Page 1 of Not Home Alone

ONE

MERRILY

“It’s fine!” I don’t mean to yell at my dad, but I need to be louder than Michael Bublé right now. He’s Bublé-ing hard and fast in a one-horse open sleigh; my dad is driving impossibly slowly down Main Street because he’s waving at everyone; the backup singers are daddle-doodle-daddling at a frantic tempo; and my heart is racing at breakneck speed. I can’t believe I never noticed how aggressive this arrangement is before.

It’s not ideal, because I’m trying to convey how super chill I am about how totally fine everything is. And it really is! It’s fine that there’s no room for me to stay at the house I grew up in this holly jolly Christmas. It’s wonderful that my dad finally got remarried, and his new wife Connie’s very large, remarkably noisy family is staying with them. I am overjoyed that he will be surrounded by so many other people during our favorite holiday, even though I haven’t been able to spend Christmas with him in five years. Really!

Okay, I’m not overjoyed, but I am positively joyed.

Because it’s really fine!

“Is it fine, sweetheart?” he asks, giving me the side-eye and also yelling as he slows The Christmas Barn van to a stop at the crosswalk. The controls for this adorably ancient van’s CD player haven’t worked for years, and my dad refuses to pay to get it fixed. So it blares Michael Bublé’s Christmas album whenever the engine’s running. It’s not possible to lower the volume or eject this CD. But he doesn’t like listening to anything else anyway. “It kind of sounds like you’re about to set your hair on fire. I know it’s a bummer. Especially since your mom and her people are flying off to Paris without you.” He adjusts his Santa hat so he can scratch his forehead.

By my mom’s people, he means her current husband, Doug, and Doug’s three kids. Mom moved to Santa Fe nine years ago when I left for college. I’ve been doing corporate event planning since I graduated from the University of Michigan and December is the busiest time of year for the company I work at. I haven’t had time off for Christmas in five years, so I started begging my boss for a December vacation back in the summer. She told me I’d earned it, so yay! I get to spend two weeks in Holly Grove.

Alone.

I do love it here. Especially this time of year. My dad sometimes grumbles about all the changes being made to the town lately, as the Moody family continues to buy and sell as many properties as they can. But as we drive through it, most of what I’ve seen so far looks exactly as I remember it. All of Main Street is wrapped in garlands, twinkling with Christmas lights. I can practically hear the echoes of local Midwesterners hemming and hawing with exuberant joy and warmth. Just kidding, I can only hear Michael Bublé and my rising blood pressure.

I’m definitely not stressed out because I’ve been scanning the streets for that person I hope to never run into while I’m here. Because I don’t think about him. Almost absolutely never.

The adrenaline surge has mostly subsided now that “Jingle Bells” is over and we’re dreaming of a “White Christmas” at a moderate tempo.

“First of all,” I reply, as if I wasn’t just assaulted by big band harmonizing, “I would never set my hair on fire. My hair is the shiny, blonde star that sits atop the glorious human Christmas tree that is me. Second, Mom did invite me to go to Paris with her and her family, but they came to visit me last year. I wanted to see you.” I reach over to pat his knee. “And it really is fine. Better than fine. It’s great. I’m on vacation! In December! I’m looking forward to seeing everyone tomorrow, and I’m really excited about staying at the Home Alone House.” That last thing is true. And about wanting to see my dad. And the part about my amazing hair. But mostly the part about the house.

It’s not literally where they shot Home Alone, but my friends and I used to call it “the Home Alone House.” The real house from that movie is in a different part of Illinois, but the house at the edge of the neighborhood I grew up in looks just like the McCallister house, only smaller. It was the most festive-looking house in town and the family who lived there looked so happy and normal. According to the photos on the vacation rental website, it’s still beautiful and welcoming and it’s a miracle that I was able to rent the place while I’m here, because I coveted that house all through my youth.

It is beyond fine that my dad’s new wife’s family won’t be in that house with me. No one will be in that house with me. Not a creature will be stirring besides myself. Not my incompetent coworkers in Ann Arbor. Not my relentlessly irritated roommate who won’t let me decorate a single inch of our apartment outside of my bedroom. Not the pizza delivery guy who ogles me even when I answer the door in my objectively unsexy hooded fleece onesie pajamas. Definitely not the guy who sat next to me on the bus from Madison who listed every brand of IPA he’d ever tasted, even while I pretended to be asleep.

It will just be me. Me and my Christmas cheer and Christmas tree and Christmas lights and Christmas decorations and Christmas PJs and Christmas songs and Christmas movies and advent calendar and eighty-seven unread Kindle books and infinity Christmas cookies and my homemade spiked eggnog. And the Santa Claus is Going to Town pleasure device I got myself as my own Secret Santa when I polished off that bottle of Merlot while online shopping.

I check to make sure the shoulder bag I’m holding in my lap is zipped up so my dad can’t see my holiday vibe.

“I still don’t like the thought of you staying there all alone on Christmas Eve,” he says, ruefully. “I’m sure April would let you sleep on the floor in her room, if… I mean, in your…” He trails off, realizing his new teenage stepdaughter April’s room was once, until very recently, my room.

Which, like everything else, is fine. Because I am a twenty-seven-year-old woman who can afford to rent someone else’s property. I hear April wants to paint the walls and ceiling black, but that could be fun! “I do have to be available to take calls from work in case anything comes up, so I’ll need somewhere quiet to retreat to. And it doesn’t sound like there will be a room like that at your house any time soon.”

“Our house, sweetheart,” he assures me. “It will always be your home.”

“I know,” I say, without pointing out to him that it really doesn’t daddle-doodle-daddling seem that way at the moment.

My dad takes a deep breath and then sighs. “April is terrifying.”

“Agreed.”

“Connie’s sisters never stop talking. Like, ever.”

“I believe it.”

“Connie’s parents are nice…”

It’s my turn to give him the side-eye.

His pursed lips spread into his familiar, some would say iconic, maniacally cheerful grin. “Maybe Connie will let me stay with you for a night or two.”

I pat him on the knee again. “Dream on, Pops.”

The light turns green, and he lets the van inch forward so he can make a left onto the side street that leads to the blissfully quiet house where I’ll be staying. I spot a group of middle-aged men in matching red and green satin bomber jackets unloading an accordion, a tuba, a drum kit, and various other instruments from a U-Haul truck. There’s a big wreath made of beer cans and red ribbons attached to the front grill of the truck. I guess The Polka Bums are in town to play The Schnitzel Factory.