Like a proud parent, she strokes the plastic “branches” of the tree. I squat to see it from Mala’s height. Sure enough, it does look slightly more like a tree from this angle. At the base, there’s a handwritten sign, spelling out, in wobbly letters,We’re dreaming of a green Christmas.
“It’s beautiful,” I tell her.
Mala beams at my approval.
Rory appears beside us. “And who put the star on top, Mala?” he asks, smiling through his beard as he points to a yellow lemonade can atop the pile.
“Idid,” Mala says, as if there were no greater prestige. “Had to stand on the step stool because I was too short. Reckon I’ll be able to reach the top next year, though. I’ll beeightnext year, did you know?” She enunciates the number with great awe, as if eight is the indisputable entryway into adulthood.
Rory and I exchange a look that says something likePlease don’t go growing up too fast, Little Mala.
Actually, Rory’s look probably says something a bit more casual—something likeAww, kids. So dang innocent, huh?but it feels like we’re on the same wavelength at least.
“Please, Mr. Cooper, can Miss Kat sit with me?” Mala asks. “I have a surprise for her,remember?” She shoots a knowing look at Rory, and upon his approval, yanks me back to her table.
“Here it is!” Mala says, bursting to reveal the secret. “We did a gingerbread craft yesterday. And I made one in the shape of a mitten because Mr. Cooper says that the place you’re from in America, it’s shaped like a mitten! I traced my hand to do it—look here.” She holds up her hand against the ornament. They match perfectly and do justice to Michigan’s mitten shape.
The idea that she thought of me of all people during the holiday craft fills me with a sturdy sense of importance. And it also makes me feel very thoughtless not to have brought anything for Mala—or Rory.
“Well, thank you,” I say, accepting the gift in my hand. It fits in the small of my palm and though the gingerbread texture issandpapery and rough, it feels softer than any glove. “It’s gorgeous. But I’m so sorry, I didn’t bring you anything.”
“That’s quite alright,” Mala says, prodding the Rudolph nose on my sweater so it lights up again. “You can bring me something back from America. You’re going there for the hols, aren’t you?”
“I am,” I say. “Do you like popcorn? I could bring you back some Kalamazoo Kettle Corn. It’s drizzled with chocolate and caramel and all sorts of good stuff.”
“Loads of caramel popcorn, please,” she says, pronouncing “caramel” with three elongated syllables and smacking her lips together like she can taste it already. “And how do you say the name of that place? Mr. Cooper has said it before, I remember. Cow-a-la-moo?”
“Kalamazoo,” I say with a chuckle, thinking that Cow-a-la-moo might be a more fitting name, given all the farmland in the area. “That’s where Mr. Cooper and I grew up. It’s kind of a tongue twister, isn’t it?”
Mala nods and proceeds to practice the name over and over until she nearly gets it right. “I’m going to go toKalawazoosomeday,” she announces. “You must tell me all about it when you’re back. I do want to knoweverything.”
“Alright,” I agree. “And you can ask Mr. Cooper about it too.”
“Oh, but he’s not going back to America,” Mala says. “He’s doing Christmas in London—he told us so.”
I figure she’s just misunderstood, but I bring it up to Rory later, when the students are cleaning up their desks and packing up for the end of the school day, squirming and squealing with the prospect of being set free by the bell any second.
“You’re going back to Michigan for Christmas, aren’t you?” I ask him.
He shifts a bit as he folds up the snack table and puts it back in its place. “No,” he says. “I decided to stay here. I bought a ticket home a while back but ended up getting it refunded to go toward a trip for my parents’ thirty-fifth anniversary in the spring. They’ve never been to Europe, so I’m saving up …” He trails off, leaving me self-conscious about all the extra money I have in my investment accounts, just from sitting in front of a computer all day, helping rich companies get even richer.
Rory’s pouring himself into educating the next generation, and he can’t even afford a plane ticket home. It doesn’t seem right. I’d buy him a ticket, but I know there’s no way he’d let me.
“But what about Emily?” I ask. “I thought Christmas was when you were going to see each other and talk about getting back together and everything?”
Rory seems to swallow a thought or two before he speaks. “We’ll just have to wait a bit longer I guess,” he says. “If it’s meant to be, it’ll be, right?” He doesn’t do a good job hiding his disappointment. Manipulating expressions isn’t one of his talents.
Selfishly, there’s part of me that’s glad he won’t be seeing Emily. Once they’re back together, it’ll make our friendship harder—maybe impossible. But I can’t be rooting for them to stay broken up either, not when I feel how it’s quietly splitting Rory’s heart.
And then it lands on me, as softly as a snowflake. Maybe thereisa way that he’ll let me buy his ticket home. If I don’t ask for permission.
Once I consider the idea, it’s impossible to eject it.
When the bell rings, I hug Mala goodbye and then excuse myself to the bathroom, booking Rory’s ticket right there on the airline app on my phone. Five minutes later, it’s a done deal. Ipurposely buy the nonrefundable option, with no travel insurance, because I know that’s my only hope of his accepting it—if he knows that the money is down the drain, and his seat will be wasted if he doesn’t go.
Hurrying back to the classroom, now empty except for Rory, I’m bursting to tell him the news. But I’m equally hesitant, anticipating how he’ll protest.
“You alright there?” Rory asks, and I realize that I’m shifting around, as if I haven’t properly relieved my bladder.
