But even so, she can’t stop feeling like she’s on the verge of tears, like the rub of the soft fabric against her skin is unraveling every piece of armor she’s made for herself since she waseight years old. They’re not her parents, her aunt, her siblings, but god. She wants them so badly anyway.
At the intermission between films, Babs brings out the box of Snuggies, and, like a Chanukah-themed déjà vu, starts handing them out to everyone. Somehow, despite no one being at the hospital anymore, there’s still one too few Snuggies. Alice has read a lot of romance novels where there’s only one bed, and she is rapidly becoming suspicious that Babs has hid a blanket or two in order to manufacture the manic joy in her eyes when she announces that Alice and Nolan can share one.
Alice would rather share a Snuggie with Uncle Joe, who she’s spoken to less than Nolan despite him never having been in a coma, but she’s not sure how to say no.We didn’t actually date and have no history of intimacywouldn’t cut it even if she were willing to hop right up and say it, because she hadn’t made a single peep of complaint before she cuddled right into Van during the other winter festival of lights. She considers turning the blanket down altogether, but the old heater in the house can’t keep up with the freeze outside. Plus, Alice has a sneaking suspicion rejecting the Snuggie might make Babs cry, which is theoretically the whole reason she’s here anyway, isn’t it? To keep Babs from being sad?
So Alice simply gives a meek smile and accepts the half Snuggie Babs lovingly drapes over her lap. She doesn’t put her arm through the hole, and she tries not to look over at Van, who is sitting in a straight-backed chair she dragged in from the living room. Alice can see from the corner of her eye that Van is sitting with impeccable posture, her gaze boring holes in the TV, which hasn’t started playing the second movie yet. She looks like a statue, a monument to rejection, and it hurts so fucking much. She wants to be on Van’s lap, under herSnuggie. She wants to be as far away from this house and these people as she can. She wants everything to be different.
She forces herself to stop staring so obviously at Van—there would be no heterosexual explanation for the mournful expression on her face, she’s sure of it—so Van’s sharp intake of breath is Alice’s only indication she, sitting all the way across the room, hears Babs’s loud whisper to Aunt Sheila.
“Maybe next Christmas we’ll have a grandchild cooking under there!”
That’s so preposterous that Alice almost laughs, almost stands up, sloughing off the Snuggie and dropping a few truth bombs before calling the world’s most expensive Uber. Alice pregnant? Alice and Nolan, baking a grandbaby? Alice and Nolan making a genetic stew that’s congealing inside of her body? Alice thinks the fuck not. But as the slightly hysterical urge to laugh begins to fade, the thought of having Nolan’s baby starts to make her want to claw her uterus out with her bare hands. She settles for clenching her teeth and unobtrusively scooching her hip away from his.
Marie snickers at her mom, the boomer men honestly probably didn’t hear Babs, and Van aggressively presses play onHome Alone.Nolan seems to be pretending he didn’t hear what his mom said, so Alice does too, her discomfort sitting hot and heavy right in what Babs hopes is her baby oven.
AfterHome Aloneends, robbers suitably foiled and child somewhat supervised, the party breaks up. Everyone starts cleaning up before bed, Babs and Aunt Sheila already making plans for breakfast. Alice has mainlined more cookies and icing than ever before in her life, and the thought of another morsel of food makes her a little nauseous, but she’s learned that’s basically a constant condition in this house, and she can’t say she minds.
Steve, Aunt Sheila, and Uncle Joe head upstairs, leaving Babs downstairs to wedge the four “kids” into the two remaining beds. Since Marie has her own room, Alice assumes she’s spending the night in bed with either Van or Nolan, and she can’t decide which is worse. She’s pretty sure she’d end up having sex with Van or enduring the literal most awkward night of her life with Nolan, and both of those seem like significantly bad options.
She opens her phone, and as she expects, an Uber would be approximately five bajillion dollars, seeing that it’s after midnight on what is now Christmas morning, and she remembers that Van doesn’t like to drive at night, which seems very octogenarian of her, but whatever. Who is Alice to judge? She basically lives like an old lonely widow who isn’t on Social Security herself.
“I’ll take the couch,” she offers.
“Nonsense,” Babs says, flapping her hands at Alice as if to dispel the very idea. “You can share with Nolan, sweetie. Steve and I don’t mind; we’re not old-fashioned like that. It’s not like you haven’t done it before, and lord knows we didn’t wait until marriage!”
Oh yes, it’s just Alice’s luck that her fake-boyfriend’s parents are so modern that they don’t mind the idea of her having sex with him under their roof! They’ve done it so many times before! What twenty-first-century parenting! And how fun for Alice to know about Babs’s sex life! This is delightful on each and every level!
Alice waits until Babs finally troops upstairs before she turns to Nolan. “I don’t want you to be uncomfortable,” she says quickly. “I’ll sleep on the couch. Honestly, I’d prefer it.”
“No,” Van says, and Alice almost has a heart attack before she realizes Van is saying no to Alice taking the couch, not toAlice refusing to curl up with her brother. “You and Marie take the guest room. Nolan, take Marie’s room. I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“No,” Alice starts to object, but Van glares at her, that chiseled face drawn with disappointment and confusion, and Alice swallows back what she was going to say, some thoughtless drivel about Van being sick and needing the rest.
Alice expects that Nolan might object to spending the night in his baby sister’s twin bed, but apparently the thought of bunking with her is enough to send him running toward the small room with the pastel pink walls and the enormousRed, White & Royal Blueposter. “Thanks,” he says as Marie helps him to his room, not even looking back over his shoulder as he says, “Good night.”
Two hours later, Alice is exhausted and awake. She’s tried everything—counting, practicing her apology for when this all goes to shit, running the list of inventory she remembers from when she worked at the pediatric dentist’s office, a full-body-scan meditation, doing her multiplication tables, remembering every embarrassing thing she’s ever done in excruciating detail, but nothing works. Eventually she slips out of bed, deciding that doomscrolling in the freezing dining room sounds much better than holding herself stiffly so she doesn’t wake Marie, who is a surprisingly loud snorer.
Hell, maybe she should have just taken a Snuggie into the costume closet and died tonight like a man.
She’s grateful for the warmth of her new pajamas as she tiptoes across the room, opening and closing the bedroom door as quietly as she can. It’s dark in the living room, but she picks her way through it, avoiding the coffee table like a pro until her foot catches on the dining room chair Van had been sitting in earlier. Alice hadn’t factored that into her mental map of thedark space, and she tumbles forward, luckily landing face-first on a couch instead of smashing her head open on the floor.
One small problem, though.
There’s something hard on the couch, and it grabs her.
She almost screams, swallowing it down at the very last instant as her brain catches up to her racing heart.
“Oh my god,” she says at the same time a voice from under the blanket says, “What the hell?”
“Van?”
“…Alice?”
Shit. Alice tries to scramble off her, but it’s confusing in the dark. She’s somehow tangled all of her limbs in the various Snuggies Van has layered on top of herself—it’s like the arms of each blanket have grown sentient and are lashing her down.
“Okay, hold on,” Van mutters, and Alice feels Van’s hands come up to her waist. “Let me—okay.” She shifts and Alice sinks down, now tucked neatly between the solid warmth of Van’s body and the back of the couch. She’s on her side, one arm tossed over Van’s stomach, and both of Van’s arms around her. “Better?” Van asks, and Alice doesn’t know what to say. Like, yes, she’s infinitely more comfortable, and god, if this isn’t almost everything she’s ever wanted, but also, no! This is now much worse!
Why does Van smell so fucking good in the middle of the night, after eating her weight in sugar cookies and cuddling with her dog?
