She circled her hand at my phone, which was sitting beside me on the piano bench. Sensing that this was not a battle I would be able to win without physically fleeing the room, I picked it up and turned it on as Steph stood and came behind me to watch over my shoulder.
I had to swipe a few times to find my email app, and when I did, Steph let out a yelp.
“What?” I asked, panicked, twisting around to make sure there wasn’t something scary in the room. During the renovations, I’d once walked into the library and tripped over an opossum, which had hissed at me with a hatred Mr.Tumnus could only dream of and then trundled off with its weird hissy babies clinging to its back. I’d lived in terror of opossums ever since.
But Steph wasn’t looking at a marsupial interloper, she was looking at my phone screen, her face a mask of horror. “Is that really how many unread emails you have?”
“What? Oh—well, yeah. Probably.”
It was only just over a million, which honestly seemed pretty good to me?
“Some of these are from an email account I use for subscribing to things,” I explained. “You know, like if I want to be alerted to an Old Navy sale or something.”
Steph raked her eyes over me. “You do not shop at Old Navy.”
“But Icould. Because I know when they’re havingsales.”
“They’re always having sales, Isaac! Give me that.”
Again sensing that this would be a losing fight, I handed her my phone, and she opened the email app, toggled between the handful of inboxes, and then tapped on an email. “Here. Read this. Give me your answer.”
The email was from Teddy Ray Fletcher saying that the location they’d reserved in Montpelier for a scene had fallen through, and they now needed another ballroom for the latest installment in the Duke the Halls Expanded Cinematic Universe. Would I please do him the giant favor of letting them rent the mansion for a few days?
“Yeah, sure,” I said to Steph. “Tell him that would be fine.”
I clicked away from the email as Steph started talking about a rental agreement and craft services using the kitchen, and saw another email just above it from Brooklyn’s parents.
My heart flipped over when I opened it. It was a picture of them being sweetly gray-haired and smiling while Brooklyn’s mother hugged Brooklyn’s father and Brooklyn’s father struggled to get a good angle for the selfie. They were outside, with a glassy lake behind them, and mountains all around that.
At Big Bear, Brooklyn’s favorite spot as a kid!the email read.Miss you, son!
How did they do that? I wondered. How did they remember her andsmile? How could they still be so kind and open to me, even when I had to be a living reminder that their daughter had died far too young?
I typed a quick response to them while Steph kept talking about the shoot and what time the team would be here tomorrow and yadda yadda, other boring stuff. I barely talked to anyone, but I always made sure to talk to Brooklyn’s parents. Not only because they’d always been kind and warm, but because they deserved my time, if nothing else.
“Isaac, you better be ready, because these librarians are not going to heavily pet thems—” Sunny bounced to a stop in the doorway to the drawing room. “Bonjour once again, Steph! You should come with us, by the way. I’m trying to help Isaac third-base his way to a new muse.”
Steph had clearly been around the Uncle Ray-Ray’s mayhem for far too long, because she didn’t even blink at Sunny’s description of our evening plans. “As lovely as that sounds, I have nothing to say to any librarians until the Orange County Public Library system forgives my fines. It was clean bathwater that book got dropped in, anyway, not that they would listen.”
“I just need to grab my coat,” I told Sunny and stood up.
“I’ll give Teddy your answer, Isaac,” Steph said. “Have fun with your librarians. Drink more Capri-Suns. Make something merry and with a perfect fifteen-second hook.”
The double date was at a ski resort on a nearby mountain, and Sunny and I arrived at the restaurant before Opal and Fabienne. Before we made it to the maître d’, Sunny peeled away to press herself against the huge window looking down the mountain to the merry glow of Christmas Notch below us.
Against the dark velvet of the night sky, Sunny was stunning. Her hair was a raven cascade down her back, and her cropped leather jacket and flowing velvet skirt showcased her curves to perfection. I knew that underneath the leather was a bralette, its mesh edges teasingly exposed, and just like during the truck drive up here, I had to will my body to cool down. But I just wanted to slide my hand inside her jacket and cup her breast, feel her nipple pushing against the lace, see if I could pluck at it through the fabric and make it even stiffer.
It was going to be a long night.
But right now I had this: the sight of her radiant expression as she took in the view, her lips parted, her eyes bright. Her cheekswere stained red from the chilly drive up, as was the tip of her nose, and I didn’t know why exactly, but suddenly the whole world seemed perfect. The view seemed even more bejeweled, the restaurant even warmer and cozier. And the Christmas tree in the corner and the gentle holiday music wafting through the air didn’t feel like a reminder of my overdue album, but instead like there was something to look forward to. Like there was a gladness waiting for me.
I hadn’t felt that way about Christmas in so long that it nearly hurt feeling it again.
“Hello, so sorry we’re late!” Opal said as she and Fabienne stomped the snow off their T-strap heels. Both of them were in sharp red lipstick, clingy cocktail dresses, and swing coats. “I still don’t know my way around the area very well.”
Opal was a recent transplant, it turned out, and as we went to the maître d’ and were led to our table, we learned that she’d moved here after library school, looking for a community-driven library system. She’d only just met Fabienne last week, and it had been a surprise to them both to find a new coworker who also owned an unironic collection of vintage clip-on earrings.
In fact, the story of their first day together, when Fabienne’s wristwatch had gotten caught on Opal’s cardigan and they had to do very careful cardigan surgery while Fabienne felt Opal’s heartbeat against her palm, was filled with so much clarity of detail and told with so many interjections and addendums, that it took us all the way to our appetizers arriving.
