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(He would never admit to Ernie that they were mediocre because Ernie was actually nice to him. Even if she wouldn’t let him experiment in her kitchen.)
“Holy shit, you guys, how can you afford this?” he said to the girls when he saw the menu.
“We’ve been saving up to surprise you for your birthday! We planned it. We told your parents they couldn’t take you without us.” Miriam rubbed her hands together. “We plotted.”
The meal was life changing. He sat in front of each plate in the degustation menu and wept as he put them in his mouth. He knew he loved food. He knew he wanted to cook, it was all he’d ever wanted to do, but that night he knew he was never going to be happy until he went to culinary school.
Chapter 5
Levi
The day after the second seder was awkward. He’d intended to talk to his siblings, but apparently the whole “secret marriage” was more evidence that he was too much of a fuckup for them. They’d left, taking Grant with them, which bummed him out. He liked Grant, mostly because Grant was seven and not yet disappointed in him. He’d promised Hannah that he would stay out of her way while Delilah Davenport visited, and everyone else was busy or avoiding him, except Miriam, whohewas kind of avoiding so he didn’t have to answer hard questions.
So, he wandered around, haunting the inn that had haunted him.
He’d meant what he said to Hannah about Carrigan’s All Year being impressive. Cass had opened the Christmasland on a kitschy whim, wanting to have a space where she could be the Eccentric Queen and collect people who worshipped her and never have to do anything she didn’t want to, or deal with anyone who didn’t adore her. She’d never wanted to deal with the boring parts, like worrying about money, and since she had a lot of it to burn through, she simply didn’t. Instead, she let his parents worry about budgeting and Elijah worry about the legality of her decisions, while she wandered off to a foreign port whenever she wanted.
She’d left the girls a huge steaming mess, which he’d only figured out between the lines of his parents’ and Miriam’s missives, because none of them would speak ill of her. Maybe he should be glad she hadn’t left it to his parents, but he couldn’t be. His mom would have had the whole thing sorted in a week. But the girls were doing a great job with the shit pile they’d inherited.
Miriam’s fandom, named the Bloomers, came on pilgrimages to see her Instagram-famous art. He was a closet Bloomer, never telling her how many hours he’d spent at sea reading her words and looking at her art, anchoring himself. Did he have a well-worn #BloomerNation tee he slept in when he was homesick? He didn’tnot.
The old barn had been converted to an event space, the Carrigan’s logo brightly repainted on the side, that creepy midcentury modern reindeer rampant next to a jaunty Christmas tree. The actual reindeer, which used to live in the barn, now had a temperature-controlled outbuilding his dad had custom built. They were spoiled rotten.
Noelle’s “work shed,” bigger than many reasonably sized single-family homes, he did not venture into lest she murder him on sight and claim self-defense. It looked as shiny and well-maintained as ever. Because he was petty, he lured Kringle out with the promise of some very high-quality Norwegian lox (Kringle was a fish snob) and carried him off to snuggle.
A small, miserable part of him had been hoping all of this would fail, and he could finally be free. And they would all understand that the Great Infallible Cass had been wrong sometimes. But they were killing it. They’d even managed to book a massive event with the governor’s daughter’s wedding, and he was proud of them.
Well, not Noelle, but everyone else.
When Elijah knocked on the door of his little back cabin the morning after Hannah kicked him out of her office, Levi was convinced he’d come to deliver divorce papers, and Hannah wasn’t even walking the few steps out the back door of the inn to deliver them herself.
“Levi,” Elijah said, surveying him from the doorway, “you look panicked to see me.”
“I’m thrilled to seeyou, the human, who I like and missed,” Levi clarified. “I would love to hear about your gorgeous husband and equally beautiful children. I’m a little panicked about you being here for work.”
Elijah smiled and kissed Levi’s cheeks as he walked in. “I’m very honored to be among the few people you like, and I’m not here about your divorce.”
Levi let out a breath. “Then can I make you a cup of tea? I’m having chai but I have a bunch of options.”
His mom must have snuck into the cabin at some point, because he’d come back to full snack provisions and an electric kettle.
“I would love some chai. And I would love to show you pictures of the kids. They were very sad not to get to talk to you more at seder. They always think of you as the guy who sent the matching rocking horses.”
“Ah, well, seder did not turn out exactly the way I expected, vis-à-vis getting to catch up with old friends,” Levi said, clearing his throat.
Elijah laughed. “Yes, I did notice that. Jason always says he loves to come to a Carrigan’s event because it packs more drama into a night than he can pack into a semester of high school theater class.”
This, for some reason, made Levi laugh until tears leaked from his eyes. Every time he caught Elijah’s eye, they both started laughing again.
Finally, after long, deep breaths, Elijah adjusted his tie and the sleeves of his shirt, which Levi remembered always meant he was going into Lawyer Mode.
“I’m not here about your marriage, but I am here for work—although I’m also supposed to pass on an invitation to dinner at the house, zero work involved.” He leaned over and pulled something from the side pocket of his briefcase. He reached across the tiny coffee table in the middle of the tiny front room of the cabin, setting a small manila envelope in front of Levi.
Levi sat back in his chair, his face half hidden in his scarf, staring at the offering like it was a cobra.
The envelope hadLevi Bluewritten on it, in Cass’s print. He did not want this. Whatever was in it would only destroy him more, and he knew that, even in death, she was doing it on purpose.
“Cass asked me to deliver this to you upon your return to Carrigan’s and to read you the following, as dictated by her: ‘Just open it, you little shit. Don’t be a chicken.’” Elijah looked up from his notes. “I would apologize for Cass, but it wouldn’t do any good.”
