Hallie
Thursday, December 23, 3:13 p.m.
There is no hell quite like a grocery store at Christmastime, especially in the produce section. People are clawing each other over the last russet potatoes, bags of pretrimmed green beans, and veggie platters to the strains of Wham’s “Last Christmas.” I’ve offered to pick up the groceries because I finally got around to getting my license last month. I’m still getting used to it, and it hasn’t taken long for me to figure out why my mom cusses so much when she drives.
I dig through the bin of cantaloupes, searching for two ripe ones. My family has decided to throw out tradition this year and start a new one. We’re making an eclectic buffet of everyone’s favorite dishes, one of mine being Mom’s melon gazpacho. It’s off-season, and most of them are not quite ripe enough. I find a contender and push gently at the stem end of a second one, hoping it yields slightly. Success!
I hear a voice to the left of me. “Nice melons.”
I freeze. My stomach flip-flops with anxious anticipation at seeing the source of that voice.
Even in this relatively short time, he looks different. His hair is short and tucked into a navy-blue Columbia University baseball cap, his chin now covered by an artfully trimmed beard that makes him look older, and he seems to have grown even taller. It makes me aware of how much time has passed. The minute he smiles, and his eyes crinkle up at the edges like that, I’d recognize him anywhere. My heart feels like it’s beating out of my chest.
“Hey,” is all I can manage. There’s so much to say, and I have no idea where to begin.
By the look on his face, he doesn’t either. “I almost didn’t recognize you for a sec without your violet hair.”
“I let it grow out. Back to my brunette roots,” I laugh, suddenly self-conscious, wondering if he thinks it looks better this way.
“It looks good,” he replies with an appreciative smile.
“Thanks. I like the beard. Very distinguished,” I say as his hand reflexively touches his chin.
“Right? Totally what I was going for. I’m still getting used to it. I’ve had it a few months now. So…”
“So…”
We share an awkward laugh. “It’s funny running into you here.”
I smile. “It’s a grocery store.”
“Yeah, but it’s not my grocery store. In fact, this is the third grocery store I’ve been to because apparently there’s been a run on pancetta, and there’s literally no point in eating brussels sprouts without pancetta, which my mother insists on making because she’s on this domestic kick, so I volunteered as tribute to brave the crowds, and here I am.” He holds up his package of pancetta like a prize. His face softens. “And here you are, fondling melons. It’s nice to see you.”
“It’s nice to see you too.” If only he knew how many times in the last six months I’ve thought about him and regretted not keeping in touch. Eventually I’d managed to convince myself he thought I was a jerk for doing that after everything we’d been through, which I was, and that he’d probably changed his mind about wanting to see each other again anyway. I figured that was why he left my bracelet on the table at the Pancake Shack.
Self-sabotage as a form of control. I am the grandmaster. Or at least I was. I’m trying not to be anymore.
I realize I’m standing there awkwardly clutching two cantaloupes to my chest, and I lay them down in the top section of my grocery cart. I nod my chin in the direction of his hat. “So, did you end up going?”
He reaches up and touches the bill of his hat as if he’s first noticed he’s wearing it and grins. “Ha! Nope. This was my dad’s. I just like to wear it.”
“Wow.” I bob my head, impressed.
“You sound surprised. Did you think I would?”
“I don’t know. It was a lot to walk away from.”
“It was a lot to take on.” He shrugs. “I think I made the right choice.”
“I’m glad.” The conversation is so stiff and surface-level compared to the easy-flowing banter we had the last time we saw each other, even though there’s no shortage of things to talk about. It’s almost like starting over from scratch.
He follows me as I move toward the cucumbers, placing one in my basket. “So—what are you doing? Are you here in LA working, or…?”
He rakes his fingers through his hair and says, “Yeah, I’ve been working as an office temp, answering phones, filing papers, running errands, that sort of thing. Saving up money. Plus, I’m also writing, applying to colleges. I’m actually thinking I might want to go to Berkeley.”
“Oh, that’s awesome.” I maneuver my cart to the fresh herbs section in search of fresh mint and cilantro.
“Yeah, I really liked it up there. I got in once, so I hope that’s a good sign I can get in again, even if it would be for a different major. Berkeley has an amazing writing program, plus they also have this cool thing they do where you start in the summer, but then you spend fall semester in London and come back for spring semester. It’s also near my brother, and it would be nice to be closer to him.”
“Totally. How’d that go? Was it good?”
He nods. “Yeah, it was. I mean, it’s the kind of thing that takes time. But I think we’ll get there. At least we’re talking now. So how about you? What are you up to?”
I tell him, “I’ve just started working part time at a jewelry store, learning about the business and helping in the shop with simple repairs and stuff like that. It’s been very interesting and fun. Ultimately, I’m thinking I want to get certified as a gemologist, but that’s a way off. I have to save up. I’m looking into getting a degree at community college. Plus, it turns out there’s all this free scholarship money if you’re a cancer survivor. Silver linings, right?”
“Wow! That’s fantastic. Yeah, there’s all sorts of stuff out there. You just have to search for it.”
A woman turns her cart down the aisle, forcing him to inch closer to me to let her by. I breathe in the familiar lavender smell of his laundry detergent. It reminds me of the time I borrowed his sweatshirt, and the scent had lingered on my clothes. More than once on the bus ride home to LA I’d put my sleeve to my nose and let the smell fill my senses, just as it does now.
He grins and shifts his weight between his feet. “So…I have a confession to make. I came by the restaurant once. I left because I realized I had no right when you’d asked me specifically not to, but I wanted to know if you were okay. To be honest, that was a lot to sit with, not knowing how you were. I, uh—overheard your mom telling this couple that you’d had surgery.”
My stomach flip-flops again with guilt about how I’d handled everything. “Yeah. I know. She told me.”
His brow creases with confusion. “Your mom told you?”
I nod. “When I came home from San Francisco, I explained to her how I knew you and how you’d been at the restaurant that morning I’d left because it was your birthday. After you left her my bracelet, she realized it was you. Thank you for that, by the way.” I pull back the cuff of my fuzzy, gray sweater and show him it back on my wrist. I throw two limes in the cart on my way to the avocados and red onions for Dylan’s request: Dad’s famous guacamole dip.
“Wow. Right. So—you’re okay now? I mean—you look great.”
“My cancer is in remission with the battle scars to prove it,” I tell him with a smile and a thumbs-up.
His face lights up. “That’s awesome. I’m glad to hear it. I mean—I didn’t know—I didn’t know what to think.” And then two lines set in on his forehead. “Especially after you didn’t show.”
Which he could only know if he did. I stop in my tracks. My stomach roils. I turn to face him. “Jack—”
He smiles, holding up a hand, assuring me, “No, it’s okay. I almost didn’t either. I probably wouldn’t have if I hadn’t already been up there at the time, checking out Berkeley. I mean—it was a nice idea in theory, but it was unlikely. A total long shot, right? That stuff only happens in movies. Lots of logistics, stuff happens, plans change, but we weren’t in touch, so it’s not like the other would know.”
“I know. And about that—” I begin to say, but he cuts me off.
“To be honest, I wasn’t sure if I’d gotten the time wrong, so I showed up at both high tides just in case.”
I picture him standing there just after midnight on that peninsula in the freezing cold waiting for me. And then later he came back a second time. My stomach churns. I’d convinced myself he wouldn’t show up for all the reasons he said and more. I wish I could rewind and do it differently. I deserve to feel every bit as awful as I must have made him feel. There are a million things I could say, excuses I could make, but for now all that comes is, “I’m sorry.”
“No, seriously, it’s all good because here’s the thing: I knew you wouldn’t come. And that’s not a judgment. I’m not upset or holding on to it in any way. I get it because I tend to be cherophobic too.”
“Cherophobic?”
He smiles. “Let me Human Google that for you. Cherophobia is the irrational fear of joy. Being convinced that happiness is impermanent and always expecting things to fall apart and go wrong instead of believing they might actually go right. But I figured what the hell, and I took a chance. Because what if I didn’t show up and you did?”
He huffs a single laugh, but the look in his eyes is pure hurt. An older woman shopping nearby for tomatoes turns and glares at me disapprovingly. He isn’t wrong. I’d done exactly what I was sure he’d do to me. “I’m sorry. You deserved better than that.”
“So did you,” he says.
“I wanted to be there. I honestly did.”
“Like I said, I get it. It’s all good. Besides, you once said if we were meant to find each other again, we would, right? Well—here we are. Aisle twelve. Produce.”
Glaring Tomato Lady is clearly eavesdropping, taking way too long to make her selection. Jack picks up on it too. He winks at me, reaches out and grabs a beefsteak tomato, then hands it to her. “This looks like an excellent one, don’t you think? Plump and juicy with smooth skin?”
She looks at him with surprise, accepting it from him, and scurries away. I can’t help but smile. It makes me remember how much he made me laugh. I find myself asking, “What are you doing right now?”
“Procuring pancetta,” he says, holding up the box again.
“I mean after that.”
He shakes his head. “Not much.”
“Do you want to go somewhere?”
“With you?”
“Yes, with me.”
“Absolutely. Where?”
“Does it matter?”
“Not in the slightest.”
Jack follows me home and waits in the driveway while I go inside to drop off the groceries and tell my parents I’ll be back in a few hours.
My heart is beating a mile a minute as I climb into the black leather front seat of his car. Definitely a step up from Mom’s Toyota Sienna. The familiarity of being with him in this sort of enclosed space comes rushing back.
He grins at me.
“What?” I ask.
“Where should we go?”
By this point, the sky is growing dark and all the Christmas lights and decorations kick on. “I don’t care. Maybe we could just get a hot chocolate, drive around, and look at the lights or something,” I suggest.
“I’m down with that,” he says as he shifts the car into reverse. “It’s funny, you made me think of this memory from when I was a little kid. My parents brought a thermos of hot chocolate, packed my brother and me in the car, and drove out to this one street in the San Fernando Valley to look at all the lights. People would come from all over. It was actually famous.”
“Candy Cane Lane!” I tell him excitedly. “My parents took Dylan and me there a few times too.”
“I can’t believe you know it. That’s so funny.”
“It’s actually a big thing. It’s on Yelp. That’s totally where we should go!”
“Let’s do it.”
We zigzag our way up Laurel Canyon to Mulholland where we can see all the twinkling lights of the city on our left and the San Fernando Valley on our right. As we cut down through the hills, past homes dangling on cliffsides, I ask, “So how about you? Tell me everything. Don’t leave out a word.”
He smiles. “Well, after I decided not to go to New York, I ended up spontaneously going to Europe for the summer with my best friend Ajay, and meeting his cousin Sanjeev and his uncle Dev. Their apartment is a cramped, unspectacular shoebox in a neighborhood littered with graffiti a few blocks from the Louvre, but it’s freaking Paris. Ajay and I spent a month having a blast traveling all over. And then I got to thinking how incredible it would be to stay on for another month or two and just plant myself at one of a hundred amazing-looking sidewalk cafes I’d seen and drink copious amounts of espresso and write.”
“That’s literally, like, a fantasy,” I tell him.
“Exactly. But there I was, and suddenly this was my life. Ajay’s cousin Sanjeev invited me to stay with him. It didn’t seem right to hang around without contributing anything, especially with Ajay gone, so I helped his uncle Dev out at his restaurant at night in exchange for room and board. Sanjeev taught me about spices and cooking and how to make a seafood paella that would knock your socks off.”
“Wow. Did you just keep pinching yourself?”
“Right? For one solid month, I’d spend half the day writing and the other half getting lost in museums and exploring Paris. I highly recommend it. It doesn’t have to be Paris; just getting outside your normal day-to-day reality gives clarity and perspective. It lets you hear yourself think.”
“Sounds amazing. So, did you finish your book? I want to read it!”
“Almost. I’m about two-thirds done with the first draft, but I’ve realized that whatever I do, it needs to be creative, and that I want writing to be a key part of it. It also made me decide that no matter where I end up next, I don’t want it to be Los Angeles. I’ve lived here my whole life. I want to experience different places.”
I ask him more about his book as we wind through the Starbucks drive-through and get two venti hot chocolates. According to the GPS, Candy Cane Lane is minutes away. “So, do you know how you want it to end? Do the guy and girl find each other?”
“That’s the beauty of a choose-your-own-ending novel. There isn’t just one. Anything is possible. It boils down to if you’re a pessimist or an optimist.”
“Which are you?”
“I’m like a pessimistic optimist,” he says, and we share a laugh. “But I’m hopeful for them. It would be nice for the characters to get what they think they want, but maybe that isn’t how things are supposed to go. This could be the end of their story, or it might be where it actually begins. But either way, I’d hope they’d remain friends, or at the minimum, exchange numbers and keep in touch.”
“I feel like we’re not just talking about the book.” I point to the street sign up ahead. “I think this is it. Make a right here.”
“Wait! This moment needs a soundtrack,” he says and fumbles with his phone making a selection. I’m expecting something like “Jingle Bell Rock,” but suddenly the car is flooded with ABBA’s “Dancing Queen.”
“Perfect.”
We turn onto what is known as Candy Cane Lane and take in the ornate displays on house after house, one outdoing the next. The lights are beautiful. The homeowners have put so much time into this for no other reason than to share joy and make people smile. Jack looks at me and smiles, then says softly, “You should know that when I leave in a few months, I’m not sure when I’m coming back.”
I infer what he’s saying without him having to say it. I mean—what did I expect? Still, my stomach sinks a little. “Well then, I guess we’re continuing our tradition of driving in cars, listening to ABBA, talking, visiting random attractions, and then going our separate ways.”
“It is definitely shaping up to be our thing.” He bobs his head and cracks a half smile.
“Along with really crappy timing.”
“The crappiest.”
We marvel at a house with an inflatable Santa the size of a whale. “So where should we go next?”
He strokes his beard thoughtfully. “Hmmm. I’ve always wanted to see the world’s largest ball of twine in Cawker, Kansas.”
“Twine? C’mon, we can do better than that.”
“You have a better suggestion?”
“I don’t know. I’m thinking Ostrichland could be cool. It’s not that far, and they have emus too. You can feed them. It looks kind of fun.”
He laughs. “Okay, Ostrichland is officially on the list.”
“We have a list?”
“I think we may have just started one. And we can…you know, keep adding to it as we think of more places.”
I’m grinning ear to ear, imagining a list of adventures and a lifetime ahead in which to have them.
“So, where do we go from here?” I ask him.
“I don’t know. Maybe we could start by exchanging numbers. And from there, we can let it be a surprise, like a gift our future selves get to unwrap.” I smile, remembering saying those same words to him the last time we met.
He laces his fingers through mine, and we fall quiet after that, each of us just looking out the windows at the lights, blending our individual memories of the past with the ones we’re building this very second.
He’s right. We have time to figure it out as we go. Sometimes the best plan is having no plan.