends missive after missive, begging me to fill her in on what’s happening, encouraging me to talk to Gabe, insisting that I cut off all contact with Charlie, and then scolding me for ignoring her. But I’m too tired to respond to any of it. I silence my phone and fling it aside.
I’m on the blurry edges of sleep when Santa Claus appears in my mind’s eye. “What do you want for Christmas, Molly?” he asks. I’m paralyzed and mute. He asks again: “What do you want?” Someone else appears beside him—it’s my father—and now he’s asking me too: “Molly, what do you want?” Others soon join in, a whole cast of characters from my life—Gabe, Charlie, my mother, Talia, Sam, Kirsten, Leo, Lana. They start closing in on me as they chant more and more urgently: “What do you want? Molly? Molly, what do you want? Molly!” The chorus of questions grows louder and louder, until I fear my eardrums will rupture. My eyes fly open and I scream, and only then does everyone disappear. I take a breath, finally alone.
• • •
Christmas is a wash—a whitewash, actually, the biggest Nor’easter in years. Leo hits the road early, hoping to make it out of New England before conditions become un-driveable. My mother remains in bed, referring to her hangover as a head cold. I spend the day battling the snow’s enthusiasm. Minutes after I clear the sidewalks of snow, they re-carpet in white. But I’m enjoying the focus on a simple, straightforward task, the Sisyphean pattern of working up a sweat shoveling, retreating inside to rest, then getting sweaty shoveling again. I picture Gabe, warming himself by a flickering fire. His family celebrates the winter solstice, not Christmas. His mother once explained to me the tribute to the light, warning me that if you’re not vigilant, you could get dragged down into the belly of winter’s darkness. At the time, I dismissed it as hippy nonsense, but now I reconsider her words. Maybe that’s my main problem: the season.
I send Gabe a text: Hi. It bounces back undelivered—no service. I scroll through his Instagram feed, whose most recent photo is of me holding The Charms of Dahlia, a big, stupid grin on my face; I “heart” it. I swipe to his Facebook wall, and there at the top is a thumbnail of Talia, skin airbrushed smooth, her fatuous duck face like a personal taunt. Maybe this was part of her deal with Gabe, too—a reinstatement of their Facebook friendship, which I thought had been terminated over a year ago. Her post reads, “Merry Xmas, Gabriel! Here’s to a kickass new year and to our book! XOXO.” Our book. It could be a typo, omitting the “y” at the start; it likely isn’t. The post has twelve likes—none of the names are familiar to me. I want to track down all dozen likers and berate them for affirming Talia and her B.S. I want to comment in all caps. I want to scream—I do scream. Surely if Gabe had Internet access, he would delete the post. If only a click of the mouse could delete Talia from our lives, too.
I set my phone down, eyeing it like it’s toxic. When it beeps a moment later, I know in my bones who the text is from.
Meet me at the lake.
• • •
Charlie is waiting at our old spot, and it feels perfectly natural when he braids his fingers into a foothold and hoists me up onto the fence. I cling to the top, just as I used to do half a lifetime ago, waiting for Charlie to fling himself over and help me down. Our boots crunch through the crusted-over snow. We leave footprints like evidence.
It’s only five o’clock, but it might as well be midnight for how dark it is. I take in Charlie under the moonlight. His coat is open, the zipper busted, and his shaggy hair is tucked under a wool hat with a pompom, probably his mother’s. I wonder if he’ll always look like a sexy, disheveled teenager, or if only I see him this way.
Charlie squirms under my scrutiny. “Look up,” he says. When I tilt my head, I see luminous white dots spread across the sky, an infinite Van Gogh. It’s as if I’ve never seen a night sky before. It’s as if I’m high on a powerful drug.
“That doesn’t exist in New York City, does it?” Charlie says.
“What, the sky?” I say it like he’s crazy, but actually he’s right.
Now Charlie’s gaze bores into me. “You look underfed,” he says. I feel exposed, despite my big coat. “You’re still beautiful, but …” His voice fades out, and my heart pounds. I don’t respond. “Well, should we go skating, or what?”
“I don’t think the ice is thick enough yet.”
But Charlie is already gliding out onto the surface. I’m vigilant, tracking his every tic, which I’m sure he knows and is relishing. If I told him to be careful, he’d start performing cartwheels.
“Uh-oh,” he says, freezing long enough for me to imagine I hear the ice crack, and then play out the whole sequence of nightmarish events. Just when I feel my pulse might explode from panic, Charlie whips around, grins, and says, “Just kidding,” then scurries back from lake to land. My fear gives way to relief, then anger, then relief again.
We don’t talk about our jobs or the holidays or the last time we saw each other. Being with Charlie is like being outside of time. But then Charlie says, “Let’s make New Year’s resolutions.”
“You’re kidding.” There’s no way Charlie has ever set a single personal goal.
“Come on. You first.”
“Fine.” My life unquestionably has room for improvement, but I can’t take this seriously: “I resolve to live each day like it’s a gift, to
dance like nobody’s watching, to stop and smell the—”
And then Charlie kisses me. His lips are impossibly warm and soft, and they melt my own frozen ones. The moment is at once a revelation and as familiar as my left elbow. Charlie’s touch is like a treasure chest that’s remained buried inside of me; rediscovering it makes me feel rich and lucky all over again. Still, I stand like a statue, too stunned and scared to kiss back. Charlie tries again, longer this time, and I give in. We kiss and kiss and kiss. The whole world is our kissing. When he finally pulls away, he says, “I resolved to do that.”
My legs are numb with cold, but I stride away as fast as I can, the long way around so I don’t have to navigate the fence on my own. Charlie’s calls to me echo over the lake: “Molly! Wait! Hey!” I speed up. Somewhere beneath my frozen exterior is a swirling chaos of emotion. I ignore it as I run the rest of the way home.
• • •
I’m bundled in my coat and scarf under the covers in bed, unable to stop shivering. I’m trying to erase what just happened, but it’s like my thoughts are being held hostage. I’m thinking how it was even better than what I’d remembered. I’m thinking, when’s the last time Gabe kissed me like that? I’m thinking, this is too big for me to think about alone—I need to share it with someone. Maybe I should text Sam. But no, she’d just berate me like she did last night, telling me I’m being a stupid, selfish asshole. But, what if this is actually a good thing, a turn in the right direction, a new beginning? Even as I form the thoughts, I feel disgusted with myself, like I’ve smeared sewage all over my mouth. But what if Gabe deserves what happened, if it’s just an evening of the score, a readjustment that’ll set things right? Really, who’s to say he didn’t kiss Talia during their coffee-turned-drinks meet-up? Who’s to say he hasn’t been sleeping with her through our whole relationship—or that she’s not in San Francisco with him right now, cozying up to him this very moment before a crackling fire, while I’m here in bed, alone, freezing as all fuck? I’m working myself up into a fit of outrage, but it quickly dissolves into a pool of sadness. I ran away from the lake, at least there’s that; I didn’t follow Charlie home. Although, if I had gone home with him, I’d be a whole lot warmer than I am right now. I press my frigid lips together—the kiss remains like a stain.
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