I’ll Be Home for Ex-Mas
I’LL BE HOME FOR EX-MAS
Alexandria Bellefleur
A collective groan rose from the gate area and Francesca’s heart sank.
“Inconvenience?” A frazzled-looking woman holding a sleeping toddler approached the desk. “It’s Christmas Eve. There has to be something you can do, some earlier flight you can put us on.”
Rather than join the long line of tired, travel-weary, would-be passengers, Francesca wheeled her carry-on over to the only open restaurant Dane County Regional Airport boasted and took a seat at the bar decorated with vintage Packers memorabilia and colorful string lights.
She was no more thrilled at the prospect of spending Christmas Eve stuck in an airport than the next person, but there was nothing the gate agent or anyone else could do about the bomb cyclone working its way across the northern US, blasting the Midwest with blizzard conditions.
Complaining wouldn’t get her home any sooner, but a strong drink might at least help pass the time.
My flight’s officially been canceled, she texted the family group chat after thanking the bartender for the hot buttered rum he’d set down in front of her.
He was wearing a Santa hat and an ostentatious Christmas sweater covered in silver tinsel and flashing LED lights.
They’ve rebooked me on the first flight out tomorrow.
Her little brother, Mike, sent back, bummer.
Dad, never much one for texting, replied with a single thumbs-down emoji, and Mom with several broken hearts and a promise that they would wait to open presents until after she arrived.
Not thirty seconds later, she sent Francesca a photo; Mom, Dad, and Mike were wearing red-and-green plaid pajamas, pajamas Francesca would also be wearing right now if she were at home instead of stranded on the opposite end of the state, missing out on all of her favorite Christmas Eve traditions.
Francesca hearted the photo before setting her phone screen-side-down atop the bar with a resigned sigh.
“And that was the reigning Queen of Christmas herself, Mariah Carey, with the perennial favorite ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You,’ ” the radio jockey rasped through the speakers.
“Don’t go anywhere, folks. After a brief commercial break, we’ll be right back with the song topping the Billboard Mainstream Rock Airplay chart this week, ‘Please Come Home for Christmas’ by Apollo’s Child. ”
The bartender changed the station and Francesca frowned.
“Wait, sorry, could you—would you mind switching it back? Just for the next song.”
He looked at her sideways, Santa hat sitting askew atop his head, then shrugged, changing the station. “Sure. You a fan?”
“Sorry?”
“The band?” he asked. “Apollo’s Child. I heard the lead singer’s from around here. Benjamin Donnelly? Not here, like, Madison. But you know. Wisconsin.”
“Oh. Right.” She smiled. “I heard that too,” she said, because it was easier than saying that before he was Benjamin Donnelly, the famous front man of Apollo’s Child, the hottest rock band to grace the scene in a decade, she’d known him as Benji.
And long before he was performing in front of sold-out crowds to thousands of screaming fans, he used to sing for her.
Because Francesca wasn’t just a fan, she was his first fan.
And Benji Donnelly was her first everything.
Not for the first time, she was struck with an almost irresistible urge to pick up the phone and call him.
To hear his voice, not over the radio. Not that hearing him on the radio wasn’t nice, but it wasn’t the same.
Not even close. But just like complaining wouldn’t get her home any faster, wishing wouldn’t help her now.
Benji had changed his number years ago. And even if he hadn’t, she wasn’t certain he’d pick up.
Not when he saw that it was her calling.
“I heard that guy’s a real loser.”
Francesca’s hackles rose, the old urge to snap back at the good-for-nothing assholes who used to pick on Benji for daring to care about music more than football, rearing its head. She set her drink down with a dull thud and turned in her seat.
“I’m sorry,” she said, voice acerbic. “I must have missed the part where I asked for your op—”
The retort died on her lips, a familiar face staring back at her from the nearest booth.
The nondescript ball cap pulled low over his brow flattened his golden curls and cast shadows over his slate-gray eyes, and the dark navy hoodie he wore hid most of his tattoos.
She wasn’t sure she could call it a disguise—it might have worked on most people, but Francesca wasn’t most people. She would have recognized him anywhere.
“Benji?” she said, exhaling a tiny squeak of disbelief.
A grin spread across his face, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Hey, Frankie.”
Frankie. Her heart beat double time. The only person to ever call her that was him. “What are you doing here?”
His smile faltered, and she felt a swift stab of regret that her first words to him in three and a half years weren’t something better, something more sincere.
It’s good to see you.
How have you been?
I missed you.
I’m sorry.
“I mean…” She cleared her throat. “I didn’t expect to run into you here of all places.”
Somewhere else, maybe. Countless hours she’d lost to daydreams of bumping into him inside a crowded bar in Camden, of turning a corner on her walk home from class and seeing him standing there. But Dane County Regional Airport? Never.
“I was supposed to fly into O’Hare, but my flight got rerouted.”
“Were you flying from LAX?”
If the tabloids were to be believed, he had purchased a house in the Pacific Palisades last spring.
He nodded. “You?”
“Newark.”
“Ah. Headed home for Christmas?” He winced. “Jesus, sorry. Dumb question.”
“Trying to, at least.” She looked down at the empty seat across from him. “Can I sit?” Shit. “I mean, unless you’re with someone and they’re—”
“Frankie.” He pressed his lips together like he was trying not to laugh. “Sit.”
She grabbed her drink and took a seat opposite him in the small booth, the vinyl squeaking as she shifted her weight, casting about in the ensuing silence for something better to say than Some weather we’re having, huh?
What did you even begin to say to someone with whom you hadn’t spoken in three and a half years, someone you used to tell everything?
“You look really beautiful,” he said, breaking the silence before it broke her, sparing Francesca the mortification of putting her foot in her mouth twice in as many minutes. “Can I say that?” he asked, eyes roving anxiously over her face. “Is that allowed?”
Heat filled her cheeks. She looked like she’d been traveling for the last six hours and was jet-lagged on top of it.
Embarrassed, she pivoted the topic. “You changed your number,” she said, praying it didn’t sound like an accusation.
“Yeah, I…” His head cocked to the side, and he was probably wondering how she knew that.
Maybe wondering. It once had been so easy to guess what he was thinking.
Now she wasn’t sure. “Someone leaked it. Sold it, maybe. I don’t know.
” His eyes dropped to the peeling label of his Heineken.
“I thought about messaging you, but I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to. ”
Because she had broken up with him. Because this stiltedness that existed between them was her fault. Because she had turned what had once felt as easy as breathing into something confusing and hard, a puzzle with missing pieces.
Francesca hated herself for it, for breaking his heart and hers. She really did. And yet she couldn’t bring herself to regret it when it meant watching him live his dream, even if she had to do it from afar. Even if she had to do it as a stranger.
Her parents didn’t understand—well, they pretended they did, but they didn’t.
No one did. She and Benji had been high school sweethearts, joined at the hip from the moment Benji, the sweet, shy transfer kid from Texas had asked if he could sit with her, inseparable during senior year and throughout all of college.
Where Francesca went, everyone knew Benji was bound to follow.
Which was precisely why when his band had been asked to open for The Masqueraders on tour, Francesca had known she didn’t have a choice.
She’d been accepted to the Courtauld Institute of Art’s MA Conservation of Easel Paintings, a rigorous three-year, full-time program.
In the five years that they had been together, Francesca could have counted on two hands the number of days they’d spent apart.
And suddenly they were supposed to go months without seeing each other?
No, the distance would have been too great, and missing her was a distraction Benji didn’t need.
It would have only been a matter of time before one of them caved and quit, and Benji’s dreams were too big, too important to sacrifice for her.
She loved him too much to be the thing that held him back.
A clean break—not that there was anything clean about heartbreak—hadn’t been easy, but it was for the best. Still, she told herself when she needed the reminder, when the grief crept in, when she found herself missing Benji so much it hurt to breathe.
“I saw you perform at Wembley,” she said, an answer to a question he’d only sort of asked. He could have messaged her and she’d have welcomed it. Even if it would have muddied the waters. “I was there.”
Benji’s eyes flashed to her face, his lips parting in surprise. “You were?”
“It was a great show. You were amazing.” She smiled and hoped it wasn’t too wistful. “You always are.”