Elliot, however, knows me better than that.
“Holly,” he says warningly, sitting down in the seat next to me, rather than the one at the opposite end of the long table, which Iassumed he’d go for. “Out with it. Did something happen? Is it the pasta? I know I’m not the best cook in the world, but —”
“No. No, of course not. The pasta’s fine. It’s lovely,” I tell him, forgetting that I haven’t actually tasted it yet. “Look, it’s just this song,” I go on, seeing he isn’t going to give up until I tell him the truth. “It always makes me sad. It’s … well, it’s a difficult time of year. That’s all.”
Elliot listens carefully to the last few notes as they fade out.
“Is it your mom?” he asks, his face softening. “Does it make you think of her.”
“Her and … oh, just everything,” I say, twirling my fork into the spaghetti. “It’s one of those songs that tricks you into thinking it’s lovely and festive, but when you really listen to it, you realize it’s actually quite sad. It’s about missing someone. About wishing things were different. God, I hate this time of year.”
For just a second, I think he’s about to reach out and hug me. For another second, I think I might quite like that. But then he appears to reconsider — or maybe I just imagined it — and picks up his cutlery instead.
“So you still hate Christmas, huh?” He takes a bite of his pasta, somehow managing to make it look easy, while I struggle to get mine to stay on my fork. “Even though you live in a town that seems to have become weirdly obsessed with it since I was last here?”
“Especially because of that,” I reply vehemently. “It’s like it’s Christmas all year in Bramblebury now. Did you know we have two separate Christmas shops now? Only they’re called ‘shoppes’ obviously, because that’s what the tourists like.”
“Sounds horrible,” Elliot agrees gravely. “D’you want me to change the radio station? Or switch it off? I could put on some k-pop instead? Or, I don’t know … gangster rap? Death metal? That’s probably as un-Christmassy as it gets.”
“No, it’s fine. We should be safe now that Ella Fitzgerald’s done her bit,” I reply, smiling in spite of myself. “If Joni Mitchell starts singingRiver, though, I won’t be responsible for what it does to me.”
“That one’s my favorite,” Elliot protests, grinning at me over the top of his wine glass in a way that takes me back ten years, to when he used to smile at me like that a lot, and it never failed to make my stomach flutter. It turns out it still does. This does not bode well.
“Oh, mine too,” I reply, looking away. “It’s a great song. But…”??
“Sad?”
“Sad. Very, very sad.”
I pick up my own glass and take a large gulp, wondering why so many Christmas songs are about people leaving places — or justwishingthey could.
“This is really good,” I say, gesturing to the pasta in a bid to change the subject. “I didn’t realize you were such a good cook.”
“Well, I didn’t really get the chance last time I was over here,” he replies. “But I’m a man of many talents. Cooking is just one of them.”
He goes back to his food, and a silence descends, his reference to ‘the last time’ he was here serving as an unwelcome reminder that we’re not just two old pals having a nice chat about our favorite music, and what kind of pasta we like.
“I still can’t believe we found those letters,” I say, grasping at the first topic that comes to mind when the silence gets too much to bear. “You couldn’t make it up, could you?”
“No,” agrees Elliot. “Well, youcould,I suppose. It would make a great opener for a novel. I wouldn’t have been able to resist the temptation to make their reason for not staying together something a lot more interesting, though.”
“Zombie apocalypse?” I suggest, not particularly wanting to revisit our earlier conversation about whether or not Evie and Luke did the right thing. “Alien invasion?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of a deadly virus that sweeps the world,” he deadpans. “But no. Just … something other than them beingsensible. I hate it when people aresensible. It’s just so disappointing.”
“I guess I can see why it would be a bit of an anticlimax for you, considering how invested you were in their story,” I say pointedly. “You have to admit, it’s realistic, though. That’s how real life is, most of the time. I would know; my entire life has been an anticlimax.”
It is, admittedly, a very weak attempt at a self-deprecating joke, but, judging by the look that crosses Elliot’s face, he’s taking it very seriously.
“Do you really think that?” he asks quietly. “That your life’s been a disappointment?”
“Well, no, notreally,” I reply carefully, sensing that this conversation is about to take a turn I’m not entirely prepared for. “I mean, my life might not exactly be bursting with drama and excitement, but I have a house and a job. Two jobs, really. I have my health. So, you know, it could be worse.”
I could be snowed into an Airbnb in the middle of nowhere with the ex who left me, for instance. Oh no, wait…
“‘I have my health?’” saysElliot, the corners of his mouth twitching. “Oh, come on, Holly. It’s okay to want more than that, you know. You’re allowed to have dreams. Next you’ll be telling me there are kids starving out there, so we have to count our blessings.”
“Therearekids starving out there,” I mutter, stung. “And weshouldcount our blessings. It’s … well, it’s what grown-ups do, Elliot. We’re not kids anymore. And there comes a point when you have to accept that life isn’t just all about doing whatever you want, without any consequences.”
