Mom and Dad and my brother, Titus, had come last Christmas. This Christmas, everyone went home, but I couldn’t afford to leave. Not even for two days. I needed the money.
And that sucked.
“I have friends in town who are having me over for dinner tomorrow,” I lied to my mom, because I had friends in town but I was too busy to put the time in for them to be true friends who would invite me over for Christmas dinner.
So I was making myself duck breast, potatoes dauphenois, and asparagus, with homemade rolls, ending in devil’s food cake with homemade frozen custard. I also had a shed load of munchies. And I’d bought myself (and the cabins’ DVD menu) six new DVDs.
I was going to eat through Christmas. Eat and watch romantic movies, lament my lonely life, my distance from my family, the fact that I hadn’t snowboarded once since I came to Colorado, and therefore I was living no dream.
I was stuck in reality.
And that sucked too.
“Your dad and I’ll make plans, come visit you next month. Take you boarding,” Mom said to me.
“That’d be awesome, Mom,” I replied quietly, and it would, the boarding definitely but mostly Mom and Dad being with me.
“We’re about to go to church,” she told me. “But we’ll call tomorrow after the mayhem. You can get a good gab in with everybody.”
“Okay.”
“And you have plans tonight?” she asked.
I had plans.
They included eating myself into a pre-Christmas stupor, while drinking myself into an alcoholic one, and watching Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock miss each other repeatedly and heartbreakingly until the universe guided them together. After that, I was going to continue on my Bullock-a-thon watching Hope Floats and reminding myself it’s never too late to find happiness while hoping the likes of Harry Connick, Jr. showed up at my cabins sometime in the near future. It could be the likes of the real him who was cool and handsome and could croon and play piano or it could be the likes of his character in that movie who could be hot and honest and take on me and all my crap. If either opportunity was afforded to me, I wasn’t going to quibble.
Tomorrow, I’d break out the new DVDs for more romantic torture.
“I have plans tonight,” I confirmed with my mom, forcing a chipper tone into my voice and not doing half bad.
“Okay, honey. We’ll call tomorrow.”
“I’ll look forward to it.”
“Have a good night.”
“Don’t let Dad heckle the choir this year.”
She burst out laughing and shared, “I haven’t allowed him into the eggnog yet.”
“Good call,” I muttered.
There was still humor in her voice when she said softly, “Love you, angelface.”
“Love you too, Momma.”
She rang off and I stared at my phone.
Then I jumped when it rang.
The screen said Blocked but since it was not only my cell but also the cabins’ business number, I took the call.
“Merry Christmas!” I greeted, force-cheerfully.
“Woman.”
At that word and who I knew was saying it, I blinked at my lap.