The crowd starts to thin out a bit, and I’ve just begun picking up plates, continuing to chat with the people who linger over coffee and pie, when I feel eyes on me.
My spine tingling with eerie déjà vu, I scan the room, and gasp when I find the source of the gaze.
It’s her.
The woman from the train station in Manhattan is watching me, lifting her plastic cup of apple cider in greeting when our eyes meet.
Her smile is wide and friendly. And that pisses me off.
Dumping the plates into a trash bag, I walk to her table and drop into the chair across from her. “You.”
She smiles wider. “Me.”
“Who are you?”
She merely sips her drink, the smile never fading.
I try again. “How’d you find me?”
Still, nothing but the smile. It’s not quite vacant—I think she knows where she is and who I am—but there’s definitely something . . . otherworldly about her.
“Did you send him?” I ask, leaning forward and touching her hand gently. “Did you send Colin?”
The woman blinks.
“Look, I know you were trying to help, and I’m sure in some version of the future I’m meant to be with Colin, but I feel like I need to tell you . . . I tried to take your advice, I tried to find my ex-boyfriend, and it’s just not the path for me.”
She takes a sip of her cider, then puts it down. “Who’s Colin?”
Ah. Apparently she sees faces but not names. “My college boyfriend. I kind of never got over him, or so I thought. But then he came here, and it was like this perfect fated moment, except it wasn’t perfect at all.”
She takes a bite of pie, unperturbed by my inner turmoil, but I can’t seem to stop babbling.
“I believe you think you saw someone for me, I really do,” I say, trying to break it to her gently. “But while Colin and I are compatible—I mean, he’s a Libra, hello—I don’t love him. I love someone else, and he means so much more to me than any prophecy or vision or destiny . . .”
My voice falters as I realize what I’m saying. Not that I might love Mark. Not that I think I love him. Not that I’m trying to figure things out.
I’ve already figured it out. I figured it out so long ago, I’ve just been an idiot, hiding behind Magic 8 balls and forcing someone else to make the decision for me, because it was easier. Easier to have a fortune cookie tell me my future, because it meant that I couldn’t make mistakes.
“Except I did make one,” I whisper. “I failed to see what’s been in front of me the whole time, and I love him.”
I say it again, louder, the truth of it making me laugh. “I love Mark.”
I see a few people look at me, including Erika, who rolls her eyes from across the room but smiles a little.
I need to find him. Tell him. Win him back.
I stand up and look down at the woman. “You were right about my parents’ anniversary. I’ll give you that. But you were wrong about the love of my life being an ex-boyfriend.”
“I never said that.” Her voice is clear and steady.
I frown. “What? Yes, you did. At the train station, you told me—”
“That you’d already met your one true love. I never said you’d dated him.”
I’m about to tell her I’m not in the mood to bicker over semantics, but then the pieces click into place.
You’d already met your one true love. I never said you’d dated him.
I close my eyes and laugh. “Mark. You were talking about Mark. This whole time . . .”
I laugh harder, a vaguely crazy sound, but she doesn’t seem to notice.
She pushes her plate toward me. “Can I have some more pie?”
“Pie. She wants pie.” I laugh again and head toward the door. “Erika, can you get the woman another slice of pie? I’ll owe you.”
“Don’t mess this up!” she calls after me.
I don’t intend to.
In fact, I have the perfect plan.
December 24, Late
My plan is brilliant, I’m still confident of that.
There’s just one problem. While it’s brilliant in theory, it’s dependent on one thing I can’t control: Mark needs to be here.
And he’s not.
It takes me only an hour to get everything I need, although I did have to beg Jackie at the drugstore to keep the shop open a touch past her 5:00 P.M. Christmas Eve closing time so I could get everything I need.
Once I had the supplies, though, the plan was complete in a matter of minutes.
And then I waited. And waited.
Mark left Rigby for me, I suspect so I wouldn’t be totally alone on Christmas Eve, and after I get everything ready, I settle down with the little dog on my couch.
I thought about doing it at Mark’s place, but the plan will really work better with a Christmas tree backdrop, and Mark doesn’t have one. It’ll make for a more romantic story when we tell our kids and grandkids.
I wait. I wait. I should eat dinner, but I’m too excited. I distract myself with Christmas movies, but I keep the volume low, one ear listening for the door.
At nine o’clock I turn the TV off altogether and check my phone. Maybe he changed his plans. Maybe he’s not planning on coming back to his house tonight after all and didn’t see my texts.
Maybe I need to go to him.
I call him. He doesn’t pick up.
I leave a message (or twenty—who’s counting?) telling him I need to see him—that it’s urgent.
I turn on Christmas music and wait.
And wait.
Midnight comes and goes, and I try to amuse myself by thinking about A Christmas Carol and what the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future would say to me tonight.
Past and Present would call me an idiot, probably.
Not the Ghost of Christmas Future, though. He or she would nod approvingly at my plan and assure me that I was going to live happily ever after with my best friend and love of my life. . . .
At 2:00 A.M. I find myself lying on my side in front of the Christmas tree, Rigby curled up against my back.
As Bing Crosby croons “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” I let the tears fall as I acknowledge what’s happening here.
He’s not coming.
And this is not a merry Christmas.
December 25, Early Morning
Mark
I rest a shoulder against the doorway and take in the scene in front of me, a smile playing on my lips.
My best friend really is an adorable idiot.
Rigby’s black head lifts when he sees me, little stub of a tail wagging wildly. I raise a finger to my lips telling the dog to stay quiet, and miraculously, he seems to understand.
He rests his head on his paw and stays where he is, plastered against Kelly’s sleeping form.
Easing into the room, I set the duffle bag on the floor and move toward her.
She’s wearing blue pajama pants with snowflakes, Grinch socks, and the atrociously ugly red sweater she insists on wearing every Christmas.
I reach out to wake her when I notice that instead of a pillow, she’s resting her head on her arm, and her arm is stretched across . . . a stack of white poster board?
What’s this sweet little weirdo gotten up to now?
I gently ease the posters out from under her arm, and though she makes a sleepy noise, stirring slightly, she doesn’t wake up.