Dashing Through the No

by Sivec, Tara

  My panting breaths cut off for a second as I raise one eyebrow at her. Even though Millie came out of the womb as a mature adult, she’s still like a little sister to me.

  “Oh, don’t give me that look. I haven’t done coke since that Christmas party at Marilyn Manson’s house last year,” she informs me. “It was so boring. You would expect someone like him to at least sacrifice a human or two over eggnog. After he made us sing “Silent Night” for the third time surrounding his piano, I started sprinkling it in my cocoa.”

  “So that’s why you’re banned from his house,” I muse. “I always wondered.”

  “I thought his grandmother was the maid. She looked parched, so I gave her my drink. I didn’t tell her to snort lines off of the bartender or remove any article of clothing. That was all her,” Millie complains.

  I hear my name being shouted from across the room and turn to look through the sea of people to find Brandon waving at me while making hip-thrusting motions behind the female pink-onesie-wearing server from earlier, and my heart starts beating faster again.

  A few feet away from Brandon, my father makes eye contact with me, smiles, and motions me over to a group of men from his firm and a reality star who was just accused of sexually assaulting a minor. My skin breaks out into a cold sweat once more, and I quickly loosen my tie completely until it’s just hanging around my neck, while I unbutton the top two buttons of my white dress shirt. It feels like an elephant is sitting on my chest, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t take a deep breath as I stand here surrounded by celebrities and the Hollywood elite, panting like a damn dog.

  “Are you okay? Now you look like I did that morning I woke up in Lindsay Lohan’s bathtub,” Millie says, studying my face closely.

  “I’m fine.” I wave her away with my hand and a smile in between pants, even though I’m definitely not fine, and all I want to do right now is jump into the ocean and swim the hell away from here. “But I think I’m having a nervous breakdown.”

  “Oh, goodie! Something I can help with,” Millie cheers happily, bending over a little and leaning her upper body toward me, since both of her hands are still full of McDonald’s. “But just so you know, I’ve had three nervous breakdowns, and this is not that. It’s just your garden variety panic attack. If you want to just reach down into the front of my dress, I’ve got Xannies, Percocets, a couple of Tylenols with codeine, and one horse tranquilizer that I would not recommend mixing with alcohol or you’ll wake up in a yurt in Tibet with John Mayer.” Millie laughs with a humming sigh as she shimmies her body a little to try to get me to reach into her tit pharmacy.

  “I told you; I don’t do drugs. I’m going to law school. I’m going to be a lawyer,” I remind her, swallowing a few times before I can speak again as I glance over to see my father looking annoyed and heading in this direction. “I literally just vomited in my mouth when I said that. What is happening to me right now? Am I dying?”

  My heart beats faster. Butterflies are flapping around so hard in my stomach it feels like they’re going to claw their way out. And my father is still looking irritated with me as he makes his way over here through the pink nightmare of flowers and people.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I whisper as my eyes dart around the room.

  I don’t want to be a lawyer.

  I don’t want to be friends with douchebags.

  I sure as shit don’t want to become my father.

  And I definitely don’t want to be here right now, on Christmas Eve, in a house filled with fake people—minus Millie—and pink shit, instead of pine garland, and twinkle lights, and genuine happiness.

  “Did you know my parents never took me to see Santa? Never. Not once. That’s pretty shitty, right?” I laugh a little hysterically.

  “I’m Jewish, and even I’ve sat on Santa’s lap. But you know, he was young, and hot, and he wasn’t wearing pants at the time, and my dad paid him to be at one of our parties, so it felt a little hookerish when we snuck off, but whatever. I was a very good girl that year.” Millie laughs softly before giving me a reassuring rub of her hand on my arm.

  I don’t know what the hell I want to do, but I know I don’t want this. This feeling like I’m losing control of my own life and if I don’t get out now, I never will. I’ll be stuck here in this pink nightmare on Christmas Eve without ever knowing what it’s like to truly be happy and free. Without ever knowing what it’s like to wear matching Christmas pajamas, sitting in front of a tree with someone who loves me for me. Who lets me be whoever I want and doesn’t shame me for my choices, whatever they might be.

  “You’re an adult. Do whatever the fuck you want to do,” Millie says with a shrug like it’s the easiest thing in the world as she shakes the ice cubes around in her cup.

  Looking beyond my father a few feet away who stopped to chat with someone on his way to me, I see the wide-open sliding doors the lead from the formal living room out to the backyard. And beyond that, even though it’s pitch-black and I can’t really see anything, I know the ocean is out there, filled with nothing but endless possibilities.

  So why in the hell am I still standing in here? Millie’s right. I’m an adult, and I can do whatever the fuck I want to do.

  Tugging my tie the rest of the way off, I lean over and drape it around Millie’s neck.

  “Thank you,” I tell her with a smile, still feeling like I might throw up, but at least I’m not panting anymore.

  “For what?” she asks.

  “For… just being Millie.”

  Giving her a kiss on the cheek, I step around her, pulling my tuxedo jacket off and tossing it over a pink loveseat as I go. And then I unhook my cummerbund and chuck it into a marble fountain in the middle of the room with pink water running through it. With each step I take through this pink nightmare of a house, I unbutton another button on my dress shirt until they’re all undone and I’m tugging it out of my black tuxedo pants.

  “Bodhi! What the hell are you doing?” my father whispers angrily as I walk right on by him without even glancing in his direction while I yank my shirt off my shoulders and down my arms.

  I continue through the house, smiling and nodding at all the shocked faces as I toss my dress shirt into a flower arrangement in the middle of a table, and then I pause by the sliding doors to the backyard to kick off my shoes and pull off my socks. Walking a few feet out into the grassy backyard until I can hear the sounds of the waves crashing into the shore, I hear a cough to my right and turn my head to find a guy in a pink onesie leaning against a palm tree and smoking.

  “Are you the valet?”

  The man takes another drag and nods.

  “Yep.” The smoke puffs out of his mouth with that one word.

  “Is that the good weed?”

  “Yep.” He nods again, holding the joint out to me. “You want a hit?”

  My hand reaches out just as my father makes his way outside to me.

  “Have you lost your goddamn mind? Put your fucking clothes back on. You are embarrassing me!” my father whisper-growls from right behind me.

  “I don’t want to go to law school. It doesn’t make me happy. In fact, it makes me pretty damn miserable,” I quickly blurt out with my eyes squeezed closed.

  As soon as the words are out of my mouth, as soon as I say them out loud for the first time, that feeling like I’m going to throw up instantly disappears and I finally feel like I can breathe. I turn around to face him just as a loud bark of laughter comes out of him, but it’s not a sound filled with comfort and joy.

  “I don’t give a shit about what you want. Get your clothes back on and stop acting like a child.”

  His predictability just makes me smile brighter as I reach out and take the joint from the valet’s outstretched hand without dropping my father’s angry stare. Bringing it up to my mouth, I take a long, deep drag and hold it in my lungs for as long as I can before letting it out. Followed by a good solid two minutes of bending over at the waist, coughing so hard
I’m fairly confident one or both of my lungs will fly up out of my mouth and land with a splat on the grass in front of me.

  “Daaamn, that really is the good weed.” I cough and laugh as I finally stand back up, hand the joint back to the valet, and find my father looking at me like I just pulled a knife out of my pocket and stabbed everyone in attendance. Who now all have their faces pressed up against the windows just inside the house, watching our every move.

  “Bodhi Preston Armbruster, what in the hell has gotten into you? Do you have any idea what kind of damage control I’m going to have to do after this stunt?”

  “I don’t really give a shit.”

  My father’s gasp can probably be heard from space it’s so loud. I’ve never talked back to him. It’s always yes, sir. Right this minute, sir. Because my father has always demanded respect, and I have always obediently done whatever he’s asked of me. And for what? So he can continue not giving a shit about me or my happiness?

  While he stands in front of me, opening and closing his mouth wordlessly, I turn back to the valet who is still casually puffing on his joint while he looks back and forth between me and my father. Taking another drag when the guy offers it to me, I only cough for about thirty seconds this time before I can speak again.

  “What are you doing after this?” I ask the valet.

  “Me and a few guys packed up a van and we’re heading to Florida, then off to Costa Rica. Got a bead on some jobs being caddies to professional golf players on the National Tour.” He shrugs as we pass the joint back and forth, and my father’s face gets so red someone should maybe call 911.

  “I hate golf,” I tell him, holding the joint between my lips for a few seconds as I unbutton my tuxedo pants.

  “Everyone does. But it pays okay, and you get to travel. Plus, free hot dogs.”

  “Right on!” I smile, taking one last hit before handing what’s left of the tiny joint back to him. “I’m in. Just need to do one last thing first.”

  Turning away from my new friend, I quickly shove my pants and boxer briefs down my legs and kick them off to the side as I stand back up and smile at my father. “I quit. Fuck you for never taking me to see Santa.”

  With that, I turn and walk away from my life with my dick flopping around in the ocean breeze and half of Hollywood staring at my bare ass as I make my way down to the sand.

  “You’re going to be nothing but a joke! A loser with no future and no one will ever take you seriously! You will have nothing!” my father shouts after me as my feet pad through the sand, and every weight on my shoulders disappears the closer and closer I get to the water.

  But I’ll have my freedom, and matching Christmas pajamas, and that’s all that matters. Maybe someday I’ll find someone who takes me seriously, but until then, I’m going to do whatever makes me happy.

  Picking up the pace, I run the rest of the way through the sand, laughing as I go until my feet hit the freezing cold water, shouting at the top of my lungs when I take a running leap to dive headfirst into a wave, “Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good toke!”

  CHAPTER 1

  Tess

  “Resting Grinch Face.”

  Present Day, one week before Christmas

  Summersweet Island

  “He was killed by The Polar Express.”

  “Sadly, he was trampled by reindeer.”

  “He fell off the roof while hanging Christmas lights.”

  “Freak hunting accident. Shot himself right in the dick and bled out.”

  “He was bashed in the head with a stocking holder when he was playing tag and it fell off the mantle.”

  “He was kissing Santa under the mistletoe and died from mouth herpes. Very tragic.”

  “I spiked his drink with rat poison when he wouldn’t stop asking me when we’re going to get married and have babies, Jan. Would you like another peppermint martini with extra crushed-up candy cane? At least I think the white powder I’ve been using all night is crushed-up candy cane.”

  Jan Rowe, the librarian at Summersweet Island Library, quickly backs away from the bar after cheerfully asking me the same ridiculous questions as half the island tonight, and not being amused at all by one of my many responses. She turns and disappears into the crowd, while I take her abandoned empty martini glass and run it through the triple-sink cleaning station before setting it on the rubber mat behind the bar to dry. Why I decided to work this extra shift for the Summersweet business owners’ yearly Christmas party they throw for all their workers is beyond me, and I should have just let one of my other bartenders handle it. Aside from the fact that Christmas gets on my last damn nerve every year because it’s always so hectic, and over the top, and entirely too cheerful, with way too many organized events, I’ve gotten nothing but non-stop questions about my relationship since I walked in the door of SIG tonight.

  “When are you and Bodhi going to tie the knot?”

  “Has he proposed yet?”

  “Do I smell babies in your future?”

  What you’re smelling is my brain melting every time you ask me a stupid question like that, Margaret.

  Or it’s quite possibly the paper snowflake I just ripped from the fishing line hanging down from the ceiling right above my head and am now holding over a red jar candle surrounded by holly leaves, letting the candle’s flickering flame eat away at the stupid decoration. I feel a tad calmer once the paper snowflake is incinerated into ash inside the jar, just like I always do when I light something on fire that annoys me and it instantly disappears. And since I can’t exactly light everyone in this room on fire, the shit hanging above my head that I have to keep smacking out of the way as I make drinks for people all night will have to do.

  “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” is playing from the sound system, people are enjoying the Christmas cocktails I’ve been churning out all night, and they’re all happily dressed in their best and gaudiest Christmas sweaters. This is a time of great joy and happiness, and I look around the room and just want to burn it all to the ground. It’s not that I hate Christmas, exactly; I’m just more annoyed than normal this year, and it’s all my boyfriend’s fault, so he has to die. Repeatedly and tragically.

  “Heads up!”

  Even though I’m distracted and in a shit mood, my reflexes are still spot on. My hand flies out to catch the small foam Santa stress ball that just came flying at me from across the room. I carefully toss it back high over the heads of guests to my nephew-through-friendship, Owen, before popping the top off a bottle of beer and sliding it over to Gina from Starboard Sweets.

  The only good thing about bartending this Christmas party, aside from the extra money, is that all of my friends are in attendance and I get to see them while I work. Palmer and Birdie have been wrapped around each other in a corner, sucking face all night in between talking everyone’s ears off about their wedding plans. Shepherd has been taking last-minute Christmas orders for his stupid shirts covered in glitter. Wren and Owen have been playing catch with the stress balls they gave out as party favors. Laura, Birdie and Wren’s mom, has been juggling two dates all night, who still aren’t aware they’re both on a date with the same woman. Murphy keeps getting yelled at for turning the Christmas music off because it gives him a headache, and now he’s over by the hors d’oeuvres table handing a kid an entire plate of cookies after making him cry. And Emily has been teaching everyone the “Jingle Bell Rock” dance from Mean Girls. So, pretty much just your typical Friday night on Summersweet Island.

  “Jeanine Char just told me the news about Bodhi meeting his unfortunate demise when a squirrel jumped out of the Christmas tree he cut down and chewed off his carotid artery.”

  For the first time tonight, I smile when Birdie slides her empty glass across the top of the bar for me to refill. Not only is she my BFF, and seeing her always puts me in a better mood, but she’s the only person in this room tonight wearing a ridiculous Christmas sweater that I approve of. It just has two giant red and green
Christmas ornaments on it and says Balls in pretty cursive lettering.

  “Oh, good, that one’s getting some traction. That squirrel one’s my favorite,” I tell her as I remove the clear plastic Christmas ornament from inside the glass of melted ice, toss it into the trash, and dump out the water. “You want another Jingle Ball cocktail?”

  She nods emphatically, and I get to work making Birdie her signature Christmas cocktail that coincidentally goes perfectly with her sweater—pine-infused vodka, soda water, and cranberry juice garnished with a sprig of pine and a few frozen cranberries. All served inside a clear plastic Christmas ball with a red-and-white straw coming out of the ornament’s opening at the top, nestled into a glass filled with ice.

  “Another Jingle Ball cocktail for the woman who never shuts up about her fiancé’s balls,” I announce to Birdie as I slide her finished drink across the bar top to her.

  I haven’t come up with a signature cocktail for all of my loved ones yet, but the ones I have invented are pretty genius, if I do say so myself. The Naughty or Nice for Wren with vanilla vodka and Godiva chocolate liqueur, the Snow Dance for Emily with Bacardi rum and coconut, the Holiday Glitter Cosmo for Shepherd, which is just a regular Cosmo with a shit-ton of edible glitter on the rim, and even though he doesn’t drink hardly ever aside from a beer with the guys every once in a while, the Snoop Noggy Nog for Bodhi, consisting of vermouth and heavy cream.

  “Palmer’s balls are as delicious as this cocktail,” Birdie muses, and I grimace while she takes a sip from the candy-cane-striped straw. I’m beyond happy for my best friend that she’s engaged to the love of her life, but Palmer is like a brother to me, and it’s continuously difficult to look him in the eyes when I know the exact size, shape, and flavor of his holly berries. “Remind me again why you keep telling everyone Bodhi is dead instead of working as an elf at the fire station’s Christmas party tonight?”