Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Danny

I must be out of my mind. I’m definitely out of my mind to be agreeing to this absolutely outlandish plan. It’s the kind of plan you saw in movies, not in real life.

But. There was a logic to this plan. There was almost an inevitability of it. If our families wouldn’t stop believing that we’re together, then why not say “sure, yeah, we’re together, okay?” I wasn’t naive enough to think that confirming those theories about me and Holiday would stop all of the chatter and annoyance, but there was a chance that it could lessen it and I would do just about anything to get any kind of relief.

Plus, having to be a little affectionate or flirtatious with Holiday wouldn’t be a terrible hardship. It might even be fun. Sharing a secret between the two of us. It reminded me of when we were younger, and we’d whisper our deepest, darkest secrets (they seemed so scandalous at the time) to each other in the middle of the night while we slept in the same bed at each other’s houses.

No, being Holiday’s fake girlfriend over Christmas wasn’t the worst thing I’d ever had to do. Not by a mile.

Holiday was so excited, I knew she wasn’t really listening to me while I laid out what I thought some of the rules should be.

“No kissing,” was my first rule.

“What?!” she nearly screeched. One thing about Holiday is that when she was excited about something, she lost nearly all her volume control.

“We’re gonna have to kiss, Danny. That’s ridiculous. I’m not saying you have to suck my face off, but we’re going to have to kiss a little or else it’s not going to be believable.”

Our server came and refilled my coffee and asked if we wanted anything else. Holiday tried to order another latte, but I reminded her that she’d had enough caffeine already and if she had too much, she’d start spinning in circles.

“Fine, fine,” she said, pouting. “Back to the kissing. How about no excessive kissing? And we talk about it beforehand? No surprise kisses. We’ll plan them.”

I guess that made sense.

Other than that, we wouldn’t need to do anything physical, except for sit close to each other and maybe put an arm around each other or something. Not much more than how we already behaved.

“What about nicknames? Are we going with the classic baby? Babe? Honey?” This was too much.

“I don’t know, Holiday. You decide.”

She sat back and gazed at me, her head turned to the side as she pondered. It didn’t really matter to me.

“I think we keep it simple. Babe. I could call you babe. Feels easy.”

Babe it was.

“Okay, babe,” I said, trying it out. The word came too easily. I wasn’t going to think about that.

Holiday grinned at me. “Now we just have to come up with the story.”

“What story?” I asked, adding more cream to my coffee.

Holiday looked at me as if I was being purposefully obtuse.

“The story of how we got together, obviously. They’re going to want to know what happened for us to go from being friends for years to deciding to date.”

Oh. Of course. She was right again.

“You’re better at that stuff than me,” I said. This had been her idea in the first place. Holiday had always been more of a romantic than I was. My family always teased me for being so practical, but I couldn’t help the way I was. Being practical was logical. What was wrong with that?

There was a sweet whimsy to Holiday that I did envy sometimes, but I didn’t necessarily need to have that for myself because she’d always been there to remind me. I couldn’t even remember what my life was like before she was in it.

I didn’t want to. Some nights, when the anxious thoughts seized their moment to pop up and keep me awake, I thought about what would happen when Holiday found someone. It was inevitable. Holiday was beautiful, she was fun, and she was easy to love. It was a wonder she hadn’t found anyone already, but she always told me that she wouldn’t get into anything unless she was really sure about it. Like Elizabeth Bennet, she said. I’d read the book, but I couldn’t remember what exactly she was talking about.

“Danny?” Holiday said, bringing me back to the present moment.

“Hm?” I asked.

“What do you think of that story?” she asked. I hadn’t heard a word.

“Can you go over it again?” I asked.

“I think the best story to tell is that we went out to Sapph together for drinks and we had a few too many and then started dancing with each other. Then one of us, and we can’t remember which because of the drinking, asked ‘why don’t we date’ and then we had a sloppy drunk kiss and when we woke up the next day we decided, hey, that would be fun, let’s date. What do you think?” It sounded entirely plausible to me. I wasn’t thrilled about telling my family that our revelation arrived via too much alcohol, but it wasn’t that bad.

“Okay. That works. I think I can remember it, but I’ll defer to you when we’re together to tell it.” Holiday nodded and then grinned at me again.

“This is going to be so much fun.”

Was it?

Holiday’s parents’ house and my house were only five minutes apart from each other. When we’d been younger, it had been a perfect bike-riding distance. Some years I’d spent just as much time at her house as I had at mine and vice versa. Her house was first, so I watched her pull into the driveway behind her parent’s cars and wave to me. I waved back and then continued down the street and hung a right to get to my family’s place.

The twinkling lights covered the house and I hoped my dad had been safe when he’d put them up, but he probably hadn’t. It was a wonder he hadn’t fallen off the ladder a million times.

My mom had added a new inflatable character to the lineup of Frosty, Rudolph, Santa, and The Grinch. Now she had a snow globe that had little white pieces flying around inside it. Subtle. The whole thing was garish and too much, but I’d die before I said that out loud. The decorations brought my parents joy and I would never be the one to criticize that. Even if I thought their taste was more than a little questionable. I could escape to Holiday’s tomorrow and experience the more sophisticated decorations that I preferred.

“Hello?” I called as I opened the front door. “I’m here!” I heard shrieking coming from the kitchen and before I knew it, I was engulfed in my mother’s floury arms. She was already baking and the house was filled with the warm smells of cinnamon and spices and other delicious things.

“There’s my girl!” Mom said, hugging me so tight it was like she’d never hugged me before. She pulled back and there were tears in her eyes. As if I hadn’t seen her approximately two weeks ago.

“Mom, stop,” I said. She sniffed and clutched me again.

“I’m just so glad to have everyone here. How was the drive? Did you hit any traffic?” She put her arm around me and led me to the kitchen which was already dominated by cooling pans of cookies. Every year, Mom agreed to make cookies and every year she made an increasing number. By this point she was making enough to feed a small country, and it took her nearly two days to accomplish. It stressed her out, but she wouldn’t hear of taking a break.

“No, it was good.” Mom shoved me into a chair and pressed a cup of coffee into my hand, getting the creamer from the fridge.

“Where’s Dad?” The house was unusually quiet.

“He had to run out to get a few things for me and then he was stopping at Raquel’s to take a look at her garbage disposal. I guess it’s acting up.” Was my father a licensed plumber? No. Would he act like he was and refuse to call in a professional because he was convinced he could do a better job for free? Yes.

“Of course he is,” I said, sipping my coffee.

“How’s our Holiday?” Mom asked with a fond smile. “We’re seeing her tonight, right?” Since it was the day before Christmas Eve, Holiday would be coming over tonight before we spent tomorrow night with her family. Alternating had always worked out so neatly for us.

“She’s good,” I said. Holiday and I had agreed to make our little announcement later tonight when everyone was here so we didn’t have to share the same story to twenty different people. For right now, I wasn’t saying anything.

“I can’t figure out why that girl is single. Well. I don’t know why you’re single either. Sometimes I think you do it on purpose.” Wow. Not even ten minutes before the criticism started. That had to be a record. I just sipped my coffee and pretended her words didn’t bother me.

It wasn’t easy.

Mom went back to mixing her gingerbread dough as she prattled on about town gossip and what was new with my siblings.

“I’m telling you, Nicholas is a genius. He’s already reading.” Seeing as how Nicholas wasn’t even two years old, I found this highly improbable, but he was Mom’s first grandchild, so I wasn’t going to argue with her.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” I asked.

“No, no. I’d just have to correct you and that would make more work for me,” she said, waving me off. Of course. No one was allowed to help because we’d do it wrong. Not that she’d even let someone try.

“You could run to the basement and get the second set of baking pans. They’re in one of the Christmas bins.” God help me. The Christmas bins. They took up nearly one entire corner of the basement and they seemed to multiply every year.

It was safe to say that my family loved Christmas more than any other holiday. It was the big one.

“Sure,” I said, standing up and abandoning my coffee.

How’s it going over there? Mom is currently telling me how much she doesn’t like my bangs. Again.

The message from Holiday made me smile as I walked down into the basement. Sounded like everything was right on schedule.