Page 13 of Go Back to December

As I kick through the fallen leaves that litter the ground, a door opens behind me. Faint notes from a ska chorus filter onto the patio before it slams closed.

A guy strides down the steps and comes to a dead stop when he finds me in the leaves.

He’s one of two Very Attractive Seniors my roommate has come in pursuit of tonight. Beck or Bash. I never remember these rich-kid nicknames.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hi,” I eloquently reply.

He takes a step closer, glances around the empty garden.

It’s probably weird that I’m out here on my own, in the cold, nursing this watery beer, which tastes worse in a plastic cup. But I hardly know any of the kids at this party, and my roommate is currently occupying the attention of the other Very Attractive Senior in a quiet, dark corner inside.

“Can I ask you a question?” he says.

“Does that count?” I push dead leaves off the only chair in the yard and sink down.

The corner of his mouth lifts. “What color are my eyes?”

He crouches so that his face is close to mine. The lamp above the door illuminates one green and one hazel brown eye, both rimmed in long lashes.

“Is this a sobriety test?”

“No.”

“It’s a trick question.”

“There can only be one answer.” He pulls himself up and removes a wrinkled piece of paper from his pocket. “According to this driver’s license renewal form.”

“That’s discriminatory. David Bowie wouldn’t stand for it.”

His dazzling smile steals my breath. “No, he would not.”

He brushes leaves from the short stone wall next to my chair and perches on the edge.

“So which color should I choose?”

I wake in a flush of heat.

The fog of feelings the dream rouses won’t dissipate. I fling off the covers from the bed and totter to Manny’s tiny galley kitchen for a glass of water. As cool liquid slides down my throat, my nerves settle.

It’s been a while since I’ve had the dream. Reoccurring isn’t the right word for it. Sometimes, it’s an exact snippet, an instant replay from the night I met Baz. More often, it morphs into a scene like the one I’ve just experienced. All the familiar surroundings of memory, but the conversation twists into something strange. Or I can’t say anything at all.

In the dream, Baz is always kind to me, though. And I always wake with the warm, floating feeling I had when I left the party that night.

A phone chime notifies me I’ve missed a message. I pull up the screen to reveal Amal’s smiling face. She’s seated at a table draped with an embroidered cloth, bookended by balloons and the beaming faces of her family. They’re toasting her new status as a permanent resident by holding up flaky cuts of her aunt’s delicious baklava.

In the short time we’ve worked together, Amal has taught me so much about chasing opportunity. All our staff have. While there was never a moment in my childhood when we didn’t worry about money, it’s not a fair comparison to what they have sacrificed to succeed. My education and fair skin give me privileges most of them lack. With the café’s future in jeopardy, I’ve put everyone at risk.

My unchecked idealism led to this. Blackhart & Steele duped me into thinking their investment in the café was secure. I should have expected their betrayal. Every aid project and organization I’ve worked for has floundered or folded under financial strain, and I swore to myself I wouldn’t let it happen with this business.

We should have courted other investors, spread the risk. If I’m being honest, I’ve held the reins of the café too close, and it made us vulnerable.

Baz exploited that weakness. If he were serious about studying the café, he would have approached me first. It would have been a discussion, not an ambush.

To protect my future, I’ll have to do the same thing to him. Once I find the chink in Baz’s armor, maybe I can finally let go of the Baz I met at the Jungle House. The Gentleman Johnson, who walked me back to campus and didn’t cop a feel or steal a kiss. Maybe then, I’ll finally accept the Bad Bastard Baz has become.

My mind needs some distance from evil plots and the dream and the emotions I’m working to stuff back into storage, so I walk over to the suitcase that contains most of my worldly goods and dig out the chubby wool scarf I’ve been knitting for Craig. With all the holiday chaos, I won’t finish before Christmas, so I’ll have to send it to him after he returns from his flight training exercise.