Nine. Walking in a Literal Winter Wonderland
Nine
WALKING IN A LITERAL WINTER WONDERLAND
My chest feels like it’s been packed tightly with rocks and is pressing down on the significant organs beneath it. My legs, by virtue of carrying around my now seemingly made-of-stone upper body, are in danger of collapsing beneath me. I’m reeling, and now I finally get what that phrase means.
I smell hot cocoa and gingerbread, and my Heartfelt surroundings either are a feast for all the senses or I’m having a yuletide stroke.
I need to sit down. I have no idea what being trapped in a Heartfelt movie means for my not-trapped-in-a-Heartfelt-movie existence—maybe in that world I am dead?
In a coma? What if I’m covered in my own vomit at the bottom of the Powell Park Green’s Santa sleigh?
Oh my God—are small children poking at my body right now?
And ugh, what if Grant hears about it? Worse, what if Grant hears about it and has a chuckle, thinks, Yep, dodged a bullet ?
But I know I can’t continue to remain upright on this sidewalk with all this perfect Heartfelt Christmas shit swirling around me.
There’s a bench inside a bus stop, and—this being the Heartfelt version of Powell Park—the bench is clean, the trash can barely filled and not smelly and the bus shelter ads unvandalized.
I fold onto the bench and put my head between my legs to take deep breaths. The goddamn oxygen here is peppermint flavored, and my nostrils tingle.
This Heartfelt dimension has Christmas-ified my panic attack.
I try to sit up but do it too fast and feel instantly woozy. I put my head back down on my knees, shutting my eyes tight. I need to eat something so that I can think about what I need to do to get out of here.
Slowly this time, I lift my head from my legs and open my eyes, hoping that maybe I’ll see regular old ugly Powell Park when I do.
But nope, a French bulldog in a striped Christmas sweater that matches his owner’s—doggie-owner coordinated apparel must be a thing here—appears to be skipping past me on his short little legs, while in the other direction, a handsome guy with ice skates slung over one of his broad shoulders steps into a sweater shop called Knit Wits.
I take out my phone to summon an Uber. Maybe I can just drive out of here. But there’s no Uber app on my phone, of course. There is one for something called Sweetville Taxi Service.
Weird. But I summon a car anyway—there’s no spot for me to enter a destination, like on Uber, so I hope the driver is willing to go to the airport—and two minutes later, a man wearing a tweed cap pulls a yellow cab to the curb.
I slide into the backseat, noticing the car smells like gingerbread and peppermint.
The driver turns in his seat and asks, “Where to?”
“Midway Airport, please,” I say. Sweetville can only extend so far, right? I pull back my phone case and see my ID and Amex still tucked inside. If I get a flight to LA, maybe I can break free of whatever kind of place this is.
“Oh, miss, I’m sorry, but the airport shut down.”
“Shut down?”
“Yeah, freak snowstorm. They’re digging whole planes out!”
“Okay, then, just drive me as far as you can go,” I say.
He gives me a funny look but heads west on Ninety-Fifth, the same direction I took two days ago when I was looking for a CVS to shop anonymously.
I track my surroundings as we pass, noting that it’s not just Ninety-Fifth Street that’s a smaller version of its usual self.
The Sweetville version of Powell Park is shrunken and cuter in every way.
The big-box stores are gone, replaced by more mom-and-pop shops with adorable names.
What were empty lots yesterday are now filled up with pocket parks or pop-up Christmas tree lots.
We near the mall, which usually marks the border of Powell Park, but the mall is gone.
It’s a huge sledding hill now, and no sooner do I note the change than I feel the cab hit a bump in the road.
“Oof!” I shake my head at the sudden shock of it. Again, I hear the Heartfelt Christmas movie lead-in sounds, the sleigh bells, the happy sigh, “Open your heart.”
And I’m back on the same bench where I first summoned the car.
Okay, so there’s no leaving Sweetville by normal modes of transportation.
Maybe I have to behave in a way unbecoming of a Heartfelt movie.
There’s often a Christmas grump in a Heartfelt movie, but I’ve never seen one of the films with a character who’s downright hostile toward Christmas. Maybe singing loud and clear how much I lack holiday cheer will work?
I stand on the bus bench and, to the tune of “Joy to the World,” start to improvise a song of my own.
I hate this world; Sweetville is a piece of shit.
Let me get the fuck out of here!
Let every heart say Jill doesn’t belooooong,
And get me the fuck out of here!
And then you won’t have to hear me sing; you won’t have to hear me sing.
’Cause what the actual fuck? I need to get out of here!
Jill wants to go home
Right the hell now.
There aren’t enough words to say how this is all wrong,
But anyone can seeeee, I don’t belong!
I don’t look good in plaaaaid.
I give gifts that are baaaaad.
And yet again I can’t sing.
Doesn’t that count for anything?
Heartfelt world, I can’t stay here!
I stumble to come up with creative new ways to say I need to go home, and even though I try to project, my voice is overpowered by the sudden rising volume of Sweetville.
It’s as if every shop’s door chime tinkles a bit louder, and all at the same time, the Christmas music piped out onto the street goes up a few decibels, and the chorus of happy voices and laughter kicks up a few notches.
Then, that same sequence: sleigh bells, sigh, “Open your heart.”
Okay, fine. I need to try a direct approach. I attempt to walk through the throngs of people gathered at a Christmas craft fair on what I knew as the Powell Park Green.
“Merry Christmas!” a woman selling homemade wreaths sings in my direction.
“Go fuck yourself!” I fling back.
I don’t know what she hears me say, but she’s unfazed. “Thank you!”
Passing a booth stocked with homemade jellies and jams, I purposely slam my hip against a display, causing its contents to topple and splatter on the ground. “No one wants your shitty jam,” I say, instead of helping to pick it up.
“Here—have a free sample,” the bald man working the booth—wearing a flannel shirt and an apron that reads Jam on It!— says, proffering a cracker spread with raspberry jam.
I knock it out of his hand, and for a second his face flashes with surprise, but then the chimes sound again.
With every profanity I utter and every rude interaction I have, I hear the Heartfelt sounds and find myself being completely ignored.
Okay, fine. I was working in PG-13 territory, and I have to go R rated.
I fling my coat to the ground, followed by my scarf.
I start to unbutton my pajama top, too. But as I remove the layers, new clothing appears.
Each new article is more Christmasy than the last. There’s a grinning reindeer on my sweater, seeming to mock me.
“Forget it,” I say, wrenching a huge plaid bow out of my hair and flinging it to the ground.
Then: Sleigh bells. Sigh. “Open your heart.”
I’m back in the pajamas I started with.
Maybe if I light everything on fire? But what does that mean for the real Powell Park? Should I fling myself off the roof of the library? But what does that mean for the real-world me?
I stomp away from the Christmas craft fair, stealing a cup of hot cocoa right out from a vendor’s hand before the woman who paid for it can notice. Taking a giant swig, I head back to the bus stop—noticing this time that it’s a trolley stop, buses not being cute enough—and slump onto the bench.
“Good cocoa, isn’t it?”
The voice at my shoulder is familiar. I crane my neck to see it’s a Santa Claus ringing a bell for donations.
But he’s not some random Salvation Army collector.
He’s the inebriated panhandler from outside CVS.
Except now his beard is silvery white in the light, and his skin has a healthy ruddiness.
He’s the guy, though—I can tell from the twinkle in his eyes.
“Not my drink of choice right now, but it will do.” I hold eye contact, hoping to see through his Santa facade to the Powell Park boozehound I met. “Unless you have something stronger?”
With a hand on his vast belly, he tilts his head back and emits a massive, literal “Ho! Ho! Ho!” of delight. “Not at the moment, my dear,” he says. “But is there anything else I can help with?”
I should note that I was thirteen years old before I fully gave up believing in Santa. So when this Santa continues to give me an imploring look, I want to tell him everything. Not just that I’m here and need help getting home but all the things I need help with. I trust him. So it’s worth a shot.
“How do I get out of here? Out of this whole… Sweetville situation?” I stretch my arms out wide to encompass not only the town but the very idea of this too-cute-for-words way of being.
“I find that if you’ve wound up here, it’s because it’s where you’re meant to be,” Santa says.
I think of what’s waiting for me in the real world.
My unemployment, family festivities that require me to lie about my whole life, Grant avoidance.
But also Zav, my niece and nephew, and the meeting Lacey says she’s setting up for me, the one she strongly implied I need to take if I want to keep any hope of a career.
“But I can’t stay here,” I say.
“No one said you have to stay forever,” Santa says. “In fact, I find that the opposite is true. You’ve been given a gift.”
“And the receipt?”
Santa leans over to chuck me playfully on the arm. “No returns. But you return when you write the ending.” He points knowingly at me. “I think you’ll be pretty good at that.”