Eve Francis
Moving in December sucked. Caroline now knew that first hand. She hadn’t wanted to purchase a new house during the busy summer season—it would have been too chaotic. Daniel, her son, was in a lot of soccer tournaments, and she wanted to be there for him. The divorce from Jay was still being processed. So, what was the rush, anyway? She and Jay split amicably, so they could stand being around one another during awkward morning coffees while they discussed the state of their finances. Caroline continued to live in the guest room and it wouldn’t be that big of a deal.
But once the divorce was finalized, Jay started dating a woman named Natalie, and Caroline knew she needed to go. She packed her things and put them in storage, but she wasn’t able to find a suitable house until late November. Because of a busy season at work, she couldn’t move until mid-December. And now, in the aftermath of one of the heaviest snowfalls of the year, she was stuck warming her hands over a mug of instant coffee in her new kitchen. She had spent most of the morning lifting heavy boxes in the sub-zero temperature when the movers didn’t move fast enough.
The cold was only half of Caroline’s worries. She couldn’t use cardboard boxes to pack since she couldn’t set them down on the wet ground without the cardboard turning to mush and splitting at the slightest touch. The plastic coverings for her couch and mattress barely covered anything, and now water marked most of the exposed surfaces. The team of movers she hired were ornery and stressed, probably since it was so close to Christmas with only one shopping day left. They had shoved her stuff into the far side of the living room, and left it there. Now they waited with their truck idling and Christmas music blaring.
And still, the men expected a tip. Caroline wanted to be nice and cheery because it was Christmas, but all she could hear was the incessant “ba-da-da-dum” of the “Drummer Boy” from the van’s speakers. Her blood slowly boiled as she approached the vehicle.
“Is that it?” she asked, her mug of coffee still in her hands. She peered in the back of the truck, inspecting it slowly. There was lots of dust, water spots, and a few plastic bags, but nothing else. Everything she owned was now in her living room.
“Yes, ma’am. Please sign here. We have other things to do today.”
Caroline pressed her lips together. She took the pen and scribbled her name.
“You have my credit card number, yes? The one I made the reservation with?”
The tall man nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
Caroline flinched at the sound of the word “ma’am”. She wasn’t that old, was she? Almost forty in another few months. But that was another calendar year away and she didn’t like to be prematurely reminded.
“Well, then. I guess that’s it. Thanks again. See you around.”
“Ma’am,” the man called after her.
Caroline turned, raising a thin, brown eyebrow. “Yes?”
The mover flinched, as if he could detect the sudden anger in her expression. He must see this every day, Caroline thought. The widow or the divorcee moving out of a nice house and into another one, close enough to see the kids—but far enough away to not cause problems. He didn’t have to make anything worse. Caroline also knew that if she just tipped him, then maybe he would go away. But a job well done deserved a reward. And this job, as the water stains on her couch proved, was not exactly in tip-top shape.
“Nothing,” the mover said. “Have a Merry Christmas. Or happy holidays.”
Caroline felt her stomach do another flip-flop. “Yes” she said. “You too, I suppose.”
Caroline watched as the moving van drove down the street and turned the corner from her new kitchen window. When she sighed, she swore she could hear it echo off the empty walls. What good is Christmas if it is the first time you’re away from the ones you love? She was glad she didn’t have a calendar yet and no time to put up Christmas decorations.
Caroline had never been away from Daniel for longer than two nights. And never during the holidays. But that is how it is now, right? Daniel would celebrate Christmas with Jay this year. Then she and Jay would take turns having their son for the holidays, like a never-ending game of Ping-Pong. She knew this side of divorce would be hard, but necessary. She couldn’t get proverbial cold feet now, even if she was really, really cold in her new place.
Caroline found the furnace and cranked the heat up. She unpacked the smaller boxes first, before she grew tired. She flopped down on her couch and took a break with another cup of coffee.
There was something good about the Christmas season, she remembered. Everyone had their holidays soon, and there would be enough alcohol—from Christmas parties and visiting relatives—to stock a ship. Just what she needed to dull these Christmas blues.
Caroline picked up her cell phone and began to plan a party.
* * *
Trisha arrived first. “I bring tidings of good joy,” she said and then furrowed her brow. “Comfort and joy? Figgy pudding? I have no idea how that song goes.”
“Ugh. I don’t want to hear any Christmas carols or anything about Christmas whatsoever. But thank you for coming.” Caroline opened her door, one of few on the block without a wreath. “Don’t mind the mess. I’m still moving in. That’s why you’re here, right? Unpacking and a housewarming party.”
“Hah,” Trisha said. She shucked her coat off and opened the closet. Her smile fell from her face as she realized there were no hangers out yet. “I see you really were serious about helping you unpack.”
“What are friends for?” Caroline sighed. “I have some alcohol out, if that helps.”
“Getting drunk and moving furniture? I’m in.”
“Hopefully not in that order,” Melanie said. She slipped inside while Caroline held the door. She presented a plate of cookies in one hand and a bottle of rum in the other. Her smile faded as soon as Caroline narrowed her eyes.
“What?” Melanie asked. “It’s just gingerbread. Vegan gingerbread at that. One of the kids at Matt’s school is like scary-allergic to eggs, so I made these. No good?”
“It’s a Christmas cookie,” Caroline said. “I strictly forbid it.”
“So put me on the naughty list. I like gingerbread.” Melanie smiled. “Now are you going to get me a drink? I’m still freezing and could use some cheer to warm me up.”
Caroline stepped out of the way just as Trisha returned with coat hangers. There were another couple minutes of shuffling and handing off alcohol, coats, and cookies as the women got ready and organized. By the time everyone sat down at the small table inside the kitchen, there was another knock at the door.
“Hello, Adriana,” Caroline said. “Fashionably late as ever.”
Adriana’s red-painted lips pressed into a gleeful smile. “But I have alcohol and I have food.”
“Christmas food?”
“Does Kutya count? I didn’t think it would count. I mean, it’s a Ukrainian thing. It’s got like… no resonance in the US. So how are you going to know it’s festive?”
Caroline signed again. “Because you just told me.”
Adriana winked at her friend. “Well, then I guess you’ll have to deal.”
Caroline took the plate as Adriana hung up her coat. Inside the kitchen, she added the Kutya to her friends’ pile of Christmas treats.
“I also have a fruitcake in the car,” Trisha said cautiously. “But I figured it wasn’t a good idea to bring it in.”
“Let it freeze,” Adriana said. “It’s fruit cake anyway, so what’s it good for?”
“I could use a doorstop…” Caroline remarked.
“What you really could use is help unpacking a few more boxes,” Trisha teased.
Caroline nodded. There was some more chatter as wine was passed around and Caroline made a quick cheese and cracker platter, since there was no other food she’d rather eat. Even if the Ukrainian dish did look tempting, just knowing that it was to celebrate Christmas made her stomach turn.
“You’re really boycotting this whole thing, aren’t you?” Melanie asked.
“Yes. Let’s pretend Christmas doesn’t exist, okay? Okay. Good. Glad we had this discussion.” She popped a cracker in her mouth and nodded. “This is a housewarming party, anyway, and since this is my house, I will throw you out if you speak of holidays and good cheer.”
“Regular Scrooge,” Adriana said. “It’s quite becoming for you.”
Caroline rolled her eyes.
“It can’t be that bad, can it?” Melanie asked.
“Yes, it can.”
“I understand,” Trisha said, her voice suddenly sympathetic. She had been divorced twice in her short thirty-five years, but they were uncomplicated affairs with no kids involved. “But you can’t wallow in your despair or loneliness or whatever. I mean, there’s Skype, right? Daniel’s going to say hello that way. And he’s only like, half an hour away. Even in the most deadly snowstorm, there’s hope, Caroline.”
“Yes, I know,” Caroline said, sipping her wine. “We’ll definitely have Skype.”
“Well, there you go. All settled. And he’s coming for New Years?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’re fine. You’re only worried about living alone again.”
“I am not,” Caroline said.
“We’ll keep you together for Christmas—with this housewarming party—and before you know it, you’ll be with Daniel again.”
Caroline nodded. She wanted to mope more, but Trisha wouldn’t understand. Neither would Melanie or Adriana for that matter. They were still in the first five years of their marriages, one with kids and the other without. The breakdown hadn’t happened yet.
Well, there’s also the fact that Trisha, Melanie, and Adriana aren’t lesbians. So their marriages weren’t stressed and they could enjoy sex with their husbands for a little while longer. Caroline hadn’t been given that option anymore.
“Have you been writing?” Adriana pulled a stool over to the kitchen island and looked at Caroline as though they were the only ones present. “I know you wanted to work on a few things for… gifts… over the…Can I mention Christmas presents? Or is that forbidden too?”
“Let’s just call it ‘Light Holiday’ and be done with it,” Melanie suggested.
“Light Holiday?”
“Yeah. If you study the different groups that have holidays around this time, you’ll see that most of the holidays focus on light in some way. It’s all the same story, just told from different points of view.”
“I like that,” Caroline said. “That way you don’t have to go with the same decorations if you don’t want to. You can pick and choose your celebration.”
“Speaking of which,” Adriana said. “Isn’t that kind of what you want to write?”
Caroline blushed.
A few months earlier, when all the friends were together, Caroline revealed she wanted to write a novel once the divorce process was complete. She had grown tired of the celebrated authors, the winners of Pulitzers and grants, always being men. Usually white men, who only seemed to whine about nothing to Caroline.
“It’s boring. I mean, I understand the need to do complain and talk about the human condition or whatever you want to call it. But do white men really need to have anymore epiphanies? Haven’t they got it all out yet?”
“So what are you suggesting?” Adriana had asked. “Writing On The Road from the perspective of the Mexican women they never named?”
“Yes,” Caroline had said. “Or writing any story that we all know and love, but flipping it. Like fairy tales, Shakespeare, or even some Dickens, since all of the copyright have passed on those. Can you imagine if Great Expectations had been told from Havisham’s point of view? Or if Pip had been gay?”
Melanie rolled her eyes. “Always with the gayness, always with the lesbian women hidden in history.”
“That’s the point, though. They’re always hidden. It’s always Gertrude Stein reading Hemingway’s books and telling him what works. And yet, we don’t pay near enough attention to her or Alice B. Toklas. I want to bring them out and put them on the center stage.”
Trisha furrowed her brow. “While I support a distracting task like this, don’t you think you’re just trying to make up for lost time?”
Caroline hadn’t known how to respond. Trisha was at least half-right; Caroline wanted to give voice to the silent lesbians in literature—because she knew that she was like them. And by telling a story from Havisham’s point of view, Caroline could give herself hope that she wouldn’t have to worry about turning into an old, crazy woman with regrets. If she gave Havisham life after marriage, then she could have life, too.
“We all live through books,” Adriana said. “It’s just that some books are easier to find than others.”
“Right,” Caroline said. “Thank you.”
Now, inside her new kitchen with Adriana’s eyes on her again, Caroline wasn’t too sure what to say about her writing.
“I’ve been really busy lately with packing. But I have found some time for poetry.”
“Poetry?” Trisha said. “Really? Like… haikus?”
“Or dirty limericks?” Melanie laughed.
“No,” Caroline said. “But haikus are interesting. You can capture the silence of the moment with them. And I like that.”
Caroline glanced at the boxes still packed in her living room. She counted out the syllables on her fingers as she spoke:
I hate Christmas time
Boxes make cardboard prisons
Now I need more wine.
Her friends laughed and applauded. She bent at the waist and laughed with them.
They poured more wine and clinked their glasses in a toast. Caroline smiled at her friends, made small talk about her upcoming PR campaign, and a bunch of other work related endeavors she and her friends often discussed. They were working women, with stellar careers—but, Caroline thought, only some of us are really happy. Caroline liked to believe she was happier now, but it was hard to tell. She felt as if her friends thought she was crazy when she said she was leaving Jay, because she wanted to date women and focus on writing again. It was like going back to high school again, restarting her life, when her friends knew that it was a foolish notion.
Maybe it was. Caroline was still so new to everything when it came to love. All she really knew was what she had read about in books—and those had been few and far between. Mary Oliver’s poem “Wild Geese” was one piece of work about love that had stuck with her. The poem was about animals and human loneliness, and how the world didn’t really care whether or not you suffered. But you had to move on.
Caroline had been having a particularly bad day when she first read the work. Her interest in women had always been there, but below the surface. While she could recall a crush or two on a woman, such as the budding poet in her high school creative writing class, the best friend and next door neighbor, one of her first bosses at her company, she had never really had words to articulate her desire. She was already married when shows like Queer as Folk or The L Word was on TV and she could see characters that were “like her.” And really, while she watched those shows and understood her longing in a new way, she never liked those characters. They had been too self-centered, too pretentious, too focused on desire. Caroline didn’t want to walk in a pride parade, not because she was ashamed of herself, but because she had always believed that love was not about herself. It was about someone else, about a relationship, and at the time, she had chosen to spend her life with a man. When their love became strained, Caroline focused on her son instead. Her longing for women was something she never really paid attention to, it was so much like breathing for her.
But when she read “Wild Geese” something changed. She thought it was beautiful, so she Googled the poet. When she read that Mary Oliver was gay and had spent her last years with her photographer lover, she suddenly realized the poem’s message about suffering. The world didn’t care if you were gay. But you, the reader and speaker in your own life, should care about what makes you happy. If you didn’t grasp what you could, then the world would simply move on without you.
Caroline realized that morning how unhappy she really was.
Jay asked her if she was leaving him for a woman. But that was such a trope, such a cliché. She wanted to tell him she was leaving him for a poem, because that had been the best embodiment of love she had ever felt. Instead she had turned away and tried to come up with the best self-help, Dr. Phil-like response she could think of. I’m not happy, but maybe this way I can be. Jay hadn’t fought her on it, and for that, Caroline was grateful. The divorce was easy. Even when Jay brought home Natalie, a girl ten years younger than Caroline, she had been happy for him. Love wasn’t about you—it was always about other people. And Caroline knew that this was what they both wanted. Even if it meant spending the first Christmas alone.
“Is that what this is about?” Trisha said, picking up a Christmas cookie and glancing at Caroline.
“What what is about?” Caroline asked, focusing on her friends again. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear.”
“We ran into Natalie at the grocery store,” Melanie explained.
“And I was wondering if she was why you’re boycotting Christmas,” Trisha added. “Are you upset Jay got a girl before you?”
“No, no,” Caroline said. “It’s never been about that.”
“Then what is it about?” Trisha asked. “We don’t really talk about it. You know you can, right?”
“I know. It’s not as simple as falling in love with another person. It’s more like, I suddenly saw my life from another angle, if that makes sense?”
“You didn’t want to celebrate Christmas anymore,” Adriana said. “But a different Light Holiday instead?”
“Yeah, sure,” Caroline said. “I just realized I wasn’t happy.”
“And are you now?”
Caroline smirked. “I was until you brought forbidden food into my house.”
Melanie laughed. “Fine, fine. I’ll eat all the gingerbread, Adriana will eat the Kutya, and Trisha—”
“No,” Trisha held up her hands. “I’m much too full!”
“Well, fine,” Melanie said. “I’ll eat it too. And then we’ll be even, Caroline. No more Christmas food left to distract you.”
“Except wine,” Melanie said, holding up a bottle. She smiled as she topped off everyone’s glasses and then raised her glass. “To your new place, Caroline.”
Caroline held up her glass and nodded. “To my new place.”
* * *
After everyone left, Caroline put away the leftovers. Most of the gingerbread cookies were gone, but she knew Daniel would finish them when he was here for New Years. She put the rest of the Kutya into the fridge before she was too tempted to eat it. As she looked around her kitchen, her stomach growled. Another shopping trip is definitely in order.
Caroline was halfway through making a shopping list before she realized she had included stuff that only her husband and son would eat. Why on earth would I want Pop Tarts? Granola bars? No, not at all. As she made another list, she struggled to remember what she liked to eat. The last time she made a shopping list for herself was in college.
Pizza. That was as far from festive as it could be. And really, she was living on her own again. Why not go back to the classics for a while?
She flipped open her laptop and Googled to find a local pizza place. As she filled out the online order form she came to a section that asked for “special instructions.” After a few minutes of thought, she typed, “Write a poem in the box” and hit submit before she could change her mind.
Nothing happened. She tried again, but this time the browser froze. She glanced at the clock and sighed. I wonder if it’s too close to closing time for them to make me a pizza. She picked up her phone and dialled in.
“Hello?” a woman answered.
“Hi, yes. Are you still open?”
“Barely,” the woman said. “We close in fifteen minutes.”
“Is that enough for a pizza? I would have called earlier, but the online form didn’t work and—”
“Really?” the woman interrupted. “I’m sorry about that, hold on.”
Caroline heard the woman yell at someone. Caroline heard a man answer but couldn’t tell what was said. It was only a moment before the woman was back on the line.
“Sorry about that. We’ve been having trouble with the online system. But please give me your order.”
“Okay, great. Thanks so much.” Caroline went back to her screen. Half of what she had specified was frozen, but she listed off the toppings as the woman on the other end wrote it all down.
“Anything else?”
“Um…” Caroline looked at her screen. She tried to scroll down to the lower half of the section, before it suddenly all disappeared. “Oh. It just disappeared.”
“Don’t worry, we’re almost done anyway. I think we just had the special instruction section. Did you put anything there?”
Caroline thought about her foolish request. Write a poem on the box? How ridiculous. This is what happened when machines stood in and took customer service requests—and when Caroline had had too much wine. She couldn’t bring herself to utter the request aloud.
“Um, nope. That’s it.”
“Well, okay. We will have it to your place in no time. Sorry about the online form.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll be here.”
Caroline sighed as she hung up the phone. She sat down with another glass of wine and waited.
Outside, snow began to fall.
* * *
Kim Sauer, the assistant manager at the local Pizza Tavern, hung the office up phone with a bang. She knew her boss wouldn’t want to make another pizza this close to closing—even if Kim convinced him that they had a certain obligation. Their online system sucked because Sal wouldn’t update the software. So a lot of orders bounced and a lot of pizzas got lost in cyberspace. This wasn’t the first customer call, though the woman on the phone had been a lot nicer than the college kids who usually ordered this late.
“You know, you lose business that way,” Kim lectured Sal. “People want to order pizza and they want to do it from the privacy of their homes. They can’t do that if the system keeps freezing.”
“Well, that’s what phones are for. This person figured out how to use a phone. No harm done.”
“But some people don’t like the phone, Sal. You have to make things accessible to people.”
“That’s why I have you, dear,” he said with a wink. “You know how to make things easier for customers, so I let you get the phone. Anyone else who complains has to get used to it. This is the real world, after all. It doesn’t bend to your whim.”
Kim sighed. “So I’ll make the pizza, then?”
Sal lifted his eyebrows and nodded. Kim was used to this by now. Using her cane for leverage, she got some of the dough from the freezer and turned on one of the big industrial stoves. She glanced down at her writing pad to make a note of the toppings when her phone buzzed with an email. She had synced her IOS to the staff computer and the ringtone let her know it was an email from the pizza server. She tied her black hair behind her head and glanced down. Order 62 stared back at her, with Caroline Braithwaite’s name on the first line.
So it did go through. Maybe the system wasn’t completely broken. Kim opened up the email and verified the order with what she had written down. The toppings were fine: double cheese, with green peppers, mushrooms, but no olives. Kim began to un-wrap the fresh toppings she had put away and pulled out the sauce again.
The space between the industrial ovens and the fridge was only two feet, maybe, but it was far enough for Kim. She could manage the walk without her cane on the best of days, but not much beyond it. And at nearly one in the morning, during the cold months of winter, it sometimes felt impossible. She grasped her cane as she moved around to gather her materials, relishing the fact that this was the last order. For sure this time. She didn’t have to rush too much and she could go right home afterwards.
Kim knew Sal from a family friend. She grew up in this part of town, before she moved in with one of her girlfriends in San Francisco—and before the accident that made her walk with a cane. The night she was injured, Kim and her girlfriend had a bad fight (again), Kim went out and got drunk (again), and then she fell down a flight of stairs. Her knee shattered in the process, along with the relationship. Kim had stayed around to attend AA in San Francisco, but it hadn’t helped. To Kim, AA was a room full of people who wanted to dwell on their problems, not look at the world and realize they were a tiny, tiny part in it all.
So she came back home. She got a job in a pizza place, though she was in her early thirties. It was kind of sad, she knew. But most people were getting used to starting their lives over again. In this economy, you had to take what you could get.
“Hey Tiny Kim,” Sal said.
Kim jumped, lost in her thoughts. “Yeah?”
“You okay to lock up if I leave? The wife… she’s already mad I’m working so close to Christmas, you know. It’s just easier…”
“Go,” Kim said.
Sal lingered. “You sure? You got a ride home?”
“Yes. I’m not a complete invalid. Now go before I beat you with my cane.”
“There we go,” Sal said, a chuckle in his voice. “I miss the old Kim when you get quiet.”
“Uh-huh. And belligerence is the only way to solve it.”
“You know it,” Sal said. “And hey, Merry Christmas. Or whatever you wanna celebrate.”
“Thanks,” Kim said. She wiped a loose strand of hair back, getting flour on her face. “Merry Christmas to you, too.”
Kim waved from the counter and waited until Sal was gone. She sighed. Christmas was hard. She agreed to take this shift so she didn’t have to be alone tonight. She knew she wasn’t going to drink—even if Christmas was the drinking season, worse than Easter to a diabetic, she still knew she’d resist the temptation. It didn’t make much sense to celebrate good times when they had been few and far between.
She flicked on the radio. Sal hated the incessant chatter of weather reports, traffic copters, and 90s adult contemporary—or God forbid, Christmas songs, but Kim needed something to break up the dead air as she began to cook. She spread the sauce and the cheese as “God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman” finished.
“And that was…” The radio announcer repeated the title. “I hope you are all snug in your beds. The storm we were talking about earlier will hit us in the early morning hours. Small flurries have already begun. Be sure to take it easy on those roads—and sleep in, as much as you can.”
Kim sighed. She didn’t mind driving in a snowstorm, but getting up the front walkway of her building was going to be hell if they hadn’t shovelled yet. She tried not to think about it and threw herself into her work. When she got to the special instructions on the online order form, she paused. Write a poem in the box? How cute. She hadn’t thought about poetry, especially for this season, in a long time.
Wait. On the phone, Caroline had only given her first name. But on the online order, her full name was Caroline Braithwaite.
No way. Was this the same woman Kim had known in high school? Would she even still have the same last name now? From what Kim could recall, Caroline seemed like the white picket fence and married life type of woman. She was destined for much bigger things beyond this town, too.
But so were you, Kim realized. And yet, sometime we end up where we began.
Kim slid the pizza into the large stove as she thought of her high school years. She pictured Caroline with long dark curls, a small mouth, and an impeccable eye for scenery in her creative writing. Could it be her? What’s the harm if it is?
Kim smiled. She knew the perfect way to test her hunch. Grabbing a box for the pizza, and a permanent marker, she began to write, the words coming to her like an old song.
* * *
There were three knocks on the door—bam, bam, bam with an even space between them. It sounded as though the delivery person was knocking in a pattern. Caroline thought of Marley’s chains in The Christmas Carol. What if the spirits of past, present, and future were coming to visit her tonight? Caroline laughed at the thought.
“Hello,” the pizza person said when Caroline opened the door. “Are you Caroline?”
“The one and only.” Caroline smiled, and then noticed the snow outside. “You must be freezing. And it’s so late. Here, come in.”
The girl came inside. But girl isn’t quite right, is it? This wasn’t a teenager trying to earn a couple extra bucks so she could go to the mall or the movies. This was a woman—and an attractive one at that. Her black hair was in a ponytail draped over one shoulder, her cheeks slightly red from the chill. Her eyes were brown—a deep brown that was almost black and Caroline found herself getting lost in. Caroline shuddered, just slightly, as the chill from the night touched her.
“Sorry. Please make yourself at home. I’m sure it’s late and you have other deliveries. I’ll get your money.”
“No,” the woman said. “I mean I have no other deliveries. You’re the last one for tonight.”
“Either way, I’m sure you want to get back home.”
The woman nodded half-heartedly. Caroline wished the woman had a nametag, but she wasn’t wearing a uniform.
“Are you the owner?” Caroline asked as they moved into the kitchen.
“No. Assistant manager. But I know the owner. We’re family friends from ages ago.”
“So you’re local?” Caroline asked.
“More or less. I used to live in San Francisco…and now I live here.”
“Seems like a short story for such a big move,” Caroline said. The woman shrugged as she took tentative steps into the kitchen. Caroline watched as the woman looked around the little house and the unpacked boxes. Caroline shook her head at the mess. Her friends hadn’t helped unpack at all. The only rooms up to Caroline’s standards were the kitchen and bedroom.
“I know,” Caroline said. “It’s a disaster area. I just moved in. Just ignore it.”
“No, it’s fine.”
The woman put the box down slowly. Caroline realized she carried a cane in her right hand and had been using her hip to balance the box. Not exactly the pizza girl fantasy that Caroline had first thought when she ordered the pizza. But this was nicer, almost. Caroline laid the money on the counter.
“This okay?”
“Yes. I can make change—”
“No. Keep it. You were nice to take my order this late.”
“Not at all.” The woman lingered, as if she was waiting for something else. She pocketed the money, before glancing at Caroline, and then looking away flustered. Caroline watched as her cheeks became a shade darker.
“This is your last delivery, I think you said?”
She nodded.
“Then can I offer you a drink? It’s the one good thing about moving in the winter, everyone has booze for Christmas.”
The woman smiled, but held up her free hand. “No, thank you. I wouldn’t mind some water, though.”
“Coming right up. You’re certainly living on the edge for this holiday season.”
As Caroline got the woman her drink, she felt a small ball of tension roll itself through her. What was she doing? It was late, she was still a little buzzed from the wine and her friends’ ceaseless chatter, and it was Christmas—a Light Holiday. Not everyone boycotted Christmas. Caroline just needed to eat her pizza and go to bed and allow this poor woman to go home.
“Here you are,” Caroline said.
The woman thanked her with a nod. She kept her hand on the cane, avoiding Caroline’s eyes, as the silence stretched between them.
“Job hazard?” Caroline asked, referring to the cane. “Slip on the ice?”
“Oh. I had a spill, yeah. But it’s old now. Last year around this time. Not many people ask me, actually. Most look away.”
“I’ve seen a lot of spills. Nothing to be ashamed about, really.”
The woman smiled again and her eyes became softer, sweeter than before. Wow, she is pretty. Caroline was about to open the pizza box when the woman stepped forward.
“I should go.”
“No, it’s okay. If it’s your last order of the night, you should stay.” Caroline motioned to a chair.
“I don’t know…”
Caroline tilted her head to the side. In another light, the woman’s face took on a different quality than she was used to. More than just pretty, the woman was…familiar.
“You…Have we met before?”
The woman laughed. “I was wondering if you’d remember me.”
Caroline’s heart dropped. She had used it as a bad pick-up line before, but now the woman’s face took on a more definite shape. She was older now—and this was no longer the foolish girl-crush Caroline had had during their creative writing course. But it was her. It had to be. Before the woman could sit down, the words were already out of Caroline’s mouth.
“Kim?”
“Yes. Though I kind of go by Tiny Kim now—like Tiny Tim—on account of the cane. I thought that was where you were going when you first mentioned it.”
Caroline put a hand over her mouth. The memory came back in bits and pieces, like a haiku in her mind. In their creative writing class, Kim had stood at the front and recited a poem about falling in love with a woman. Her lips were red, her black hair short and cropped. She wore a collared shirt, un-tucked, and carefree, like the way she spoke about love. Kim had been much younger then, a freshman when most of the students were seniors. More than Mary Oliver, Kim was why poetry represented Caroline’s queerness, even twenty years later. That was why poetry, more than any other art, made her think of women and love.
“What happened to you?” Caroline asked. “We all thought you’d be out of there, winning Pulitzers prizes. No one wanted to read after you. It always felt like child’s play.”
Kim laughed, though the lines around her eyes creased with sadness. “Thanks. But you guys were good, too. I did try to do the whole poet thing. That’s why I was in San Francisco. But things kind of…went off course. I fell for the whole illusion of the poet. The past and present ghosts of great men and women, drinking themselves to death. I thought that was part of art.”
Caroline suddenly became aware of the drink in her hand and placed it down on the counter. “Does this bother you?”
Kim shook her head. “I don’t drink anymore, but I can’t stop people.”
“Still…” Caroline replaced her drink with water. She got plates and napkins while listening to Kim tell what happened to her after high school. It seemed as if she had been dying to tell someone, especially someone who could remotely understand.
“The last drink I had was the night I got this.” Kim held up her cane. “It was around Christmas and I fell down a flight of icy stairs outside a bar. I remember going in and out of consciousness at the bottom of the steps. I suppose it was my Christmas Epiphany, you know? The kind they always talk about in church or on Lifetime movies. I slipped on the ice and an angel appeared—only my angel was Anne Sexton’s ghost. She told me I was crazy, and that she knew crazy, and that I should just go home.”
“And so you’re here now. Working… at a pizza place.”
“Temporary for now. Turns out poetry doesn’t have a lot of job openings.” Kim smiled and leaned forward. “What about you? Last thing I saw, you were heading to your own kind of poetic greatness.”
“Not really. I got a good job. A husband. A son.” She sighed. “But now I’m divorced.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t be. It’s for the better. I… I love him, but I realized that I wasn’t happy.”
“I know the feeling,” Kim said.
Their eyes met one another. Clear and hopeful. Caroline felt a lump rise up in her throat. She lifted the lid of the pizza box, thinking that food would help ease whatever tension she felt inside the room. But as the steam rose up, the words on the lid of the pizza box became clear. And another memory came rushing back to her as she read over the stanza.
Sit here and think about your life;
Your last night and your many firsts
Then make a wish and dream a little
Try and get what you deserve.
“It’s not the whole poem,” Kim said. “Not all of it would fit, so I had to pick and choose.”
“I remember,” Caroline said. This was the poem Caroline knew from high school. But it was so hard to capture, she worried that it was all a dream. “What was the rest of it? Just humor me for a while—a summary will do.”
Kim smiled. “The poem was about a café in Paris that granted people’s wishes. A woman walked in and wished for her best friend to fall in love with her. This part—what’s written in the box—was the precursor to warn people about getting what they wanted. People like to think about their past and try to get it back. But wishes are rarely kind with our memories. They have to have more meaning than nostalgia.”
“And the girl in the poem?” Caroline asked. “How did that turn out for her?”
“She made a different wish. But she still fell in love with someone. She was happy.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. I wanted to have a happy ending, for once.”
Caroline’s fingers traced over the words in the pizza box. She felt a sudden surge of hopefulness wash over her. She closed her eyes and then bit her lip. “Should I make a wish now? I mean, it’s not exactly a café in Paris…”
“Sure,” Kim said. “It’s as good as anything, right?”
Their eyes met again. Caroline continued to look without worry or apprehension. She heard the steady thump of her heart and felt the slow ache of love moving through her, and allowed herself to dream a while.
Kim closed her eyes first. When Caroline followed, she repeated the poem like a prayer before she let her heart speak: I wish for a better Christmas—a new Light Holiday. She opened her eyes to see Kim still sitting in front of her. A light shined behind, like an aura. It was so sudden and beautiful that Caroline almost forgot to breathe.
“You good?” Kim asked.
“Yes,” Caroline said. “Will you stay for pizza?”
“Definitely.”
Caroline could tell from the way she smiled that that had been her wish. A small thing—just to stay for a meal. Caroline glanced past Kim as she handed her a slice, along with a napkin. She spotted her new window that looked out on her backyard, and noticed there was absolutely no grass to see. Snow fell down by the streetlamp, casting an amber glow.
“It’s getting late, you know.”
“It is,” Kim said. “It’ll be hard to drive, but I can make it.”
“Even with that?” Caroline asked, pointing to the cane.
“Damn,” Kim said playfully. “I wished for it to be gone.”
“You should stay here.”
“I should?”
Caroline nodded.
Kim took a bite of pizza, considering it slowly. “Was that your wish?”
“Not quite…” Caroline said. She leaned on the kitchen island, her hands linking around Kim’s wrists. The touch was slow and tentative. Caroline was still new to approaching a woman. The pizza lay forgotten between them. Kim leaned forward also and held her hands. When their lips met, they were huddling over the pizza box, the poem looking up at them.
It wasn’t perfect, Caroline knew. But it was definitely a proper start.
* * *
“Okay… hello? Hello? Can you hear me?”
“Yes, Mom, you have it. You’re doing fine,” Daniel said on the other end. He sat with his face in his hands, rolling his eyes.
“Well, then. Good morning, Happy Christmas.”
“You seem in a better mood, Caroline,” Jay said, passing by the screen in his robe. He paused and raised his eyebrows, genuinely interested.
“Yes, I’m in a much better state of mind. Christmas isn’t so bad, apparently.” Caroline looked behind her as Kim walked with her cane to the coffee pot. Caroline motioned with her head to get over here, but Kim held up a hand. This is all about you, Kim seemed to mouth.
They talked, the night, about poetry and their lives. The years between them disappeared, and along with Caroline’s hatred of the season. While Kim was still sleeping early the next morning, Caroline crawled out of bed. She wrote the first poem that came to her; a picture of nature, with two women at the center. She decided that maybe she could rewrite A Christmas Carol, after she scared away all the ghosts of her pasts.
“Anyway, how are you, Daniel?” Caroline asked. “What did Santa bring you?”
“Come on, Mom. I know there is no such thing as Santa.”
“Well, maybe not in human form. But there’s a certain spirit to Christmas that I like. And I think that’s as real as anything.”
Daniel sighed. Kim blew a kiss to Caroline. Caroline reciprocated without a second thought.
“Who do you have with you, Mom?”
“No one.”
“Come on, now. If I could figure out there’s no Santa, then I know you have a girl there.”
“Maybe…” Caroline said. She stretched out her arm and ushered Kim forward. Kim joined, her brown eyes wide and nervous. Caroline slid an arm around her and pulled her into the webcam. “Daniel and Jay, this is Kim. Kim, this is everyone else.”
She waved and mumbled a greeting. Caroline kissed her on her cheek.
“Kim was just making us breakfast. And then we’re going to open our presents. But first, tell me what you got, D. I’m riveted.”
Caroline leaned into the screen, absorbing every last word her son told her about his holiday as Kim’s arms snaked around her back. Everything, from the snow outside to the smell of Kim’s perfume began to rearrange itself into another poem inside Caroline’s mind. As soon as Caroline held it, she also let it go.
Throughout the morning, the snow continued to fall. As Kim and Caroline finished the phone call and had breakfast together, the world outside went on.