“Whoa, there are way more people here than I expected,” Priya says as we sidle up to a high-top table at Wicked Willy’s, a pirate-themed bar offering $2 Bud Light Limes on special. They have a steadfast commitment to a tropical theme, even on Christmas.
“College bars are always a good bet,” Finn says. “You get a mix of international students, Jewish kids, and the ones that can’t afford airfare, but can afford two-dollar beers. There are tons of people alone on Christmas if you know where to look.”
Priya looks around, taking in our fellow Christmas orphans.
“What’d you do for Christmas last year?” Finn asks her.
“Took half an edible, went to see the new Alvin and the Chipmunks movie, and ate an entire jumbo popcorn and a family-sized bag of Twizzlers. What’d you two do?”
“Oh my god,” Finn says, and flashes his gaze toward me, both of us remembering how great last Christmas—our first Christmas living in New York—was. “So it’s going to sound super cheesy, but we went to Dyker Heights. You know, in deep Brooklyn where they go all out on Christmas lights—”
“No, seriously,” I interrupt, “they go all out. I have never seen Christmas lights like this. Like, this is break the bank on your electric bill kind of lights.”
“So, we did the lights,” Finn says, “and then we were walking back to the subway at Eighty-Sixth Street and we passed this Italian restaurant. A real old-school red sauce joint that looks like somewhere the Mafia would eat, and it’s packed. So we decided to check it out. Turns out, it was the family that owns the place’s Christmas dinner, but they invited us to join them. I’ve never had ravioli this good before.
“We ended up sitting at a table with Carmela, the great-great-grandmother. Everyone was serving her like a queen. We sat with her taking shots of limoncello while she told us stories about growing up in Sicily.”
“Finn was obsessed with her,” I add.
“She was like a real-life Sophia from The Golden Girls. She sent me a Christmas card this year, you know.”
“That sounds really fun,” Priya says. “Seriously, thanks for including me this year.” She glances around the bar taking in the mix of twentysomethings, shouting and laughing. “I still can’t get over how many people are here. Actually, there are some cute guys. See anyone you’re interested in?”
“There’s nothing here for me,” Finn answers without bothering to look. “Everyone here is violently straight.”
“Fair enough,” she says. “What about you, Hannah?” They both focus their attention on me.
“I don’t need anyone else. Especially not today. I just want to spend the day with you guys.” I knock the neck of my beer against theirs and take a swig.
* * *
? ? ?
?Five hours and four bars later, we’re huddled around at a sticky wooden table at the Bitter End, a grungy bar–slash–music venue. The game of Never Have I Ever Priya and I are playing is interrupted when a man wearing a T-shirt printed with the bar’s logo steps up to the empty stage. He taps the mic twice, sending screeching feedback echoing through the room.
“Sorry about that,” he says. “Just wanted to let you know we’re going to start the open mic in fifteen minutes and there’s a sign-up sheet over at the bar.”
“We should sign Finn up,” I tell Priya. He stepped out a few minutes ago to answer a call from his sister. He was out of fingers in the game anyway.
“No, that’s so mean! I’d be furious if you ever did that to me.” Priya looks horrified by my suggestion.
“Trust me, he’ll love it.”
* * *
? ? ?
?Finn suggests we leave after the first two lackluster performances—a drunk college kid butchering “Summer Girls” by LFO and a woman scream-singing a particularly angry rendition of “You Oughta Know.”
“Let’s stay for a couple more,” I beg. “Please?”
He gives me a funny look but doesn’t protest.
When they announce his name, Finn glares at me. “I should have guessed.” But his mouth quirks into a coy smile.
“You don’t have to,” Priya says with a hand on his shoulder. “I told her it was cruel. Just so you know, it was all Hannah!”
Before she can finish her sentence, he’s already strutting up to the stage, performer mode activated.
* * *
? ? ?
?Priya stands on her chair and wolf whistles when Finn finishes his cover of “Bleeding Love.”
“Goose bumps, Finn, I have goose bumps.” Priya thrusts her arm in front of his face when he makes it back to our table. “You were amazing. I had no idea you could do that.”
“I told you I sing. We had a whole conversation about auditions last week when we went to the launch party for that energy drink.”
“Well, yeah,” Priya says, “but I didn’t think you were actually good.” Her hands shoot to her mouth, the lubrication of the four previous stops on our bar crawl having loosened her tongue. She rushes to cover: “I mean . . . why aren’t you getting cast if you can sing like that?”
Finn doesn’t take offense at her gaffe. “Everyone at these auditions is good. Talent is table stakes. But I don’t have any connections or credits. I’ve had directors tell me I don’t have the right look for the part, which is sometimes code for I’m too Black, but other times code for I’m not Black enough. Or sometimes the reason is totally minuscule. Like one time, I almost got cast for a role, but I was too tall for the costumes, and they didn’t have the time or resources, or maybe just the desire, to refit them.”
“That’s bullshit, Finn. That’s so unfair,” Priya rails.
“Life isn’t fair.” He shrugs his shoulders. “Does anyone want another?” He holds up his empty vodka soda.
“I’m good,” I say. “I have to be up at the ass crack of dawn for work tomorrow.” As the most junior full-time employee at Z100, I had no illusions about getting the whole week off. The station is closed for Christmas, playing a preprogrammed loop of music and ads, but tomorrow we’re back at it bright and early.
“Hannah Gallagher, rising star of radio, destined to outshine her starving artist best friend as she rockets towards success,” he says in a fake newscaster voice.
“I don’t know that I’d call my minimum wage job ‘success.’ I don’t think that’s what they were talking about at BC when they said to ‘set the world aflame,’?” I say, quoting the oft-invoked Jesuit motto they lobbed at us during various platitude-heavy speeches throughout college. But secretly, I was overjoyed to be converted to a full-time employee last month after paying my dues for more than a year as an unpaid intern.
No one was more surprised by my post-college career glow-up than me. I figured I’d wait tables or work at the box office of whatever theater’s production Finn was starring in. I only applied to the internship on a lark after a particularly frustrating conversation with a counselor at the campus career center. “What do you love?” she implored. The only things I could think of were music and my Christmas tradition with Finn, and only one of those was monetizable. Finn, on the other hand, is having a harder time finding his footing.
“Is anyone else starving?” Priya asks.