“Lo. I’m so sorry. I’m still in Buffalo, and I missed the last train of the night.”
“Tom.” It’s more exhale than anything else.
“I know.”
“But you’ll still be here. For Christmas Eve?”
“I’ll be there,” I say with more confidence than I feel. “I swear to you. It may be the actual eve, but I’ll be there.”
I rest my hand atop the ring in my bag. To propose.
Why does that word feel so brittle?
Lolo tucks her hair behind her ear. “Okay. Okay. But . . . how?”
My gaze cuts across the room to Katherine, who’s going from vacant rental car counter to rental car counter, rummaging around where she should absolutely not be, as though hoping to find a spare set of keys that the employees left behind.
For a moment, I’m glad that it’s Katherine I’m stuck with. Not only is she quick-thinking in a crisis, but she has a blatant disregard for rules, social norms, and anything that stands in her way.
If anyone can find a solution, it’s her.
Ironic, considering she’s also the problem.
“I’m working on it,” I tell Lolo, careful not to bring undue attention to my traveling partner. Easygoing as Lo is, I doubt she needs the reminder.
“So . . . what happened?” Lolo asks, and I think I hear an unspoken this time tacked on to the end.
Katherine happened.
“We missed the connecting train,” I say instead.
Lolo’s eyes narrow for a fraction of a second, although I don’t know if it’s my use of the word we or suspicion that I’m leaving out crucial details.
Then her features smooth out as though she’s deliberately decided to let it go, and I try to remember that this is what I like about her. Love about her, I quickly amend. Unlike Katherine, who has to make a federal case every time she has an opinion about something—which is always—Lolo opts to let things go if they’ll cause friction.
“Okay, so no train. Are there any planes getting out of Buffalo? Given the storm.”
“We’re not that lucky. But we’re looking into getting a rental car!” Somehow I manage to say this with absolute optimism as though I’m not omitting the rather important detail that there are no rental cars.
“A rental car? Won’t that take even longer than the train?”
Yes.
“I don’t have a lot of options, sweetheart,” I say gently. “This huge storm has wreaked havoc on an already busy travel time.”
She lets out a little laugh and runs her fingers through her blond hair. “And to think, Planes, Trains and Automobiles was one of my favorite movies growing up. I’ll never watch it the same way now.”
I laugh because, until this moment, I haven’t really had a spare moment to think about the similarities between my journey and Steve Martin’s. Obviously I’m Neal Page in this situation, the part of the duo that’s stuck with an unwanted someone.
I glance around at Katherine, who’s talking to a twentysomething couple with enormous backpacks. One of them has a neck tattoo; the other’s winter jacket has a spiderweb pattern. I hope to God she’s not asking them for advice.
Katherine looks my way and, much the same way she did at the airport when I was talking to Lolo, taps on her watch impatiently, as though I’m the one holding us back.
On second thought, I realize I’m wrong about the Planes, Trains and Automobiles comparison because Katherine is about as much the opposite of the jovial John Candy as it’s possible to be.
“Tom?” Lolo asks.
I look back to my phone screen.
She bites her lip. “You’ll be here, right?”
“I’ll be there,” I say.
“You already said that.” She closes her eyes for a moment and then opens them with a gentle smile. “I’ll be honest. This is weird for me, and I’m not above needing some reassurance here.”
“I swear I’ll get there by—”
“Not about that,” she cuts in. “About . . .” She exhales. “You’re traveling with your ex-wife, Tom. Can you just . . . you know. Tell me she’s covered in warts? Remind me of all the reasons you hate her guts?”
Lolo says all of this in a joking tone, but the last question is still a jolt.
Hate Katherine?
Have I ever said that?
My stomach clenches a little as I realize I probably have. It’s the sort of thing one says to one’s new girlfriend after breaking the news that he tried and failed at the marriage thing once before. I wanted to reassure Lolo that I was, in fact, marriage material and that it was Katherine who was impossible.
Because damn it. Katherine was impossible. Is impossible.
But hate her? I glance over to where she’s standing with her arms crossed, glaring at me. Her eyes bug out with another impatient Come on!
I almost smile because if I did hate her, nobody could blame me.
“Katherine and I are divorced,” I tell Lolo gently. “That obviously hasn’t changed. And believe me, this entire nightmare has been a painful reminder of all the reasons we’re divorced. Okay?”
Lolo hesitates, then nods. Mollified.
With a last reassurance that I will be there—on Christmas Eve—I end the call and gather Katherine’s charger, which she’s already holding out her hand for.
“You owe me,” she says, shoving the cord into her bag.
“That’s doubtful,” I say, looking pointedly at the injury on her head that started us down this whole path. “But if you’re about to tell me you found me a car or, better yet, a flight, I’ll happily reconsider the point.”
“No car,” she says. “I did some reconnaissance and learned that after all the flights were canceled, all of the cars were gone within half an hour, the employees not long after.”
“And the part where I owe you . . . ?”
Katherine holds up a hand, flashes two . . .
“Bus tickets?” I say incredulously, bending down to read them.
“Just try to be quiet this time,” she says, already wheeling her suitcase in the direction of the exit. “I’d hate for your chattiness to delay us. Again.”
I stare after her for a moment.
The bus?
“Come on. It’ll be an adventure,” Katherine says over her shoulder.
“I think I’ve had enough adventure,” I call after her, even as I start to follow.
I’m a little surprised to find I’m actually smiling. Even more surprised to realize . . . there’s nobody else I’d rather be on this adventure with.
TWENTY-FOUR
KATHERINE
December 23, 10:37 p.m.
“So,” I say, struggling to get comfortable on the bus seat. It’s not quite as bad as I imagined, but I think all the rushing around has aggravated the gash on my back because everything hurts. “Do we want to talk about it?”
Tom glances over. “Talk about what?”
I roll my eyes because he knows I saw a pretty blond woman on his phone screen. I just hope he doesn’t know that it felt like a kick to the stomach.
“Come on, Tom,” I say, a little tired. “You don’t have to be squirrelly about it. I know you’re not a virgin.”
He sighs. “Fine. You want to do this? Yes, okay? I’m seeing someone.”
“For how long?” I can’t help but ask.