The line of people waiting for the food snaked around the corner, a mix of families and single faces, grateful murmursmixing with cold wind and laughter. I handed a tray laden with soup and yummy holiday staples to a woman holding a toddler, and the little boy’s eyes went wide when he saw the mac and cheese. “Thank you!” he shouted, making her laugh. I smiled, caught in that simple moment of human connection.
When I’d woken up this morning, I’d felt a little down about missing Thanksgiving lunch with Liv and her family. She’d called, complained about missing me too much and never forgiving me. Unserious, of course, but the mild ragging was enough to make me feel even worse.
But as the day wore on, and our rag-tag group established a productive synchronization, I found I was enjoying myself. Sadie stayed on my right so I could help her, then Emma, and Will on the other side of her. To my left, the men took turns taking up the spot next to me, at one point playing a heated round of rock, paper, scissors to win the prized spot.
“You’re ridiculous,” I said with a soft laugh as Ethan puffed out his chest after his paper beat Miles’ and Adrian’s rocks.
He reached up, caught a stray piece of hair that had escaped my net, and tucked it neatly back under. His fingers lingered just a beat too long, and a trail of fire blazed across my cheek, down my neck and back, to settle between my legs.
“There. All fixed,” he said.
All wrecked, was more like it. The brazen move, in front of all these strangers, got my heart racing.
“Uh, Maren?”
I shook my head abruptly to clear it out, and looked down at Sadie. “What’s up, sweetie?”
She pointed at the stalled line of people in front of us, and I startled back into action. I grabbed another tray and inwardly lectured myself to keep my shit together. But every now andthen, my attention flicked back to them and the effortless rhythm to how they moved.
A good chunk of line later, I felt another tug on my coat. “Maren?”
It was Sadie again, but this time she pointed to her sister. Emma was sulking again, arms crossed and lips pressed into a thin line.
“Everything okay, Em?” She gave no sign she’d heard me. “You’re holding up the line. Let’s go, let’s go.”
She huffed, backing off, and a twinge of frustration pinched in my chest. Always the best timing with this one. I’d promised to include her the last time we talked, and there wasn’t anything more inclusive than being in a production line at a soup kitchen.
And yet.
“We can’t do this without you, honey,” I said, my hands not slowing. I’d switched to serving two people at once to make up for Emma’s unplanned strike. “Remember how you promised to be my second-in-command today?”
That earned me a reluctant, tiny nod. Progress, even if slow.
“Watch it,” Adrian said suddenly, laughing as a gust of wind made a tray of rolls teeter dangerously.
He was the most recent winner of rock, paper, scissors, and grabbed for the tray at the same time I did. Our gloves touched, and that light contact was enough to make my stomach flip. He winked at me, then casually got back to what he’d been doing.
The line began to shorten, and Ethan moved out from behind the tables to talk to a woman holding a box of food. He spoke quietly, but animated, and I saw her laugh. At ease and confident, but with tenderness in the way he leaned in, a soft patience I’d seen only in flashes. Warmth bloomed inside me,along with the slow realization that what I felt for him went deeper than anything just physical. And as I forced myself back into action, taking up the slack with Miles and Adrian, I knew it was true about them too.
I handed Emma a small cup of cranberry sauce, and she peeked up at me, eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t like it,” she muttered.
“Try it anyway,” I said, nudging her gently. “You might like it.”
Emma continued to mope. She fussed with Sadie over how she handled the pies, yelled at Will about cranberry sauce, and aired her grievances without holding back.
“Next batch of soup,” Adrian called. “Let’s keep this line moving!”
And as I scooped another ladleful, with Emma reluctantly beside me and the crisp Boston wind biting at our cheeks, I thought, for the first time that day, maybe everything really was exactly how it was supposed to be. More importantly, maybe this was where I was supposed to be.
The walk from Boylston Street soup kitchen didn’t do much to temper Emma’s whining and for a second, I wished I had in fact taken up Liv on her offer to abscond from my job and crash her family lunch.
“Okay, enough.” Everyone stopped dead on the sidewalk. The men all looked at me as if they were the ones being called to the principal’s office. “We’re not going another step until we all get on the same page.”
“It’s just her,” Will mumbled.
“Not helping,” I said, and he slipped behind the protective cover of Miles’ body.
“Let’s talk about the page.” Ethan’s small show of support set the tone, and although Emma’s bottom lip was still pushed out, she didn’t say anything.
