Chapter 8
We don’t get to go through the seven levels of the Candy Cane Forest or a sea of twirly, swirly gumdrops or even the Lincoln Tunnel like Buddy the Elf, but we do go through the underground subway station.
There’s an old ticket booth festooned with garland and a few MTA employees wearing Santa hats, and I swear I catch snippets of a conversation about chestnut-roasting techniques between moments when the train’s rumble swells.
Perfect little pinches of holiday making the everyday something special.
When we board our train, Diya and I stand, holding on to a shared pole while Cash and Izaac take seats in front of us.
There are people scrolling, a couple murmuring to each other in a language I can’t identify.
I scan ads on digital screens while music leaks from the huge headphones on the guy next to me.
He sways, eyes closed, but aside from that and the hum and screech of the train itself, the car is pretty much silent.
I stashed the camera when we got situated, pretty sure it wouldn’t be a welcome sight among the keep-to-yourself subway crowd.
But then, at our third stop, three young guys jump on, all wearing reindeer antlers and matching Adidas tracksuits in red and green, plus some seriously enviable sneakers with blinking LEDs.
They’re carrying a portable speaker, and now I have to start rolling.
“Yo, good afternoon!” one of them shouts as the doors close behind them and I scramble to grab the camera from my backpack. “We hope y’all are enjoying your holiday season. We’re not here to bother, just to entertain.”
Suddenly, a beat drops—a mashup of Christmas music and hip-hop classics—and I can’t tell the difference between the rumble of the train and the bass from the speaker.
One of the dancers hits the floor and pulls a crazy spin move on his back.
His jacket flares while another dancer grabs a vertical pole and swings around it with one leg sticking straight out.
He just misses a passenger who looks briefly terrified, and then delighted.
Cash nudges me from his seat, grinning, and Diya is totally still, mesmerized. Izaac bobs his head along to the music. It has to be Fate that of all the cars on this train, it was ours that wound up hosting this cinematic display of human holiday spirit.
Then, out of nowhere, the train slows and the music cuts out just as the last guy freezes, holding himself upside down on only one hand, and applause erupts in pockets around the car as the doors slide open again.
As the digital announcer informs us of our next stop, the performers walk the length of the train car, complimenting people on their coats and hats and passing along holiday wishes, and I keep filming.
I can’t wait to tell them how good they were.
“That was… like, the coolest thing ever!” I say, fully aware that I sound like the least cool thing ever.
“Thank you, friend,” one of them says, and his smile is warm and gracious.
“Whoa, dope camera!” the other adds, pointing to the Sony.
“Thanks! It was my mom’s and then—” I stop myself from going on a ramble, and instead go with, “Well, anyway, merry—uh, happy holidays!”
But they linger in front of me, one of them holding out his hat, where he’s collected some dollars and coins.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I say, embarrassed. “I don’t have any cash, um…”
I pat my jacket as if it might suddenly produce coins, but they are obviously not holding out hope for that alchemy.
“Pssh. Figures,” one guys says, then shakes his head at me before he moves on.
I know I’m not the only one who didn’t contribute so I don’t understand why they didn’t seem to take issue with anyone else, but then Diya points to a sign I didn’t see before on the floor beside the portable speaker:
No Tipping, No Clicking!
If you’re photographing or filming the show, learn from Scrooge’s example and spread the wealth.
“Damn,” I mutter, but can’t argue. It’s festive but firm, and I respect that, even if it does put a damper on the moment. As we barrel toward our next stop, I make a mental note for the future and wonder what other rules I may need to learn for New York living.
When we surface to street level in under the thirty-eight minutes Izaac projected, we’re in Cobble Hill, the Brooklyn neighborhood that is apparently home to Eve’s bakery.
It’s quaint and looks like the Brooklyn of my daydreams, with stoops and tree-lined streets, brick houses and brownstones with deep front yards, cozy-looking boutiques and cafés.
“Did you know that there are over twelve thousand species of plants and wildlife in Brooklyn Bridge Park alone?” Diya asks. “Really has impressive vegetation for an urban area.”
“I was just going to say impressive vegetation! You took the words right out of my mouth,” Cash says, nudging Diya.
“Wow, you really went hard on the NYC research today, huh?” I ask.
“Yeah, when did you become a big-city scholar?” Izaac chimes in.
“I like to know things.” She shrugs.
Last fall, not long after we met Diya, in that period before Michelle’s relapse when my mother seemed happier and freer, Naomi convinced the four of us to go with her to see some nineties country band at a local state fair.
The rest of us mostly went for the snacks (i.e.
baskets of fried Oreos), but Diya, on the other hand, spent the week leading up to the show poring over the band’s entire back catalog of music and knew every word when we got there.
Naomi was delighted but we were all thoroughly confused.
“What? Knowing stuff makes an experience more enjoyable,” she’d said then, and turned back to the stage to continue her sing-along.
So maybe she thought she’d enjoy the trip today if she had more information on New York, but the optimist in me can’t help but wonder if Diya was already doing some research before this morning… for her own future reasons?
“Well, I for one am happy to have the surprise tour guide.” I smile wide and throw an arm around her shoulders. “Is it always so quiet?” I was expecting more of a movie scene hustle and bustle, and so far Brooklyn is surprisingly chill.
“Brooklyn is definitely quieter than Manhattan, but not usually this much. People must’ve fled town on account of the weather,” Izaac says. “Probably scurrying off to their upstate cabins to sit by the fire and drink haute cocoa.”
He pushes his glasses up on his nose as he delivers this line, looking like a Black Asian Dan Levy, one of his only nonpolitical heroes.
“I feel like designing ‘haute cocoa’ is Bennie’s true calling in life,” Cash says, eyeing me.
“The fallback, for sure ,” I say. I train the lens on Diya as she closely examines some plant species. If there’s a single trace of awe on her face, I don’t want to miss it. I’ll get a lot of mileage out of this footage if she tries to tell me she didn’t enjoy her time here.
“That’ll do,” Diya says, putting a mittened hand over the lens again and foiling my faux blackmail attempt.
“Okay, this way,” Izaac says, eyes on the map screen. The map that will lead us to the bakery.
To Eve.
It’s not that I forgot why we’re here, but I’ve been distracting myself so I don’t lose my nerve.
The camera helps me observe the world more closely, but can put a little distance between me and reality too.
But now I only have a few blocks to figure out what I’m actually going to say when we get there.
Diya must sense this, because she turns to me with an encouraging smile and says, “You’ll know what to say when you see her.”
I smile back, my snack cake heart getting all gooey at the thought of Diya’s confidence in me. But the reminder that they’re all here to watch me get the girl suddenly feels like a brick on my chest.
A vibration from my phone startles me out of my spiral, and for a beat I’m happy, but then I realize it’s my mom, based on the fact that she’s the only one who can get through my Do Not Disturb.
Instinctively, I reach for it. She’s probably just responding to my note that I’ll be out all day. But then a voice in my head says, Wait! Stop! Remember that whole get-back-to-me-with-an-answer situation? And I decide against looking. I can’t let it mess with my headspace right now.
“There it is!” Cash shouts, pointing up ahead.
I have to take my glasses off and give them a quick polish on my jacket, but eventually I can read the words Panadería Amado on a red awning, and it’s like a shot through my heart. There it is. Which means, there she is.
Well, maybe, anyway. Because she could totally not be in there.
But also? She totally could be in there.
“That was quick!” he adds.
“ Really quick,” I say.
Too quick is what I do not say.
“So what’s your strategy?” Izaac asks.
“Strategy,” I repeat, neither a question nor an answer.
I’m so nervous, so unsure of myself, that for a moment my panic transforms to blame. I’m not somehow cooler than I was yesterday, or more confident. Also, this isn’t Fate throwing us together randomly this time. This is me and my friends trying to force Fate. Will there be cosmic retribution?
Since Izaac suggested this trip, he is directly responsible for the chaos in my brain, and suddenly I’m almost angry with him.
Lately, I’ve been having a lot more moments like this and last night on the phone with my mom, when my anger—which has never been a problem for me—catches me off guard, like biting down on an eggshell in sticky toffee pudding.
Whenever this happens, I think about Michelle. When things got bad, she was liable to blow up at anyone in her path—which was mostly Naomi, but sometimes me, too. It made home—where I always felt so safe and comfortable—a pretty scary place to be.
Everything I’ve read online says that what my sister has been diagnosed with—bipolar disorder—and addiction could both run in the family.
I’ve worried more than once whether I might be susceptible to the same future, but I cannot go down that road.
I have to get my feelings under control, be in the moment, on this Brooklyn street, with my friends.
My friends, who are all staring at me, waiting.
“You can practice with us, if you want. It’s what I always do before a campaign speech,” Izaac says wearing his most reassuring You got this grin. He rests a hand on my shoulder, and my anger melts like a snowperson in spring.
“No, it’s all good,” I say.
I turn off the camera and stash it in my backpack, but I feel naked without it. I take a breath and try to channel Kevin McCallister.
This is it. Don’t get scared now…
I’m not about to welcome robbers into my parents’ booby-trapped mansion, but it doesn’t feel far off.
Izaac leads us another half block, to the bakery’s storefront, and I’m torn between wanting more time and wanting to rip off the Band-Aid and do the thing already. My stomach pitches and rolls. I return to my mantra: 240 grams of flour, 65 grams of sugar, 5 grams of baking soda…
By the time we reach the door, I could have baked at least two dozen imaginary strudels and I’m mostly just hoping that if I actually come face-to-face with Eve, I’ll be able to do more than spit an ingredient list at her.
But I never have to find out. Because there, on the front window of the bakery, is a sign.
Diya stands beside me and reads the posting aloud to us:
“?‘Holiday preorder pickups only until 3 p.m., then open to the general public. Thanks for your patience!’?”
“What? No!” Cash says.
My feelings are all over the place. Shattered? Relieved? Angry again?
But guilt is the one that takes center stage—guilt that we’ve come all the way out to Brooklyn for me, and now it’s all for nothing. I do some mental math. Can I afford to offer to buy everyone lunch, or at least a few of those fancy doughnuts for the ride back? It seems like the least I can do.
“What if we called and placed a holiday order?” Cash asks.
“They probably stopped taking orders a while ago,” I sigh. “A bakery usually needs at least a day’s notice to make stuff. Besides, they’d hate us. I mean, Joany would literally throw a flaming sheet pan out the window if someone did that to us.”
“That’s a visual…,” Diya says, looking into the distance.
“Well then, could we knock on the door and just ask for Eve?” Cash tries again.
“Ohmygodno!” I spit out, and it comes as more of a shout than I mean it to, so I tack on a quick “Sorry.”
“Bennie’s right. Too thirsty, babe, come on,” Izaac says.
“Plus, you don’t want to get her in trouble at work,” Diya adds, trying to look inside despite this.
Meanwhile I’m trying to stay out of sight of the window, hiding at the edge of the building. I still see people bustling inside, preparing holiday packages with gold boxes and red ribbons, but the window is too fogged to make out anyone’s features.
“Okay, anyway, good effort,” I say. “Merit badges all around. Let’s get home. There’s still time to watch a couple of bad movies.”
I don’t even consider reaching for my camera. If I am trying to document moments of Christmas magic, this is a heinous blow that not even my overdeveloped sense of optimism can help me reframe. It’s best we revert to the original plan.
“Do not even clown, Bosley,” Izaac says. “This setback is so minor. You don’t think I’ve considered a contingency plan?”
I should have known. Izaac doesn’t do anything unless he feels certain he can succeed, which usually means having backup plans.
“Silly B,” Cash says. “We’re not giving up on you, or on love.”
I look at Diya.
“Vibe check from a logical source, please?”
She pauses. It’s a fifty-fifty split right now on how she’ll respond.
“If every sapling that got trampled by some woodland creature curled up and died, there’d be no forests for the trees,” she says.
A beat passes as we all consider this. Cash winces, like trying to decipher her meaning might actually cause damage to his thinking machine.
“Okay fine, a rom-com is two people meeting, followed by eighty minutes of obstacles. We’re just in that second part now,” she translates.
The corner of my lip twitches up a tick, because Diya is totally right. If this were my script, there’s no way we would have walked right up to that bakery and found Eve instantly. There wouldn’t even be a movie!
Also, there’s the phone in my pocket with that unread message safely stashed inside. I have zero desire to return to Stressland, where my mother’s question and my sister’s letter are waiting on me for answers.
So I shrug and smile, shaking my head at the craziness of this scene, which Izaac correctly interprets as a yes.
“Okay!” he says, rubbing his hands together. “Now, let’s regroup.”