Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

MOLLY

If I had a dollar for every time my sister Ellen interfered in my life, I'd have enough money to buy everyone in Chicago their own pizza, and I'm talking the deep-dish delicious kind, like Pizzeria Uno. Well, maybe only a slice and not the whole pie—we're not gluttons here—but that's still a lot of meddling.

Ellen has been invested in every aspect of my existence since the day I was born—which is when she decided I would become her lifelong pet project. I'm pretty sure that makes me the oldest living pet in history, if you don't include parrots or those giant tortoises that live two-hundred-plus years.

As I ram another sweater into my suitcase, my sister lies on my bed and jabbers on about her favorite topic du jour. "Heath and Trina's lodge is amazing! You're going to love it there." Ellen's the one who told them that I'm the best gift shop designer in the tri-state area.

"It certainly looks nice from the article you wrote about it," I tell her. Gorgeous lodge set in the middle of Elk Lake, Wisconsin—what's not to love? "I can't help but wonder why they didn't have their gift shop organized before opening." I mean, who goes public without being ready to charge eight dollars for a toothbrush to all the poor suckers who come unprepared?

Ellen shrugs her shoulders in response before saying, "I wish I was going with you."

I don't really want her to come, but she is responsible for my getting this job, so I feel obliged to say, "You're welcome to join me. We can share a room."

She exhales loudly. "I'll be with Henry visiting his parents in St. Louis." Ellen and her boyfriend have been an item for nearly two years.

"Do you think he's going to propose?" I ask with cautious optimism. If Ellen gets married again, surely she'll be too busy with her own life to dissect every aspect of mine. That's my pie-in-the-sky dream, anyway.

"Maybe." She sounds neither expectant nor particularly excited. Her tone is more reminiscent of how she might respond if you asked her if she'd rather eat turnips or radishes. She hates them both.

"But you love him …" I prompt.

"I do."

"And you'd like to get married again."

"I guess." Ellen and her husband, Don, divorced on their first wedding anniversary. As most of their union was fraught with turmoil, my sister never really got a chance to enjoy wedded bliss. She has since likened the institution to starring in a season of Squid Game —never knowing where the next attack was coming from. I suppose it's lucky that Don didn't hurt my sister physically, but the emotional abuse left one heck of a mark.

"If you got married, you'd still have time to have your own family." Please procreate, Ellen, so you can have a new creature to smother with your devotion.

"Henry's kids are enough," she says matter-of-factly before adding, "I'm not sure I want to take the risks associated with late-in-life pregnancy."

"You're only thirty-eight," I tell her. Which is ten years older than me, which is probably why my sister behaves more like my mother than my sibling.

"Mom had you at thirty-eight," she reminds me like my existence is the sole reason our mother acts like a crazy person most of the time. After I was born, she suffered from postpartum anxiety—an affliction that never fully went away. Talk about helicopter parenting.

I finish tucking rolled-up pairs of underwear into their packing cube before carefully placing the pale pink square next to the sock cube. "Just because Mom had hormonal problems doesn't mean you will, too. Every pregnancy is different."

"Maybe. But having the hormones of a sixteen-year-old one day and then returning to middle-aged hot flashes the next is not my idea of a good time."

"Thirty-eight is not middle aged."

"It is if you die at seventy-six." Ellen glares at me pointedly. Strangely, that's the age both of our grandmothers passed.

I'm not ready to give up hope of my sister finding a new hobby, so I tell her, "Cameron Diaz had her kids at forty-seven and fifty-one." I don't mention that both pregnancies were with a surrogate or the fact that the movie star most assuredly has a staff of helpers to aid her in the travails of later-in-life motherhood.

My sister rolls her eyes before pushing herself toward the side of the bed. After throwing her legs over the edge, she stands up. "Yeah, me and Cameron could be twins." Running her hands along the sides of her curvy body, she shimmies. "Except she's seven inches taller than I am and probably seven sizes smaller."

"And more than seven years older than you when she became a mom." I really don't want to let this go.

Ellen adjusts the waistband on her three-pleat wool pants that are almost identical to the kind our mother used to wear. She claims with the extra room from the gathered fabric, she can fit into a size smaller than normal. "Call me as soon as you check in. In fact, call me as soon as you pull into the parking lot. "

I fold my suitcase over on itself before zipping it closed. Setting it on its wheels, I respond, "I'll do my best."

Ellen suddenly turns toward me and throws her arms around my neck. "I love you to the moon, Molly Boo! Have a great time!"

"I'm sure I will," I tell her, somewhat confused by her enthusiasm. "It's just another business trip, you know."

Tipping her head to the side until her left ear is nearly touching her shoulder, she says, "Exciting things happen in December."

"There's Christmas and New Year's Eve," I tell her. "And I'll be back home for both."

Ellen ignores me. "This could be like your very own Hallmark movie. Stylish young city gal flees her urban home for a quaint inn and falls in love with the surly lumberjack who lives next door."

"Except I'm going to Wisconsin and all those Hallmark movies take place in Vermont." Pulling my suitcase out of my bedroom, I add, "And I'm not looking for a lumberjack to share my life with. I'm perfectly happy the way things are."

"Liar," Ellen hisses.

"I'm not lying. I love my life in Chicago. I have a great job, and a nice apartment. I have friends. I'm perfectly content."

"You're still pining after Kyle, aren't you?"

"Kyle and I broke up over two years ago," I remind her. "I'm not pining, nor have I ever pined. I was sad, then I got over it."

She cocks her left eyebrow like she's inspecting an invasion of tiny laugh lines around her eyes. "Which is why you never date. Because you're over it?"

"I don't date because I'm not interested in dating right now," I tell her. "I'm building my career. I'm taking care of myself. You of all people should understand the importance of that." Ellen is always talking about how women should put themselves first. Case in point, she called Henry on his last birthday and told him she couldn't go to the party celebrating his big 4-0 because she'd booked herself a spa weekend. And while I admire her love of self, she can take it too far.

My sister finally concedes. "If you say so. Just keep an open mind."

"I'll be gone for two weeks, Ellen. No one falls in love in two weeks."

She slides into her parka and zips it. "Christmas is a time for miracles."

"Yes, it is," I agree. "Maybe our Christmas miracle will be you getting engaged so you can make me an aunt."

Instead of playing along, Ellen picks up her purse and blows me a kiss. "Call me as soon as you get there. Love you, Boo!"

I wait until she's gone before opening my refrigerator and chucking out the things that will go bad before I get home. Being that I travel a lot for work, my fridge is usually bare bones. As such, the only items I toss are a pint of milk for my coffee, a wedge of brie that's been in there for months, and a bag of lettuce that's past rusty and has started to resemble a thick soup.

Once I dump the garbage bag down the chute, I go back into my apartment to retrieve my suitcase. Looking around, I decide that my bachelorette pad looks sad. I decorated it when I was in the height of my beige phase, so pops of color are few and far between. I wonder if that's how people see me. Boring, beige Molly with no boyfriend and no life outside of work.

The fact that I haven't put up any Christmas decorations yet adds to the feeling of sterility. I have to force myself out of my current contemplation before I fall into a real existential crisis. No good can come from this kind of navel gazing. I'm fine , I tell myself. My life is good. I'm perfectly content.

That's my story, anyway, and I'm sticking to it.