Twelve Dates Until Christmas

CHAPTER ONE

Sixteen days until Christmas

Nothing puts an overworked, overachieving zillennial in the holiday spirit faster than the end of a relationship, a forced vacation, and a mulled-wine stain on her new sustainably sourced cashmere sweater.

I’m on a plane bound for London, wedged between a manspreading corporate type in a budget suit and a college-aged guy who smells like weed and pretends to read Dostoevsky.

A few rows up, the seat my best friend Maddie should be in is still empty.

At her insistence, I left our apartment while she was still tossing last-minute stuff into her luggage, and she hasn’t responded to any texts in the past hour.

The woman behind me has jingle bells on her shoes, and the man who passed me on the way to his seat is wearing a weapons-grade amount of my ex’s cologne.

A preschooler with a Chucky haircut and a tenacious snot bubble in his nose peeks over the seat in front of me, staring, and the guy in Yankees paraphernalia across the aisle brought a to-go Caesar salad from one of the terminal kiosks.

I hope he eats it fast, because the only thing worse than the smell of Caesar salad in a claustrophobic metal tube is the smell of warm Caesar salad in a claustrophobic metal tube.

I’m a good person. I generally like people.

I wash my clothes before donating them to the thrift store.

I leave pretty hand-painted watercolor bookmarks in the library books I return, and I never squish the jumping spiders that seem to love the windowsills in my fourth-floor walk-up.

But this? I already loathe everything aviation-related as a matter of principle, so this particular flavor of humanity soup is pushing all of my worst buttons in the worst ways.

The flight must be at capacity, because an attendant who sounds like Emma Thompson announces that the front overhead lockers are full, pleading for passengers to put smaller items under their seats. Of course, nobody does.

When I take out my phone to set it to airplane mode, my heart drops into my belly.

Three missed calls and a text from Maddie.

Evie I’m so sorry! I’m going to miss the flight, call me when you land, love you

Oh god, no.

This trip wasn’t my idea. The only reason I agreed to go was to indulge Maddie’s insistence that I reset after a string of bad luck.

My best friend is one of those Eat, Pray, Love types who thrives on travel.

She finds it energizing and restorative.

I … do not. I like my routines, I like predictability.

I also have a bit of a codependent relationship with New York City.

I love that I can walk to most of the places I need to go.

Queens has my back. It has everything I need, and thousands of things I don’t even know that I need, and that’s …

comforting, I guess. My city is more reliable than any person I’ve had in my adult life, aside from Maddie.

I knew this was a bad idea. My fight-or-flight instinct kicks in and chooses flight. Just … not the kind that involves an airline.

I have to get off this plane.

Everyone is seated now. The attendant begins the standard preflight safety demonstration. My back is sweaty, and I feel every tiny, soft fiber of my cashmere sweater cling to my skin like bird’s feathers stuck in honey.

I have to get off this plane.

When I fling off my seatbelt and angle my body sideways, I assume manspreader will take the hint that I want to get out.

But he doesn’t budge. He doesn’t even look at me until I clear my throat.

Twice. Eventually, he shifts his legs and I manage to get into the aisle.

I’m reaching for the overhead locker to grab my carry-on when the flight attendant at the back of the plane says, “Ma’am, please sit down. We’re getting ready to—”

First of all, “ma’am” is my mother. I’m only twenty-seven.

Second? I will get off this plane.

With an apologetic glance over my shoulder, I say, “Sorry. I need to leave.”

When I turn back around to reach for my carry-on, a man stands there, blocking the aisle.

He wears a calf-length overcoat of buttery-soft tweed that’s tailored to the breadth of his shoulders and the long, lean line of his body.

I’ve lived in New York City since I was eighteen.

I know luxury when I see it. His profile is beautiful—sharp jaw, a sulky bottom lip, a high-bridged nose with a gentle bump.

All complemented by a swoop of tawny hair.

It’s like he was designed with intentional artistic symmetry instead of a random roll of the biological dice.

He opens the overhead locker adjacent to mine, and he’s so tall that he has to lean backwards so it doesn’t knock him on the chin. I catch the crisp bergamot scent of his cologne, and I’m temporarily mystified by how good he smells. It costs me precious seconds.

Now he’s pulled two bags down and set them on the floor between us, reconfiguring the space so his own bag will fit.

Quietly, I say, “’Scuse me,” but he doesn’t acknowledge me.

When I move to squeeze past him, he bends to lift and swing one of the bags back into the compartment. It almost takes my head off.

“Ma’am—” the flight attendant says behind me, approaching fast.

“Excuse me,” I say, a little louder this time. “I’m trying to get off.”

Finally, he sees me. He tips his head sideways to remove an earbud. “Sorry, did you say something?” His voice is a mellow almost-bass baritone. Resonant and rich as butterscotch. And definitely not American.

I’m on a plane heading to London. I shouldn’t be surprised this gorgeous man has an English accent, but I’m just unhinged enough right now that the complete package lights up my heart like a bonfire in a birdcage. I feel lightheaded.

“Flight attendants, arm doors and cross check,” mutters the captain on the intercom.

“Ma’am, you really do have to sit down now,” the attendant says behind me. She has the audacity to smile apologetically over my shoulder at the man in the aisle.

I’m not getting off this plane. I’m really going to London alone.

When I return to my seat, the manspreader refuses to stand, so I have to squeeze myself past him, temporarily straddling his thigh with my ass in his face.

As I grip the top of the seat in front of me to keep from falling into his lap, my fingers lock on to something slick and cold, and I don’t need to look to know that it’s a little gift from the snotty kid in front of me.

Dostoevsky guy has his elbow propped on our shared armrest, so I have to sit in a sustained clench that would make my old Pilates instructor proud.

Holding back tears, I watch the man in the tweed coat turn around and give me an apologetic glance. The flight attendant ushers him towards first class. Of course.

Fifteen days until Christmas

I’ve never been able to sleep on flights, so after a connection, baggage reclaim, and immigration at Heathrow, I think I’ve been awake for at least a full day. I’m desperate to put my head on a pillow.

After customs, I pick a spot against the wall to call Maddie.

She forwarded the lodging confirmation email several weeks ago, but a search brings up no results.

Anxiety makes my throat tighten. She put this trip together in less than five months, and I spent so much time ignoring that it was happening that I left all of the planning to her.

I’m in the middle of a jaw-breaking yawn when she answers. “Hi from the future,” I mumble.

I’m surprised she’s answered. I expected her to be on the next flight on her way here, or at the very least, waiting in the terminal.

Instead, she’s in our apartment in Queens, nestled on the sofa under a chunky knit blanket.

She’s got gold gel under-eye patches on, and she’s wearing a sweatshirt appliquéd with a very muscular Santa Claus lifting a barbell.

It reads “NORTH SWOLE.” The sky in the window behind her is that saturated glacial blue of sunny winter days in New York, and it hits me with a wallop of homesickness so intense it makes me nauseous.

Here, it’s barely midafternoon, but the sky is already a watery grey over a weak, waning sun.

Maddie’s the extrovert in our duo. I’m the one whose natural habitat is a comfortable couch in front of a frost-filigreed window, a mug of something fragrant and steamy in hand.

I’m not really an introvert, either—Maddie calls me an “Evievert.” I’m just selective about who I share my time with.

I also really love staying home. Maddie will bring a bit of home with her when she gets here, though. I’m going to cling to that for now.

Maddie leans forward and squints at the screen, so close that her face goes blurry. “Oh my god, are you OK? What happened?”

“Nothing. Why?” In the tiny thumbnail in the bottom corner of my screen, the mulled-wine stain on my ivory cashmere looks alarmingly blood-adjacent. I lay my hand over it. “Oh. This. Finance bro collision at that wine bar at the airport. Wasn’t even my wine—”

“No, honey. Your eyes.”

After takeoff, I did cry. Just as a little treat.

Now, my mascara has fanned out under my lower lashes.

I look like I’m a week into a mysterious illness.

The cashmere, the heeled boots, the dark high-waisted jeans, the makeup—all of it was in anticipation of being surrounded by chic travelers in Gabriela Hearst power suits and bougie vacationers in their Burberry athleisure wear.

I wanted to look like I fit in. I should’ve known I’d fumble it.

“I got, uh … sweaty on the plane.” I swipe my finger under each eye. “What happened to you?”

“The kitty sitter broke her ankle and had to bail. I am so sorry.”

It’s always been hilarious to me that Maddie refers to her hateful goblin of a cat as a kitty. Claudia is a creature from a Guillermo del Toro fever dream. I wouldn’t be surprised if the sitter intentionally flung themselves down a short flight of stairs to get out of watching her.