Chapter 30
30
It takes almost no time at all to get from the restaurant to the harbor. The night is cold and crisp. I wish it would snow, but at least the clear skies make transit and walking easy. Even though we made good time getting there, I was worried we might have literally missed the boat. But when I checked the invitation—which Nancy had conveniently emailed, as well as distributing hard copy posters to every desk and plastering them all over the breakroom—it said that there would be a cruise from five to seven, followed by “docked debauchery” until midnight. It’s just past seven now.
Perfect.
“Ahhhh! Eve, you came!”
Nancy is, predictably, the first person to greet us upon arrival. She’s wearing a red beret and a bright green peacoat, and looks like a tipsy French boat elf. When she throws her arms around me in an enthusiastic drunken hug, I don’t recoil.
“We came,” I agree, and I even smile at her.
“And who’s this?” Nancy asks, gazing blurrily at my golem.
“This is Paul,” I say, and he nods at Nancy.
“Well hello, Paul!” Nancy beams. “Okay, you both need to get some Dirty Santas—that’s the signature drink tonight. It’s cookies-and-cream liqueur with rose bitters and a maraschino cherry...you know, like in the poem, how ‘his cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry’?”
“Um, yeah, of course,” I say, since she seems to be expecting a response. I’m pretty sure she’s referencing “’Twas the Night before Christmas,” but who knows.
“I knew you’d get it,” Nancy enthuses. “You can also ‘pop Santa’s cherry’ if you want to make it a real dirty drink!”
“That sounds disgusting and I can’t wait to try it,” I say, and Nancy guffaws. I grin, satisfied. This is more like it. I’ll be appreciated here, unlike at that stupid rehearsal dinner.
Paul and I each grab a drink, although he merely carries his around while I slam mine. It’s just as disgusting as I imagined it would be, but I don’t even care. When I’ve finished my Dirty Santa, I grab a bottle of Old Style from one of the many drink tables and make a quick circuit, introducing Paul to my coworkers, enjoying their appreciative assessments of my handsome date.
I don’t see either Bryan or Sasha, and I’ve been on the boat for almost an hour before it dawns on me that Bryan isn’t here because he was laid off. I bet Sasha skipped it in solidarity, and I’m the only asshole who showed up.
But then I hear a familiar voice behind me.
“So this is the famous Josh Paul.”
I turn and see Sasha looking at the golem, arms folded across her chest.
“It’s...just Paul, actually,” I say, without explaining further.
“Nice hat,” she says, eyeing the golem’s fedora. “Kinda windy out here, better make sure you don’t lose it.”
“Pull it down further,” I snap at the golem, low enough that my best friend won’t hear me. We can’t have the wind carrying his hat away. He obediently pulls it down low, and keeps one hand on the brim for good measure. I raise my voice to say with forced cheer, “Hi, Sasha.”
“Sasha,” the golem says softly, remembering this name.
Hearing him say her name, Sasha looks startled. She takes a step back, then turns and looks at me. Her eyes are radiating concern. She’s not really dressed for a party, which is unlike her. She’s wearing jeans and her nice winter boots, a big down coat, a warm hat. No makeup, no bling. Like she was just sitting at home on her couch, then decided to bundle up, take out the trash, and continue on to the office holiday party for no apparent reason.
“You didn’t get very dressed up tonight,” I say.
“I wasn’t planning on coming, but then...”
“But then...?”
“Nancy texted me to say that you were here,” Sasha says, with a momentary nose-wrinkle at the office gossip’s perpetual overreach. “I guess she thought that might make me show up.”
“Come for the friends, stay for the Dirty Santas,” I say, shaking my empty glass in her direction.
“Eve,” she says, uninterested in my tipsy banter. “You wanna tell me why you’ve been ignoring me?”
“I’m—sorry,” I say, but I mostly feel annoyed. Whatever big conversation Sasha wants to have, now isn’t the time. I just want to enjoy myself. Besides, she ignored me for most of the last year. “I’ve been busy. The wedding’s tomorrow, and it’s been, like, nonstop—”
“And there’s—” Sasha looks nervously at the golem, and when she says his name it sounds like it tastes bad in her mouth “—Paul.”
“Yeah, but it’s not like—”
“Did you even read my texts?”
“I mean, some of them...” I mumble.
“No, you haven’t,” Sasha says. “Are you still keeping your phone off?”
“Sometimes,” I admit, although almost always is the actual truth.
“God, Eve. Okay. Okay, can we just—Can I just talk to you alone for a minute?”
“What do you mean ‘alone’?” I say, looking around.
We’re standing toward the front of the party boat, and no one else is within earshot. They’re all laughing and distracted, anyway, every single one of our coworkers drunk on holiday cheer and Dirty Santas. No one is paying any attention to me, my best friend, and the golem.
“I mean, without...” Sasha drops her voice, casting a furtive look at Paul Mudd. She almost looks scared of him. “Without him around.”
The golem takes a step forward, standing directly beside me.
“Is there something you have to tell me that he can’t hear?”
He takes another step forward, so he’s just slightly in front of me now, his body between mine and Sasha’s. She takes a step back, looking angry and a little bit frightened. Which is ridiculous. She has no reason to be scared of my date. Paul would never hurt her.
Still, there’s an undeniable fear in her eyes. She lowers her voice, and the intensity in it takes me by surprise.
“Eve, please,” she says. “I’m worried about you.”
“Why are you worried about me?”
“Can we just talk—”
“We’re talking—”
“Alone, please, we really need to—”
“Now you ‘really need’ to talk?” I say, hot embers of resentment finally bursting into a furious flame in my chest. “Remember all last year, when I was going through hell, and wanted to talk, and you were—Where were you again? Oh, right: with your shitty boyfriend. Right?”
“Eve,” Sasha says. “That’s not exactly—”
“And then you were sad about not having a shitty boyfriend anymore,” I say, temperature rising. “And now I show up with a date, and suddenly you don’t just want to talk, you want to pull me aside, get me to yourself, end my fun. All I wanted tonight was to have a good time. And every time I start to enjoy myself, someone shits all over it. And I’m sick of it. God! I am sick of it. Come on.”
I aim those last two words at the golem, who lurches after me as I head for the exit, making my way to the stairs leading to the dock level of the boat. When Sasha calls out after me, I ignore her.
When Sasha broke up with her boyfriend and decided to reenter our social circle, I welcomed her back in with open arms. So did Bryan. No questions, no punishment—we were just glad to have our friend back. It had hurt when she ignored me and Bryan and everyone else in her life; especially the weeks she spent holed up with her boyfriend while I was mourning the fresh loss of my father. Maybe I’d been too quick to forgive her for all that, especially with how weird she’s being now. Where was she back then, when I actually needed her? Why the hell is she concerned now, when I finally have someone looking out for me?
She’s jealous.
The thought is a bee sting, small and sharp, then swelling into something I can’t ignore. Jealousy, that must be it. Sasha has never had any reason to feel jealous of me before, and it doesn’t look good on her. She’s used to being the one who has all her shit together, while I’m the disaster bestie. She’s the all-star at work, the fashionable one, and, usually, the one with a boyfriend. She’s currently single, sure, but she’s still shining in every other area of her life. It shouldn’t be such a big deal for me to have a plus-one when she doesn’t.
Why can’t I have this one thing?
Sasha should be happy, now that I finally have someone who’s actually treating me well. Instead, she’s freaking out. So I didn’t respond to her texts for a couple days—so what? That’s no reason to get this upset.
“Eve, please, just listen...” Sasha calls from behind me.
Clutching the golem’s hand, I don’t even turn around when I finally answer her.
“Go to hell, Sasha,” I say, and leave the boat with my golem in tow.