My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories(21)

Don’t ask.

I was only fifteen and tequila was involved.

“Something about the natural oils or whatever.” She shrugged. “Anyway.”

I turned back to Haley, who was obviously waiting for me to leave now that I’d proven useless. “Well, I should probably get back downstairs to feed the cat. Sorry I couldn’t help.”

“No worries.” She led me out of the bathroom and back through the hall and kitchen, where my empty stomach sounded like the Fourth of July.

She held open the front door.

“Happy holidays,” I told her.

“You too.” She smiled. “And I appreciate you coming up here to take a look.”

As I walked toward the elevator, I listened for the click of Haley’s door behind me. When I finally heard it, I felt crushingly alone.


How to Pass a Night

I finished the plain yogurt for dinner along with half a hot dog bun, then I broke into Mike’s vodka. I sipped a few glasses over ice while strumming the guitar in the bathroom—my favorite place to play because of the acoustics. Mike’s guitar was about six thousand times better than mine. It was like playing a stick of butter. Basic open chords came alive inside the tiled walls, especially after I flipped off the lights.

Once the vodka kicked in, I even sang a few of the tiny songs I’d been making up since high school—melancholy tunes about females and back home and losing my mom. Tunes made out of minor chords, where my pedestrian voice was no more than a whisper.

This was where music had always existed for me.

Inside a dark bathroom.

Alone.

The feeling it gave me was an odd combination of weightless self-pity and excitement. I understood my life was meaningless, and this knowledge freed me up to accomplish absolutely anything.

Anyway, I passed most of the night this way.

The cat came into the bathroom a few times to check me out. And whenever I’d hear Haley’s subtle footfalls—her place was directly above Mike’s—I would stop singing and strum more softly.

Around midnight, I put away the guitar and pulled out the book I was reading and moved into the living room, and it wasn’t long until I found the cat curled up next to my feet. I guess we were becoming actual friends. Something like that. I leaned over to read the charm hanging from her collar: Olive.

Mike had told me her name when he showed me how to do the food and change the litter, but this felt like our true introduction.

I scratched behind Olive’s ear the way Haley had and listened to the ceiling, but it had gone quiet up there.


Long-Distance Relationships

Late the next afternoon, there was another knock at the door.

I turned away from the window, where Olive and I had been sitting together, staring at the perpetually falling snow. I kicked the blanket off my feet and went to the door and looked through the peephole. Haley again. This time she’d brought with her a towel, a change of clothes, and a bathroom bag. I opened the door, saying, “You changed your mind.”

She peered into the living room. “Your TV’s not on.”

“Uh … yeah.” I looked over my shoulder, at Mike’s dormant big screen. “I mean, no. Wait, why?”

“What do you do in here all day?”

“I cat sit.”

Haley rolled her eyes. “Most cat sitters can manage to watch TV at the same time.” She switched her bathroom bag from one arm to the other, adding: “Not sure you’re aware of this, but we’re kind of snowed in right now, which is the perfect excuse to stream Netflix. I watched an entire season of Downton Abbey yesterday.”

“Is that the one about those rich British people?”

“I’m pretty sure your TV feed didn’t go the way of my shower pipes,” Haley said, ignoring my question.

I pointed to her bathroom bag. “I see you reconsidered the Christmas dreads.”

She let out a dramatic sigh. “I thought about it last night. And I’m going to take you up on your offer.”

I sensed a but coming.

“But here’s my thing.…” Haley glanced around Mike’s apartment. “Interesting,” she said, distracted. “It’s the exact same layout as my place, but at the same time it looks totally different.” She turned back to me. “In order for me to feel comfortable taking a shower down here, we have to both share something about ourselves first. Then I’ll feel like I know you better. And it won’t be so weird.”

“Seriously, Haley. I’ll stay way on this side of the apartment. I promise.”

“That’s not the point.”

I glanced into the kitchen where Olive had gone back to housing her wet food. My empty stomach was beyond the cramping stage now, which made me wonder if I’d started digesting muscle. I stepped aside, motioning for Haley to come in.

She walked over to Mike’s L-shaped couch and sat down.

I sat, too. “So, what kind of stuff are we supposed to say?”

“Anything,” she said. “It could be about your childhood. Or about where you’re from. Or why you’re wearing a beanie indoors. Seriously, anything.”

I pulled off my beanie and opened my mouth to ask a follow-up question, but she cut me off. “On second thought, maybe you should put that back on.”