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“Oh, yeah,” Maye waved it off. “He’s trying it out.”
She spent the week dodging her coworkers.
On her way home from work one afternoon, her dad surprised her with a phone call. She pulled over and answered right away.
“Papi! I was going to call you this week!”
“Mija, I miss you,” he said. “How are you doing, good?”
“Yeah, I’m okay…”
“Dime,” he said. “What is it?”
“Well, Randall and I broke up. Actually, he broke up with me.”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he said tenderly. “Would you like to talk about it?”
“Not really…I’m kind of sick of thinking about it at the moment.”
“Well, if you need to, you can call me anytime,” he said. “So, your auntie says Tracy has you doing a holiday cousin’s TV show or something?”
“Ha, well, sort of,” Maye wasn’t sure how best to explain the nuances of the situation. “She’s dragging me along for one of her wild holiday adventures, yeah.”
“That sounds like a good distraction for you.”
“I hope so,” Maye said. “So, what are you up to? Where are you?”
“Oh, great. We’re great. We’re in Guanajuato, Mexico,” he said. “Here, listen.”
She could picture her dad reaching out his phone to capture the environment around him.
“You hear that?” he shouted, before pulling the phone back to his ear. “The sounds of the city? Absolutely beautiful down here. Maybe a trip would be good for you, mija. Oh—that reminds me. Your mother and I are planning a European Christmas market cruise over the holidays this year. There’s room for you if you’re interested in leaving that town of yours?”
“That does sound nice, but I think Tracy has me pretty booked up this holiday season.”
“Another time, then,” he said, just as he always did.
“Papi?” she said. “Thank you for working so hard to keep our family close while we were younger. That must have been really hard to do. Even though we aren’t near each other a lot these days, I still feel close to you all the time.”
“Of course, mija. It was the only way, mi corazón. I loved our time together. I wish you could be here now. We could sit, un cafecito, watch the people…”
“One day, Papi,” she said. “One day. Well, I should go. I need to get home.”
“Of course!” he said. “I don’t mean to keep you. I love you, sweetheart. Talk soon.”
For her first Friday night alone, she arranged the chicken parm and Alfredo so she could sit on the couch and enjoy her dinner while relaxing with some TV. Even though it was just her, leftovers would be good throughout the weekend.
As Maye flipped through the channels, she stopped when a familiar face caught her eye. It was Chris, her soon-to-be co-host. Maye figured it wouldn’t hurt to get a little more familiar with his work, so she decided to give the movie a few minutes. She groaned loudly when the title splashed across the screen: Floating Down the River of Denial: A Sweet Summer Romance.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she mumbled.
“This week,” the TV announcer said, “Christoffer Robert R. Walker stars as a riverboat captain who is navigating denial, both in his job and his personal life. Can he move past his recent breakup by throwing himself into his work and distracting himself with an initiative to protect an ancient burial ground from the giant shipping conglomerate? Or will reminders of his past keep him from moving forward? Find out now!”
- 5 -
Downtown Tree Lighting
The morning of the downtown tree lighting, Maye woke up with a knot of anxiety in her stomach. Tracy had been building up the event all week since she returned from the Christmas in July convention, so the threat loomed large over Maye’s day. She spent most of her morning searching her condo for anything that Tracy might consider festive enough for an “epic Jul-tide event,” as she called it. As if Maye needed the additional pressure, Tracy began texting Christmas movie GIFs, holiday emojis, and messages that added to the anticipation.
