“I never lived at Carrigan’s, Cole. I’m from Scottsdale. In Arizona?”
“Shh.” He shook his head. “Don’t ruin the magic. I’m ready to immerse myself completely in the Spirit of Christmas. I’m going to be Father Christmas! No, Brother Christmas. I’m too young to be a father.”
He pulled away, bouncing on the balls of his feet. His suitcase, a vintage piece Miriam had bedazzled, threatened to roll away from him. Miriam knew that part of him was exhilarated about finally going to Carrigan’s, but part of it was an act for her. He was giving her an opportunity to fall into their comfortable, playful banter so she could get through the terrible mundanity of the airport intact.
“Also, Mimi. I’m so, so sorry. I know Cass meant the world to you.” He dropped his backpack and wrapped her in a painfully tight hug. “I’m so glad I invited myself. You need me. You can’t face your parents alone.”
Miriam decided to sidestep this mention of her parents. She was going to let Cole’s performance sweep her away for a few hours, before she had to face a Carrigan’s without Cass. Instead, she focused on the rest of what Cole had said.
“You’re thirty-five, Cole. People our age have kids who are in high school. You’re past old enough to be Father Christmas. And I think you are overestimating the Carrigan’s experience.”
“It’s basically the set of a Hallmark movie, right?” His eyes were those of a kid waking up the morning of a Disney World vacation.
She tried to temper his excitement and her own anxiety at the same time.
“I mean, that’s not wildly inaccurate. But remember, I haven’t been back in ten years. And the Christmas festival doesn’t start until November first, which isn’t for a couple of weeks. It might not even be Christmas-y, yet. I don’t know what it’s like now, especially with Cass gone.”
“My body is ready. My faith is going to be renewed. I’m going to find true love.” Cole gestured wildly. “I’m prepared. I packed my candy cane boxers. I can’t wait to meet the real Santa, thinly disguised as a large white-bearded man named Kris.”
She laughed a little, but it threatened to turn into a sob. He put his arm around her shoulder, shuffling them both up to the ticket counter.
“You’re Miriam and Cole,” the woman at the computer said, her eyes wide. “Oh my gosh. Can I take a selfie with you? I always hope I’ll run into you around town, this is so exciting. Are you going on a buying trip for the new store?”
Miriam winced.Not a Bloomer, not right now. The fandom for her online store, and its associated Instagram and Pinterest, was big enough that her followers had given themselves a name. She was used to getting recognized by Bloomers in public, but she couldn’t put on her Bloomer Face today.
Her carefully cultivated persona was for her own privacy. She was incredibly grateful to her fans for making her artwork a viable career, but they wanted to know her, and she barely wanted to know herself. Having that Bloomer Face to slip into had helped her avoid spending too much time in her own brain over the years, but today, when her past was at her doorstep, it was an ill-fitting costume.
She was grateful when Cole took over the conversation, snapping a selfie with the woman while he handed her both their IDs. He steered Miriam meekly to the winding line for TSA. She could barely feel her feet touching the floor. He continued their conversation as if she was responding. It was how he’d been talking to her, basically without stopping, for seventeen years.
“Isn’t Tara freaking out that you’re not helping her prepare for some terrible rich-people party her parents are throwing?” he asked as they put their shoes back on past security.
“Your parents are friends with her parents,” she pointed out. “You’re richer than she is. You took Tara to cotillion.”
“Yes, so I’m uniquely qualified to pass judgment on their parties. They’re terrible.” He swung his arm around her as they walked, and she let her body relax against his.
“She’s freaking out, a little. She doesn’t think I really need to go. But someone needs to help my cousin Hannah mediate all the cousins. Plus, my parents,” she added, grimacing. “And I need to do it, for Cass. It’s important.”
“Well, I do love sitting shiva,” Cole said. “I could eat a hundred hard-boiled eggs. I’m basically Gaston. And, if need be, I can always kill your dad for you.” He shrugged, as if he were joking, though Miriam knew he probably wasn’t. Underneath the yacht bro exterior was a hacker with a feral sense of loyalty to the people he considered his, one that could sometimes supersede his morals. The only reason he hadn’t already wreaked havoc with her dad’s identity was that Miriam had asked him not to.
On the plane, Miriam toyed with the corner of her drink napkin. When Cass was younger and still traveled the world, she would jot down little letters, sketches, and observations. Cass wrote in sharp, uppercase letters of various sizes, with unexpected capitalizations and a great number of exclamation points. She would tuck the napkins into cheesy cards and send them to Miriam from Kathmandu and St. Petersburg and Cairo. Miriam had a box full of them under her bed.
After Miriam stopped coming to Carrigan’s, Cass’s napkins kept arriving. When Miriam least expected it, an envelope would arrive filled with cutting observations and cynical but loving gossip. She checked her purse for a pen, thinking she would do a drawing to keep up the tradition.
Instead, Cole’s conversation sucked her in.
Cole was not an introvert. He’d been known to opine that introverts do not exist. He had trouble understanding that other human beings did not, necessarily, want the gift of his running commentary on the world around him. Miriam found him oddly calming to tune out to.
He was giving their poor, polite seatmate a monologue, describing Carrigan’s with the zeal of a promotional brochure, only not quite accurately, having never been there.
“Mimi’s aunt bought the farm with money she inherited from her father, who started a greengrocer business from nothing as a Polish immigrant.1She was some sort of scandalous vaudeville dancer in the twenties2and her family cut her off,3so to piss them off she bought a Christmas tree farm!” He clasped his hands to his heart as he said this, as if it were the most delightful thing imaginable.
“Then, she turned it into a whole Christmas Festival that runs from Halloween to New Year’s. There are sleigh rides and hot cocoa tastings, barn dances, gingerbread competitions, cookie swaps, and something at midnight with reindeer. They even put real candles on trees and have a big ceremony to light them. It’s a walking, talking Christmas card owned by an old Jewish lady,” Cole continued. “It’s literally the best place on Earth—sorry, Disneyland.”
Miriam decided to rescue the stranger. She laid her head on Cole’s shoulder.
“Distract me, bashert.” Miriam said. Cole, blessedly, left the seatmate alone, and turned his body, squished into a middle seat, fully toward her to better regale her with the emergency he’d called her about earlier.
Once again, he had ghosted a perfectly nice girl. She wasn’t convinced this was an emergency, but he needed to talk out what tiny thing he’d found wrong with her. He met lots of wonderful women and always seemed to like them a great deal, until he found a problem, got bored, or forgot they existed. Miriam wondered if he just hadn’t met anyone yet who made him want to be serious. As she ribbed him comfortably about his dating habits, her stomach settled into their well-worn dynamic.