DECEMBER 31, 2023
Ishaved my entire body for this.
Bea and I left the city at the ass crack of eight o’clock and made it to Blue Mountain an hour before our designated check-in time. We went grocery shopping and then, once we were allowed in, we prepped food—we divided up food responsibilities long ago, but we’ve also met our friends and know their strengths do not lie in remembering to check the food spreadsheet before coming—and chose our bedrooms and decorated, even though the chalet probably doesn’t need accoutrements. The vaulted ceilings and the wood burning fireplace give it a gravitas that silver and gold streamers and tables covered in glitter can’t contribute to.
Then I showered. I scrubbed. I exfoliated. I shaved. I double washed my hair and left the conditioner in five minutes longer than usual.
Bea actually knocked on the bathroom door because she was starting to get worried about the hot water tank’s performance capacity.
But the point is, I shaved everything for this. And then I moisturized. I let Bea put my hair up in the world’s teeniestspace buns and strategically place sparkles along my part and around my eyes. I used shimmery eyeshadow.
And now it’s 9:30 p.m., well past the time all of our friends and their dates arrived. Except Finn. I’ve shaved everything for this, but Finn’s not here.
“It’s not like he asked me to,” I mumble to myself behind the privacy of my closed bedroom door.
The guestbook says the hot tub can fit up to six people, but Bea is convinced it can fit all twelve of us (minus Finn, of course) as long as we “don’t mind sharing laps.”
Normally, I wouldn’t get in a hot tub with this much makeup on, but even I can recognize when I need to just calm the fuck down.
I check the group chat one more time before I step out of the bedroom in my bikini and a towel. My messages are perhaps the most disorganized thing about me. The little red bubble attached to the icon never reads zero, but our group chat is pinned to the top of my Messages for that exact reason, and I’dknowif there was any word from him. But still, there’s nothing.
Ugh.
I shut the bedroom door behind me. Pad down the stairs back into the deep bass of the sound system Josh brought after he decided in October that he wants to be a “part-time DJ.”
Everyone else is already out on the balcony, a path cut into the snow by booted feet since no one wanted to shovel their way out to the hot tub. I linger in the kitchen, tidying up even though that’s futile, pouring myself a tall glass of water and making sure to drink the whole thing.
The thing is, it’s rude! He could be dead in a ditch somewhere, but because he never bothers to tell us when he’ll arrive, we don’t know when to start looking for him.
I turn the volume down a few notches—Josh boos me from outside—and then open the door to the cold to join them.
The hot tub is diverting, even with Faraz’s bony butt in my lap. We take turns sitting shoulder-deep in the water, then perch on the edge of the pool, just our feet submerged, when we get too hot. Meriah, Bea’s girlfriend, has a little brother with autism, and she and I bond over that while the boys yell and Deepti giggles since working with autistic kids is a big part of my job as a speech-language pathologist.
Eventually, we start to lose people to the call of the pool table in the game room, the snacks on the long dining table, and the general warmth emanating from the glow inside the chalet.
And it’s not that I don’t want to join them, my friends. Even though this party, every party, is unnecessarily long, and loud, and exhausting, I love my friends and I want to be with them. It’s just that I shaved for this and if I can’t use all this soft, moisturized skin on Finn I might as well float in the hot tub a bit longer.
I’m not being fair to him, of course. I know. I’m harder on him than our other friends. They’re all smart, successful professionals, even though it feels like we revert back to who we were when we were kids when we’re all together. But I’m harder on him and I don’t really know why. Other than he’s always been here, been someone willing to take it, been wrong less often than I wish.
And this thing we do, it’s not even real. Twice does not a pattern make. I do my best to act like nothing has ever happened the rest of the year. I amnormal. I’m allBe cool, don’t be all uncoolfor the other three hundred and sixty-four days. And he is, too. You’d never know he made me come pressed up against the hotel wall, or that the first time I kissed him I felt what I could only describe to Bea as fireworks low in my belly.
Finn doesn’t owe me anything. Not a kiss. Not his few precious minutes after midnight. Certainly not an orgasm. YetI can’t stop feeling disappointed, sad,unsurprisedthat he isn’t here. That he is late.
“Nora,” Bea yells from the door. She’s back in her New Year’s Eve dress, a skimpy sequined thing that honestly provides less coverage than her bathing suit did. She looks fantastic.
I sit up straighter in the water. The jets are off. I’m alone. When did everyone leave?
“Get in here.” She sounds breathless with excitement. “Finn’s here.”
The bass thumpsits way up through the ceiling into my bedroom, but with the door closed, the noise is almost manageable. I take my time stripping off my bathing suit, hanging the pieces over the shower curtain rail of the shared bathroom to drip into the tub to dry. I pull my black dress back on, the classic little black kind that manages to feel sexy and comfortable, and do my best to reset my hair and touch up my makeup.
The bass isn’t loud, just strong. The kind of sound you can feel in your feet, your ribcage, your back teeth. It’s strong, but up here it’s quiet. His knock is even quieter.
“Hey.” Finn leans against the frame of my bedroom door. “Was just checking to see which rooms are taken,” he says when I don’t greet him back.
I fold my arms over my chest. “This one’s taken.”
“I can see that.” But he peers over my shoulder like he wants the proof anyway, and I try to block him, futilely, which only makes him laugh. Jerk!
