Christmas Cliché

by Tara Sivec

  “Anyway,” Millie continues. “As long as we don’t eat any questionable Christmas cookies at a rave, we’ll be fine.”

  She reaches over and pats the top of my leg.

  “This will be good for you, Allie.”

  Yes, this will be good for me.

  “I may have made a grave mistake.”

  “…has declared this a level three snow emergency. All roads are closed to everyone except emergency personnel. Stay warm, West Virginia, and enjoy this throwback Christmas classic from Bing Cros—”

  I quickly flip off the radio before the music starts, just like I’ve done every time Millie or I have turned it on to get a weather report every so often during our drive. According to the GPS, we should almost be to our destination, thank God. This forty-five-minute drive has now taken us over two hours.

  “This is not good. This is not good at all,” I mutter, breathing a sigh of relief when the GPS announces our destination is coming up ahead.

  “Not good?” Millie huffs, turning on the flashlight on her phone in the dark car and shining it on her outstretched hand in front of her. “We decided Snow Glad I Met You was a better choice than Holidazed Over You because of my skin tone.”

  “I’m not talking about your nails. I’m talking about the weather,” I remind her, slowing down even more when I get to a small bend in the road, the wind howling outside the windows.

  In the last two hours while I white-knuckled it driving through the blizzard, Millie gave herself a manicure—because of course she had everything she needed for that in her purse—and told me every story about how she didn’t celebrate Christmas over the years. My nerves are shot. If I don’t get away from the nail polish fumes and Millie’s voice—God love her—soon, I’m going to scream. I just want to take a nice, hot shower, curl up under fifty blankets, and not hear one more word about Christmas.

  “Turn right in one mile,” the GPS announces.

  “Okay. So, I’ll just keep talking to distract you.” Millie nods as I try not to groan. “So, I woke up in a hotel in Hong Kong next to one of those giant, blowup Santas, and the Christmas carolers I told you about who showed up at the party on ’shrooms were still trying to get the guy in the elf costume out of the chimney—”

  “Millie!” I finally shout, quickly glancing at the screen of her phone to see how much farther on the map I need to go, since I can’t see a damn thing in front of me but snow. “Please, stop talking about Christmas already. I need to concentrate.”

  It’s completely silent in the car for a few minutes aside from the wind blowing outside and the GPS giving me an update that I need to turn right in a half mile.

  “Allie,” Millie finally says, “I think it’s time we talk about the elephant in the car. I’ve noticed what’s been going on, you know. You didn’t tell that little man at the gas station to have a merry Christmas back, you keep turning off the radio when a Christmas song comes on, and you’re not fully appreciating my throwback stories. It’s okay, you know.”

  She reaches over and pats the side of my arm. “You feel bad that I’m not going to not celebrate Christmas in my usual flourish, so you’re trying to pretend like Christmas isn’t happening, for my sake,” Allie says with a huge sigh. “You really are the best friend I’ve ever had. But don’t you worry about me one bit.”

  “Turn right in one hundred feet,” the GPS tells me.

  I squint, trying to see a road or a driveway up ahead through the snow flurries, but I’ve got nothing.

  “I don’t want you worrying about me at all,” Millie informs me again as I lean closer to the windshield to try to see some kind of turn up ahead where this GPS is telling me I need to go. “I’ll be fine. You’re forgetting I spent an entire month on a tour bus with Miley Cyrus.”

  I should have stayed in L.A. Putting out my sisters’ fires and pretending like I give a shit about Christmas would have been more pleasurable than this hell.

  “Orrr,” Millie continues, while I wonder how much it would hurt to bash my head against the windshield right now. “You keep shutting down anything to do with Christmas, because your mom and the twats sucked all of the Christmas joy out of you when your dad died, and shit all over his Christmas traditions, making you spurn anything holidays-related, because it brings you too much pain.”

  I take my eyes off the road to look over at Millie in shock, the glow from the dashboard lights illuminating her as she sits with her arms crossed, staring over at me knowingly.

  “What? I’m a spoiled brat, but you’re my best friend. I know things.” She shrugs.

  I think I’ve spoken to her about my dad maybe once after an evening of too many glasses of wine in the years since I’ve known her. And everyone knows about my aversion to Christmas. This time of year, the tabloids have a field day calling me The Grinch. They just don’t know why I want to hibernate for the entire month of December every year.

  My wide eyes keep darting back and forth between searching out of the front windshield for my turn and Millie’s face.

  “I never said anything, because I figured you’d talk about it when you’re ready. I assumed you walking away from your life and flying out to the middle of bumfuck nowhere was you saying you were ready to stop keeping things bottled up. Plus, my tarot card reader said something exciting would happen in my life soon. I thought she meant it would actually be exciting for me, but I guess this is just as good.”

  I laugh, remembering why I brought Millie with me. She’s nuts, but she cares about me. She pushes me out of my comfort zone, and I need a little more of that in my life.

  “You’re on an adventure, Allie! This whole Eat, Pray, Love thing you’re doing is very exciting. You know, for you. So, stop worrying about the past and look forward to the future,” Millie orders. “A wise man once told me, ‘You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.’”

  “C.S. Lewis,” I mutter.

  “No, I’m pretty sure it was Justin Bieber.” Millie laughs and shakes her head at me like I’m an idiot.

  “Turn right, now!”

  “Oh shit!” I shout, so busy thinking about what Millie said that I stopped paying attention to where I was going.

  I quickly turn the wheel where the GPS tells me to, thinking I can almost make out some old tire tracks veering off here in the snow, when I hear a loud crrrunch, the scraping of metal, and Millie’s ear-piercing screams as the rental car suddenly jerks to a sudden stop with a spray of snow flying up all around the vehicle outside the windows.

  I quickly turn the wheel and hit the gas, but the car doesn’t move. Putting it in reverse, I hit the gas again with the same results.

  “I can’t move! I think my neck is broken!” Millie screams, her body stiff and ramrod straight up against the back of her seat.

  With a sigh, I unbuckle my seatbelt, reach over, and do the same for her.

  “You can move now.”

  Millie lets out a sigh of relief.

  “That was scarier than that one time I was tied up in the trunk of a car in Vegas and we got rear-ended,” she says.

  The windshield wipers slowly move back and forth as the wind howls and the snow rages around us, and I look out the window through the beams of my headlights to where I was trying to turn. I must have turned too soon and got stuck next to the drive.

  Goddammit.

  “This is not the kind of adventure I was looking for,” I mutter, taking a deep breath for courage before turning off the car, pocketing the keys, and opening my car door to scramble out into the freezing cold blizzard.

  Running through the big drifts around to the back of the car, squinting as hard as I can to keep the snow out of my eyes, I pop the trunk of the hatchback. When it’s open and I can see all the way through into the car, Millie turns around in the front seat to look back at me.

  “Are you going to change the tire?” she asks in shock.

  “Why would I change the tire? We’re stuck in a snowdrif
t or something. Changing the tire won’t fix anything,” I reply, shivering and bouncing up and down in place to keep warm as I unzip the first go-bag to grab every article of warm clothing I can find.

  “I don’t know. That’s usually what I see people doing when they’re stuck on the side of the road. Do you want me to call someone?”

  Pawing through the top layer of bathing suits in the bags, I keep digging and digging, shaking my head and swearing under my breath as I move over to the second bag.

  “Sure. Call a knight in shining armor to come and save us on his trusty stead.” I laugh, seriously not even believing this is happening right now.

  I just wanted to get away from the chaos and not think about Christmas. Was that too much to ask?

  When I get to the bottom of the second bag, I growl in annoyance, wrapping my arms tightly around myself as I shiver, glaring through the car at Millie.

  “Did you seriously pack two giant bags filled with nothing but bathing suits, toiletries, makeup, and sunhats?” I shout.

  “It’s not my fault! I thought when you finally pulled your head out of your ass, we’d go somewhere tropical. You’re so pale,” she says with concern.

  Not having any other option, since, like Millie said, we are in bumfuck nowhere, I pull on two sheer bathing suit sarongs in an attempt to keep my arms warm and tug a huge, white, floppy sunhat down over my head to cover my ears. The wind makes the sarongs billow and whip around my body, and I have to hold the sunhat on top of my head with one hand to keep it from blowing away.

  Shockingly, and without any argument, Millie joins me a few minutes later outside the car and at the back of the trunk. I struggle to look through the snow and up through the trees spread out on either side of the drive I was trying to turn onto. Before I can point to where I think I see lights, she’s shoving a piece of chocolate into my mouth.

  “You look a little stressed. I bet it’s because your blood sugar is getting low,” she tells me matter-of-factly.

  I chew the chocolate without a word, because one, I really am hangry, and two, Millie is wearing a dress. There’s no point bitching and moaning about being cold and the lack of real clothing she packed for us. At least I’m wearing pants.

  “If you squint really hard, you can see lights up this driveway and through the trees. If it isn’t the bed-and-breakfast, then hopefully it will be someone who can helps us get the car unstuck and get us there.”

  “Fun!” Millie exclaims as I yank the first bag out of the trunk by the shoulder strap and it flops into the pile of snow by my feet.

  Or where I assume my feet are, since I can no longer see them or feel them.

  “What are you doing?” Millie shrieks in horror, staring down into the hole the bag created in the snow.

  “We have to walk there. These bags are heavy and we’re not dragging both of these stupid things through the snow, but I’m assuming you absolutely can’t live without what’s inside at least one of them,” I tell her, starting to feel a little woozy.

  Maybe my blood sugar really is low. My head feels funny.

  “One does not just drag a vintage Louis Vuitton travel duffle through the snow, Allie. It should be cradled, and loved, and cared for properly,” she insists as I roll my eyes, reach down through the snow hole, and grab the shoulder strap.

  I start giggling as I tug on the strap, having to use muscles I didn’t even know I had to trudge through the drifts while trying to drag this thing behind me.

  “I’m so cold. Cold, cold, cold. Baby, it’s cold outside,” I sing-giggling again as snow pelts me in the face. “How are you not cold? Your legs are bare.”

  Bare is a weird word. Why couldn’t they just spell it B-E-A-R?

  “I’ve been doing cryotherapy, so I’m just pretending it’s one of those sessions,” Millie says with a smile, gliding through two feet of snow with her chin up and her Birkin hanging from her elbow like she’s fucking Elsa and the snow doesn’t bother her. “Feel those calories just freezing away! Or, it could be all the Botox. I can’t feel my skin on most days anyway.”

  “I can’t feel my ears. Or my neck. Is my neck still there?” I ask Millie, stopping suddenly in the snow and turning to face her.

  I feel floaty. Is floaty a word? Fllloooatyyy.

  Millie cocks her head at me while the snow and wind whip around us, and it’s like I don’t even feel the cold. I’m so warm and sweaty all of a sudden.

  “The cold never bothered me anyway!” I sing-shout, wondering why I don’t sing more often. I have a lovely singing voice.

  “Oh no. I may have made a grave mistake,” Millie says worriedly, quickly digging through her purse and pulling out two foil-wrapped pieces of chocolate, one blue and one green.

  I look down into her palm through the snow, and even through my foggy brain and what’s most likely hypothermia, I know what’s happening here.

  “Sooo, I might have tossed the chocolates I bought at the airport in with my special chocolates…” she trails off before quickly continuing. “It was dark in the car, and I was just concerned for your well-being!”

  “Did you give me a pot chocolate?” I screech, thinking I see a train coming at us as a bright, white light moves in our direction a good distance through the trees.

  Have I ever ridden on a train? I wonder if Millie has any pretzels in her Birkin.

  “No,” Millie reassures me. “But also yes. Look how happy it made you! We should sing again. But let me take the lead—my soprano is better.”

  “Oh my God, Millie!”

  “You’re right.” She nods. “You should probably just hum.”

  I start stomping through the snow again while Millie sings extremely off key walking next to me, and my arm starts to cramp as I jerk and tug this stupid bag through the snow behind me.

  At least I think it’s a bag. It’s so heavy.

  I could go for some French fries right now.

  Snow is pretty.

  What the hell am I dragging behind me?

  Are those headlights in front of us?

  Pancakes.

  “I think I see something coming. Or someone,” I tell Millie, stopping in the middle of the pitch-dark driveway with just the flashlight from her phone to see by. “Dun-dun-duuun!”

  My dramatic sound effect ends with a giggle and I turn away from the lights rapidly heading toward us to look back over my shoulder.

  “What the hell am I dragging behind me?” I ask in confusion when I only see a leather strap that disappears down into the snow is wrapped around my hand. “Oh my God! Am I dragging a dead dog behind me? Did we kill a dog?” I screech. “Wow, I really ruined Christmas…”

  Millie pats my shoulder while my hazy brain tries to remember the reason I’m dragging a dead dog behind me through the snow and why I’m so hungry for ramen all of a sudden.

  “We didn’t kill a dog, sweetie,” she reassures me. “That’s just the pot. I forgot you were a lightweight. I ate seven while I painted my nails and I’m fine.”

  I can feel my body start swaying from side to side, and I think I hear the roar of an engine getting closer and closer. Figuring I can’t help the dead dog now, I hold tighter to his leash and look back at the approaching light, which I now see is two separate lights.

  “Look! It’s a trusty steed! Awww, Millie, you called a knight in shining armor like I asked,” I gush happily, still holding the sunhat on my head as I rest my cheek against her shoulder. “I didn’t know horses had headlights. Can we get pizza after the horse ride?”

  We both stand here in the middle of the snow and wind, shivering as we watch the lights get closer and closer, and the engine noise gets louder and louder, until it’s right in front of us and stopping. Seconds later, someone gets off what I now see is a snowmobile, removing his helmet at the same time.

  Oh my, he’s a pretty horse.

  “Why are you two walking through a blizzard dressed for summer, dragging what looks like a dead dog behind you?” the deep, raspy voice attac
hed to the pretty face asks, setting his helmet down on the seat of the snowmobile and crossing his arms in front of him.

  “See?” I shout, smacking Millie on the arm. “I told you we killed a dog!”

  “You’ll have to excuse my friend, strange mountain man, but she’s dragging a Louis, not a dog,” Millie speaks. “And she’s also a wee bit high right now.”

  “I just want to sleep until Christmas is over and eat some pretzels. Do you have pretzels? Your face is very pretty to look at,” I muse, reaching up to touch it, Millie quickly smacking my hand away before I can get to his pretty yet unamused face.

  “Do you know if the bed-and-breakfast has a tea sommelier on hand? I’m really going to need a good paring with my nighttime Xanax after the day I’ve had.” Millie sighs.

  “Jesus Christ,” the pretty face mutters, shaking his head. “Just squeeze on the snowmobile and I’ll take you both up to the house.”

  “Yay, we get to go on a ride!” I cheer, bright spots flashing around the corner of my vision. “I feel funny.”

  My body sways again, and the last thing I hear before tipping forward into the snow is Millie asking, “Excuse me, strange mountain man? Can you catch her? I don’t want to drop my Birkin.”

  “That word doesn’t mean what you think it does.”

  “The other one’s fine now. She’s currently wandering around your cabin, calling everything cute,” I hear a strange female voice say through the darkness as I snuggle the side of my face deeper into my pillow.

  “Jesus Christ,” a deep voice mutters.

  “You said that already. Several times. Can we concentrate on the fact that you currently have a passed out woman on your couch? And a really pretty one at that?”

  “Shut up, Jen,” the deep voice growls.

  All this talking needs to stop. I finally got my wish to sleep until Christmas is over, and I want to keep sleeping and enjoy having absolutely nothing to do with the holiday.

  “Allie, you need to wake up and see this!” I hear Millie shout from somewhere. “There is no ensuite bathroom in the master! You have to get out of bed and walk down the hall. It’s so cute!”