Dashing Through the Snow
Melissa Ferguson
Chapter1
Please Come Home for Christmas
There is something about frantically shielding yourself from a linebacker of a man throwing his body and belongings straight toward the quickest route of exit—which, in this case, is through you—that really puts a kick in your step at 5:00 a.m.
While newly arrived trains screech to a halt and yawn, tossing open their doors and throwing out their sleepy travelers, I cling to the handles of the two colossal, waist-high suitcases on either side of me and lug them another step forward. Meanwhile Linebacker Man with the desperate eyes and swinging suitcases is still coming at me, and with the bells of my elf slippers jingling in mockery at my situation, I jump backward as swiftly as I can.
The nearly empty coffee cup, which had hitherto been dangling between two spare fingers not devoted to suitcase handling, dances precariously, and I regrip it just in time.
He passes me with an inch to spare, then begins taking the stairs three at a time.
What could possibly be that important?
While my mind draws up a few imaginary scenarios, I turn back toward the Moynihan Train Hall station platform. My attention shifts, however, to an unmistakable tapping on my slippers. Adrip-dripof what’s left of the weak, tawny coffee leaving spots on my new shoes.
“Shoot.”I let out an exasperated sigh.
“Willow? What’s happened now?” Elodie says, and I nearly jump remembering the Bluetooth in my ear.
“I spilled coffee on my slippers.”
“Oh, honey,no.”
Elodie is the best roommate anyone could ask for. Immigrated with her professor parents to Erwin, Tennessee, from Southern France at eleven, she is the perfect combination of quiet intellect and lemme-catch-that-chicken-for-dinner hillbilly. Throw in the fact that she moved to New York at eighteen for university, and she’s one great big concoction of refinement, empathy, and hard-hitting street smarts.
She bakes to self-soothe.
She clog dances at parties upon request.
She will crack her umbrella on the hood of a cab in stilettos in the rain while screaming, “Get off my back!” and in the next sentence slip her arm through your elbow when you’re feeling low and coo, “Oh, sweetie. How about I make you some of that shepherd’s pie you like so much?”
She glides through both life and work at the Frenchpatisserie with unwitting Audrey Hepburn-level ease, spunk, and charm. Throws terms of endearment at total strangers like confetti. And best of all, loves me at my best, and my worst.
And the past three days, I’ve been at my worst.
“Did you pack your tissues?” Elodie says in such a motherly tone I can’t help pursing my lips. “I told you to put those on the list.”
“I’m looking now.” I drop my purse onto the top of one suitcase and begin digging. It’s ridiculous to care so much about shoes, but just... well, since the Jonas conversation, anything can flip me like a coin these days.
Which is why Elodie’s concern for my shoes is comforting. She knows the Arrival Day shoes. She knows how much time and energy I’d spent finding the Arrival Day shoes. She knows just how much I’ve saved up from my less-than-affluent home health job to get the shoes. And she knows that no matter how ridiculous the emerald-green leather slippers and their near-constant jingling coming from the tips of the curlicue toes are, how also terrifyingly little it takes to make me lapse into tears right now.
It’s pathetic, really.
I already wept on the way here spotting a rat beside an old Chinese takeout box, recalling the way I’d clung to Jonas the first time I’d seen one in the city.
Me. Just standing there on the curb at four thirty in the morning. My blinking Christmas tree sweater glowing in the dark as I stared longingly at a rat. Weeping.
I find an old receipt in my purse and commence wiping.The liquid-resistant thermal paper proves worthless from the start, and while Elodie continues to mother me, I switch to using my palm. “Okay,” she says, “it says here that if it starts to stain, you need to mix one part white vinegar with two parts water. Do you have any vinegar with you?”
I drop my head. “Sure, Elodie. There’s a vinegar kiosk right by the bathrooms.”
“Honey, I’ve got forty more baguettes to make before opening, and I’m juggling the miracle of internet research while up to my neck in dough. Productive words only, please. Did you at least find some tissues?”
I look down at my dripping palm. “More or less.”
