Chapter Five
Piper is wholly unprepared for the convergence of her two crushes into one singular supercrush. But she has the very cute, very nice doctor—who is apparently her neighbor (scream!)—in her apartment and she doesn’t know what to do with him.
Luckily, she overheard a very clear list of desires from the hall—eat, shower, sleep.
Piper can handle that. She has the necessary supplies and/or pieces of furniture to fulfill those desires. Ugh, do not think the word desire right now.
Thank god she’s got a pie in the oven demanding her attention, so she can’t stand there staring at him with her tongue hanging out of her mouth.
She leaves Scott (he insists, gently but firmly, that she stop calling him Dr. Harrison as he crosses her threshold) standing in her tiny living room, yelling “Make yourself at home” over her shoulder.
Normally she’d feel self-conscious about the size of her apartment, but he lives in an identical unit, so whatever, it’s not like he’s surprised.
The pie needs another ten minutes; it’s still sticky in the middle. She returns to find Scott exactly where she left him.
He keeps turning his head, like his eyes don’t know where to land between the tiny hand-painted wooden Christmas village adorning the mantle, the giant felt wreath on the back of the door, or the cluster of gingerbread house throw pillows dotting her emerald green couch (it was just a lucky coincidence that the couch was on theme—she hadn’t bought it special or anything).
And then there’s the tree. A real fir—squat but sturdy—that she carried on her back like a mountain goat since she doesn’t have a car.
She only got it yesterday, wanting it to still smell fresh for Christmas Day, but it’s fully decked with popcorn garland (which, as it turned out, was a total pain in the ass to make) and every one of the kitschy gas station ornaments she’s picked up on her travels.
Her favorite is Bayou Santa from Baton Rouge, with his tiny crawfish-boil bucket and flip-flops.
“Sorry,” she says sheepishly. “I know it looks like the Hallmark Channel threw up in here.”
He probably wishes he’d stayed in the hall.
“Are you kidding?” When he turns to her, there is something that feels like wonder in his eyes. “You made it so cozy.”
“Thanks.” Piper smiles weakly. That’s kinda exactly what she was going for. “This is my first time living without roommates,” she feels compelled to explain.
Piper hadn’t minded when Thom moved in with her and Mae, but once they got engaged, and then pregnant, she started feeling like an interloper.
“I do better with a moderating influence.”
She pulls down the sleeve of her shirt, running her thumb absently along the ragged hem.
“A lot of this stuff belonged to my grandparents, and it’s just been in storage since they passed when I was in high school. I finally got the chance to take it all out.”
“I don’t even have a tree,” Scott says, voice a little rough, like regret is striking in real time.
“I’m sure you’re really busy,” Piper offers.
“Yeah.” He drops his gaze to his socks, his sneakers abandoned alongside Piper’s by the door. “But I don’t want my job to be the only thing in my life.”
Piper’s reminded of his words when they first met. “What if I don’t know what I want?”
And her reply. “It’ll come to you.”
Maybe he’s getting closer.
Scott looks up. “Did your grandparents also leave you the goose?”
“Yeah,” Piper says, laughing a little at the non sequitur. “How did you know?”
When the second timer goes off for the pie, Scott follows her back to the kitchen.
Unfortunately, that means he has to step over the extension cords for her retro lights, and almost gets brained by the heavy garland hanging across the doorway to the kitchen.
“Sorry,” she says again, but he waves her off before seamlessly scooping pine needles out of his hoodie and depositing them in the metal trash can at his knee.
“Please don’t apologize,” he says as she pulls on her oven mitts. “You’re rescuing me from—” And then, “Oh my god. Is that a pumpkin pie?” as she straightens, taking it out of the oven.
Piper inhales the warm spice-scented steam before setting it on the counter.
“I know, I know. It’s more of a Thanksgiving food. But I really think the pumpkin-pie season is too short. I’m on a singular mission to extend it. Would you like some?”
“Oh, I couldn’t.” He looks like he’s actively suppressing drool. “I’m sure you’re saving it for company.”
Piper notices he didn’t say no.
“I’m not,” she says firmly. Maybe lying would make her seem less sad. But no, the lie would make her feel sad, she decides, like she’s ashamed—and she isn’t. “I’m spending Christmas on my own this year.”
“You are?” He seems confused.
“Yeah.” Piper takes a deep breath, because she’s not sorry, but it still aches. “I grew up with a small family, just my mom and me, and this is the first Christmas I’m spending without her.”
She immediately realizes the way that sounds. Like her mom is dead. Which, again, feels easier. More sympathetic.
Piper imagines that kind of grief feels cleaner. That there’s less guilt mixed into it.
Because Piper chose this. She didn’t want to. But after years of conflict and chaos, she’d finally conceded that something had to change, and it wasn’t going to be her mom.
“She’s alive, and fine as far as I know.” Piper doesn’t want to lie. Not to Scott generally, and not about this specifically.
“We just don’t have a relationship anymore.” She’s proud that it comes out sounding definitive. It took her a long time after cutting off contact to get here.
“I’m not just being a brat,” she says, heading him off before he can reply.
Piper can’t handle the idea that he’ll think she’s simply being selfish or stubborn.
“My mother is . . .” Narcissist pops into her head. But the rest of the words aren’t there. She has to search for them.
“You have to forgive yourself,” her therapist keeps telling her.
“I believe you,” Scott says with conviction, cutting through her awkward pause.
And then, at the question that must read somewhere on her face, “I can hear it in your voice.”
Piper exhales.
“I see a lot of families at the hospital. Every kind of dynamic you can imagine. And often, I’m seeing them under extremely stressful circumstances.” He’s speaking slowly, deliberately, like someone stepping out onto fresh-fallen snow.
“It brings out the worst in some people, the best in others.” Scott swallows, and Piper doesn’t have to imagine what he’s remembering: She was there the other night.
“In the end, there is one constant: You can’t love someone into becoming well.”
And it’s like, without knowing it, Piper’s been waiting to hear someone else say it. The guilt doesn’t disappear, but it eases by degrees. From her shoulders, from her chest. And that’s something.
Christmas is undeniably smaller this year, but it’s better. She’s not waiting for the climb. The crash.
“I’m pretty sure . . . I’m working toward . . .” She sighs. “One day, I’ll be able to be funny about it.”
The pie is cool enough, she decides, and grabs it along with two forks before sinking into one of the chairs at the small café table in the corner.
Scott joins her after a moment, picks up the second fork. “That’ll be a good day.”
Conversation is surprisingly easy after that.
They chat about soccer, agreeing it’s the only defensible major league sport to root for in Chicago at the moment.
And his family. Piper can tell he’s nervous to talk about how close they all are, but she’s honest when she tells him she loves watching his face as he proudly recounts their various personal and professional accomplishments, a textbook older brother.
They discover they both unironically love the Fast & Furious movies but enter into heated debate over which film is the best, the first (him) or the seventh (her).
Piper feels compelled to offer Scott dinner after dessert, despite the fact that he moaned borderline pornographically after his first bite and loudly proclaimed “This is the best fucking pie I’ve ever had in my entire life” twice while eating it.
(The second time was somewhere around his third slice, when she remembered she’d bought vanilla ice cream to add on top).
As a doctor, she assumes he’ll still want some kind of vegetable. A protein? To round out the meal.
But he says, “I’m so good, thank you. That was perfect,” when she offers, leaning back in his chair and patting his belly, in a move that is not entirely unreminiscent of Santa. That is, until his scrub shirt rides up a little to reveal the barest strip of peach fuzz below his navel.
Piper has to school her face into neutrality when she remembers that the next item on his agenda is a shower.
“The right knob is stubborn.” She leans into the stall to show him. “You gotta wiggle it.”
After a few moments of negotiation, the water starts.
It heats up quickly, and soon steam starts to spill out into the small room, clouding the mirror.
Piper grabs Scott a clean towel from her linen closet. Decidedly not thinking about the fact that very soon he is going to be naked.
They stand on either side of the doorway after she hands him the towel, facing each other, Scott in the bathroom, her in the hall.
“There’s shampoo and all that stuff in there.” Piper waves at her pineapple-print shower curtain. “Feel free to use anything you want.”
“Thank you,” he says, holding the towel she gave him, not moving immediately to close the door.
“Piper,” he starts.
And maybe it’s the steam floating out of the doorway behind him. The way it lands hot and muggy against her cheek.
Or the fact that this man is simultaneously the handsome doctor who thinks she’s funny and the next-door neighbor she’s had a crush on pretty much since she moved in.
But all of a sudden, Piper is certain she cannot handle whatever he’s going to say next.
“Shout if you need anything.” The words fly out of her mouth. And then, she bolts.