2
Hey, babe!” A pair of soft hands covers my eyes. “Am I catching you in the naughty section again?” I roll my eyes. My cousin calls the cooking books I’m obsessed with my food porn.
I slide the Confessions of a Latte Lover photography book back onto the shelf.
I’m not sure why my cousin finds sneaking up on me in the bookstore funny, but Juliet gets a pass. She’s always been my personal sunshine and someone I can text SOS and she’ll be there, no questions asked, at the drop of a hat.
Or at least when her shift as a nurse is over.
The half hour I waited for her wasn’t totally bad; our favorite bookstore, Once Upon a Shelf, just happens to be next door to the bakery and is the perfect retreat after a morning full of social embarrassments.
Juliet laughs and releases me. “It’s so easy to sneak up on you here. You’re completely absorbed in either the romance section or cookbooks.” She makes air quotes when she says cookbooks, since we both know I browse these books for the photos not the recipes.
I clap a bookstore tote bag swinging on her shoulder. “Looks like you did a little shopping yourself? I thought you were coming right to see me?” I say, reaching for it. She smacks my hand away, cheeks going pink.
“Excuse you. Don’t be snooping in bags around Christmastime,” she chides. “You were distracted, so I took a moment to grab some important items.”
I chuckle. “And Merry Christmas to you.”
She’s looking cute and festive, a pink sweater dress and thick leggings peeking out from underneath her puffer jacket instead of her usual scrubs. Hold up. “When you said you were at the hospital today, I thought you were working.”
She lifts her shoulders. “Nope. I had an appointment. Thankfully I finished just in time to see your SOS text. But now you do need to give me a ride home, since I told Lisa to drop me off here.”
“Nothing I wouldn’t do for my BBFF,” I tease.
That’s our cousin code for Blood Best Friends Forever.
We thought of it back when we were little and it’s stuck ever since.
Even though I live three hours away near the university and she’s still here in Hopewell Crossing, we’re always there for each other when disaster strikes.
For me it seems to strike a lot more often than for her, since she’s been married to her wife Lisa for two years and the only romantic drama she experiences is on the sappy movies she and Lisa watch together. Must be nice.
“Ready to head home?” she asks. “You can tell me all about your morning and that jerk who ditched you on the drive.”
I shake my head. “No, and I’m definitely not ready to break the news to Mom.”
“You haven’t told her yet?” Juliet asks, eyes wide. “Why?”
Luke’s text came when Mom and I were clearing the table after breakfast. She was so happy talking about menus and place settings for tonight that I couldn’t bring myself to pop that bubble.
“You have to tell her when you get home.” My cousin looks me in the eye. “You’re going to be okay, Mimi. I can be there when you do.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re not the most disappointing Silva family member.”
“And neither are you,” Juliet insists as she steers me toward the exit.
At the front of the store, one of the clerks beams at us. “Congratulations,” he says in our direction. “My coworker just told me the good news.”
I pause and scrunch my nose. That clerk couldn’t have been talking to me. Congratulations on what? Being dumped?
Juliet laughs nervously. “I told them you just finished grad school,” she says, shoving me out of the door, but not before I share a confused look with the clerk as he waves goodbye.
I sigh. Hopewell Crossing is a small town where everyone knows each other’s business, but still, the fact that I finished grad school feels like a random thing to share with a bookseller.
“See? You do have something to be proud of!” Juliet says once we’re out on the street.
It’s true, but after the years of long and grueling classes, all I have to show for it is my graduate degree.
I still need to get my speech pathology license and then face a competitive job market.
All of which feels like a big open future that somehow seems more daunting than another year of classes.
Out on the street the air is cool and crisp and smells like cinnamon and pine courtesy of the Cottage Glow candle store and Hopewell Crossing Bakery.
Our boots crunch on the salt layering the sidewalk. “I parked on the street near the Evergreen Christmas Tree Lot,” I say to my cousin. She loops her arm in mine, and we scurry down the sidewalk as I admire Hopewell Crossing’s festive vibe.
My hometown loves Christmas. Rows of winking holiday lights are strung everywhere. Main Street’s streetlamps are wrapped in garlands and red ribbons. And handsomely decorated Christmas trees glow in the windows of almost every store.
A busker dressed in a midnight-blue Victorian period costume stands on the corner playing guitar and singing holiday tunes.
She’s doing a decent job with an acoustic rendition of “Last Christmas.” I shiver hearing the song’s sad lyrics in contrast to the very upbeat music.
It somehow captures heartbreak perfectly. At least it’s perfect for me right now.
I glance at my cousin. “Thanks for meeting me.”
Juliet nods at my bakery bag brimming with goodies wrapped in red-and-white-striped Hopewell Crossing Bakery tissue paper. “Glad I can be of service, although it looks like your self-care ritual is also helping you forget all about whatever his name was?”
It was Luke, but it also doesn’t matter, so I don’t mention it.
I sigh. If there’s anyone I can come clean with, it’s my cousin.
“Honestly, it’s more about not having someone to bring home for Christmas than losing that guy in particular.
” I wince. “Besides, he seemed more obsessed with ranking Marvel movies than with me, and I’m even starting to forget what he looked like. ”
Juliet giggles as she tucks herself deeper into her puffer jacket. “Not surprising, since he wore a cow costume when you first met.”
I groan. The night of my neighbor’s Halloween party I wore a beer wench costume, but everyone thought I was a milkmaid and paired me and Luke the cow.
“It was the udders. That should have been my first clue. What was I thinking?” I rub my hand across my face.
“It’s just that my mom was so excited to add another place setting to our table. ”
“I know.” Juliet squeezes my arm. “But I bet she would rather you be happy than be with a guy who has access to a life-size cow costume. He might have shown up wearing a reindeer costume, and that’s the last thing we need.”
I laugh. As usual, Juliet’s already making me feel better.
“Now,” she says as we step around a couple giggling at the cheery chalkboard sign outside the Hopewell Crossing Pet Shop that reads Treat your furry elf.
“Tell me about graduation!” she demands.
“Do I have to?” I moan. “That’s just another thing that’s stressing me out. Have you seen the job market lately? It’s as dead as my dating life!”
Juliet huffs as she tightens her Watch These Nuts nutcracker scarf over her natural dark wavy hair—a feature I was always jealous of, given my painfully straight curtain of long black hair.
She’s always been so pretty, and even in the cold, the blush on her cheeks makes her look like she’s a gorgeous skin-care model compared with me and my about-to-succumb-to-frostbite complexion.
“How about you tell me what products you’re wearing because you look positively glowing,” I say, studying her skin, which is tawny brown like mine, but this morning looks radiant and sun-kissed.
“Thanks!” She blushes, then catches herself. “Wait. No, you’re distracting the conversation.”
I look upward. Heavy, snow-filled clouds have started to gather overhead. “Looks like we may have a white snow-covered Christmas,” I remark, puffs of steam coming from my mouth as I speak.
“Now you want to talk about the weather?” Juliet stops in her tracks and crosses her arms. “Listen. You know it’s okay you’re not bringing someone home for the holidays, right?”
The heaviness in my chest now feels like a deflating Christmas lawn decoration. “It’s just that this year was supposed to be my comeback. I finally finished grad school. I’m on track to getting my speech pathology certification. And I was going to finally, finally bring someone home for Christmas.”
Juliet rubs my arm. “Mimi, you’re going to be a speech therapist. That’s amazing!”
“I know,” I say. “And I’m so excited. I cannot wait to get my license and help people communicate with confidence and feel understood. I’ve been working on this for so long.” I hesitate. “It’s just that Mom was so excited when I told her she’d need to set an extra place setting for Noche Buena.”
My cousin groans. “It’s just plates.”
I sigh as an image of my dad’s place setting at our dining table comes to mind.
Back when he was still alive and working all the time at the children’s hospital, I recall waiting for him to come home for our Noche Buena feast and the joy I felt when he sat for dinner.
When he used his place setting, it meant our family would be together for the holidays.
For me, every setting at our table represents belonging and love. If you have a plate, you’re in…
But lately, I can’t escape the reminder that all my siblings and every adult in my household has had an extra plate for their significant others. Everyone but me.
My older sister married her nursing school boyfriend and now has two beautiful wild beasts I get to call my niece and nephew. My big brother has three kids with his wife, who he met at his corporate IT job. How is it that I’m the only one alone on Christmas?