Epilogue

epilogue

Daley Plaza twinkles and glistens beneath a light dusting of snow, the honking of holiday traffic putting up a fight against the murmur of tourists, the crooning of carolers, the ding dong, caution, doors are about to close of the L train above. It is, as the carol says, Christmastime in the city, and Daniel, Kat, Ellie, and I are just four more windburnt faces in the Christkindlmarket crowd.

“Found a table! Over here!” Kat shouts, waving one gloved hand in the air. During peak market hours, a table where you can set down your mulled wine is a hot commodity, but Kat was determined to snag one, even if it meant throwing elbows in the crowd. Luckily, the bright-red sleeve of her puffer jacket makes her easy to spot when she gets a few steps ahead, which she always does.

I lace my gloved fingers into Ellie’s, pulling her behind me as we shoulder through the crowd and toward our friends. When we reach their table, we’re just in time to see Kat tossing a candied pecan into Daniel’s open mouth. They both throw their arms up in victory as he chews it to a pulp.

“You’re going to hit someone,” I warn her, snagging a handful of toasted nuts from the overflowing paper cone Kat splurged on. Might as well eat them while they’re warm.

“No, it’s okay, we practiced this in the music building with grapes,” Daniel says. “We’re experts. See?” He takes a step back and opens his mouth again, and, as if on cue, I witness a nearby caroler in authentic German garb get hit in the braids by an airborne pecan. Kat blushes and looks away, feigning innocence.

“Rough throw,” Ellie laughs. “Maybe Murph can give you pitching lessons.” She pinches a sugar-crusted almond from my palm and pops it between her lips.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kat insists, her wide eyes darting from side to side. “I wasn’t throwing anything.”

“Don’t listen to her, sweetie,” Daniel slurs, pulling his girlfriend against him and repeatedly kissing the headband of her earmuffs. “You’re a perfect pitcher, just as you are.”

We all laugh, Daniel included. Unlike the last time the four of us were together, public transit has him off the hook as designated driver, and tipsy Daniel is more fun than I could’ve imagined.

“Are we still thinking we’ll catch the 6:05 train?” Ellie asks, checking the time on her phone. “I’m trying to decide if I want another drink or not.”

“Yes to both,” I say. We’re destined to be the drunk, irritating tourists every commuter desperately wishes they could push out onto the tracks. I’ll feel guilty about it next year, when Ellie is one of those commuters, traveling back and forth from her grad program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. As lukewarm as she is about moving back in with her parents, I’m twice as excited to know she’ll be nearby for the full duration of her three-year program. I pinch my credit card out of my pocket and rally the troops for another mug of mulled wine. “Who else needs a refill? Daniel?”

He pretends to think on it for a moment. “I guess if everyone’s getting another round, I probably should.”

“Of course you should!” Kat interrupts. “It’s Christmas!” Quite the vote of confidence from someone who doesn’t celebrate. Also, it’s December 29, but close enough. The week between Christmas and New Year is a blur of booze and baked goods anyway. What’s another twelve-dollar mug of wine?

Daniel and Ellie hold down the fort while Kat and I slip off to grab another round. It gives us a chance to catch up on our respective pieces of big news: for her, Christmas with Daniel’s family. For me, the new downtown Geneva apartment Brooklyn and I just signed a lease on. Two beds, two baths, and only three blocks from both Sip and Monarch, the first two official clients of Murphy Konowitz Marketing. Or at least they will be official once the LLC filing is done.

“I’ll drink to that,” Kat says, lifting her fresh mug of wine and sliding her credit card to the woman at the booth. “This round’s on me.”

I don’t bother arguing. Call it reimbursement for Blackout Wednesday.

When we return to the table with refills, I set my mug down and tug the glove off my right hand. I’m risking frostbite just to thumb in my phone password and refresh my email for the tenth time in thirty minutes. Just like the last nine times, there’s nothing new. I open a tab and check the Weymouth Student Portal, just in case. Still nothing. Back to my email app. This time, the bold text of a new message stills my heart in my chest for half a second until I realize it’s not what I’m looking for. It’s a message from Carol, sending feedback on the New Year’s content I sent over for Monarch last night. From what I can see of the preview text, it looks like she has mostly positive things to say, as usual. Working with her the past few weeks has been both a fun challenge and a comfortable bump in my bank account for Christmas gifts. If things keep going this well, I’m planning to ask Carol if she’ll sponsor our rec league softball team this spring. “The Monarchs” would be a pretty sweet team name.

“Hey, Murphy, would you remind me what time your final grades get posted?” Kat asks.

“Five.” I refresh my inbox again to the tune of group laughter. “What?”

“She was kidding, sweetie.” Ellie presses a kiss against the apple of my cheek. “You’ve brought it up a couple of times.”

“Sorry, sorry.” I stuff my phone back into my coat pocket and slip my hand back into its glove, bending and straightening my fingers to keep them from freezing in place. “I should really get those touch-screen gloves. Or the mittens that fold over into gloves. You know the ones I’m talking about?”

“I bet they sell those here.” Ellie cranes her neck, scanning the rows of wooden booths, each one with full shelves glowing beneath a warm, yellow light, filled with German steins, ornaments, and big paper stars I think are meant to be tree toppers. I’m debating buying one to use as year-round decor in the new apartment. Consider it a housewarming gift to myself.

“Can you get a picture of me and Daniel?” Kat hands her phone off to me, then grabs Daniel by the sleeve of his North Face, dragging him into position next to the Christmas tree. Pressing onto her tiptoes, she plants a kiss onto his windburnt cheek, popping one foot behind her. The stuff of holiday cards. My glove has to come off again, and I do my due diligence as a best friend and snap plenty of photos from all her best angles, high and low. When I hand the phone back to her for approval, she smiles, seemingly satisfied with my work.

“Okay, now you and Ellie.” She waves us over to the same spot by the tree. To my surprise, Ellie replicates their pose exactly, taking the same stance Kat did. Tiptoes, cheek kiss, foot pop. Unlike the last photo we took together, I don’t risk the candid laughing thing again, but the warmth of her kiss has me smiling like a kid in a yearbook photo. Before she pulls away, my phone buzzes, and Ellie plucks it out of my pocket before I can.

“One new email. Your grade has been updated,” she reads in a deep robotic voice.

“Gimme that.” I snatch it out of her hands, ditching both gloves this time so my fingers can move twice as fast across the keyboard.

“You really do need those glove mitten things,” Kat says. “They’re actually a pretty cool invention…”

I miss the rest of her explanation on the engineering of convertible mittens because I’m too hypnotized by the loading screen of the Weymouth Student Portal. There has to be a few thousand people at this market, and my service is accordingly shitty. I match my breath to the rhythm of the spinning wheel, and when the page loads fully, my toes go numb beneath multiple layers of wool socks. Here we go. Let’s see the damage.

Ellie squeezes my thigh. “We’ll make it work no matter what,” she says.

I press my tongue against the back of my teeth and pinch the screen, zooming in on my grades for both the final exam and the class as a whole.

Exam grade: 90.1%

Final grade: C

Holy shit, I actually passed.

“SHE PASSED!” Ellie yells directly into my ear. I didn’t notice her peeking over my shoulder, but her victory cry is confirmation that I’m not the only one seeing this. I may have snuck through by the skin of my teeth, but I did it. I passed. Ellie grips both my forearms and starts jumping and shrieking in a way I’ve only seen baseball players do after a World Series win. I jump and shriek right along with her. Because why the fuck not?

“SHE PASSED ACCOUNTING!” Kat shouts over the crowd of market shoppers, who seem ambivalent, if not a little worried. It’s embarrassing, but I don’t care.

“So, what’s next for you?” Daniel asks, and Kat thwacks his arm.

“Would you let her have her moment first?” Kat scolds.

“No, no, it’s okay,” I say, then squeeze Ellie’s arms a little tighter, containing our jumping to more of a bounce so I can catch my breath. The smile on my face, however, is uncontainable. For the first time in years, I’m not afraid to discuss next steps. “What’s next is graduation.”

Kat flinches. “What do you mean?”

“I’d been waiting to say anything until grades were posted, but I’ve got enough credits for an associate’s degree,” I say. “I’m sick of school, and going to U of I would mean more impossible classes on stuff I’ll probably never use. So I’m done.”

“No shit,” Kat says, a flicker of wonder beneath her voice. “And then what?”

I bite my lip to keep my smile from splitting my face clean in half. “And then…this. Life. I can just focus on getting more marketing clients and…living.” I look from Kat to Daniel and finally to Ellie, whose dimple is just barely peeking through.

“You’ll still visit next semester, right?” Ellie asks. Her lips twitch with a half smile while I draw in a deep breath, releasing a thick, warm cloud into the bitter December air.

“Of course.” I reach for her hand, and my red, frozen fingers perfectly intertwine with hers. “I’ll probably visit too much. Something has to hold me over till you come back to Geneva.” I turn toward Kat with a knowing look. “Plus I’ve gotta make the trip out for our belated birthday celebration.”

“Me and you, kid,” Kat says, raising her mug. “Just me and you.”

I look from Kat’s soft smile to Daniel’s tipsy grin, then land back on Ellie. Her big, blue eyes are wet with the threat of tears as she pulls me in, sealing her lips to mine for one long, glorious moment. I’m warm in her arms. I’m safe. I’m home. When she breaks our kiss, my lips fumble around what I want to say. We’re still a long way from love, but the early stages are undeniable. How do I tell her how grateful I am that she changed all my plans and made living less lonely? How do I thank her for seeing me not just for who I could be, but for what I already am? What do you say when you can’t yet say I love you ?

“You’re my favorite,” I say, and a smile blooms across Ellie’s face like the first day of spring.

“Yeah?” she says. “You’re my favorite too.”