“I think you maybe gave my grandma the best Hanukkah gift of her life,” Caroline says as we clomp out to the Jeep after the party. I rub at my arms, the cold biting without my jacket, which is now permanently in the possession of Caroline’s grandma.
“Needed some space in my suitcase anyway, with all the food Grams is going to try to send me home with.”
We get to the car, and Caroline motions for me to go in before her.
“You do know sitting in the middle seat with long legs is really—”
She pushes me forward and I tumble inside, laughing despite my mood.
We drive in silence other than the steady hum of the radio. I’m assuming everyone must just be in a food coma, but when I cast a quick glance over at Caroline, I see her brow is furrowed.
“Hey, guys,” she says, leaning forward, a wave of her floral shampoo washing over me while Levi turns down the music. “Do you ever think about doing something… I don’t know… Hanukkah-related in Barnwich?”
Miles shrugs, but Levi nods. So does Riley. “I mean, I know the place is practically run on Santa’s ho ho ho, but it’s always glaring to me every holiday season, and especially after the Hanukkah party, that something’s missing,” Levi says.
“What if we did like a first night of Hanukkah event at the bar?” Caroline says. “We could light the menorah, and—”
“On Christmas?” Miles asks, turning in his seat to face her. “Nobody would come.”
“We’re not the only Jewish people in Barnwich,” Levi says, giving him a quick look.
“And besides, nobody does anything the night of Christmas, Miles,” Riley chimes in from next to me. “Everyone just opens presents and eats food, and there’s nothing to do in Barnwich because everything’s closed.”
Miles considers this, nodding.
“It could be fun. Maybe Barnwich needs some new traditions,” I say, and Caroline turns her head to look at me. “I mean, worst-case scenario, it’s just us hanging out together.”
“If you plan it, you can do it in the bar,” Miles says finally.
“Deal.” Caroline grins at him as she sits back in her seat.
“I’ll help,” I announce. Caroline lets her head fall to the side to look at me.
“It’ll be your last night here,” she whispers, reminding me of what I already know, but I nod anyway. We keep looking at each other until she pulls out her phone. Her face glows as she types something, then holds the phone out to me. Today’s question.
The role in this movie, Hollywood, LA, being an actress… Does it still make you happy?
I chew my lip as I look out at the road in front of us, glowing in the headlights of Levi’s Jeep.
My immediate answer should be Yes! Of course! I mean, it’s the entire point of this article. And when I look at it from the outside, it still seems like the best job in the world. I get to basically play for a living, and I get paid insane money to do it.
But I’m not sure it’s the truth.
I just spent the whole party watching Caroline be surrounded by her family, a core group of people who love her, who will always love her. I think maybe that’s something I’ve been missing in my life. It’s something I haven’t been able to find in LA, and that’s why I let all the other stuff consume me. To try to fill the hole I carved out of my heart when I left.
So when I take her phone, I write, Parts of it.
My thoughts start to run a bit wild and my thumbs tap away.
I like the challenge of becoming someone I’m not for a few months and that sometimes pieces of a character stick to me long after I’m done shooting. I love being able to dig deep into myself and pull out the kind of emotions that I rarely let myself feel in my real life. It gives me an outlet to release some of the pain I felt when I left home and when my parents left me.
But I’m realizing acting can’t fill the hole left behind, not totally.
For a while it’s felt like I’m doing something wrong, over and over again. Like something is missing even though I wouldn’t want to do anything else, but I couldn’t stop the train long enough to figure out what and get it on the right track. So most days I haven’t been happy.
And yeah I think this role in Bianchi’s movie would be a good start. A launchpad to turn my career in the direction I always wanted it to go and make acting more fulfilling.
But being back in Barnwich is showing me that what’s actually been missing this whole time isn’t on a set or a screen. It’s being in the place where every corner holds a memory, where I left my childhood, the town that I love, with the person that I…
I stop when her head droops onto my shoulder.
I look down to see that she’s fast asleep, eyelashes casting shadows on her cheeks, red lips slightly parted.
I watch her for a long moment, my heart beating steadily because being so close to her is starting to feel scarily comfortable. I could finish typing that last word and leave it for her to find. Tell her the truth. Tell her how I feel, not just how I felt. I could change everything.
But then I remember how far away I’ll be in just a few days, and Edie’s warning I’ve been trying to keep in mind all night.
I remember what Taylor said about Caroline being able to live a normal life out of the spotlight with a normal girlfriend who would actually be here.
I have feelings for Caroline and she might have feelings for me, but… I’m not the right person for her. My life, despite this brief break from my reality, is still a mess. And I’m not about to drag her into it. I’m not about to make a mess of her life too.
Don’t complicate things, Arden.
I delete the last few sentences and tap the side button, letting the screen go black.
Then I just sit in the dark while she sleeps, trying to figure out how to balance the rest of my time here. I know I can’t let her get too close. I shouldn’t have even offered to be a part of the Hanukkah party at the bar, but… it feels impossible when every fiber of my being so badly wants to just soak up every second I can with her.
I wake up the next morning to a FaceTime from Lillian. My thumb blindly swipes across my phone screen until I hear her voice. “Arden? Hellooo?” I push myself up on my elbow, the bed in Grams’s guest room squeaking underneath me.
“Lillian,” I say as I squint at the phone. “It’s only six here. Do you ever sleep?”
“Power naps and espresso, baby,” she says, taking a sip from a coffee cup for good measure. “Arden… I’ve got some great news for you.”
“You’re going to hang up so I can get some more sleep?”
She gives me a look. “Better. Bianchi saw you and Caroline’s pancake-serving thing at your grandmother’s diner. I mean, hell, just about everyone saw it.”
Lillian sent me a ton of articles yesterday before the Hanukkah party, pictures of me and Caroline, me and Grams on the diner’s counter, me with a few fans. Funny that once it was a success, she immediately changed her tune.
“Anyway, he wants to invite you and Caroline to his annual Christmas Eve party here in LA.”
I sit bolt upright.
“What?”
“I’d be shocked if he doesn’t give you the role by New Year’s. This whole small-town-girl bit was the best fucking thing you could’ve done for your career,” she says, and I immediately bristle.
“Lillian, it’s not a bit. I am a small-town girl. Or at least I was before…” I sit up in bed, frustrated. “Why are you making it sound like I never needed to take on this whole party-girl persona in the first place, when you’re the one who told me that was the only way I’d get noticed?”
“Does it even matter now? Everything we’ve done has led us here. We’re going to make so much fucking money.”
“Who cares about the money? How many millions have I already made you?” I raise my voice as I throw the covers off, then hop out of bed. “I lost almost everyone I’ve ever cared about, not to mention myself because of your advice. I couldn’t just pretend to be someone like that. I had to become it, and then you had the audacity to judge me for it, all while dragging your feet on helping me fix it. If Bianchi hadn’t said what he did, you’d never have agreed to this.”
“Arden, I don’t know what you’re complaining about. You were basically begging for me to make you a star, and I did.”
“I was fourteen when I signed with you! I was just a kid. I’m barely an adult now!” I move to the window and curl my fingers around the frame. “Do you know what people my age do around here? They eat hot dogs at basketball games and go sledding and enter hot chocolate contests.”
“Arden—”
“I was fifteen the first time you got me invited into private clubs to party with people twice my age. I mean… what the fuck, Lillian?” I ask, my blood boiling, but she just lets out a long sigh on the other end of the line.
“What do you want me to say, Arden? I’m sorry you didn’t get to grow up eating your grandma’s pancakes and became incredibly famous and rich instead. But this time you need to hear it. I am not your mother. Nobody wanted that job. I nurtured your career, which was my job. And now you’re going to do yours. I’ll forward you the invite,” she says, and then I hear the click of her hanging up on me.
I throw my phone onto the bed, feeling like I’ve been slapped, and then lay my forehead against the cold glass of the fogged-up window. I think of everyone it would leave high and dry if Caroline and I go to this party. Riley, and Levi, and Miles, and Caroline’s parents, and Grams, who’s downstairs right now.
But despite how angry I am at Lillian and how much I don’t even want to go right now, I know I have to at least show up if I want this role. I have to show Bianchi that he takes priority, because he does…. He has to. For me at least.
So I’ll ask Caroline to go, but I won’t push her into it.
I groan and pull the covers back over me, but I can’t go back to sleep. I just stare at the ceiling fan, listening to Grams rustling away in the kitchen downstairs and thinking about how much I don’t want to get on a plane to LA in four days, let alone two. How much I don’t want to leave my grandma again. Leave Barnwich again.
“You’re late!” Caroline calls out to me the following afternoon, leaning against the wall of Barnwich Brews, looking especially pretty in a pair of faded blue jeans and a cozy winter coat, her long hair lightly curled.
“That must be the first time you’ve ever said that to anyone,” I say, and she responds by tugging my beanie down over my eyes.
I pull it back up, tilting my head to look at the now-familiar coffee shop. “Wow. Very exciting destination. This is what you have planned? Are we stopping another scandal?”
“No,” Caroline says, grabbing my hand and pulling me inside. “This is the start of what I have planned. We’re just here for a warm drink. My treat, obviously.”
I grab a table while she orders two of Austin’s winning hot chocolates. I plop down in the booth and watch her at the counter. She peels off her big winter coat to reveal a skintight turtleneck underneath that accentuates all the parts of her that have uh… changed.
When I see her start to turn toward me, I force my eyes down, pretending like I see something incredibly interesting on the floor.
“You good?” she asks, giving me a weird look as she sets our drinks on the table and looks around on the floor for whatever I’m looking at.
“Yeah. They, um… installed some new tile after I left, huh?” I ask, finally looking up at her face, hoping she can’t see how red mine is.
Smooth, Arden.
She shrugs and laughs it off, digging around in her back pocket for something.
“Here.” She slides a little homemade paper book across the table to me. “I read the answer to my question that you left on my phone last night about feeling something missing. So I want to give you something to hold in that empty space when you leave.” She sips her drink while I inspect it.
It’s a Barnwich passport that she’s made using stapled-together printer paper and colored pencils. As I go to flip through it, she reaches her hand out and clamps it over mine.
“Wait! We’re supposed to do it one page at a time. So each destination is a surprise.”
I nod and she slowly releases her grip, letting me open up to page one.
“ ‘Hot chocolates just like the old days.’ ” I squint, looking up at her. “I thought you said it was supposed to be a surprise. We’re already here with our hot chocolates.”
I watch as she fishes around in her coat pocket.
“Surprise,” she says with a smile as she takes out two giant marshmallows from a bag and plops one into each drink.
“Oh my God. I forgot!” I shake my head, laughing. We used to bring our own giant marshmallows with us when we were kids, because we both always hated the mini ones.
“Okay, flip to the next one,” she says, pointing to the little book that holds our destiny tonight.
I do as she says and read the next page.
“You’re kidding me,” I say, shutting the book. “We’re writing letters to Santa, Caroline? What are we, ten?”
“We used to be,” she replies, slipping back into her coat as she stands up from her chair and then picks up her drink. “Come on. It’ll be fun.”
After a big sigh, I grab my hot chocolate too and follow her toward the door. She makes a stop by the bulletin board and pulls a bright blue flyer out of her pocket, an invitation to the Hanukkah party at the bar.
“We’re also going to hang these up where we can along our route,” she tells me as she pins it up there. Then we step out into the cold.
“You’re not going to ask Santa for a plate of spaghetti and meatballs with two pieces of garlic bread, are you?” I joke as I take a few long strides to catch up with her on the sidewalk.
She bumps her shoulder into mine.
“You ask Santa for something to eat one time when you’re seven and you never live it down.”
“He did deliver, though, didn’t he?”
“Woke up to an Olive Garden gift card in my stocking. We went the next day. Remember?” she asks.
“I remember,” I reply. “Pretty sure we got our twenty-five dollars’ worth in breadsticks alone.”
We make our way through the crowded streets, people far too busy looking at the lights and the shop windows to pay any attention to me tonight. We ascend the steps to the post office, a small historic building with a mailbox labeled NORTH POLE sitting out front. Caroline hands me a pen and paper from her apparently bottomless coat pocket, but then I just stand there frozen, with pen to paper.
My list when I was a kid used to cover the front and back. Now I can buy just about anything I want. I try to use my height to peek over Caroline’s shoulder at her list in progress, but she catches me in the act.
“Hey. No peeking!” she yells, and shields her paper from me.
You’re cute, I want to tell her, but instead I swallow it and settle for staring at my blank sheet. There’s only one thing I could write down. One thing I can’t buy. The one thing I want but can never have.
Caroline.
“Okay, ready?” she asks, looking up at me as she folds up her paper. I stare at her name scrawled across my paper, then quickly fold it up before she can see it.
“Uh, yeah,” I reply, plastering a smile on my face. She holds out her hand, takes my paper, and then drops them both into the mailbox.
“What did you write?” she asks as we walk back down the steps to the street together.
“That’s between me and Santa,” I reply.
Our next stop is the used bookstore at the corner of Main and Maple. Bells ring above us as we enter, and Mrs. Graham, a regular at the diner, waves hello from underneath an absolute blizzard of paper snowflakes that hang from the ceiling.
We walk past a table of books of all sizes. Each is wrapped in red-and-green paper, with a brown tag giving a very short, mysterious description. A sign above the table reads COZY CHRISTMAS BOOK DATE.
“Remember when we used to come here like every Wednesday when my mom would pick us up from school?” Caroline asks as we meander up and down the narrow aisles. Her fingers drag along the different-colored spines, and I have to resist the urge to reach out and hold them in my own. Just like the night in her room. No one watching, just for me and Caroline.
“Yeah. You’d always, without fail, find a new book to buy even though you hadn’t read the last one,” I reply.
“And you’d flip through that same cookbook every time. What was it?” she asks, crouching down to scan through the one shelf full of them.
“I don’t remember,” I reply, even though my eyes immediately picked it out of the lineup the second she mentioned it.
“This one!” She slides it out, the cover showing a familiar middle-aged woman with blond hair and overalls.
“Oh, yeah. Maybe that’s it,” I say, turning away.
“Arden James!” Caroline grabs my jacket and pulls me to face her. “Are you blushing?!”
“What? No!”
Her eyes go wide and her jaw drops open as she looks at the book, then back at me a few times. “You totally had a crush on her! Didn’t you?” she prods, and with that I finally crack a smile, and she smacks me playfully in the stomach.
“Yeah. She might’ve been my gay awakening. So what?” I joke, stealing the book out of her hands.
“And here I thought I was,” she says. Saliva catches in my throat and sends me into a coughing fit, my face no doubt turning even redder. “I’m kidding, Arden. I mean, come on, smoking hot and she can cook? I never stood a chance,” she says, then turns and heads for the front of the store again, while I force out a natural-sounding laugh.
She stops at the bulletin board by the front door and pulls another flyer out of her pocket.
There’s only one open spot, though, and it’s at the very top. I watch her jump for it once before stepping up behind her and taking the thumbtack and paper from her.
I reach over her and pin it up there, and then she turns around to face me. I watch her swallow hard as we both pause there for a moment, not a lot of room between us and the wall.
“Come on. There’s more Barnwich to see tonight,” she says finally, giving a quick tug on my jacket, and I follow her back out to the street.
A few minutes later, with candy canes dangling out of our mouths from the candy store across the way, we pass by the giant tree in the center of the square that a committee is getting set up for the big tree lighting tomorrow night.
“What’s next?” Caroline asks, as if she doesn’t know. I take out my passport and flip to the next page, where there’s a tiny drawing of Santa sitting on a big chair, a beer bottle in his cup holder. I look up, following her gaze to the gazebo to the left, where Santa-fied Mr. Green is sitting on his elaborate red throne, being blasted by a space heater, a line of people waiting to see him.
“Oh, hell no,” I say, but she ignores this as she drags me to the end of the line. I shuffle from foot to foot on the red carpet underneath us, shivering in the open air.
When Caroline scooches closer to me for warmth, though, suddenly I find myself wishing the wait was even longer. I should use the time to bring up Bianchi’s Christmas party, but how can I when Caroline is literally giving me the Best of Barnwich Tour tonight? I know she said she’s doing this because of my answer last night, but I can’t help but wonder if the countdown has been on her mind too. If she’s showing me all of this as a reason to stay.
If only it were that simple.
Too soon, we’re in front of the big man himself.
“Arden! Sweet Caroline!” Mr. Green says with a grin and a forced jolly voice as an assistant teenage elf, looking like he would rather be run over by a sleigh than spend another hour wearing a pair of pointy ears, motions us forward.
“Santa,” I say, returning the grin and leaning forward. “How’s it going?”
“I need a damn drink,” he whispers before plastering a cheery smile back on his face and calling out a “Ho-ho-ho!”
We lean against the throne, letting a second elf with far more enthusiasm snap a few pictures before Caroline pays an obscene amount of money for two four-by-sixes.
“I got it,” she says for the tenth time today as she nudges me away and hands over a couple of bills, change from the hundred dollars she got last night.
“You know I don’t mind paying—”
She waves me away. “What would my great-aunt Paula say?”
I laugh, an eyebrow ticking up. “So does that mean I’m your girl?” I ask before I can stop myself.
“Yeah,” Caroline says with a shrug as we cross the road. “I mean, for the next four days, right?”
I feel a physical pain in my chest at that. If it’s such a bad, impossible idea, why do I still want to be hers so badly?
But then I glance down at Caroline’s phone and see that she’s texting Taylor, and I push all my feelings down even deeper and lock them in the familiar box, where they have to stay.
We stop by the bar next, taking a small detour from the passport. The place is quiet, since it’s still early in the evening, and we find Levi cleaning glasses behind the bar.
“Here to get me in trouble with Mom again?” he asks with a grin.
“No. Here to go pee,” Caroline says as she shuffles off to the bathroom.
I plunk down on a barstool and slide a ten across the bar to him. “For Mr. Green. On me.”
He shakes his head and pops it into the cash register. “Poor guy is a hell of a lot stronger than me. I couldn’t sit out there freezing my ass off for a whole month, pretending I’m thrilled about it.”
I pull out another ten, sliding it across while Levi laughs.
“So… how are things going with my sister?” he asks.
“Good, I guess.” I shrug. “I mean, it’s been like ten days since she last pushed me into a snowdrift, so…” I laugh, but Levi doesn’t. Instead he looks over his shoulder to make sure Caroline is still in the bathroom.
“You’re not just going to disappear again, are you?” he asks, leaning across the bar.
It would be so easy to lie, to shake my head and tell him that I would never, but when I open my mouth, I just… can’t. “I don’t know, Levi. I don’t want to,” I finally say, the truth.
“Then don’t.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Arden, that’s my little sister. I love her.” He lowers his head, giving me a look that only a protective big brother could give. “Don’t hurt her again.”
I’m unable to reply, though, because Caroline is coming back around the corner.
“Ready to get going?” she asks, popping up beside me as I swallow the lump in my throat.
“Where are you off to?” Miles asks as he appears from the back, wielding an enormous box.
“Taking a little tour of Barnwich,” she says. “Still got a couple more stops to go.”
“Isn’t it so nice and warm in here—” I start to say, but Caroline pulls me off the barstool and toward the door. I wave goodbye to Miles and Levi, and we head out of the bar and down the street.
Our next stop according to the passport is the very crowded toy store where we spent our allowance hundreds of times as kids. As soon as we step through the door, I spot a giant collection box for the local children’s hospital and pull Caroline over to it.
“Hey, I’ve got an idea. You buy something for me and I’ll buy something for you and we’ll donate them both?” I ask.
“That’s… much better than what I had planned. Meet back here in two minutes.”
I scan around, and at first nothing jumps out at me. But then on the bottom shelf I see the Statue of Liberty Lego set. It costs more than anyone should ever pay for Legos, but is it Christmas if you’re not spending frivolously for the people you love?
It’s perfect.
I lug it through the crowd to the checkout and then over to the donation box, where Caroline is already shaking her head at me.
“For when you get into Columbia.” I heave it up and over the edge of the box and drop it in.
“Those kids are going to be brawling it out for that, you know,” she says, making me laugh. Then, from behind her back, she pulls out the cutest little black stuffed-animal dog that looks just like my boy, Neil. “To keep you company on the nights you can’t sleep.”
“Thank you,” I tell her as I take it, part of me kind of wishing that I could keep it. I pause for a second to remember its tiny little face before I place it gently into the bin with the rest of the toys.
“If you don’t give that monster truck to me right now, Susan… I swear to God…” A woman’s voice carries through the entire store. I look over just like everyone else to see her hand wrapped around Susan’s shirt, crinkling her perfectly starched white collar.
“Susan looks like she’s about to put the beatdown on her,” I tell Caroline, who is standing on her tippy-toes to try to get a view, but it’s no use.
“Should we get out of here before they call the cops?” she asks, holding her hand out for me, and despite my better judgment, I take it, following my heart instead of my head just this once.
I nod and let her pull me through the crowd and out the door.
Next on our passport is the neighboring drugstore, where we used to get our snacks. Caroline smirks as we pass the magazines, pointing to one with my face plastered on it. I shake my head at her and flip it over as she buys a pack of Cotton Candy Bubble Yum, our favorite, on the way out.
“Where to next?” I ask, flipping to the last page of the passport, but… it’s blank.
“Let’s just walk,” she replies.
We stick to the edge of Main Street and hang a left at the bank, heading down a side street, dimly lit compared to the main drag.
“What do you and Edie have planned for Christmas?” she asks.
“Oh, umm.” Shit. Here we go, I guess. “Actually, we won’t be spending it together this year anymore. Bianchi invited me to his Christmas Eve party back in LA,” I finally tell her, looking down at my feet.
“Christmas Eve?” she asks, already looking disappointed. For her, spending time with the people she loves tops everything. I know the Becketts have their annual ugly sweater party that night. They each draw a name at the start of the month and buy a sweater for another family member. It’s their tradition, so I can’t believe I’m even bringing this up, but…
“He invited us, actually. But trust me, Caroline. You don’t have to go.” I let out a long exhale, meeting her eyes. Mentioning Christmas and Bianchi to Caroline in the same sentence feels almost wrong, like the two should never mix. Oil and water. “I’ve already asked way too much of you with this article and forcing you into this fake dating thing. I’d hate to take you away from your fam—”
“I’ll go,” she says.
“Are you sure?” I ask. “You really don’t have—”
She waves her hand like it’s no big deal, like she’s not completely devastated by the fact that we won’t be spending the holidays here. “It’ll be fun. I mean, who says no to a free trip to LA? Besides, we can’t end this article without a Christmas Eve date. And Bianchi certainly won’t buy it without me being there. We might as well end things the right way.”
End things.
My heart sinks.
I watch our feet hit the sidewalk, falling into sync as the clean concrete squares of town turn into darker, uneven slabs with cracks running through them.
Then Caroline stops and turns. My eyes fall on a small white house. Its vinyl siding is falling off, and one of the windows is covered with plywood, but I recognize it, and the sight makes my heart stop for a second.
My house.
This is one stop on memory lane I want to forget. It’s too much.
“Caroline, I don’t want to be here,” I say, immediately turning in the other direction.
“Wait. Arden, just wait.” She grabs me by the arm and tries to spin me around to face her, but I tear myself from her grip and do exactly what Levi told me not to. I start down the sidewalk, back toward town, and leave her.