waiting longer than two minutes before a giant raindrop struck me on the cheek. It was followed shortly by several more. Kathryn grumbled about the cold and the damp, and I popped open my umbrella.
“You can join me where it’s dry,” I offered.
Kathryn tucked her chin into the collar of her black coat. Her big hazel eyes blinked at me, and for a moment, I thought she would decline my offer.
“I’m not contagious, you know,” I said.
Her eyes rolled but she conceded and stepped under the canopy of my umbrella. We stood shoulder to shoulder and our breath created little clouds in the cold air that rose upward and evaporated.
Across the street, a young couple emerged from Waterfront Station and walked arm in arm across the parking lot to Steamworks, the bar I often met my siblings at every second week or so. She rested her head on his shoulder as they walked, both seemingly unbothered by the rain, and he wrapped an arm around her waist. From all the way across the street, I could hear them singing Christmas carols to each other.
I gazed to the right where the street forked and West Cordova, the street on which we stood, gave way to a lower one-way street called Water Street. That might have been my favorite part of the city because of the historic Gastown District of Vancouver. It still had old lampposts that reminded me of simpler times as well as cobblestone streets and sidewalks. Over the years, local businesses eventually submitted to the times and were replaced by modern storefronts boasting displays of designer shoes or Vancouver-weather attire to draw in the hipsters and hikers. It wasn’t uncommon in that part of the city to see displays of flannel, denim, knitted caps, and hiking boots during that time of year.
Gastown looked beautiful during the holidays. White lights twinkled in every tree down the street as far as the eye could see and every business had its own display of lights and decor. If one were to wander down there at this time of night, they would find that part of the city still wide awake and bristling with activity. Bars and restaurants stayed open late pouring festive cocktails and playing holiday music. Strangers made friends over spiked cider, and friends who hadn’t seen each other in ages due to the pace of their own lives sat down to catch up for the only amount of time they had to spare during the holiday season.
There was something special about that to me.
In the other direction, down the street to my left, the older parts of the city all but disappeared and were replaced with modern architecture and skyscrapers for several blocks. The street ran along the water down toward the Vancouver Convention Centre, outside of which was the annual Christmas Market that drew crowds from all over the lower mainland, not just Vancouver. I imagined it was shutting down for the night right about then and preparing to open back up again in the morning to delight patrons with hot chocolate and Christmas cheer all over again.
“Have you ever been to the Christmas Market?” I asked.
Kathryn peered at me out of the corner of her eye. “No. Why?”
“You’ve lived in this city for how many years and you’ve never been?”
“That’s what I just said, isn’t it?”
Yes. She was a prickly little flower indeed. I chuckled. “It’s no wonder you don’t like Christmas. You’ve never actually put in any effort and tried it before.”
“Tried it?” Kathryn arched an eyebrow at me. “It’s a day, Ethan. Not a specialty coffee.”
A yellow cab came around the corner onto Cordova and I flagged it down. We moved to the edge of the curb and I kept the umbrella over her head as I opened the back door of the cab for her. “Not true,” I said. “Christmas isn’t just a day. It’s whatever you want it to be.”
Kathryn turned back to me. I hadn’t expected her to stop and I found myself closer to her than I’d ever been in my life. She rested an elbow on the open door of the cab and smirked at me. I only half heard what she was saying because I got lost in the way the Christmas lights on the Harbour Centre building at my back danced in the hazel of her eyes like a holiday parade.
“You know what job you’d be really well suited for, Ethan?” she asked as amusement lingered in the corners