Chapter One
It’s predictable really. Nothing ever goes entirely my way. It’s always been Kate Everett against the world, and I’m determined to never let the world win.
My connecting flight is canceled. In fact, all flights out of Cheyenne are canceled. Hotels are so full that it makes Bethlehem’s little situation, where they had the audacity to send a pregnant woman to a barn to birth a baby, understandable. And there is only one rental left at the Avis counter.
A ridiculous sardine can of a vehicle that undoubtedly will careen off the side of any icy road. So, naturally the keys are now heavy in my hand.
Because what else am I supposed to do? Sit idle in an airport where all the subpar food options are shut down?
Anyone that really knows me understands I will not function for more than four hours without a proper intake of espresso.
“Do you have a map?” I question the frail girl with a fantastic splattering of freckles across her nose and a pout on her face that makes me believe she’d rather be anywhere other than here. She’s not alone in that. This isn’t exactly where I want to be.
She looks me over, her eyes shifting up and down before they flutter upward as if she’s determined that I’m quite possibly the most ridiculous woman alive, standing here in my satin stilettos about to embark on an adventure that may end with the police discovering my frozen corpse in a snowbank by morning. At least I’d look good dead.
“A map?” Her dubious tone furrows her eyebrows. Her beautiful thick eyebrows that have been spared from the tweezer disease that infected thousands of girls decades prior. We plucked our poor hairs until they were too scared to regrow, resulting in the ridiculous trend of microblading with yet another monthly appointment to restore what once was. I glance at her nametag. Genovia. Oh, this poor girl is named after a fictitious kingdom from a millennial favorite. It isn’t just our eyebrows that have suffered.
“Okay, G. Can I call you G?”
She nods her head—nervously, I might add.
“A map is a piece of paper with our current whereabouts drawn upon it, usually detailed with roads that help a person navigate unknown terrain,” I detail out rapidly.
She blinks her eyes, her brain slowly processing behind those gorgeous eyebrows. “Don’t you have a phone?”
I shove my phone in her face, pointing at the lack of bars next to the battery that is currently red and blinking.
“Oh,” she sighs.
“Oh, indeed. You’d think with our technological advancements in artificial intelligence that some of that aptitude would have been focused on methods that can actually help the average person,but it appears vanity and simulation is of greater importance than being able to utilize GPS when it’s needed the most,” I ramble. “So, G. I need a map. Preferably one that has a larger font that I can read. My eyes are no longer made for small print.”
Genovia ducks below the counter and I hear the shuffling of things—small things, large things, paper things, and not-so-paper things. I hear her sigh…loudly. Once. Twice. And then a third time. I can’t blame her. I’m a lot to handle, according to my mother.
Finally, she reappears, a shiny sheen making her fresh young skin glisten. She places a wadded-up booklet that looks very much like a map on the counter between us. Possibly outdated. But it’s a map.
“Is this okay, Mrs. Everett?” she asks with a tone lacking any amusement.
“This will be sufficient, G. And it’s Miss Everett. And please never, ever, for-the-love-of-all-things, ever pluck those perfect eyebrows God has blessed you with. You’ll save yourself a few thousand dollars and painstakingly late nights wondering what possessed you to change something about yourself that never needed to be changed. Just, trust me. Okay, G?”
She stares at me blankly, as if the advice of the likes of me isn’t as life changing as I know it could be. I’d do anything for the eyebrows I had when I was sixteen before I let a girl named Kacie rip them into two thin lines that looked more like rotated commas than eyebrows.
“Alright, G, I’m assuming you don’t know where I need to go from here.”
“No,” she mumbles before starting to tear at the cuticles on her index finger with her teeth.
I grit my teeth before more unsolicited advice spills from my glossed lips and instead focus on the task ahead. “Very well. I can figure it out. Thanks, G. I can’t promise that this…” I pause to look down at the label dangling from the car keys. “Mitsubishi Mirage won’t sustain some injury tonight, if only emotional. Wish me luck!”
Genovia manages to momentarily take her hand away from her mouth to give me a small wave, but I notice the deafening silence in which she does not wish me good luck. She probably won’t be surprised when the news broadcasts of my doom amidst a blizzard that reports have indicated are the worst they’ve seen in twenty years. But again, they stopped serving coffee here two hours ago. My circumstances didn’t really give me a choice.
The parking lot is empty, except for the tiny silver car. The headlights look as if they are surprised to see me, and they aren’t even illuminated yet. It’s probably perfectly content to sit this snowstorm out, to stay safe amid the frozen wonderland I am about to force it into.
“It’s just you and me,” I say confidently, patting the small hood.
But a few minutes later, after the starter fails three times before finally roaring alive—and roaring is being generous, it definitely sounded more like a squeak—I can tell the only one confident here is me. And mine is a somewhat ignorant kind of confidence, so I’m not sure what that’s really worth.
I turn the temperature all the way into the red, praying thatheat will engulf the compact space quickly. I shake the bent-up, abused-from-neglect-and-not-use map out, hoping my geography skills from seventh grade will somehow rattle free from somewhere within my brain to help me determine my way home.
Home for Christmas.
