Nineteen. Nutcracking Myself Up
Nineteen
NUTCRACKING MYSELF UP
How did I let myself think Corey was going to fall for me?
I make my way out of the ballroom, sidestepping the twins.
They’re dressing up for the photo booth that’s been stationed near the doors.
They spot me and try to wave me over, grinning madly.
They remind me of the little girls in The Shining , if they were thirty years older and wearing reindeer antlers.
The lobby is blessedly empty, though it makes me wonder for a second if Grant’s dad’s bar in Powell Park is suffering from this bad a lack of clientele.
The front desk clerk is seated and watching Christmas in Connecticut on a small TV behind the check-in counter.
There’s a seating pit around a fireplace.
Not one chair is filled. The massive Christmas tree stands regally to the side, and at the moment, its stoic vibe is pissing me off.
What right does it have to be so removed from how much my life sucks right now?
I can still taste a sour note of eggnog at the back of my throat, and it makes me want a stiff drink more than ever. It wouldn’t help anything, but it might take the edges off all my prickly feelings.
But, of course, there’s no bar. Just a coffee cart on the way to the elevators that’s shut down for the evening.
Sweetville is Heartfelt through and through.
When has anyone ever drank their problems away in a Heartfelt movie?
In a Heartfelt movie, I’d simply go home and curl up with my parents’ cat and have a meaningful talk with my mom, and three scenes later, Corey would come to his senses and tell me that maybe he could move on if he was moving on with me.
But I’m not meant for Corey, just like I’m not cut out to be a Heartfelt heroine. And I don’t want to go home right now for a talk with anyone, least of all my mom.
As I move toward the inn’s front doors, not sure where I want to go, I notice a seating nook that’s partially hidden from view.
It’s darker there than in the lobby, and there are two high-backed armchairs and a plump couch, as well as a dark-wood cabinet that’s simply made, save for a pretty floral pattern carved into its doors.
Grant’s dad’s handiwork, no doubt. Lining the top of the cabinet is a series of nutcrackers, each one playing on a theme.
There’s a stereotypical soldier nutcracker, but also an arctic-explorer nutcracker, a shopkeeper nutcracker, a construction worker nutcracker, a doctor version, and a handful of others.
I plop on the couch with a heavy sigh, hitting my hip hard against the wooden cabinet.
“Ouch!” I yelp, then watch in horror as an astronaut nutcracker falls sideways into its neighbor, a painter nutcracker, which knocks down the beach-bum nutcracker on its other side.
One by one, all of the nutcrackers drop like dominos, several of them falling to the floor, which is blessedly carpeted, so they don’t make too much noise.
I peer around the corner. The clerk is still fixated on the movie. I sneer at the nutcrackers, not wanting to pick them up.
But with a dutiful sigh, I heave myself off the couch and return three of the fallen nutcrackers back to the cabinet top.
Their dead eyes seem to be judging me. “You think you’re so special,” I say to the astronaut.
“But all you’re going to do with your life is take billionaires to Mars.
” To the artist, I say, “Just because people don’t get your work doesn’t mean it’s good.
Maybe it sucks.” To the beach bum, I offer, “Get a job,” but I feel like a hypocrite.
There are two nutcrackers left on the floor, and I gasp at which ones: a football player and a chef.
Corey and Grant. I stare at them for a long time but finally, begrudgingly, pick up the football player.
“It’s not your fault,” I say to it. “I mean, sure, you could have made it more obvious that there’s only room in your heart for your dead wife.
And I definitely caught you staring at me in a not-just-friends way.
” I heave a sigh. “But I can’t be mad at you. You’re a nice guy.”
I carefully set the Corey nutcracker back on the shelf and fling myself back to the couch.
I notice as I do that, in my act of accidental destruction, the cabinet’s door has popped open. I extend my leg to kick it shut, but something glints at the far back of the top shelf. I practically throw myself to the floor and extract it.
A dusty bottle of Baileys. Unopened. Bingo.
I debate stealing away with the bottle to my parents’ house, but that could mean getting caught up in some holiday merriment that doesn’t match my current mood.
So. Fuck it. I’ll drink it here.
This is my Christmas movie now.
I sit back down on the couch and crack the cap open.
I take a long, slow drink right from the bottle.
It’s creamy and very room temperature, which I don’t know that I appreciate right now.
But it’s also smooth going down. After a day of sweating near the oven and eating only cookies, I feel tipsy almost instantly, like I’m getting drunk off a milkshake that’s been ignored for a while.
A pleasant heaviness rolls over me, and I take some long, slow breaths with my eyes closed.
When I open them, the chef nutcracker is looking askance at me. I stretch out my foot and pull it toward me, then lean down to pick it up. Its lever is not totally broken but askew. It must have gotten knocked loose when it fell.
“No. You don’t get to blame me,” I say. “I didn’t break you . You broke me .”
I’m staring right into the chef nutcracker’s flat but insistent eyes, with my pet Baileys bottle wrapped tight next to me. As I lift the bottle for another swig, I hear someone say, “Jill?”
Grant.
I curse the soft carpet that muffles the sound of someone approaching and hastily toss the chef nutcracker so that it’s partially hidden by a throw pillow.
But I’m still holding the bottle guiltily as Grant steps farther into the dimly lit space.
“What are you doing here?” I say to him.
Or, I say to the middle third of his body because the couch’s softness and my Baileys saturation have caused me to sink deeper into my defeated slouch.
I note a darker patch of skin like a slash on Grant’s forearm.
A burn that he didn’t have when we were dating.
Hazard of his job. Fiona probably knows when he got it.
He eyeballs the bottle as I wrangle my body into some semblance of a human with bones. “Who were you talking to?” he asks, looking around.
“Baby Jesus,” I blurt. “It’s almost his birthday. We’re toasting.”
“He’s a baby.”
“He’s also a divine being. He can do what he wants,” I say. Then I hold out the bottle. “He said you should have some.”
With no hesitation, Grant takes the bottle from me and enjoys a long pull. I watch the muscles of his throat as he swallows. The cords of someone’s neck sound gross in concept, but his are magnificent.
When he’s done, he sits next to me. Or, on the cushion next to me—there’s space between us.
But not enough space between him and the nutcracker.
“Ouch.” He reaches behind himself to what just poked him in the back.
When he pulls out the nutcracker in its chef toque, he purses his lips and turns it over in his hands.
“Dad and his nutcrackers. He could make better ones, but he loves ordering these things now.” He chuckles. “He used to be a minimalist.”
A pang of shame seizes me for breaking Grant’s dad’s nutcracker, which I now imagine he was more excited to buy because his son is a chef. “Let him have his fun,” I say.
“Like I could stop him.” Grant laughs. He turns toward me. “So, why are you skulking in the shadows all alone? Shouldn’t you be toasting with your fabulous baker boy?”
“He’s a baker man ,” I say, not willing to reveal to Grant just how much Corey isn’t mine at all. I lean in before I know what I’m doing. “To be honest, it’s a little too festive in there for me. Do you ever feel like Christmas isn’t for everyone?”
Grant raises his eyebrows. “I mean, there are other holidays. Literally because some people don’t celebrate Christmas.”
I shake my head. “I mean the spirit of it. Like, I’m not merry and bright enough to be all in. I’m like the weird cookie that you eat right away so that it doesn’t make the rest of the batch look wrong.”
“You’re talking to a chef here. You’re not a cookie at all. You’re a dish,” he says.
I roll my eyes.
“No, I’m serious. A baker approaches cookies in the same basic way.
A chef knows a dish has layers to discover.
Or sometimes to take away. You’ve got layers.
I’ve seen you be a Christmas person—merry and bright, believe it or not—and I’ve seen you call bullshit on the whole thing.
It’s a lot more interesting than a cookie,” he says.
The last time we were together was on Christmas Eve three years ago.
Hardly merry and bright. The first Christmas we’d spent together had been.
It was the one where Grant helped me shop for my brother and we met each other’s families for the first time.
I’d bought Louis a Walter Payton jersey that he’d put on right away.
He’d told Grant, “She’s a keeper.” Grant had said, “I only hope to be worthy.” But a year later, I’d been admittedly burrowing into myself.
As Grant got busier with his promotion at the restaurant, I got more certain he was going to break things off.
Then, as we were waiting at Grant’s apartment to go to my family’s Christmas Eve party, he told me he’d been offered a job in New York.
“Remember Adam from my culinary program?” He tossed out the question so casually, like he was asking if I thought he needed a haircut.