Chapter Eight
You (Again)—when two characters continually cross paths—seemingly at random—but it’s an indication that their connection is “fated” or part of a bigger plan.
I’ve spent the last couple of weeks stewing about the situation with Chris. I come to the same conclusion every time. I’m not going to tell anyone that they’ve hired my ex-boyfriend, because it’s too important. There are families counting on this. Our community is counting on this. I don’t want to contribute to any issues. Now, I’m determined to find something that will raise even more money than Christopher Weaver’s presence. Maybe?
It’s still charitable, even if it’s petty. I assume the charitable aspect overrides the pettiness.
I feel bad, but I haven’t even told Elise. I just worry. I worry she will—out of the goodness of her heart—try to manage the whole Christopher situation, and I don’t need that. I’m stronger than that.
Though, on December 1, I sit in my feelings. Because it’s almost my birthday. My thirty-second birthday, as a matter of fact. While I feel like I’ve definitely changed my life since I moved here, there’s something ... melancholy about it. Or maybe I’m just filled with a sense of doom because five months ago my very safe life caught fire, and now a piece of my old life is getting set to invade. Maybe my feeling weird is normal, all things considered.
Maybe. Though I have to stop sitting in my feelings. I haven’t been able to do any real work on my book since the Chris announcement, and this morning I finally emailed my editor saying change of plans, it’s not a reunion romance anymore.
It only hurts a little bit. It’s only ten thousand words to delete. Whatever.
This is my tenth book. I’m familiar with this game. At this point I’d rather burn it all to the ground than work on something I don’t want to write.
There’s no way I can write a reunion with ... all that looming up ahead. Absolutely not. I don’t write reunion romances ever for that reason, actually. I foolishly thought it’s been three years and obviously the hero of the book won’t have been a cheater, so it’s fine and not at all the same.
But now, no.
Too real. Way too real.
I don’t explain why. I assume my editor will think it has something to do with my muse.
Luckily she’s fine with it and tells me so within ten minutes of my sent missive, and I respond with something about a different trope, but then I don’t even remember what I told her five minutes later and have to check my sent folder to see what I said.
Enemies to lovers, I’ve now promised.
I can’t avoid getting restarted.
I finally commit to making my manuscript full screen—always a harsh warning to myself to stop clicking around the internet—when the little cricket alert chime goes off on my computer. I have it set to crickets because I find it soothing. Or I did, two years ago, when I made the decision to make that alert a cricket sound.
Now it makes me grind my teeth.
Time to change it again.
I open my reservation software, and I see that a new request has come in.
I click the form, and my heart nearly explodes through the front of my chest.
Nathan didn’t make a reservation after the fire, and I thought ... I thought maybe the fire had chased him away. I thought maybe when he told me I needed to stay away from him, what he really meant was he was going to stay away from me. Because for whatever reason, that attraction passing so openly between us the night we danced had made him angry.
It wasn’t just uncomfortable. It was like he was mad about it. I had, unavoidably, I feel, internalized that a little bit.
But there he is.
I scroll down and look at the dates, expecting to see summer.
December 2–26.
Tomorrow. He wants to come tomorrow. On my birthday. He was just here. He only ever comes in the summer, the exact same dates: June 15–August 25. Every time.
He doesn’t randomly show up in December.
I had been convinced that he was ... that he wasn’t going to come again at all.
My hands are shaking as I respond to the request.
Yes, your room is available.
It takes effort not to sign my name. Because after all this, I’ve still never said it to him. He’s still never used it. I have no reason to suspect he even knows it.
There’s no real response. He just presses the confirmation button.
There is no calling it back. No stopping it. Nathan is coming tomorrow.
I go back to my manuscript, and I realize I’ve written another green-eyed hero. I don’t want his eyes to be blue, because Christopher’s eyes are blue. So now they’re brown. I do not make every hero Nathan.
I almost text Elise to tell her that, but I’m sure it will make me seem guilty.
I’m not .
Nathan is checking in tomorrow, and I can’t stop thinking about it.
He stayed after the fire. For the whole month of August, just like he always does. He was more aloof than he had been that first summer. The only time I really interacted with him again was when I had to bring him takeout that got left in the lobby.
I’d had to fight not to make a dramatic show of keeping my distance as I handed it to him.
For his part, he acted as if nothing had happened between us.
Then he hadn’t made another reservation, and I had thought that was it.
Which was kind of great because it meant I could put my plaque up in the Hemingway Suite and he wouldn’t be any the wiser. It would be better for me to exploit his fame than to actually have to deal with his grumpy ass.
But his grumpy ass is coming for Christmas.
I sit there, frozen for a moment. Thinking through the implications of Nathan and Christopher converging on my life.
I nearly laugh. Because Christopher doesn’t know I’m here, and Nathan doesn’t care that I am.
I would prefer I weren’t, frankly.
I snort and type angrily for the rest of the afternoon. Thankfully, I have something to look forward to this evening.
The entire month of December is Christmas movies at the dive-in event, and tonight we’re having another community barbecue and enjoying the entertainment.
We continued with our open barbecues after the fire.
So many people are still living in motor homes, and cooking is difficult. We have a general fund people contribute to as and when they can, and the courtyard is large enough to host extra people. Plus, the kids get to stay and watch movies on the big screen.
It gives them a distraction from the confined spaces they’re living in.
I have decided I will be bringing out my pink floating lounger for the occasion.
The thing about having a December birthday and a mother who resents your existence is that the event tends to be minimized. Birthdays are very important to me.
When I lived in LA, I loved nothing more than celebrating my friends extravagantly and being celebrated extravagantly in return.
Chris was even good at that for a while. That’s the problem with Christopher—I’m determined to try to think of him that way. Christopher Weaver, the public entity. Not Chris, my ex.
I have good memories of us being together. I have good memories of our little apartment, then of our home once we both achieved a little more success.
He felt like he might be my first real experience of a family.
Not like my parents.
We talked about marriage. We talked about a future.
If it hadn’t been good for even most of the time, I wouldn’t have been with him. Today is one of the few days I genuinely miss parts of my old life.
For the most part, I have drawn a pink curtain around myself. Around this place.
It isn’t that I got a new identity and didn’t tell anyone. My closest friends do know where I am.
Well. They were my closest friends.
They text less and less frequently. I’m pretty sure that’s my fault.
We had this big shared friend group, and a breakup made that almost impossible. I could have won the breakup too. I think I did, actually.
He cheated. That was pretty straightforward; he didn’t deny it. Everybody was mad at him, not me.
But I was the one who couldn’t handle it. I was the one who couldn’t spend one more minute in that whitewashed hell.
I was the one who had to run away to bright colors and romance novels and the unrelenting heat.
The problem with healing through metamorphosis is that bringing too much baggage with you makes it feel too difficult.
Maybe it’s not healing.
Maybe it’s just surviving.
The idea of radical acceptance and opening myself up to the universe helped me feel like I was thriving. One of the wonderful things about the desert is the preponderance of crystal shops and tarot readers. A feeling that you might be closer to something unknowable or supernatural. It’s hard to access that when you’re stuck in gridlock traffic.
But here, I feel it.
Vibrations from the earth, voices on the wind. Like I was fated to be here, as much as I don’t want to believe the pain that brought me here was fate. I feel it.
Or maybe I just want to.
Like I want to celebrate my birthday floating in a pool watching Buddy the elf find his family. It’s a distraction. From the loneliness that tried to crowd in.
From the anxiety I feel over the unresolved issue of Chris coming to Rancho Encanto.
I’m sure he has no idea I’m here. Our old friends who do know would have had to tell him, and I just don’t think they would.
It’s not like I changed my identity and started again, but I don’t like to give my exact location to very many people. Least of all Chris.
It just felt like I had been dragging baggage with me everywhere I went. From Bakersfield to LA. I didn’t want to bring it here.
I had forgotten I even had it. Sort of. Mostly, I forgot there was another life.
After three years in Rancho Encanto, it has become my life.
Normally I don’t even get sad on my birthday.
It’s the Chris factor.
The invasion of it all.
“I made you pie!”
I look up from the grill in total disbelief as Elise comes toward me with Emma, Sofia, and Angel trailing behind excitedly, holding the most beautiful lemon meringue pie I’ve ever seen.
“Pie! Pie! Pie!” The kids are singing what amounts to a hosanna chorus about the dessert, and I can’t really blame them.
I want that pie, this weather, my best friend, the adorable kids to pull me out of my weird funk. I’m thinking too much about the past, which I really don’t want to do. But the past is getting into my present, the before is getting into my after .
Then there’s Nathan.
I’m still in a minor tizzy about his random booking.
Putting it mildly.
I got my feelings hurt, and I might have overreacted. Internally. It’s not like I yelled at him or anything, but for heaven’s sake. He warned me away from him like I’d accosted him.
The guy doesn’t like me—he’s made that very clear.
However, I think that’s maybe part of why I’m drawn to him. Not in a playground way. Not in an I-want-to-pull-his-pigtails way. It’s not that at all.
I’ve analyzed this possibly too deeply in the last five months, because I’m still thinking about him, in spite of being mad.
But I think I get it. Even better, I like the reason I’ve come up with.
He’s safe.
He’s never going to make a move on me. He’s proven that. He’s never going to look at me and see the fantasies I’ve had about him moving like a slideshow through my eyes and pull me into his arms. He’s never going to ask me to make them real.
That’s why I like him.
That’s why he excites me.
I can’t have him.
I’m not being martyrish, I’m really not.
He’s safe like this. A safe space to have pleasant, warm feelings without ever having to worry about the consequences of those feelings, because there are none and won’t be.
He’s like the human man equivalent of Rancho Encanto itself. A place out of time and space, where my issues don’t follow.
He isn’t my reality.
But this pie is.
Elise and Emma are. Sofia and Angel are. Wilma, Gladys, and Lydia are. Even Albert is. Even though he’s cornered Jonathan and Joseph off in the barbecue area and is saying something about the shortening attention spans of youths and the implications on real art. Then Jonathan says something about Marvel movies, and Albert is off to the races.
I know for a fact Jonathan has done this for the sole purpose of riling Albert up. I respect that about Jonathan. Also I’m tired of hearing screeds about the regurgitation of content and the soulless spectacle of green screen effects.
I shoot Jonathan a look, and he only smiles at me with innocence I know is fake as he takes a step closer to his husband, and the two of them tilt their heads to the side and feign interest in Albert’s rant.
When Solis and Juan get back from work, they fix plates, and Elise starts to sing “Happy Birthday,” and everyone—even Albert—pauses to sing too. The kids are screaming more than singing.
I think I might cry. I do a little. If my eyes being watery counts as crying. Because finding out my ex is coming to town knocked me on my butt, and the specter of Chris feels intense. I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize the festival.
Christmas is supposed to be about miracles and stars aligning.
I can’t even figure out what all this is. A cosmic joke?
“You’re the best, Amelia,” Elise says, setting the pie down on a table in front of me.
“Thank you,” I say. “My birthday is tomorrow .”
“I know,” says Elise. “What’s wrong with birthday week? Start treating yourself early.”
“I love that for me, but it so happens I’m treating myself to a favorite at tomorrow’s dive-in.”
“Wish I could be there,” Elise says, smiling. “My boss has me manning the front desk.”
“You don’t,” I say. “It’s Die Hard .”
“How are you doing Die Hard in front of the kids? Is this Dive-In Way Way Way After Dark?”
“No,” I say. “I found it at a yard sale. It’s like one of those old CleanFlicks edits?”
“Good God, the movie is going to be five minutes long.”
“I previewed it. Now he says, ‘ Yippee ki-yay , motherscratcher.’”
Elise cracks up and starts cutting the pie, which creates a small line of guests to sample her cooking. After she hands out the last piece, she looks over at me meaningfully.
“Room thirty-two is being cleaned,” Elise says casually, pretending to examine her nails.
I take another large bite of pie. “Yes. It is.”
“Random guest or ... is he coming back?” She looks far too interested.
I narrow my eyes. “You know, other people do reserve that room.”
“I guess so. But he has it blocked out often. Also, you’re in a weird mood.”
This is the drawback to having best friends. Best friends who actually care for you and notice your moods and want to offer support. I really should have thought that through. I sigh. “Yes. He is coming back. Tomorrow.”
Elise is way too amused by this, her laughter making her bracelets and earrings jingle in time with her movements. “No way. For how long?”
“Until the day after Christmas.”
“That’s . . . Wow.”
“I know. Especially since our last interaction—our last major interaction—was hostile.”
“Because he thinks you’re hot,” she says.
“Maybe. Though why should I care about that if he’s just going to be a jerk?”
“Good question.” Elise sits there drumming her nails on the table, thoughtful for a moment. “I know he’s very protective of his anonymity,” she says slowly. “What if he would do an event?”
I blink. “What?”
“A fundraiser.”
I realize that I have missed the actual kismet here. That I’ve been so distracted by my personal feelings about Nathan and what passed between us that I have missed the actual reason for him walking into my life in the first place.
Of course. It was never about me. What a main character point of view. It was about the town all along.
He’s not my fate. He’s Rancho Encanto’s.
“You’re right,” I say. “He should. At A Very Desert Christmas. We can advertise that Jacob Coulter is going to be there. That he’s going to sign books.” I’m getting more and more excited as I start talking. “He could maybe give a talk. People love author talks. They love them way more than they love book signings. Everybody wants you to tell them how they can get published.”
“Well, he could do that. Then you could sell tickets to the event, and it could all go to benefit the community!”
This is it. The thing I’m looking for. Something that will help me earn more money for the festival and will even keep me extra busy, and maybe farther away from Christopher.
I’m suddenly very grateful for my best friend, for her knowing me, and for her being able to look at a situation and see something I didn’t because I was so focused on my own drama.
“You’re a genius,” I say, because I’m not going to gatekeep my level of admiration for her.
“Thank you,” she says.
“Of course, convincing him of that could be ... difficult.” But I think of the way he was the night of the fire. He genuinely cared about everybody. “He is for sure a giant curmudgeon,” I say, “but I must reluctantly confess I think there is good deep down in his heart.”
Elise laughs. “How inconvenient.”
“No kidding.”
But now I have a mission. When Nathan shows up, I’m going to be the most pleasant version of myself possible. Bygones are going to be bygones.
Because now I have a ringer for A Very Desert Christmas. It fills me with hope, joy, and glad tidings. This is the cliché Christmas miracle I’ve been waiting for. It’s not my ex coming in from the big city.
It’s this very convenient circumstance.
I’ve been given my own version of a cheesy Christmas romance. Sans romance.
And I’m going to embrace the hell out of it.