When I open it, Finn is standing there shirtless in a pair of red-and-green-striped swim trunks with gold-rimmed aviators resting on his head. His skinny chest is bronzed after three days in the sun. “What are you doing here?” he asks.
“We switched rooms; the walls are not as thick as you and Theo think they are.” Theo rented out all twelve rooms of the boutique hotel, so we have the run of the place, and with only three rooms occupied there was no reason to stay in the room next door to Finn and Theo, listening to their marathon reunion sex.
“Whoops,” he says, not sounding at all chastened. “We haven’t seen each other in a month.” Theo and Finn have been doing long distance since Finn left New York. Theo let it slip after dinner our first night on Holbox, after a couple of mezcal margaritas, that he’s looking at houses in LA, but he made me swear not to tell Finn. He wants to ask Finn to move in with him on Finn’s birthday next month.
“Did you want something?” I ask.
“I wanted to see if you were up for an adventure. Apparently you can walk the sandbar out to the tip of the island and sometimes there are flamingos. We wanted to go before lunch.”
“Yeah, let’s do it.” I pull on a pair of cutoffs over my bathing suit and slide my ponytail through the back of a Yankees hat for shade. There’s no need to bother with shoes on the island; there aren’t any real roads, just sandy pathways that golf carts take at an alarming clip.
We step out the front door and onto the teak pool deck. The hotel is built around a triangular swimming pool and each room has a back door that opens directly onto the small turquoise pool. Theo got the staff to set up a twelve-foot artificial Christmas tree in the middle of the deck. It’s wrapped in gold garland and decorated with a hodgepodge of ornaments, some of which I recognize from years past at Theo’s. The hot dog was always a favorite. I’m glad it made it here.
Hidden speakers play “Dog Days Are Over” by Florence and the Machine. At first, Theo asked them to play “Feliz Navidad” on a loop, but we got sick of it within an hour. So I whipped up a playlist for the trip—this one not depressing at all, but rather a compilation of songs that remind me of our happiest memories as a group.
Finn and I pass through the outdoor reception area and take the short path down to the beach. “Oh, I listened to your podcast on my run this morning!” he tells me. I had kicked him and David out of the apartment while Clementine and I recorded. It was too much pressure having an audience. “It was incredible. I had no idea that Clementine’s record label sold her masters and she had to find a way to buy them back in secret. No wonder her last album was so angry.”
The launch of Aural History, the first episode of which aired last week and immediately hit number one on both Apple Podcasts and Spotify, is just one of the things we’re celebrating this week in Mexico. Finn’s first show at Netflix has been greenlit to start production, and Priya’s starting her new job at Estée Lauder next week, helping to build a brand-new content vertical for them. And, of course, it’s our first Christmas in July.
For actual Christmas this year, David and I have plans to spend Christmas Eve with Brooke and her family in New Jersey and Christmas Day with his family in Connecticut.
When we get down to the beach, David is asleep in the shade on a lounge chair with an issue of Bon Appétit open on his chest, while Priya and Marcus, the orthopedist who put her cast on last Christmas, have waded into the crystal-blue water and appear to be deep in conversation. They’re new. He asked her on a date after he took off her cast in March, and they’ve been inseparable ever since. We’re supposed to be vetting him, but we unanimously decided we adored him before the plane even left the tarmac at JFK. I’ve never seen Priya happier. For all its disasters, last Christmas managed to work some magic for us all.
When Theo spots us walking down the beach, his face splits into a grin. He’s wearing a Santa hat with his candy-cane-striped swim trunks. “Having a good Christmas?” he asks when we reach him.
“Maybe our best ever,” I say.
“I think we’ve got a new tradition on our hands,” Finn says.
The only thing better than Christmas is two Christmases.
Acknowledgments
I always read the acknowledgments first, so it’s quite a thrill to write my own and recognize the many people who made the book you’re reading a reality.
Thank you to my incredible agent Allison Hunter for being my fiercest champion, always texting back in two minutes flat, and giving the best pep talks and advice. I am so grateful that we found each other and cannot imagine a better partner for this wild ride. Thanks to Allison Malecha, my amazing foreign rights agent, who continually floored me by selling the shit out of this book abroad and giving life to dreams I truly didn’t even know to dream, and to Maddalena Cavaciuti, my brilliant UK agent. Many thanks also to Natalie Edwards, Khalid McCalla, and the extended Trellis fam.
To Marie Michels, my US editor, you have made this book unequivocally better. First and foremost, thank you for “getting it” and for loving Hannah and Finn as much as I do. Thank you for your astute notes and line edits, for pushing me to make this book better, and then fielding my panicked phone calls when I was sure I couldn’t do it. I have treasured building our relationship, and hope this is only the beginning. To Pam Dorman, thank you for being this book’s fairy godmother in every way and championing me and my writing. To Hannah Smith, my UK editor, I am so grateful for all your insight, enthusiasm, and careful line edits to Theo’s speech (and also for teaching me the phrase “rat-arsed”).
Thank you also to the entire team at Pamela Dorman Books and Penguin who have worked so hard on this book, and especially to Paul Buckley and Liz Casal Goodhue, Christine Choi, Bel Banta, Nicole Celli, Janine Barlow, Matt Giarratano, Claire Vaccaro, Alexis Farabaugh, and Clarence Haynes. And to Patrick Nolan, Andrea Schulz, Brian Tart, Lindsey Prevette, Kate Stark, and the Penguin sales team, your belief in this book truly means the world to me.
Thanks to my team at UTA. First and always to Shelby Schenkman for being the first to see something in my work and remaining my biggest cheerleader. I’m forever grateful. Thanks also to Addison Duffy and Olivia Fanaro. If this book ever becomes a movie (imagine!), it’s because of them.