My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories

“Where you trying to go?” I said, climbing off the couch.

Then I saw it.

A small card on the ground, just inside the door. My name written in neat, girl handwriting. I picked it up and looked through the peephole. Nobody there.

I tore open the envelope. A skinny Santa was on the front of the card, waving from behind the wheel of a hybrid convertible. The handwritten note inside said: “Leftover lasagna from the night you stood me up. Heat in microwave for two or three minutes. Also, Merry Christmas.”

I opened the door and found a large plate covered in tinfoil. She didn’t hate me! The second I reached down for it, though, Olive squirted out into the hall.

“Hey, man!” I set down the plate and lunged for her, but she took off up the stairs. The door slammed behind me as I took the stairs, two at a time, to Haley’s floor. Olive was nowhere to be found.

Great, I thought. My one damn job.

I hurried to the highest floor and searched the landing and looked out the window at the snow-covered fire escape, then I ran all the way back down to the ground floor and checked the front vestibule, where the mailboxes were. There was no sign of Olive anywhere.

After another fifteen minutes of unsuccessful searching, I found myself standing on Haley’s welcome mat, knuckles hovering in front of her door. She’d obviously left me a plate of food, as opposed to inviting me over, because she didn’t want to see me. And asking for help had never been my strong suit.

Still.

I knocked.

She opened the door right away, wearing a look of concern. “What’s wrong? I heard you go up and down the stairs like fifteen times.”

“Olive made a run for it. I can’t find her anywhere. Mike and Janice are gonna kill me.”

Haley grabbed her keys. “I’m sure she’s here somewhere. Come on.”

We went back to the top floor and looked in every corner. Haley even opened the window to the fire escape and stuck out her head. Nothing. Olive wasn’t in the elevator, either. Or the trash chute. Or the bike room. We scoured every floor, all the way down to the ground, but on the way back up Haley grabbed me by the wrist and pointed.

“You gotta be shittin’ me,” I said.

There was Olive, sitting right beside the tinfoil-covered plate, licking her right paw. She didn’t even protest when Haley scooped her up into her arms. I keyed open Mike’s door, and Haley set down Olive, and we both watched her saunter over to her bowl of dry food, not a care in the world.

“Scared me to death,” I said.

“You tried to cat sit and watch TV at the same time, didn’t you?”

I gave her a sarcastic laugh. “Seriously, though. Thanks. I don’t know what I would’ve done.”

“No worries.” Haley’s hair was wet, which confused me. And her eyes looked puffy. She reached down for the plate of lasagna. “Even if it was just a big ploy to get me back down here.” She handed me the plate.

“And thanks for this.” I stood there holding it, staring at the floor. “About last night, Haley. I’m really, really sorry—”

“I know you’re probably starving,” she said, cutting me off. “But is it absolutely crucial for you to eat right this second?”

“Now?” I said. “Not really. Why?”

“Put on your heaviest coat and rain boots and meet me downstairs in five.”

*   *   *

The clouds had finally cleared, and the sun was low in the sky. The outside air was crisp. I could see my breath as I followed Haley up the buried sidewalk. We were moving slowly because a thick layer of snow blanketed everything. “I seriously love being the first one to walk in it,” she said, crunching into a sea of untouched white.

“Same with me.” All I had on was a pair of shell-top Adidas, and my socks were already soaked. My Padres sweatshirt was way too thin. I had to bury my hands deep inside my pockets to keep them warm. But trekking through fresh snow in Brooklyn was pretty cool. Usually it turned into a nasty brown slush within minutes of falling.

When we got up to 7th Avenue, we looked up and down the empty street. “Tonight we have it all to ourselves,” Haley said.

“Where we going anyway?”

“Prospect Park. I have a feeling it’s gorgeous up there right now.”

All the shops and restaurants were closed, their graffitied storefront gates lowered and bolted shut. Trash bags were still piled high, buried under mountains of snow. The plowers had yet to come through so you couldn’t tell where the sidewalks ended and the street began. Not that there were any cars on the move. Or pedestrians, for that matter. Haley was right, we were the only two people out braving the post-blizzard conditions.

Halfway up the next block, we heard music coming from the open window of somebody’s brownstone. A corny Christmas song that didn’t even seem that corny. “Wanna stop and listen for a minute?” Haley asked. “It’ll feel more like Christmas.”

“Sure.” I brushed off two spots at the bottom of the stoop, and we sat down. It felt strange being so close to her. I thought about bringing up last night again, to try and clear the air, but the timing didn’t seem quite right. So I kept quiet, both of us listening to the music and thinking our own thoughts. The sun had ducked behind a row of brownstones to the west of us, and the wind had picked up slightly, but for some reason I no longer felt as cold.

Haley bumped her knee against mine. “I have to admit something to you.”

“One last round of the getting-to-know-you game?”

She grinned a little and shook her head. “No, we’re done with that.” She picked at a loose string near the pocket of her coat. “So, you remember when you came up to check out my shower?”

I nodded.

“Well, a funny thing happened that night after you left. It miraculously started running again.”

“Wait,” I said, slow on the uptake. “But you still came down to use Mike’s—”

“Oops.”

It dawned on me what she was saying. She’d used the shower as an excuse to … keep coming down to see me. “So, your pipes aren’t frozen anymore?”

“I don’t know if they ever were.” She reached into her hood and pulled out a few strands of her damp blond hair. “I had just finished showering when you knocked on my door. My mom would kill me if she knew I was sitting out here with wet hair.”

We heard little-kid laughter in the apartment with the music, and we both looked up. But you couldn’t see anything. It sounded like a boy.