Kiss Her Once for Me (24)

“Jacqueline lives in an Airstream,” Meemaw explains for my benefit as she slurps down her own large glass of sangria. “She parks it in a friend’s backyard for most of the year, but she brings it with her when she comes to the cabin because someone doesn’t like having the dog sleep in the house.”

“I told her the dog is welcome to sleep in the garage.” Katherine bristles, and Meemaw comes back with another retort about millennials and their dogs.

“If Jacqueline had a child, you wouldn’t ask them to sleep in the garage!”

They continue back and forth, but my brain has lost the ability to track this conversation. It’s stuck on one word.

“An Airstream?” I ask when I finally find my voice.

“It’s actually really nice,” Andrew reassures me. “Kind of like a tiny home, but on wheels.”

I see her in the low light of memory, standing beside the shiny trailer in the snow.

“Your sister named Jacqueline lives in an Airstream?”

It’s—it’s a coincidence. It has to be. There is no other explanation. Except—

“Yes…”

“An Airstream?”

Andrew shakes his head. “Is this a cabin thing again?”

“Is she having a stroke?” Meemaw wonders.

“I’ve had a stroke,” Lovey throws in. “This ain’t it.”

It feels like a stroke. This feeling of numbness creeping down my arms, this tightness in my chest, this tingle around my skull as realization competes with reason. He has a sister named Jacqueline who lives in an Airstream—

“She’s here,” Katherine announces, though I can barely hear anything over the blood roaring in my ears. A second later, an Australian cattle dog bursts into the room, nails skittering across the hardwood floor as he makes a beeline for my crotch.

“Paul Hollywood, no!” Andrew scolds. “Down.”

The dog looks up at me with his tongue lolling sideways out of his mouth, piercing blue eyes amidst tufts of gray fur. He stands on his back legs to try to make a play for my face, his tongue licking my throat instead.

And fuck. It’s not a coincidence.

I know this dog, just like I know the woman who bounds through the back door into the house with equal doglike energy. She’s wearing rubber-soled work boots, loose jeans, a red-and-brown flannel, and that coat. That same impractical-for-winter-snow khaki coat. The one that smelled like freshly baked bread.

I don’t have to speculate about how I would draw her. I’ve drawn her a hundred times in the past year, and now she’s here. Not on a napkin sketch, but in 3-D and flesh. At the Kim-Prescott family cabin.

My brain trips and falls over the how and why and for the love of God of it all.

“Jack!” Meemaw cries as her granddaughter pounces, landing a kiss on her cheek. “So happy you could make it this year, sweetheart.”

It’s Jack.

Jacqueline.

Jacqueline Kim-Prescott, apparently.

I’ve agreed to marry the brother of my one-night stand from last Christmas.





A Webcomic

By Oliverartssometimes

Episode 8: The Airstream

(Christmas Day, 1:12 a.m.) Uploaded: February 11, 2022

“An Airstream?”

Jack grins at me over her shoulder. “Shut up.”

She tugs me by the hand, and we trip our way down a stone path, through a gate into the backyard of her friend’s house where she parks it. The trailer shines in the dark, silver in the glow of the snow, lit up with the Christmas lights she strung along the top. “No, it’s perfect. A pastry chef who lives in an Airstream? I think I’ve seen that episode of The L Word.”

“You know, I think I liked you better when you were too nervous to tease me.”

“You liked me better when I had crippling social anxiety?”

She seesaws her hands in the air. “I mean…”

I hoist myself onto the single metal step leading to the door so I can be taller than her, just for a minute—tall enough to push both of my hands through her hair, fisting the ends, kissing a mouth that tastes like spiced eggnog. My body thrums as I think about two hands reaching for the same book that morning—how I didn’t feel any of this then, how strongly I feel it all now. “Is this the real reason you came into the graphic novel aisle?” I ask as I tilt my head out of the kiss.

“Because I wanted to lure you back to my Airstream and kiss you in the snow?” she asks, sounding affronted. “Absolutely not! I was doing my civic duty by aiding a sad woman crying in a bookstore!”

I narrow one eye at her, but she just wraps her arms around my waist, pulls me close. “Kissing you in the snow? Minor perk to being a good Samaritan. Now. Inside?”

I detach myself from her long enough for her to unlock the door. A fifty-pound ball of fluff charges at Jack as soon as she steps inside. “Yes, my little baby boy.” She crouches down to vigorously rub the dog’s ears. “I know. I left you all day like a bad mom. Who’s a good boy for not pooping in the Airstream?”

She leaves the door open, and the dog rushes into the backyard, unleashing a terrific stream of pee before he flops down in the snow and rolls back and forth, making the dog equivalent of a snow angel. “So, that’s Paul Hollywood.”