Chapter 4
4
Holly
December 18
Hudson Valley, New York
It’s late afternoon by the time Holly arrives in Krimbo, a tiny town in New York State’s Hudson Valley, after an hour and thirty-nine minutes of listening to Joni Mitchell’s “River” on repeat and somehow still not shedding a single tear, even when she switched to “A Long December” by the Counting Crows.
It’s a cloudless day, and the trees she drives past are covered in icing-thick layers of snow, the reflected light glittering off of them like sun pennies, but she barely notices the scenery. She turns off the stereo of the baby blue BMW E3 that used to belong to her nana and makes a left onto a snowy side road. For a moment, the wheels slip and slide, but she slows down and avoids the ditch as her GPS’s chirpy, British-accented voice—she and Ivy have nicknamed her Chrysanthemum—directs her to the eco-cabin. Soon she’s pulling up the driveway, navigating the car into a parking spot that has been cleared of snow in anticipation of her arrival—or, rather, Ivy’s. A path toward the cabin has also been shoveled.
She turns off the car and takes it all in. The cabin is made of cedar, shaped like a sideways pizza wedge set on a snowy embankment. Each side is made of glass, and there are solar panels on the sloping roof. She gets out of the car and stands looking at it, her solitary retreat for two weeks. Behind the cabin, she can see rolling, snowy hills for miles, acres of trees covered in cottony-looking snow, the river a frozen, undulating line in the distance. She snaps a photo, and sends it to Ivy along with a message that sounds lighter than her heart feels: Here safe! It’s so cute—and the scenery! Gorgeous. xo. She takes another photo of a snow-dressed evergreen and sends that to Ivy, too, before she pops the trunk of the BMW and lifts out her duffel and laptop bags. These, some winter gear, and enough food for a basic dinner are all she has brought with her. She’ll drive into town for supplies in the morning.
She unlocks the door with the key code Ivy sent her and enters the cabin. Every square inch of the tiny space has purpose: the walls are lined with cushioned seating and bookcases, a compact woodstove is tucked into one corner, and pots and pans hang from the ceiling above a small kitchen island with cabinet storage. The cabin is constructed of rough wooden pillars and planks, with white walls. It smells pleasantly of cedar, and there’s a faint whiff of an ambery musk in the air, like a really good-smelling candle, although she doesn’t see any around.
At the back of the living area, there’s a ladder, which Holly climbs. She pokes her head above the loft floor to find a rough-hewn wood-framed double bed with a thick ecru duvet piled high with pillows. Another ladder leaning against the wall beside the window has folded plaid blankets on the bottom two rungs, and fresh white towels and facecloths on the top two. Holly fully climbs up and walks into the room. Out the window beside the decorative ladder she can see evergreens iced with thick layers of snow. Beyond that are rolling hills, a frozen river, and clouds turning pink as the sun climbs down the sky.
She descends the ladder with fingers that are now numbing with cold. The cabin has a warm, cozy design—but the temperature is freezing. She stands in the middle of the living room, blowing on her hands, looking for a heat panel. She finds one, but nothing happens when she turns it on. She approaches the woodstove, firewood lined up on a shelf beside it, and a bucket of what looks like large wine corks on the floor in front, but no instructions anywhere.
She finds the cabin manual—the cover appears to be made of birch bark—on the log coffee table and flips it open: “Welcome to your eco-friendly haven in the Hudson Valley! I’m your host, Aiden—and if you need anything at all, you can reach me here by phone or text.”
She flips past pages about things to do in the area and reads that there’s a solar generator that needs to be turned on outside, and that the woodstove is a hybrid that burns either firewood or wood pellets. The instructions for the woodstove are complex; maybe she can find some simpler instructions for this model on the internet. But when she flips through the book looking for a Wi-Fi password, she can’t find one. And inside the cabin, her cell signal is too weak to pull up the website instructions for the woodstove.
It’s starting to grow dim in the cabin, so Holly turns her attention to getting the solar generator running. She goes outside and uses her phone as a light, but although she follows Aiden’s instructions, she still can’t get the generator to start when she pulls the cord. She feels helpless frustration welling up inside her.
She thinks for a moment, then takes out her phone again. “Taking you up on that ‘if you need anything at all, you can call or text me’ offer, Aiden the eco-host,” she says as she types, wondering if this new talking-to-herself thing is going to stick, now that she’s alone.
Hi, it’s Holly.
She deletes that and retypes her name as Ivy .
Just arrived at your place on the North Service Road but can’t seem to figure out the generator or woodstove. Any tips? Sorry to bother you!!
Immediately, response dots appear on Holly’s phone screen.
I thought when we emailed about the reservation you said you were an old hand at going off-grid?
Holly feels a tingle of irritation. Isn’t she—or, rather, Ivy—paying to stay here? Shouldn’t Aiden the eco-host be more polite to his guests? But the dots continue and a smiley face emoji appears on the screen.
Kidding. The system is a little complex. Just out in my truck and five minutes away—probably easier if I stop by and show you. Sound good?
That would be great, thanks. Sorry to bother you.
Not bothered at all. See you in a few mins.
It’s so cold in the cabin, Holly decides to wait outside and at least be cold with good scenery. The cabin property is perched high, and the tiny village she assumes is the nearby Krimbo is visible below, its lights sprinkled in the valley like scraps of glittering Christmas tree tinsel. The air is crisp and clear, and everywhere there is silence—so different from the hustle of the city, so peaceful.
So lonely . How does Ivy do this every year? Holly tries not to think about how much easier it would be, how much warmer, how much less it would involve a woodstove and a generator, if she were in Hawaii right now with Matt. Except Matt doesn’t love her, she reminds herself—daring her insensate heart to finally feel this truth. The dull ache intensifies, but nothing really changes. That’s probably a good thing, because in the tranquil silence, she hears the rumble of tires on the driveway. It would be beyond embarassing to have dissolved into long-awaited sobs just as the property manager arrived.
She walks down the embankment to meet a white pickup. The truck stops, but the lights stay on. A tall guy wearing a red Canada Goose parka, his dark hair peeking out from beneath his black toque, hops out of the cab. “Ivy?”
“Yes! That’s me!” Holly says, trying to sound as convincing about her name as possible. It’s hard to see him, backlit by his truck’s headlights, but she can tell he’s eyeing her BMW.
“That’s your car?” he asks.
“No, it was here when I arrived.”
He frowns as he approaches her.
“I was joking— yes , that’s my car.”
“I thought I mentioned it’s better to have four-wheel drive on these roads.”
In fact, Ivy had mentioned that, too, but when she was getting ready to leave the city, all Holly had wanted to do was get out of town, and to do it in the comfort of her nana’s old car, one she was used to driving.
“It’s fine,” she says, trying to keep her voice confident and insouciant, the way she imagines Ivy’s would be when meeting what she now sees is a handsome stranger. His eyes are an icy blue, and his jaw looks like it was chiseled with a set of tools. Ivy would probably be flirting already, trying to melt this guy down. But how to flirt? Holly can’t remember the last time she did. Did she ever flirt with Matt, or did they just fall into the routine of their relationship?
“My car can handle anything,” she says, and hopes that sounds at least somewhat lighthearted and fun. He steps closer, looking down at her, still frowning, obviously impervious to her clumsy attempt at being blithe. “Okay,” he finally says, shaking his head slightly. “Let’s see about the generator and stove.” He gets a lantern out of the truck bed, turns it on, then leans into the cab and shuts off the truck’s headlights. “Follow me?”
She tails him around the back of the cabin and holds the lantern for him. “Okay, so you just have to flip this switch and turn this dial and…” In about ten seconds, the generator rumbles to life.
“I guess I didn’t read the instructions very closely.”
“That’s okay, it happens.” Aiden checks his watch. Obviously, this tall, handsome version of Paul Bunyan has other places to be. “You also wanted help with the woodstove?”
“If you could, thanks. Sorry to be such a bother.”
“No bother, this is why my number’s in the book.”
They step inside the cabin together, and he removes his snow boots, sets them on the thick mat. Even with his bulky footwear off, he’s well over six feet tall, and broad-shouldered. He crosses the room, and she follows again, noticing how nice he smells. Like botanical soap, and cedarwood shavings, and ambery musk. He must be the reason it smells so pleasant in here. He’s like a walking natural air freshener. “Okay, so as it says in the manual, this is what’s called a hybrid stove. You can burn regular wood.” He points at the split logs stacked on the built-in shelf taking up most of the wall by the stove. “You just do that in the usual way.” He turns to her, and in the now well-lit cabin, she feels a jolt. Has she met him somewhere before? “There are some newspapers and kindling in this bin here.” He taps a galvanized steel bin filled with the aforementioned items as the déjà vu fades somewhat. “But with the wood pellets, you feed them in here.” He opens a little drawer at the back of the stove. “And then you ignite them with this lighter—it’s rechargeable, electric, with a little switch right there—close the drawer and wait. They’ll start up in just a few seconds, and as long as you’re careful not to let it smolder too much, it’s the cleanest burn you can get.”
“That sounds simple enough.” She follows his instructions, and the hybrid side of the stove lights easily.
“Did you have any other questions, Ivy?” He’s looking down at her again, and the sense of familiarity is back.
“Um, I didn’t see a shower?”
He turns away again, pointing to the back of the cabin. “There’s a solar shower right around back, and it will work if you get an hour or two of sunlight during the day, but not otherwise. It’s pretty…refreshing, I guess, is the best way to put it, this time of year. Is there anything else I can help you with?”
“Before you go, can you recommend the best place nearby for me to get groceries tomorrow? Food, bottled water, basics like that?”
Now he grimaces as if she’s said a distasteful word. “You don’t need to use bottled water here. There’s a mountain spring that flows all year, and it’s the best water you can drink. Sorry, I thought we’d messaged about this last week.”
Holly feels chastened, embarassed. She’s tired of him saying, I thought we’d messaged about this.
No, we did not, Aiden. We have never messaged about anything. “Of course,” she says, trying to keep the confident smile on her face. “No bottled water. Promise. So…where’s the spring?”
“First, this filter”—he points to a contraption on the counter that looks like a miniature industrial coffee maker—“is for the water. It’s pure, but just to be on the safe side, I recommend my guests filter it. Or you can filter melted snow in that, too.”
“Right. Of course. Melted snow.”
It’s as if he can read her mind, see that she is picturing going into town and buying a case of Aquafina so she doesn’t have to melt snow or find the mountain spring out in the dark cold night. “Come on, I’ll show you where the spring is,” he says. The seriousness of his tone and the somber expression in his iceberg-blue eyes surprise her. And all at once, she knows who he reminds her of: Henry Cavill as Superman. Except this guy is Eco Superman.
She puts her snow boots back on and follows him outside again. He hands her his lantern, and his blue eyes catch hers for a moment. She feels that flash of recognition— Henry Cavill, here to save the world, remember —then lifts a large stainless steel bucket off the front deck of the cabin and heads off through the deep snow. Soon, she can hear the burbling sound of a spring, light and joyful—so at odds with the sad heaviness she’s been carrying inside. Above them, stars are coming to life in the navy blue sky, twinkling like distant Christmas tree lights.
“There we go,” he says after the bucket is filled. “That should do it.” He carries the water bucket back to the cabin as if it weighs nothing. He didn’t put his parka back on, and she can’t help but admire the muscles she can see rippling, even underneath his thick flannel shirt. Inside again, he pours the bucket of mountain spring water into the filter, then turns to her and finally smiles. “This is the best water you’ll ever taste in your life, I swear,” he says, his blue eyes now bright with excitement, all guardedness gone. She finds his enthusiasm somewhat contagious, even if the amount of work required to get water is daunting.
“I can’t wait for my first sip,” she finds herself saying, stepping closer to him, breathing in his appealing, amber-musk scent.
“You won’t ever want to drink anything else.”
As he turns to check something on the filter unit, Holly takes out her phone and sends a quick text to Ivy. Hey, you didn’t mention you rented a cabin from Eco Superman. He looks EXACTLY like Henry Cavill. If she didn’t know that Ivy made it a practice never to have any romantic dalliances during her art vacations, she would have thought her friend planned this. AND he smells really good. Holly finds herself stepping closer and inhaling deeply again.
“You okay?”
“ Oh. ” Her eyes snap open. Aiden has stopped fiddling with the filter and has turned back in her direction, catching her mid-inhale, eyes closed. “Yes. I’m just…so excited about the water. And all this fresh…air.” The duck-quacking sound Ivy set her contact card to is going off repeatedly in her hand now, and Ivy’s name appears, with the line Well, you know what they say about getting over one man, right? —then an eggplant emoji. Holly puts her phone face down on the counter with a clatter. “I think I’m just hungry,” she says.
“Okay then. Any other questions?”
“No, I think that’s it. Thanks for coming out here, Aiden.”
“Sure thing, Ivy. Just text if you need anything more.” He gives her a long, searching look before turning toward the door—but then he turns around again. “Can I ask you something? I’m sorry if this sounds weird—”
“I promise , no bottled water. Girl Scout’s honor,” she says, even though she was never a Girl Scout and has no idea where that came from.
“You really look familiar. I know the contract says your name is Ivy Casey, but you look so much like someone I used to go to school with. I wonder if you’re related or something. You don’t know someone named Holly Beech, do you?”
Holly thinks about just shrugging it off as a coincidence and continuing to pretend to be Ivy, but as she looks into his earnest blue eyes, she finds herself thinking there must be a special place in hell for someone who lies to Eco Superman.
“Aiden, I have to tell you something. I’m not really Ivy. She’s my best friend, and we swapped holiday trips this year because…” Holly now experiences a heartache so sharp she puts her hand to her chest for a moment, wondering if she might need medical attention. But it passes, leaving behind the dull, empty ache that is becoming a familiar companion.
“Because?” Aiden prompts, looking concerned.
Holly’s heart lurches into action again. She thinks fast. “This was a Christmas gift,” she manages. “A surprise from my best friend. I’m…super into…eco-cabining, and Ivy knew that, so she booked this for me but then forgot to make the switch of our names after she gave me the gift. Sorry about that.” She is so bad at lying and tries to rein in the details. “Work has been really hectic for me, and I needed to go off-grid and decompress. But yes, to answer your question properly, yes. I am Holly Beech.”
As he steps closer, she searches her memory for an Aiden she might have known once—and, under his still-intense gaze, feels as warm as if a fire had already been burning in the cabin’s stove for hours.
“Holly,” he repeats, stepping closer. All at once, she feels the empty cavern of her heart spring to life again. “Dalton School, class of ’13.”
She watches, mesmerized, as he removes a pair of glasses from the pocket of his flannel shirt. When he puts them on, he’s made the transition from Eco Superman to Eco Clark Kent—and, just like in the movies, she recognizes him immediately.
“Aiden! Aiden Coleman ! It’s been…forever. You’ve changed .” You got disconcertingly hot. The Aiden she remembers from high school was tall, but scrawny and bespectacled. This version of Aiden is anything but, even with the glasses back on. His shoulders are football-linebacker broad, his jaw sexy and square. He looks like a model in a catalog for winter camping gear.
“Just reading glasses now,” he says. “I got laser eye surgery a while ago. And you…” She wonders what he’s thinking as he continues to stare at her, his expression a mix of surprise and something else she can’t parse. “I can’t believe it’s you” is all he says.
“I can’t believe it’s you, either.” Now that the shock is wearing off, she feels something else: curiosity. Back in high school, Aiden was her academic rival. He disappeared, didn’t come to grad, and she never saw him again. But she had always wondered what became of him.
“I can tell what you’re thinking,” he says, biting his lip and grinning. “And no way, I am not telling you my SAT score.”
“Come on ! I heard someone got higher than me, and I figured it was you!”
He crosses his arms over his firm, broad chest. “My SAT scores are my business and my business alone.” But he smiles when he says this, and then adds, his voice full of shy pride, “I did get a full scholarship to MIT, though.”
She laughs at his humblebrag. “I’m not surprised.” They hadn’t traveled in the same social circles, but the Aiden Coleman she remembered had been brainy and driven. If she won the academic medal for highest average in the school, he would get it the next year. She got the Outstanding Student Award, but he got the Principal’s Award. Back then, she’d half expected she would see his name as the CEO of some high-tech start-up someday, but he vanished from her view, and her thoughts. Until today.
“I’ve tamped down the competitiveness over the years, so it’s fine, you don’t have to tell me your score.”
“Really?” he teases.
“Was I that bad?”
But she knows she was. Which is why she had to put a stop to it. When Holly reached college, she was tired of constantly comparing herself to others, exhausted from the pressure she was putting on herself to excel. When she met Matt, she was happy to simply keep up with him—which was certainly easier than keeping up with someone as smart as Aiden Coleman had been, for example. But now she admits something uncomfortable to herself: Perhaps she stopped trying so hard so Matt could shine. Maybe she was trying to turn him into the man she wanted him to be by shining a little less brightly. The aching pain in her chest is returning; she pushes the thoughts of Matt away—but Aiden is now regarding her with concern.
“You weren’t bad at all, Holly,” he says, his expression turning earnest. “You were amazing. Smart, kind, interesting…” He trails off, as if there’s more he wants to add, but doesn’t. “I really admired you.” There’s something familiar in his words, but the sensation is fleeting and then slips away from her.
“Thanks,” she says, with a grateful smile that belies the ache still pressing against her chest. “So…what have you been up to all these years, Aiden? With a full scholarship to MIT, surely you must have done some amazing things.”
He looks away. “A little of this and that,” he says, his tone evasive now. “How about you?”
“I’m in corporate law. Mostly patents. Budgell, Hall, Jansen and Jones.”
“Right. The job you’re here trying to decompress from.”
“It’s intense,” Holly says—and her junior lawyer job is busy and at times all-consuming, but that’s not what she’s here to get away from. She feels a small spasm of guilt from all the lies she’s told Aiden so far. In the awkward silence that follows, she misses the sense of comfort she just felt with him—and the memory of the person she once was.
He glances at his watch, and his expression now fills with regret. “I have to run. There’s a dinner I need to get to in town.” He takes off his glasses and slips them back into his pocket, and she finds herself struck again by the clear blueness of his eyes. “Do you mind if I bring a new contract for you to sign tomorrow? I think technically there might be an insurance issue if there’s someone else staying in the cabin other than the person who booked it and signed the original contract.”
“Oh. Right. Of course . I’m so sorry. I’m a lawyer, I should have thought of that,” she says, slightly embarrassed.
“It’s no big deal, truly.” He walks to the door and pulls on his winter boots. “Around nine o’clock tomorrow morning okay for me to stop by?”
“Perfect. Great to see you,” she says.
“You, too, Holly.”
She stands at the window and watches his taillights retreat down the snow-banked driveway, then disappear into the starlit winter night, still trying to reconcile the handsome, broad-shouldered, great -smelling adult male with the gangly, bespectacled teenage boy she went to high school with. He has changed so much. And so has she. But she knows they both contain shadows of the people they were, that those high school kids were the seeds for the adults they now are. She feels a surge of nostalgia. It felt nice, for a few minutes, to forget about the present and get lost in the past.
She retreats from the window into the kitchen, where she opens up the bagged salad she brought along for dinner and pours the salad dressing directly inside—feeling a flash of guilt at what Aiden would say about the single-use plastic bag. She pushes the guilt aside and sits down on the couch, wrapping herself in a soft, cozy blanket as the cabin fills with warmth from the stove. She’ll get some proper food tomorrow—no single-use plastic, she promises herself, as if Aiden were still there in the room.
Her phone quacks again.
Hey! You okay? Still getting friendly with Eco Superman?
Turns out he’s Eco Clark Kent! We know each other from high school, but I didn’t realize that until he put his glasses on.
Uh-oh, does that mean the rental swap jig is up?
Yes. It’s fine, he’s coming by with a new contract for me to sign tomorrow.
What are the odds? Ivy texts.
It really is a crazy coincidence.
Sort of a romantic one?
Ha ha ha, but I have anything but romance on my mind right now.
So, you’re doing okay?
As okay as I can be. Please don’t worry about me. What’s it like there?
Dots disappear, then reappear. Finally, Ivy types: It’s great!
Enjoy yourself, make beautiful art, and let ME text if I need you, okay?
There’s a long pause. Dots reappear and dissapear, and then Ivy finally texts, Okay. Love you.
Love you. Going to watch a movie and then bed.
How about “Can’t Buy Me Love” in honor of the now-hot Aiden?
Holly smiles. I only downloaded sad Christmas movies. I’m trying to make myself finally cry. Going to start with “Meet Me In St. Louis.”
Ivy responds with a row of weeping emojis. Text me for moral support when you get to the part where Judy Garland sings “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” in the SADDEST WAY POSSIBLE. Night.
Holly puts down her phone and starts the movie on her laptop—but even when Judy Garland mournfully labors over every syllable of an already emotion-filled Christmas song, she remains dry-eyed. When the movie is over, she brushes her teeth, turns out the lights, and climbs up the loft to bed. Tidal waves of stars are visible through the skylight. She counts them slowly, one by one, before finally falling asleep.