While Priya and I wait for the others, I babble nervously about my gift exchange with David. The enormity of seeing Finn has me on edge. In April, I floated him a text to test the waters. A link to an article about the demolition of BC’s gym, affectionately called the Plex, with its weird-looking circus-tent roof, to make way for a new state-of-the-art athletic facility. Nothing personal, which gave me plausible deniability that the text wasn’t meant for him if he didn’t respond, which he didn’t. Two hours later, I couldn’t stand the idea of the text floating in the ether, and I sent a see-through excuse: Sorry, meant to send to someone else.
I know our fight is stupid. At this point, I’m mostly angry at him because he’s still angry at me. It’s the kind of fighting I did with Brooke when we were kids and she’d catch me listening in on her calls or I’d borrow her favorite tube top from the dELia*s catalog without asking. Eventually, our mom would say, “This house is too small for half its residents to be fighting,” and force us to say one nice thing about the other person, hug, and make up. But Finn and I don’t have any parents between us to intervene. And of the bystanders we do have, Priya is way too nice to tell us off and Theo is keeping his distance.
While I hope today ends with us burying the hatchet, I’m terrified it will only make things worse, and we’ll burn the bridge for good.
Ten minutes later, Finn rounds the corner from Bowery pulling a wheeled suitcase with one hand and Jeremy with the other. I didn’t realize they were still together. I have a momentary flash of anger at Priya for not telling me Jeremy would be here and letting someone new into our tradition without asking. I tamp down my annoyance because I already have enough grudges among today’s company, but I can’t shake the feeling that this Christmas is already getting away from me.
“Jere,” Priya squeals, “you came!” Another jab of annoyance, this one mixed with jealousy, that Priya’s spent enough time with Finn and Jeremy to be on a nickname basis.
“Sorry we’re so late,” Finn says. “We got the bus back from Scranton after breakfast and presents with Jeremy’s family and there was traffic.”
“I lied and told you to get here an hour earlier than you needed to.” Priya rolls her eyes at him and Jeremy hiccups out a nervous laugh. Still awkward as ever, I see.
“Hannah, you remember Jeremy?” Priya asks in an attempt to break the ice.
Jeremy scrapes his blond mop away from his forehead and smiles at the sidewalk instead of at me. Finn stares me down, and I want to blurt out a million apologies and beg for his forgiveness, but it doesn’t feel like the time or place. Not with Jeremy here. I wonder what Finn told him about why we’re not speaking. Not the truth. I can’t imagine they’d be together if Finn told him I made out with the man he’s in love with and he lost his mind over it.
I’m saved from figuring out the correct thing to say when a black Escalade pulls up to the curb, depositing Theo onto the sidewalk. “I thought I’d at least beat Finn here!” Theo slings an arm around Finn’s shoulder.
The knot in my stomach pulls even tighter. It seems there were no repercussions for Theo over last Christmas’s debacle; the two of them appear tight as ever.
“So will you tell us what we’re doing?” I ask now that the whole group is here.
Priya bounces on her toes as she looks around the circle, milking the big reveal. “It’s a Christmas-themed escape room,” she says finally.
A chorus of groans travels around the circle.
“What?” she asks, like she doesn’t see anything wrong with locking this group in a room for ninety minutes. She’s either completely clueless or an evil genius. From the challenging look she flashes my way, I’m leaning toward evil genius. “It got a write-up in New York magazine in October,” she explains. “It’s been sold out for months. Do you know the strings I had to pull to get these tickets? We’re doing it.” Her tone leaves no room for argument.
“Are there teams?” Finn asks as he inches closer to Jeremy.
“No. Why would there be teams? The whole point is to spend Christmas together.” Definitely an evil genius. At least we’ll have an activity to focus on.
Fifteen minutes later, Brian, a man with a pitifully sparse goatee in a Zelda T-shirt who introduced himself as our “puzzle master” without a hint of irony, leads us to our red-and-green prison.
Our room, one of three on the premises according to the plastic sign on the front desk, is themed “Seventies Grandma Christmas.” The room is the size of my and Priya’s apartment, meaning small. It looks like Brian hit up the estate sale of a tacky Long Island grandma and dumped all his loot in here, the former offices of a now-defunct startup. In one corner is a floral couch with a crocheted red-and-green afghan draped over the top, and in another is an artificial silver Christmas tree decorated to the max with its lights set to blink. I can already feel a headache building behind my eyes.
It even smells like an old lady in here, something cloying and floral with mildewy undertones, like maybe the previous owners’ perfume soaked into the couch over the years and their scents merged, or worse, they died on this couch.
“You have ninety minutes,” Brian explains, “but if for any reason you need to leave, I have a camera feed set up to the front desk. So just wave and let me know. I have to say that for insurance purposes, but you’re not gonna want to leave. This room is sick! It’s our hardest room. Built it myself.”
I cough to cover a laugh, embarrassed for his earnest excitement about this hideous room. Across the room, I catch Finn smirking, too.
You’d think being locked in a room with someone you’re not speaking to would be plenty of motivation to race to find clues and get out, but as soon as Brian takes his leave, Finn begins monologuing to the room at large about his Christmas Eve with Jeremy’s family in Pennsylvania even though no one asked. He does a solid five minutes on the eggnog alone. As he delivers his soliloquy, a blotchy rash climbs the side of Jeremy’s neck, creeping higher with every passing minute. I guess I’m not the only one attuned to the tense vibe in here.
I roam the room running my hands over the walls, each covered with a different wrapping paper motif, with the dim hope I might stumble on a hidden latch that will open the door and end our misery.
The only person who shows any enthusiasm or aptitude for the escape room is Theo, who’s taking this way too seriously. “I found a map of the North Pole, but it’s ripped.” He holds up a page that looks like it’s torn out of a kids’ coloring book. “I think I need a decoder? Or maybe there are more pieces somewhere in the room. Look for map pages!” he urges us with the seriousness of a man coaching his wife through labor.
“I found a key!” Priya exclaims. “It was in the Christmas tree like an ornament.” She proffers a massive old-fashioned key that looks like it would unlock a crumbling stone mansion in the Scottish Highlands.
“Does it open the front door?” Finn asks under his breath. “Maybe we can leave?”
A sardonic chuckle escapes me before I can catch myself. I wish it were that easy.
Then my fingers skim over a button on the wall that’s been wrapping-papered over and is invisible to the naked eye. I press it and a creepy-looking Santa pops out of an imposing grandfather clock across the room shouting, “Ho! Ho! Ho!”