“Home for Christmas, Mom,” I said, and then wentoofas a teenage-size ball of pajamas and hair crashed into me. “Hi, Mads,” I wheezed, and then for a long moment, none of us moved, even though our breath made clouds and clouds around us, and the warmth of the house was pouring out the open front door.
We just stayed there on the porch hugging, freezing cold and all.
On Christmas morning, I woke to the smell of pizza.
I stretched in bed and sat up, my mind blissfully blank. It could have been any Christmas morning in recent memory, with Kallum coming over to make us breakfast while holiday music filled the house.
And then my phone gave an indignant chime and the events of last night came rushing back in.
I went to brush my teeth as I checked to see if Bee had called me back—or texted. She hadn’t done either, so I called her after I was done in the bathroom and got no response. I left another voicemail, and then finally called Steph.
The phone rang twice, and then a groggy man’s voice greeted me. It was a familiar voice. A voice I associated with Hawaiian shirts and food. “Hello?” it asked.
“Um,” I said, not sure what the hell was going on. “Teddy?”
“Yeah?”
Holy shit. Could they have...?
No. No way. Steph wore pearls. She did not spend the night with men who ate turkey legs. “Is Steph there?” I asked doubtfully.
“I don’t know. Are you here, Steph?”
“Give me that—give it!” snapped Steph, and then there was the unmistakable rustle of blankets. “Nolan?”
“Um. Hi,” I said, stunned. “Is this a bad time?”
“Thanks toUncle Ray-Ray, it’s all a bad time now,” said Steph. There was protesting from her end of the phone. I was guessing from Uncle Ray-Ray himself. Jesus.
“Sorry, did you and Teddy actually spend the ni—”
“So here’s what we’re going to do,” Steph went on, ignoring my question. “Deny, deny, deny. You had no idea what was going on, you’re heartbroken that the Hope Channel was deceived, yadda yadda, and then I unlapse my Catholicism so I can light a candle for you in every church from Vermont to Eugene.”
“So you’re not dropping me as a client?” I asked hopefully.
There was a pause. A pause that did not feel good. And when Steph answered, she sounded more careful than I’d ever heard her.
“Depending on how we come through this week... maybe there’s a chance I can still get you somewhere. But I won’t lie to you, Nolan—my job is to turn ships around. Not bail out sinking ones.”
“Got it,” I said weakly.
“Buck up, kiddo,” she said. “It might all work out. In the meantime, you know what you need to do. Deny, deny, deny. Just like St.Peter. Oh, look at that! Maybe I’m unlapsing already!”
“If I do deny knowing anything about it—”
“Noif, Nolan. I’ll put together a statement now, short and sweet. Once you approve it, I’ll blast it everywhere.”
A statement. Essentially disavowing Bee.
“I don’t know,” I said hesitantly, and she made a scoffing noise into the phone.
“Of course you don’t. That’s what you pay me for.”
After I hung up and pulled on a hoodie to wear with my pajama pants, I called Bee again but still got her voicemail. I wanted to make sure she was okay and talk about what the lasttwelve hours had been like, and also to let her know that Steph wanted to put out a statement on my behalf—but none of that felt like it could fit into a voicemail.
How could it, when it didn’t even fit inside my own thoughts?
I went downstairs to see if Kallum needed any help in the kitchen. He was standing at the kitchen counter, weighing marshmallows on a kitchen scale with the seriousness of a drug dealer weighing out product. He was so tall that he practically had to reach down to the counter to pour the marshmallows in the measuring bowl, and he was wearing fuzzy footie pajamas with pizza slices on them. Christmas music played from the living room, and the curtains were pulled open on the big picture window to show a fresh layer of snow sparkling over the world outside.
