Chapter 41
The next day, I’m bleary-eyed when the Millers pull into my driveway. After talking to Luke last night, my brain felt like
a beehive for hours, and I couldn’t fall asleep until late. I needed three cups of coffee this morning just to wake me up.
I was hoping to nap on the drive into the city, but the girls are too jazzed that I’m coming with them and clearly won’t be
letting me sleep.
“Claire, are you sleeping in my room?” Ellie asks.
“No, Claire is sleeping in her own room. You and Carson are sleeping with us,” Bill tells her.
“Aw,” Ellie pouts.
“Did you see I brought Mr. Magic?” Carson asks, wiggling her stuffed polar bear at me. One of his ears has been chewed, and
I suspect the puppy—who’s staying behind with a dogsitter—is the culprit.
“I did. Is he coming to see The Nutcracker with us?”
“No,” Carson responds, like that was a stupid question. “He’s a stuffed animal.”
“Right, of course,” I say, while Bill says, “Carson,” warningly from the front.
Traffic is awful, but the show doesn’t start until five, so we’ve still got more than enough time to check in to the hotel and get ready. Natalie and Bill are planning to go out for dinner, just the two of them, while the girls and I eat and go to see the show.
We’re staying at the Plaza, and I can tell the girls are so excited because they can barely contain their little bodies when
we walk into the lobby. Carson can’t stop swinging or throwing Mr. Magic up in the air despite how many times Natalie and
Bill tell her to stop.
When the person at the front desk gives me the key cards to my room, I feel flustered. The lobby is gorgeous and totally done
up for Christmas. It’s so nice. I’ve never stayed anywhere this fancy, and I’ve also never stayed in a hotel room by myself. It feels like I’m unlocking
a new stage of adulthood.
“Thank you so much,” I say to Natalie and Bill, who wave me off.
I text Evie a million pictures of the bed, the marble bathroom, the white fluffy hotel robe. Then I have a heated five-minute
phone call with Nicky, who is being so annoying about the logistics for the concert tomorrow.
“I have to go,” I tell him when there’s a knock at my hotel room door.
“I have to go first,” Nicky responds, and then hangs up before I can.
I hear muffled voices as I approach the door. I pull it open and Natalie is there with Carson and Ellie.
“Claire, can you do our makeup?” Ellie asks.
“And our hair?” Carson adds.
“Is that okay?” Natalie asks. “They insisted you had to be the one to do it.”
I open the door wider so they can come in. “Of course. I’ve got them from here.”
“Bless you,” Natalie says.
I order room service for me and the girls, and we spend the next half an hour getting ready together. They hold so still,
not moving their sweet little eyes and mouths at all as I paint on lipstick and sparkly eye shadow. Ellie asks for a high,
sleek ponytail and Carson wants soft curls that cascade down her back.
When I’m finished, they both can’t stop swishing their hair around and inspecting their faces in the mirror.
“I look so pretty!” Carson says, twirling in her dress.
“Yeah, me too,” Ellie says. “I look so pretty, too.”
Then I get myself ready while the girls eat french fries and watch TV on my bed. Now that my hair is short, I’ve had to experiment
with what looks best. Tonight, I settle on styling it like a messy bob. I’ve got black boots I borrowed from Evie, and a burgundy
cashmere skirt set that Mom found seventy-five percent off at the consignment shop in town. I put on some lipstick, some silver
jewelry, a big coat, and we’re ready to go.
The magic of the Nutcracker production rockets me back to childhood. Mom and Dad used to take us every winter back in LA when we were little. When the show starts, so do the questions.
“Claire, is that man real?” Carson asks.
“Yes, he’s real. He’s very far away, which is why he looks so small. Now shh.”
“Where are they?” Ellie asks.
“In a house. Just watch.”
Soon, the girls start to feel the magic, too. I can tell by the way they watch, wide-eyed and mouths open, one on either side
of me.
When the Christmas tree begins to grow in size, Ellie lets out a gasp. “How is it doing that?”
They get wiggly in the second half, but their attention is recaptured at the end. Then, when the curtain goes down and the
lights go on, I can see that Carson’s face is tearstained.
“Oh, Car, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. It was”—she sniffles—“just so beautiful.”
After it’s over, I take the girls a few blocks east to try out this viral hot chocolate I saw online. After we stand in line
for thirty minutes for our cocoa—which is good, but overhyped—we walk back to the hotel.
It’s one of those beautiful December nights where it’s snowing a tiny bit, enough so that Carson and Ellie keep sticking their tongues out trying to catch the flakes.
When we reach the street the hotel is on, the lights of its lobby are orange and welcoming and twinkle from a distance.
I wonder if the girls are old enough that they’ll remember this special night when they get older, or if they’ll lose the memory to time.
I’m getting them ready for bed in their room—they have new matching snowflake pajamas for the occasion—when I hear the key
card click, and Natalie and Bill come back into the room, their coats still damp from the melting snow.
“Mommy!” Carson yells.
“Mommy, Mommy, it was so good!” Ellie says.
“Daddy, there were dancing mice!” Carson adds.
“Mommy, there was a Christmas tree that grew, and grew, and grew—”
“Oh my goodness,” Natalie says. “I can’t wait to hear all about it. But say good night to Claire first, okay?”
“Do you want me to stay and help with bedtime?” I ask. “I thought you needed me until ten.”
“No, we’ve got it from here,” Bill says. “We were too full for dessert and too tired for a bar.”
Natalie winces. “It sounds so sad when you put it like that.” Then, after she pays me, she asks, “So what are you going to do for the rest of the night?”
Doing something other than going back to my own room and going to sleep hadn’t even occurred to me. “I don’t know. Watch TV?”
“No. You’re eighteen!” Natalie says. “Go do something. Get up to no good!”
“Leave her alone,” Bill says to Natalie. “Claire, do whatever you want. Natalie just wants to live vicariously through you.”
“It’s true,” Natalie says. “Enjoy your youth and your freedom while you have it.”
I laugh. “I’ll try.”
I give Carson and Ellie (and Mr. Magic) each a hug good night. When I get to the elevator bank, I consider whether to go up
or down. I could go back to my room. But Natalie’s right. It’s only eight thirty, it’s a beautiful snowy night, and I’m in
New York City.
Downstairs, I’m buttoning up my coat, getting ready to go back out into the cold, when a taxi pulls up and someone gets out.
The person is wearing a black coat over a gray hoodie, with a black beanie pulled low on his forehead, and something about
the way he’s moving catches my attention.
I squint, watching through the glass of the revolving doors.
Everything slows down. The lobby noise drops out, and all I can hear is my heart beating in my ears.
It’s Luke.
But no. It can’t be Luke. I blink hard to clear my vision, waiting for him to turn into a stranger, but my vision doesn’t
clear. It’s still him.
A lobby attendant is talking to me, but I don’t hear what he’s saying. I push through the doors outside right as Luke slams
the door to his taxi.
“Luke?” I say, but my voice gets caught in my throat, so I have to say it again. “Luke?”
Now he sees me. There’s surprise on his face as he takes me in, which reminds me that I haven’t seen him since I changed my hair.
“Hi,” he says, walking toward me. “Wow. Your hair. You look beautiful.”
Seeing him here, right now, feels surreal. Is this really happening?
“What are you doing here?” I ask, motioning around us.
“As soon as we hung up last night, I booked a flight. I got in a few hours ago. I was on my way to Glenridge, but I checked
with Evie first, thankfully. She said you were here.”
“But . . . why?”
“Last night, on the phone, there was so much more I wanted to say to you. But I felt like I needed to do it in person.” He
takes his hands out of his pockets and takes a step toward me. “The last conversation we had. Where we talked about us. Can
I do my part over?”
I think about it. Then I give him the faintest dip of my chin.
“Okay,” he says, and his voice shakes a little. Then he clears his throat. “I want to talk about us.”
“What about us?” I say back, playing along.
“I want to be someone you can rely on,” Luke begins.
“I’m sorry I said that,” I tell him. “That was harsh.”
“No, you were right. I don’t want someone else making all my decisions for me.
I don’t want to let my whole life go by without taking some risks.
I don’t want you to feel like you have to tell me what to do.
I mean, I do, if that’s what you want.” He smiles.
“But I’m sorry that I put that on you. I’m sorry I didn’t have the courage to do it before.
I don’t want you to be my secret. I don’t want to hide you away.
” He takes another step forward. “And I need you to know that I love you. I’ve loved you ever since we were kids.
You’re the one candle I can’t stop holding, apparently. ”
I stand there, taking in his words. I close my eyes. I take a breath.
“And if you don’t feel the same way, please tell me,” Luke adds. “I will turn around, get back into a taxi, and never bother
you again. But I had to tell you.”
I open my eyes. “You’ve loved me since we were kids?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I’m amazed that isn’t obvious by now. I loved you then, and I love you now. And I’ll love whatever version
of yourself you decide to be.”
“There are no versions anymore,” I tell him. “I’m just me.”
“Then I love you all the more for it.”
Maybe this is a fool’s errand. His whole life is still in California; mine is here. There’s so much we don’t know about the
ways we will grow. Maybe apart, maybe in the same direction. After everything I’ve been through, I need the room to figure
that out for myself. What if that’s something he can’t give me? Maybe he’ll struggle to find what he wants to do next, and
that’ll be hard on us in a whole new way.
Maybe it’ll never work, and it will be hard, and sad, and our hearts will break.
Or maybe they won’t.
Whatever happens, it’ll be worth it either way.
“I love you, too,” I tell him. “But you know that. Ever since I was ten, writing ‘Claire Cordova’ on napkins and flushing them down the toilet.”
Luke grins and reaches up to cradle my face with his hands. God, those hands. “You didn’t flush all of them.”
“No,” I say. “Please don’t tell me you found one.”
His grin widens. “Sure did.”
“Wow,” I say. “It’s amazing how embarrassing that still is eight years later.”
“So.” He brushes my cheek with his thumb. “Does this mean—are you willing to—”
I don’t let him finish. “Yes.”
His eyes search every inch of me, like he’s trying to commit this moment to memory, to make sure this is real, that this is
happening, just as much as I am. As I look at him, the years stack up in my mind, layer after layer. The years of our friendship,
of loving him, of trying to forget him, of trying to forget myself. But there’s nothing standing between us anymore. We can finally just be. So I let the layers fall away.
And then, with the snow coming down, in front of the glowing lights of the Plaza, he kisses me.
And, oh. I thought it was good before. It was good before. But this . . .
This is everything.