In A Holidaze(25)

Andrew takes the suddenly-much-lighter platter from me, laughing. “I see that we’re still getting rambunctious Mae this morning. I approve.”

“Listen,” I say. “There’s enough for a crowd of fifty. Let’s stop pretending we don’t want to put our whole faces in this plate and pick up the slack.”

Game for this, Andrew takes a heaping pile of blintzes, and then loads up his plate with more bacon and eggs when they come around. “I’ll regret this.”

I stick a big bite in my mouth, speaking around it. “Will you, though?”

He gives me a smile that reads, You’re right, I won’t.

“If you bring this same energy to building snow creatures this morning,” Aaron says, letting the meat platter pass him by, “it could be either very good or very bad for your chances of winning.” He’s still in his pajamas, and I feel like I should warn him about the wardrobe malfunction he’ll experience in a few hours, but I’m not sure there’s a way to sanely explain how I know that.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask instead.

“I think what he’s saying,” Kyle says, taking the platter from his husband, “is that your vibe this year feels a little . . .”

“Unpredictable,” Dad finishes, carefully.

“He means ‘nuts,’ ” Miles corrects.

“That is not what I meant, actually.”

Kennedy smashes her pancakes with a fork. “What kind of nuts?”

Miles looks up from his phone. “The crazy kind.”

Zachary stands up on his chair. “I don’t like walnuts.”

“Miles,” Mom chides.

“What?”

“It’s Christmas. Be nice to your sister,” she says.

Kyle wrestles Zachary into his seat. “When I was a backup dancer for Janet Jackson,” he continues, “we called this sort of mood ‘frizzly.’ ”

Andrew meets my eyes as if to say Please note Janet Jackson backup dancer mention, number one.

“‘Frizzly’ is a good description for how I’m feeling.” I don’t add that even though I’m the one whose vibe is unpredictable, everyone but Aaron has taken twice as much food as they usually do, too.

Kyle hands the empty platter to Theo, who complains that he has to go refill it.

“Mae.” I look up to see Theo standing back from the table, giving me the boy chin lift to indicate that I should come with him. To help him open the oven? To hold the platter while he fills it?

Instead, I gesture how busy I am, thwack a giant dollop of jam on my blintzes, mumble, “Why the hell not?” and follow with an enormous spoonful of applesauce.

But with this masterpiece in front of me, it is easy to ignore the gaping stares around the table.

“Honey,” Mom says gently, “are you sure you want to eat all that?”

I never argue with my mother, but since none of this matters anyway—

“My eyes say yes,” I tell her. “My stomach says probably not. But these are the best blintzes I’ll have all year, and who knows when I’ll get them again?” I look at Benny and wink. “Well, except me. For sure I’ll get them again.” I nosedive my fork, spearing a bite of food.

Benny gives me a gentle warning look. “Take it easy, kiddo. Why don’t you keep the condiments moving?”

With a frown, I hand them to Andrew, who gamely smothers his own breakfast.

“Mae,” Kennedy says from the far end of the table, “if you eat all of that, you will throw up.”

“I ate four chocolate chip pancakes once and threw up in Papa’s car,” Zachary says.

Kennedy closes her eyes. “It smelled bad for a long time.”

“Like the subway,” Zachary adds enthusiastically.

“Kennedy, Zachary,” Aaron begins, “no vomit talk at the table.”

“That’s right,” Ricky says, helpfully redirecting. “Let’s talk about building. Everyone know what they’re making this year?”

Andrew leans in, whispering in my ear. “I was thinking we could do a panda.”

I shake my head and turn my face to his. We’re only a few inches apart. He has a tiny dot of applesauce just below his lip. In my head, I lick it off, and a voice inside me purrs, Just do it. He won’t remember anyway.

“We’re going to build a snow monkey,” I tell him. “Her name is going to be Thea, and we’re going to win.”

? ? ?

Andrew bends, carefully sculpting Thea’s face. All around us, everyone works in focused silence. Not a snowball in sight.

“So, we never really talked about this stuff, but you’re still in Berkeley, right? Not back in LA?”

I look over at him, surprised by the question. I mean, I’m not surprised that he asked it—it’s an obvious thing to talk about with someone you only see a few times a year. What surprises me is how Real Life Mae feels like someone who existed a long, long time ago. I am now Cabin Mae. Time Loop Utah Mae. Apparently she spends all her time with Cabin Andrew. For all I know, I might never go back home again. If this time jump keeps happening, I might never leave Utah, and the real world will never know I ever left.

Exhaling slowly, I say, “Yeah, LA wasn’t really working.” In truth, LA didn’t work because I shouldn’t have taken the job to begin with. I was fresh out of college and it was a graphic designer job at a tiny startup that could barely pay me a living wage in one of the most expensive and least accessible cities in the country. The shame of moving back in with my mother—and her new husband—was immediately outweighed by the relief of not having to use a credit card to pay my bills. But two years later, I feel less money-smart and more failure-to-launch.