“Caroline!”
I snort awake, nearly tumbling out of bed as my younger sister Riley’s voice shoots me into consciousness better than the twelve alarms I snoozed this morning.
That’s what I get for staying up until three a.m. to tinker with my portfolio for my Columbia application, adding in an article I just finished on the local bakery’s heavily guarded, five-generations-old Christmas cookie recipe. Apparently a great-aunt had even killed a man to protect it, which made this piece a bit more high-stakes than the rest of my reporting about our Christmas-obsessed small town….
If looks could kill, though, Riley’s might just do the trick. She leans away from my now defunct left eardrum, arms crossed over her worn forest-green Barnwich Soccer hoodie. “Can we please not be late for once?”
I grunt and groan a “no” in reply, rolling over to rebury myself in my cozy comforter.
“It’s Pancake Tuesday,” she says.
I immediately roll back to face her.
“That’s what I thought,” she adds, before leaving me to my frantic Tuesday-morning routine. I stumble into a pair of jeans and an oversized cardigan, brush my teeth as I pack up my backpack, then add a sweep or two of mascara and enough rings to let people know I like women.
As I head downstairs to the kitchen and the pancakes that are the only thing that could get me out of bed today, Blue, my black-and-white border collie, trots after me, his toenails clicking on the hardwood floors. I smirk when we turn the corner to see Riley spraying a gravity-defying amount of whipped cream directly into her mouth and my two older brothers, Levi and Miles, wolfing down short stacks like it’s their job. They show up to Pancake Tuesdays religiously even though they’re both in their early twenties now.
“Don’t you two have your own house?” I ask as I pour myself a cup of coffee. I turn around just in time for a flapjack to smack me square in the face. Riley snorts as I peel it off and take a bite.
Dad stops his humming over a sizzling pan of turkey bacon and whirls around, apron flowing in the wind, to point his spatula between the four of us.
“One more thrown pancake and you can all forget Pancake Tuesdays for the next year!”
“You’re all talk, old man,” Levi scoffs, shaking his head.
“Just try me, kid,” my dad replies with a challenging smile, but the standoff is interrupted by my mom breezing into the kitchen. Immediately, Dad casts a sideways glance at the clock in the corner, still worried even after twenty-five years about her being—
“Late. I’m gonna be late,” my mom mutters as she steals the coffee cup right out of my hands and takes a sip.
Mom commutes from Barnwich to Pittsburgh every morning to work at the law firm she started with her best friend from college and is almost always running a few minutes behind. My dad tried setting our clocks forward by five minutes once, but it didn’t make a difference. It was like she knew in her bones it was wrong. Thank goodness trains leave the Barnwich station every seventeen minutes, or she’d never make it to work before the morning meeting she schedules.
I guess I get that from her, because when my gaze drifts over to the clock too, I see I have all of a minute and a half to shove the rest of this much-needed pancake into my mouth and get out the door.
“Anyway, we need sustenance,” Miles says, continuing the conversation. “Got a busy night to prep for the bar tomorrow. Bought a karaoke machine two weeks ago, and Karaoke Wednesdays have been a real game changer.” He scrolls through a color-coordinated events calendar on his phone, pinks and yellows and greens flying past.
He and Levi saved up practically every penny since they were both in middle school to open up Beckett Brothers, a bar tucked into the corner of Main Street and Pine, the result of my dad’s obsession with Bar Rescue and their desire to find their own niche in our holiday-centric Pennsylvania town. They carefully renovated the space together after leasing it two Christmases ago at a heavily discounted price from the owner and also our neighbor, Mr. Burton. Then Riley and I were enlisted to help paint and haul Facebook Marketplace finds, paying us in ice cream in the summer and hot chocolate in the winter. This is the first full year they’ve been open for business, and they’ve been giving it all they’ve got to stay afloat and turn a profit. Trivia, speed dating, live music, and now karaoke, apparently. They’ll do anything to keep those doors open. But it’s been hard to watch them struggle like so many businesses in our town have these last couple of years.
“I don’t know about game changer. My ears are still bleeding from last week,” Levi grumbles through a mouthful of food.
So are mine, honestly. He sent me a video of a girl who was attempting to belt out some Celine Dion but sounded like a rooster with a sore throat.
“You’ll still be coming to the Hanukkah party, right?” Mom asks, fingertips tapping against what was once my coffee mug, worried as always about being late but doing nothing to actually move faster. “I told Grandma you’d both be there.”
“Obviously,” Miles snorts, selecting a highlighted day on his carefully curated calendar to prove it. “Missing out on her brisket would be a crime.”
With Mom being Jewish and Dad being Catholic, this time of year is a flurry of Christmas music, latkes, new socks, and… the all-too-familiar disconnect: existing in that liminal space between the two religions.
Not going to church or synagogue but opening Easter baskets and being shipped off to the Jewish sleepaway camp in upstate New York that my mom’s whole family went to. Getting a Christmas tree and exchanging ugly sweaters, but keeping the gifts from Santa to a minimum.
Most of all though: not feeling Christian or Jewish enough, especially in a town with Christmas as its bedrock.
Levi and Miles never seemed to wrestle with that feeling. They’ve managed to find their place here in Barnwich quickly. Even with the articles I write, though, I guess I just haven’t yet.
“You ready to go?” Riley asks me, stuffing one more slice of turkey bacon into her mouth before scrambling to grab her backpack.
I nod as I toss my last bite to Blue, then steal my coffee cup back from my mom for one more sip before heading off down the hallway to bundle up.
“See you guys later!” I call before squishing a beanie onto Riley’s head. I throw open the front door, and the two of us giggle as we slip and slide down the steps and through the snow to Bertha, the ancient silver Toyota Camry Miles was brought home from the hospital in before it was passed faithfully down the Beckett line to me. Riley gets in and starts it up from the passenger seat while I scrape the ice off the windshield just enough.
“Wow, really, Caroline? I still can’t see anything through that,” Riley says as I get behind the wheel.
“I thought you didn’t want to be late,” I reply, throwing my scraper over my head onto the backseat.
“Well, yeah, but I’d also like to get there alive,” she says, pulling her seat belt around her. “We should’ve had a snow day.” She rubs her mittened hands together.
“A snow day? In Barnwich? Please.” Our near-constant flurry of lake-effect snow is a key factor in what makes Barnwich feel like you’re in a Hallmark Christmas snow globe.
I turn the key in the ignition, and Bertha fumfers to life. Her tires fight desperately for traction until we’re heading off slowly down the street.
“You got any exams this week?” I ask.
Riley hums an affirmation, mitten hanging out of her mouth as she risks frostbite to text her middle school posse.
“Need help studying?”
She hums another affirmation, still tapping away.
Even though we’re running late, I rubberneck my way down Main Street while the car windows defrost a little more. I gaze at all the brightly colored storefronts, the string lights zigzagging directly above us, the red bows and green wreaths on glowing lampposts. The warm and cozy and exciting holiday spirit is as impossible to avoid as ever. It’s no wonder this place has been a holiday tourist destination for decades, with people trekking to our small town every December for hot chocolate and sleigh rides, homemade gifts and a picture with Mr. Green, the plumber-turned-Santa. Not to mention our Christmas tree lighting remains the fourth biggest in the country.
But the crowds have dwindled since I was a kid. A lot. And even though Barnwich is still magical this time of year, there’s no denying everyone’s had to work harder to lure people back and keep the mom-and-pop shops along Main Street afloat. It seems like everyone’s doubling down on all our traditions, adding pyrotechnics to the tree lighting, upping the cash prizes in our hot chocolate and gingerbread house contests, and giving elf costumes to the drivers of the reindeer-led sleds that coast along Main Street. It’s… so much and yet something still feels like it’s missing.
The thought brings back the swell of melancholy I can’t help but feel alongside the excitement this time of year.
“Arden was photographed leaving a club super fucked up last night,” Riley says, still looking at her phone. My grip tightens on the steering wheel, and what holiday spirit I did have evaporates at the mention of my ex–best friend, leaving just the melancholy.
“Language,” I murmur, unsure whether I’m talking about my twelve-year-old sister dropping the f-bomb or the name of the person more synonymous with Barnwich to me than Christmas.
It’s been four years since she left Barnwich, and me, in the dust to make it big in Hollywood, but in some ways it’s like she hasn’t left at all. Her presence, or the now unrecognizable ghost of it, still looms around every corner. From tabloids at supermarket checkouts to viral tweets to TikTok edits carefully spliced together by her adoring fans.
Arden James, Arden James, Arden James.
And Riley isn’t any help. She insists on keeping me fully up-to-date on any of Arden’s happenings I do manage to miss, in extensive detail, even though I want absolutely, positively nothing to do with her.
Still, when we pull into the middle school parking lot, I can’t help but glance quickly over at the picture Riley’s shoving in my face. Arden’s long, dark hair and brown eyes are still familiar, yet so different. And not just because of the glassy, disoriented haze of whatever she’s on clouding her vision.
“You gotta take the bus home today,” I say as the screen goes dark and Arden’s face disappears. I park the car, and Riley unbuckles her seat belt. “I picked up a shift at Edie’s.”
Edie’s Eatery. The beloved local diner that’s another reason I can’t forget Arden no matter how much I try. It’s owned by Arden’s grandma and known for a mean stack of pancakes, which are admittedly better than my dad’s, and coffee that could peel your eyebrows clean off.
There’s no denying I could use the extra money, but the real reason I work there is Edie. With Arden gone and her parents traipsing the globe, I like to keep an eye on Edie, especially now that she’s started to slow down a bit. She’s tough as nails, but sometimes even nails need tending to. Like she tended to us for years. Milkshakes and loaded omelets and letting us play around in the diner kitchen.
It’s just another reason to resent Arden. For leaving Edie behind too.
“Fine, but only if you bring me home a black-and-white cookie.”
“Deal.”
Riley calls a goodbye before running up the steps to meet her soccer friends, and I zip over to the high school, only a little farther down the road. I groan as I pull into one of the few open spots and see that while Riley’s just made it, I’m about to be late, as always.
I grab my backpack and slip and slide my way over the icy pavement up to Barnwich High, then skid straight down the green locker-covered hall to my homeroom class. The bell rings overhead the exact second my butt hits my seat in the back corner.
“Good morning,” Austin Becker practically sings, setting down a much-needed caramel macchiato on my desk, a perk of having a friend who works the opening shift at Barnwich Brews.
“Morning,” I say, gratefully grabbing it from his golden-brown hands, the long fingers covered in silver rings, as Mr. Fisher stands to take attendance before morning announcements.
When I started high school the fall after Arden left, walking through the double doors on the first day without my best friend was pretty intimidating. But luckily, Becker came just before Beckett, and Austin was new to Barnwich, a clean slate who liked books and Phoebe Bridgers as much as I did. This curly-black-haired, guitar-playing, too-cool-for-school-but-still-won-Homecoming-King-over-his-football-captain-boyfriend guy has been my coffee-delivering saving grace ever since that first day.
I open the lid before taking a sip, and sure enough, there’s a new piece of latte art on top. A dog that looks almost like Blue. I let out a low whistle, and he beams while I snap a few pictures.
As I return the lid, Maya, the final puzzle piece in our trio, turns around in her seat, elbows sliding onto my desk. “How’s the application coming? You finally send it in?” she asks.
I groan, and her blue eyes slide over to meet Austin’s hazel ones. The two exchange a look.
“That well?”
“I just feel like…” I shake my head. “Like I don’t have anything on it that really stands out, you know?”
Austin laughs, shaking his head too. “You’ve been editor in chief of the school newspaper since we were sophomores, your grades are ridiculous, and you won that statewide writing contest for your piece on Barnwich Brews being rebuilt after the fire.”
“Yeah, and I bet like… all the other kids applying for the journalism program at Columbia have the same stuff on their applications. If not better. What if all the stuff I’ve done is too… I don’t know. Small town. Not big enough.” Even the bakery article I just added doesn’t seem stakes-y enough.
Even with the murder.
I raise my hand as Mr. Fisher calls my name and change the subject. “So, how’s Finn?”
Like he heard himself mentioned, Austin’s boyfriend, Finn, ducks his golden-blond head into the classroom to wave hello to Austin before Mr. Fisher shoos him out to his own homeroom. Finn’s cheeks turn red as I hear his football bros in the hallway give him shit, and Austin rolls his eyes, suppressing a smile.
“The same as ever.” He shakes his head. “We’re going sledding next week on the first day of break, if you two want to come. Finn says Taylor Hill from the cheer team asked if you’d be there. Seems like she’s got a bit of a crush.”
Taylor Hill? Crushing on me?
“Sounds fun,” I say with a noncommittal shrug, picking at the cardboard coffee sleeve.
“The sledding?” Maya asks, leaning forward, eyebrows wiggling. “Or Taylor Hill?”
I snort and shake my head, my cheeks turning red this time. “I just… haven’t ever really thought about her like that.”
I mean, I’ve noticed she’s pretty, objectively. Co-captain of the cheerleading team. Blond hair. Picture-perfect smile. It’s just, I haven’t really thought of anyone like that. For a while, anyway. I’m open to it. I just haven’t felt…
I think of Finn and Austin. How you can almost see the sparks between them.
That.
“Still hung up on Julie Shapiro from sleepaway camp?” Austin takes a sip from his coffee cup, giving me a knowing look. “Unless…?”
No.
I glare at him and slap at his flannel-covered shoulder before he can say her name, but a pair of familiar, glassy brown eyes illuminated on my sister’s phone screen pops into my head anyway. Just as unwelcome as they always are.
Even though Austin never met Arden, he and Maya both know she was more than just a best friend to me. That I’m always searching for that feeling but I never find it.
I wonder if I could put on my Columbia application that I haven’t had any romantic life over the past four years. Maybe they’d accept me out of pity.
My teeth dig into my bottom lip, but thankfully the morning announcements end the conversation there. I let my eyes glaze over as I turn my head back to the front of the room and force myself to focus on what matters most.
Columbia.
More than sparks or Taylor Hill or Arden James.
This time I’m going to get out of Barnwich to chase my dreams.
I want this so badly I can taste it. But when I look out the window, at the white flakes drifting slowly down outside, I know that however much I sometimes feel trapped in this Hallmark Christmas snow globe, I could never fully say goodbye. It’s not as easy for me to leave people behind.
Or forget them.
After school I head across town to Edie’s. The bells jingle as I push inside and am greeted by the familiar checkered floors, worn mint-green leather booths, and row of swivel chairs. The smell of Edie’s cooking drifting out from the kitchen makes my stomach grumble, even though lunch wasn’t that long ago, and I feel my shoulders relax for the first time all day. My head always feels clearer here, and while all the stress from my looming Columbia application doesn’t fade away completely, it feels almost manageable.
“Hey, Edie,” I call out, rushing to the back to take my million and one layers off. As I whip around the corner, I almost run smack into Harley, the edgy college student who’s worked here for the last two years, juggling two armfuls of plates.
“Whoa there,” she says, dodging out of my way without dropping so much as a single curly fry.
Edie’s salt-and-pepper hair pokes through the serving window. She waves a spatula in greeting, looking decidedly less chipper than usual. For a barely five-foot-tall Korean grandmother, her presence usually fills up the whole diner. As I tie my apron and pull my strawberry-blond hair into a ponytail, all she says in her thick Southern accent, courtesy of her Georgia upbringing, is, “Well, she really showed her whole ass this time, didn’t she?”
I hesitate, some old instinct to defend her bubbling up in my throat.
But instead, I nod. Because she’s right, and I don’t owe Arden anything. Not anymore.
We don’t talk about it again for the rest of the day, but I know what’s going on in her head. Edie’s always blamed herself on some level. When they lived in town, at least Edie could be there for Arden while her parents fought day in and day out. Or I could, letting Arden in from my doorstep, backpack in tow, to squeeze into my bed for another sleepover.
But Hollywood is too far out of either of our reach. Especially when the person who’s there isn’t reaching back.
She found fame instead. She doesn’t need us anymore.
As I scoop up a double cheeseburger and fries for table three from the serving window, I give Edie a small, reassuring smile, trying to erase some of her guilt. After all, she always said Arden’s parents could never stay in one place long. Arden leaving us in the dust was bound to happen when it was all she ever knew.