Someone to Hold On To #3
“I wasn’t. Well, I was, but not like that. It’s just—digital marketing strategist. It’s one of those jobs I don’t understand. Like, I feel like I missed how real adult jobs work, which sucks because, yeah… I’m trying to get one now.”
“You’re unemployed.” I leave the That explains a lot unspoken, but he must hear it anyway.
“I mean, only recently. Just this school year. I was steadily employed before as a teacher, for the record, and it’s only because—”
“Shhh.” I slap a hand onto his chest and nod toward the path, where Mr. Walter and Emily Bronte are grunting and snorting along. Mr. Walter shakes his head at my stand again, and Emily Bronte pauses to pee in the milkweed a respectful yard away.
Only when they’re out of sight do I realize that I’m still touching something warm and solid. I snatch my hand back, and Henry clears his throat.
“So did you have to find a new job when you moved here to help your mom?”
I arch a suspicious eyebrow at him.
“My nana told me. I asked her after what Ms. Earlene said.”
I feel my cheeks flush, thinking about what else Ms. Earlene said and how close we are right now, hidden away again. I scoot over a few inches.
“I didn’t have to quit my job. It’s remote. And I didn’t move from anywhere, or I guess I moved from… everywhere? I traveled with Fanny—my, uh, van. I went all around the state before I needed to, well, come back.”
“Your van is named Fanny?”
Why did I say that? Why did I say anything? God, am I really so starved for communication that’s not my mom or my clients?
“Fanny the van… ny.” He laughs. “That’s dope.”
I keep my face neutral and just nod, because there’s no way I’m admitting to this virtual stranger that I also call her that.
“So what’s your handle?”
“Huh?”
“For the van and your traveling. That’s the thing to do, right? Make content. Like, hashtag van life.” He laughs again. “Shit, did I really just say hashtag out loud? A couple weeks with my nana and apparently I start talking like an old person.”
I wasn’t planning on laughing, or giving him any sort of validation, but a small one escapes on its own. “No hashtags for me. I don’t have a handle or any content. At least not anything I post online. I just do that stuff for work, not myself.”
“You mean, you were living the most TikTok-able existence probably ever, and not monetizing it? Wow, you are… much cooler than I am.” He smiles. “So, why do it, then? Traveling like that couldn’t have been easy.”
And I don’t know if it’s the false intimacy of this moment—sitting close in the dark, a whispered conversation—but I actually tell him the truth.
“Because I could. Because I felt almost, like, like… a duty to choose the most exciting path that I could. To take control of my life before anything else—my body, my health—could make that decision for me.”
I feel a familiar rush of guilt. Mom’s had flare-ups for as long as I could remember, and I knew she always would—lupus is incurable. Maybe that gives context to my decisions, but it also makes me selfish, that I chose to grab for my own happiness when I could have been looking after her.
“That’s really—” Henry starts, but then his eyes go wide and he points past me.
I turn and see a figure in a huge red velvet coat, red sparkly pants, and a Santa hat sprinting toward us.
Before I can even process what’s happening (and what the person has on their face—is that a red light mask?), the figure has grabbed a cookie and is running away.
“Hey!” I jump up to chase after them, but my foot catches on the strap of his tote bag and then I’m flying through the air. My body falls onto something warm and solid, but soft too… something that smells spicy and sweet… like gingerbread?
“Oh my god!” I clamber backward and off Henry, hoping there’s nothing giving away the tug I was feeling in my belly.
Because I shouldn’t be feeling something there or anywhere else.
Except I trip on an ornament—several are rolling out of his bag now—and he catches me again in his strong grip.
Shocks of pleasure shoot up my arms from where he’s touching me.
My cheeks burn in embarrassment, but with the adrenaline rushing, that quickly grows into flames erupting in my chest, smoke shooting out of my ears, because I’m angry at myself for feeling this way.
But even more so, I’m angry at him for putting me in this position, for messing up my stakeout, for making me feel things I don’t have time to feel.
“I’m sorry, but was that Santa?” he asks.
“Can you just—can you leave me alone? I didn’t ask for this.” I fling my hands at him, stepping backward. “For you.”
He winces, confused. “Sorry, Simone, I was just trying—”
“I don’t care what you were trying. Just leave me alone,” I repeat. “I know you have a lot of time on your hands, but I don’t. So—so you need to find some other entertainment. Okay?”
He lets out a short exhale of surprise and then shakes his head. “Okay.”
I go to my stand and start closing up, ignoring him as he walks away.
By the time I’m walking into the pharmacy the next evening to pick up Mom’s prescription, I feel like shit.
And the too-bright lights only seem to make that feeling worse, like I’m a cockroach being suddenly revealed by a flipped switch.
Even my favorite Christmas song, the Temptations’ “Silent Night” playing over the store’s speakers doesn’t help.
I know I overreacted with Henry, was mean to him when he was a little goofy but mostly kind, and that my embarrassment and guilt and anger and whatever was going on with my stomach weren’t his fault.
It’s all I thought about as I worked on the third draft of a newsletter layout for a client in the morning or rolled out the dough for sugar cookies after I did the laundry and made dinner.
So, when I hear his voice halfway down the hair dye aisle, I think I must be imagining it, my conscience haunting me like the ghost of Christmas past.
“Can you check again? Please?”
I reach the back of the store, where the pharmacy counter is, though, and see a very real Henry, wearing the same Paramore shirt from last week.
In the bright light, I notice things I didn’t before: the definition of his strong shoulders under that thin shirt, the dusting of dark hair on his forearms, the fullness of his lips… pulled into a frown.
Henry clutches his hands together, leaning toward the red-haired man in a white coat. “I’m not trying to be difficult, or act like you don’t know how to do your job. You look very, very good at your job, but… I need that medication. Please can you look again?”
“I’m sorry, sir,” the pharmacist says, gesturing toward his computer screen. “But it says that you no longer have that insurance coverage. Have you looked into a manufacturer coupon?”
Henry shakes his head. “Yeah, but it’s still hundreds, even with that. And my insurance wasn’t supposed to stop until the end of the year. Could it be because I’m at a different pharmacy than usual?”
“I’m sorry, sir,” the pharmacist repeats, and at least it seems like he really means it.
“The pharmacy location shouldn’t affect things, but if you’d like to call your insurance again, we’re open until ten.
” His gaze darts to the long line behind Henry, and as Henry turns to look, too, his eyes catch on me.
I see him wince, just like he did last night.
“Sorry. And thank you,” Henry says, and then walks down another aisle, purposefully and with his head down. I want to follow him, but I don’t think he’d want that. So I step in line instead to pick up the medication I came here for. On my way out, though, I hear his voice again.
“Yeah, I’ll tell them that. Thank you.” He hangs up his phone, and then looks up, eyes widening when he sees me. He smiles sheepishly this time. “How much of a scene did I make in there?” he asks, nodding toward the automatic doors.
“No more than the one I made last night,” I say with a sheepish smile of my own. “I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve all that from me.”
He shrugs like it was no big deal, but I know it was.
“I figured it was part of something bigger.”
“Well, I appreciate the grace. And yeah… life is just a lot right now.” I let out a small laugh. “That’s why I’m hiding in bushes and launching myself at Santa.”
“Okay, so you saw Santa too? I wasn’t hallucinating that?”
“It was definitely someone… Santa adjacent.”
“Maybe he was testing your generosity and, I don’t know, levels of Christmas spirit?”
“Santa doesn’t give tests! He isn’t Jesus!”
“Yeah, well, with that attitude, someone’s going to get a lump of coal.”
We both fall into easy laughter, and it feels good, being loud and loose, when most of our talking has been whispered and tense.
“And, look, I get it. I’m going through it too, as you probably gathered,” he says. He sighs and shakes his head. “Unemployed, insurance issues—I guess I can see why you weren’t trying to mess with me.”
“No, no. We already established I was being a jerk. And you shouldn’t have to explain your situation to me. But, um… if it would help to talk about it, I can listen.”
His brown eyes widen in surprise and then curve into crescents as he grins graciously.
“Well, like I told you, I was a teacher.” He pauses, pressing his lips together.
“Still am a teacher—or at least want to be. It wasn’t my choice, to leave.
I had just moved to San Francisco to start at this new charter school whose mission I was really excited about.
But then something shady happened with their funding, and they had to close the whole place down one week into the school year.
I was looking for other jobs, doing a lot of subbing—but I finally accepted last month that I could barely make it there on a teacher salary, and definitely not as a sub.
Nana offered to let me come stay with her until I figured it out. ”
“Wow, Henry, that’s—that’s awful. I’m really sorry.”