In A Holidaze(66)

It’s cold up here relative to the crackling heat of the living room, and Benny pulls a blanket from the bed for me to wrap around my shoulders, and then grabs his green cashmere sweater. This is a Peak Benny moment—having enough money to buy cashmere but using it to buy a sweater that looks identical to the one he’s always worn.

Sitting in a rickety chair near the window, he motions for me to take a seat in the sturdier option—a wooden stool—and pushes his hair out of his face. “How’re you doing, Noodle?”

“In the grand scheme of life, I am great. Unemployed but healthy, and have a pretty amazing community, if you do say so yourself.” I pause, watching a bird land on a branch outside the small attic window. “But in the realm of romantic love, I am—how do I say it? Quite shitty.”

He laughs despite the dark truth of this. “Was it good while it lasted?”

“The blip of my romantic life with Andrew Polley Hollis? Yes, Benny, it was truly blissful.”

Benny’s smile tilts down at the edges and before I realize it, it’s turned into a full-blown frown. For years he’s listened to me pine hopelessly over Andrew. The summer before ninth grade, Benny caught me writing our names together on a receipt from Park City Mountain, and I was so embarrassed, I attempted to burn the evidence in one of Lisa’s scented candles. I ended up setting a pillowcase on fire. Benny sat with me through four hours of the online fire safety class my parents made me do so I didn’t have to be alone all day.

When I was nineteen, Benny was the first to run into the room after I’d gouged my forehead because I was supposed to be unloading the dishwasher, but instead was watching Andrew strum his guitar at the kitchen table. I stood up without looking, cracking my head on an open cabinet door. There are probably a hundred stories like this, and Benny has witnessed nearly all of them.

“I’m sad for you,” he says now.

“I’m sad for me, too,” I say, but swallow past the lump of genuine grief in my throat, “but I guess there’s a good lesson here: You can’t erase mistakes. You just have to figure out how to fix them.”

“Is that what we’re doing up here?”

“Actually,” I say, sliding my hands between my knees, “yes. But I’m not here to brainstorm the Andrew problem.”

His brows furrow, and he reaches into his bag for his one-hitter. “What’s up?”

“You said something in the diner about Spotify.”

He nods, flicking his lighter. The spark leaves a firework of light on my retinas that’s slow to fade. He inhales deeply and exhales to the side so it doesn’t cloud between us, before sitting back. “I did say something about that, didn’t I?”

“I realize this is incredibly intrusive, but it was a surprise to hear that you can pay a hundred dollars for my coffee when you don’t have smaller bills.”

“Yeah,” he says, nodding with his attention fixed to something just past my shoulder, “it’s been a surprise. A nice one.”

“When did—?” I start, and then try again, fumbling. “I mean, we had no idea.”

“Well, to be fair, I wasn’t being secretive; we don’t usually sully the holiday with talk of coin,” he says, grinning at me. “But truth be told, I only recently sold a chunk of my shares. You know me.” He gestures to his ripped jeans. “I don’t care about stuff so much. I’d rather use it up and wear it out. I’ve really had no idea what to do with all this money. Got a guy advising me now. He’s good. Smart. Trustworthy, I think.”

“Well,” I say, and my stomach gets all twisty and nervous even approaching this, “I’m worried about being a terrible friend cliché by doing this, but I was wondering if I could talk to you about helping me do something.”

Benny gives a hint of a smile. “I think I know where this is going.”

I blink. “Where is this going?”

He lifts his chin. “Go ahead.”

My shoulders are slowly hunching higher and higher on my neck in preemptive regret, but I wince it out: “I was thinking maybe you could cosign a loan for me to buy the cabin?” His expression shifts. I’ve clearly surprised him, so I rush to add, “I can probably cover the down payment—I’ve saved. And once I have a new job, I can pay the mortgage. I live at home, I don’t have any expenses really. I’m sure I’ll find a job relatively quickly, and it would just be cosignature, I swear.”

He’s still frowning, and I am mortified but push on. “You could live here rent free and just do your Benny thing. Play your guitar. Putz around. I’d pay the mortgage and as I save, maybe I can pay for larger things, too. It would be an investment. I also realize this is dependent on what they’re asking—okay, it’s dependent on a lot of things . . .” I pause to finally take a breath. “I just don’t want us to lose this place.”

“I don’t want us to lose it, either.” He studies me for a few quiet seconds. “It matters to you that you own it?”

I shake my head. “I mean, I know that owning a home— especially an old one, and especially in another state—isn’t easy. But if you lived here, maybe it would be easier? I don’t know. I realize this sounds crazy, and to be honest the details only occurred to me about a half hour ago. It’s not so much about me owning it as it is about all of us having this place to come together. I do ultimately think this is one of the things I was sent back to fix.”