Someone to Hold On To
Elise Bryant
As I crouch down in a patch of dirt behind a plastic snowman and a camellia bush covered in glowing rainbow lights, I’m struck by how much my life has changed in the past year.
Before that call from Mom that changed everything, when it was unspoken but still blaring loud that I needed to come home to Long Beach right away, every day was a new adventure: walking on trails through poppy-covered hills in the Antelope Valley, finding secret swimming holes in Big Sur, waking up to blankets of snow in Yosemite.
And every night I parked Fanny, the van(ny) I converted into a camper after saving up and studying YouTube videos for years, and watched the stars through the skylight I installed in the roof, dreaming of where I’d explore next.
As long as I had an internet connection to respond to client emails and show my face on an occasional Zoom, I could follow my excitement. My world felt limitless.
At the sound of shuffling footsteps, I sink back farther into the darkness, my muscles tensing as I prepare to pounce on the culprit.
But just as quickly, my shoulders release as I recognize the grunts and snorts of Emily Bronte the pug.
Seconds later, she appears around the corner, tongue out in a smile, even though her labored, wet breathing sounds like she can barely find the will to go on.
Her owner following behind her, Mr. Walter, definitely isn’t the one stealing from my bakery stand.
He was the fiercest opponent against giving me permission to start the stand at the HOA meeting three months ago—inspecting my Class A Cottage Food Operation permit like it was forged and curling his lip when I said everything was gluten free, like I’d admitted I injected each pastry with rat poison.
Unless… maybe he’s too stubborn to admit that he actually likes my gluten-free cookies? And he wants to avoid the paper trail of paying for them with Zelle, or leaving fingerprint-covered dollar bills as evidence?
But no, he keeps walking, shaking his head at my stand across the courtyard by the mailboxes, letting out a grunt that rivals Emily Bronte’s. I cross him off the suspect list.
My cheeks heat in embarrassment. I’m being ridiculous, compiling a suspect list in the first place, having a whole goddamn stakeout over some missing cookies.
And really it’s only one cookie each Tuesday and Thursday evening I set up the stand.
So minor, I didn’t even notice until last month, when Mom had a bad flare-up after insisting on making Thanksgiving dinner by herself and I spent all night checking and rechecking my numbers as I stayed up monitoring her.
It’s probably someone’s innocent grandma, confused by the QR code, and here I am making it a whole thing.
Because I’m bored. Because my life of work and caregiving and repeat is boring.
Still, it’s the principle of it all. I can’t just let this go…
“Are—are you okay?”
The small LEDs tucked into the garden suddenly seem like floodlights, illuminating the man standing on the path, peering into the bushes.
He’s under fifty-five—no wrinkles on his honey-brown skin or salt and pepper in his close-cropped curls.
It doesn’t seem like he was planning on seeing anyone, dressed in a faded Paramore shirt and sweatpants, with socked feet in Adidas slides.
And the furrowing of his thick eyebrows, the narrowing of his dark eyes rimmed with even darker lashes, make it clear that he definitely didn’t expect to see anyone hiding in the planter. And apparently not hiding very well.
“Do you need help? I can call someone?”
“No, just—shhh,” I whisper, looking around to see if he’s blown my cover. Or really, to make sure that no one else is witnessing this mortifying moment, because evidently I didn’t really have much of a cover at all.
He cups a hand behind his ear. “What’s that?”
“It’s nothing. Can you just…” I wave my hand, which obviously signifies Move along; I no longer wish to be perceived.
But he takes it as an invitation to perceive me even further.
He steps carefully over the milkweed lining the path and crouches in the dirt next to me.
If I weren’t already sure that he was closer to my age than the rest of the residents of Jacaranda, the silence of his knees seals the deal.
“Wait, are you sitting here on purpose? Are you trying to prank someone?” The Christmas lights hanging on the plants around us reflect in his eyes, making them sparkle with his curiosity. “I’m not judging or anything, but you’re just asking for trouble, with the number of pacemakers around here.”
“I’m not pranking anyone. I’m on a st…” I stop myself. “I’m—I’m watching for something.”
He whips his head around, and I catch the scent of something spicy and sweet mixed with the earthy smell around us. His gaze lands on my stand.
“The dessert table? Is something shady going down at the dessert table? I was just heading over there to get some Neapolitan cookies for my nana. Oh, and the ginger molasses tea cakes. She’s hyped for the new Christmas menu.”
“The Neapolitan cookies?” I repeat, arching an eyebrow. Those are the exact cookies that have been going missing. “Who’s your nana? Do you have money to pay for those?”
“Lily Anne Watson. And she said she prepaid.” The confusion on his face quickly shifts to amusement.
“Wait—are you the baker? Nana said it was someone’s daughter, but I wasn’t expecting…
” He shakes his head and then keeps talking before I can properly digest if that was an insult or not.
“So, you’re watching your stand. Why? Is this, like, a… what is it called? Oh, a honey trap!”
I wrinkle my nose as he blinks back at me. I can’t tell if his cheeks are reddening in the dark, but they should be.
“The cookies are the honey. Obviously. I wasn’t trying to say that—”
“Someone has been stealing cookies. Neapolitan cookies.”
“Shit, well, yeah—those cookies are good. I must have eaten at least a dozen in the week I’ve been here.
Hey, how do you get the strawberry section to be so…
strawberry-y? Because it’s the same texture as the other parts, and…
” He stops rambling when he sees how I’m looking at him and puts his hands up. “It’s not us. Nana is not a thief.”
“Sure.” I know it’s not sweet Ms. Lily Anne, with her floral embroidered cardigans and always slightly askew blond wigs, stealing my cookies.
But still, maybe if I make him feel uncomfortable enough, he’ll leave.
Because he’s still just crouching next to me in the bushes, showing no sign of leaving.
I sit down in the dirt and pointedly scoot away a few inches.
“Well, this is kind of a one-person job, so…”
“Why not just set up a camera?”
“I—I… What?”
He shrugs. “It would be more efficient than staying out here all evening.”
And that’s… true. Infuriatingly. Why didn’t I just go pick up a cheap camera? I know almost immediately the reason why: I wanted—no, needed—to leave the apartment. And out here, close enough to get to Mom in seconds if she needed me, felt safe.
“And what are you gonna do when you catch them?” he asks.
“I don’t know… appeal to their better nature?”
“That’s all? All this effort… They may see you coming, though, in this spot. Frosty, here, might as well be a neon arrow pointing you out.” He laughs as he claps the snowman on the shoulder, and it makes me feel ridiculous again.
“Okay, well, I didn’t ask for your feedback.”
He puts his hands up again, and I fight the urge to slap them back down.
“Hey, I’m just trying to help the cause. What about over there behind the mailboxes? There’s no lights, so—”
“Simone Jackson? Is that you?”
Ms. Earlene, my mom’s upstairs neighbor comes around the opposite corner, where Emily Bronte and Mr. Walter disappeared a few minutes ago.
She’s wearing one of the extra-festive outfits she’s been rocking since the day after Thanksgiving—tonight it’s a green velvet swing dress with red polka-dot tights and a rhinestone-covered Santa hat.
There’s a large tree in the middle of the dress, and she must have a battery pack tucked somewhere because it’s lit up and twinkling.
She runs the theater society in Jacaranda, and I swear it’s just to put her extensive closet of costumes to good use.
Behind her is her grandson, who seems to have sprouted up overnight.
I see him often when he comes to visit his grandma after school, and I swear he wasn’t her height last week.
He’s less festive in a Minecraft hoodie and an expression that seems like he’d rather be anywhere else—though that may just come standard on ten-year-olds nowadays.
Ms. Earlene was one of the deciding votes approving my bakery stand…
mostly because she seemed to forget what they were even voting on by the time her turn came around.
Still, I brought her a tin full of my greatest hits as a thank-you.
And I hope finding me in the bushes isn’t going to make her call up Mr. Walter and get a recall going.
“Um, hi! Hi, Ms. Earlene.”
“Hi, ma’am,” the man next to me echoes.
“Oh!” Ms. Earlene’s hand flies to chest, jingling the bracelets of bells on her wrist, and that’s quickly followed by knowing laughter. “Simone, you have a male suitor.”
“No. No, no, no!”