Dear Santa

by Lulu Pratt

  As far as I know, my mom and dad still have no clue what Harper and I were up to, but it’s really only a matter of time.

  The way that Harper throws herself into her car and the way the tires squeal on the pavement from how fast she pulls out tells me that she’s not in the best state of mind, and some deep instinct rises up in me. I have to follow her, even if I’m not all that sure that I’m the person she wants to see right now.

  I tell Mom I’ll be back in a bit without telling her where I’m going. She doesn’t much care, since she’s busy with putting things away from the party, and doesn’t even ask any questions as I head out the door to my rental.

  If I was Harper, where would I go? She’s driven away too fast for me to realistically follow her. I’ll have to make a few guesses.

  I decide quickly that she’s probably not at the library, one of the few of her favorite places that I can remember from when we were in high school. I try to look for her car at the bars I pass by, but I don’t see it anywhere.

  Finally inspiration strikes and I decide that it’s worth at least checking the lake.

  I pull into the parking area next to the lake, and her car is the only one there. Of course, she’s not in the car, and for a second I actually feel my worry increase. I have to hope she didn’t do anything too stupid. I park and get out of my car, and start towards the shoreline, looking for Harper.

  She sees me before I see her. So much for my military training. I see she’s been crying, her face is red, but she actually somehow manages to look cuter than I’ve ever seen her, vulnerable in a way that the Harper I knew in high school never let herself be. But she also looks angry.

  “What are you doing here, Zane?”

  I wonder if Harper came out here for the purpose of screaming where no one can hear her, her voice is pretty hoarse.

  “I saw you leave,” I reply.

  “Mom and I got into a fight, and I just… I couldn’t even be around to listen to her anymore,” Harper says, shaking her head and sounding so exhausted I have to wonder how she has the energy to be so angry.

  “What were you fighting about?” I know it has to be about Nadine finding us in the yard the night before, but I can’t really figure how that conversation could lead to Harper storming off and driving away to the lake.

  “You, mostly,” Harper says, her voice almost sarcastic.

  “What were you fighting about me for?” I want to know whatever it is that has Harper so upset, what her mom could have possibly said.

  “She went on and on about how it’s wrong for you and I to have anything to do with each other. How we’re practically siblings, and that I’m probably just one of dozens. Things like that. And she said that I shouldn’t ruin things between my parents and your parents when I need to start thinking about settling down,” she lets it all spill out.

  It’s a lot to take in, and I think about it for a moment or two, trying to sort through what the hell is going on.

  “Your mom’s not entirely wrong, at least on a couple of things,” I say finally.

  Harper’s eyes widen and I know that look. I’ve seen it. I saw it when the kids in middle school pushed her to the breaking point with the teasing, when I was too much of a coward to stand up for her.

  I had said exactly the wrong thing, and now I am about to pay for it.

  “What do you mean she’s not entirely wrong?”

  I try to think, to think fast enough to diffuse this bomb that apparently the girl in front of me has been all along.

  “I mean, hell, we both agreed that we probably shouldn’t have done what we did the night before,” I tell her.

  “Oh, oh, so I’m just a notch on your belt now, and you’re worried just like my mom is that having had sex with me is going to cause drama between your parents and my parents,” she says.

  “What? Where did that come from?” I don’t even know what she means by being a notch in my belt. I mean, I know the saying, but what does that have to do with what we’ve been up to? It isn’t like I keep score.

  “You said my mom wasn’t wrong, and what she said is that all you’re looking for is an easy lay, so is that what I am to you?”

  “An easy lay? Come on, Harper,” I say. I know I’m doing this all wrong, but I can’t stop the words coming out of my mouth. “You are not an easy lay.”

  “So how long have you been waiting to add me to your score card, huh?”

  “I don’t keep score,” I tell her, trying to keep my nerves in check, trying not to let her escalate the situation. My drill instructor in basic was big on the non-escalation techniques, but somehow when it comes to Harper all that training goes out of the window.

  “Look, Zane, I knew you slept around. I know that about you. I’m not stupid. And it’s not like I even care, since, like we both talked about last night, it’s not like this is going anywhere. But you could at least be honest with me,” she says.

  “Honest about what? All I said was I can see your mom’s point about certain things,” I say.

  “Forget it,” Harper tells me. She shakes her head and turns away from me, and I see her reach into her purse for her keys.

  “Harper, don’t drive off like this. You’re upset,” I say.

  “Like you even care,” she counters, and when I try to make a grab for her wrist, to keep her there at the lake with me, she nearly twists her arm into injury to get free of my grip.

  I could hold onto her, I could force her to hurt herself, which would, likely as not, make her have to stay and calm down, but I don’t want her to break her wrist or tear a ligament, so I just let her go. Harper bolts to her car, and pulls out of the parking lot at the lake.

  All I can think to do is sit down. She’s obviously not going to want me to talk to her, to follow her. All I can do is hope she doesn’t get into a wreck, and that she finds somewhere to go cool off for a bit.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  HARPER POLSEN

  I drive around for a while, playing Hot Hot Heat at full blast, and trying to figure out where in the town I can actually go to where I won’t have to deal with anyone. I know I was probably overreacting to what Zane said, but with so much going on, and with him being such a bonehead, I couldn’t stand being around anyone, especially him, for even a moment longer.

  I decide that maybe the pitching and rolling of my stomach will calm down if I put something more than coffee and a pastry in it. I pull into a McDonald’s and manage to keep my twisting, turning feelings in check for a few minutes. I order a ten-piece chicken nugget meal with large fries and a drink, knowing better than to add any caffeine to my already-amped system.

  I pull my car over into a strip mall parking lot and keep my music going as I eat, shoving salty, delicious fries into my mouth, taking sips of my drink and eating the chicken nuggets as if they have some kind of mysterious healing power. As if my life depends on wolfing down the food as fast as humanly possible.

  I do feel a little bit better, not much, but a little, once I’ve reached the end of the fries, and I can think about things a little more objectively.

  I’m still mad at my mom, and definitely still mad at Zane, but at least I’m not furious to the point where I’m a danger to the people around me.

  “Okay, so obviously nothing is going to happen between Zane and me, nothing more than what already has,” I say out loud to myself. And obviously even if things weren’t going to be tense the way that we’d left them the night before, they were definitely going to be tense now after the argument Zane and I had.

  My phone buzzes, and I look at the screen. It’s a text message from my mother.

  Are you okay? Please let me know you’re not dead in a car accident or something, sweetie.

  For a second my mood wavers between guilt and anger.

  I’m fine, Mom. Be home in a bit.

  That’s as much as I want to tell her, and as much as I think she deserves to know right now. The question that really weighs on my mind is the issue of the big
project I have waiting for me. I’m supposed to leave to go back to Brooklyn, back to my normal life, in a little over two days. The office wants me to come home even sooner than that.

  I could probably tell my mother about the call, and explain that I need to take the opportunity to get back to work, and put the whole sordid mess with Zane behind me. She might even support me about it, even if it makes things a little bit awkward with Bev and Nolan at the dinner we’re supposed to have. I could leave now and be in Brooklyn tonight, and forget I ever did anything at all with Zane Lewis.

  But I don’t want to. Whatever else is going on, I want to figure out what the deal is with Zane and me, and I don’t want to see myself as a coward. I want to see myself as someone who did what she wanted to do, and faced the consequences, whatever they were.

  I decide that I’ll go back home and deal with Mom, and that I am going to make a policy — we are not going to talk about Zane in any way. I’ll get to work on some of the paperwork the office sent me and I’ll avoid Zane until I have to deal with him at the dinner.

  Then after all that, I will go back home, to my lonely apartment and single-girl life, and I can put everything that happened on this ill-conceived vacation behind me.

  “As if it will be that simple,” I mutter to myself as I start the car up again. I’m definitely taking the long way home. I want to be ready to put my foot down with my mom when it comes to the subject of Zane. I start rehearsing what I’m going to say to her in my head, and thinking about the best way to avoid Zane without having to actually make it obvious that that’s what I’m doing.

  It’s going to be complicated, I know that, but I figure that I can make it happen. Besides, it’s only a couple of days, and then I’ll be gone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  ZANE LEWIS

  I look out over the lake where Harper left me. I have no idea what the hell to do with myself. I figure I might as well go home, but I don’t really want to. There’s nothing for me there, and I might end up getting there right after Nadine tells my parents about what she saw Harper and me doing the night before.

  I’m about to get in my car and leave the lake when another car pulls into the parking area. It’s my dad, and for a second I feel guilty, thinking that for sure Nadine has gone to my parents, and this is him here to chew me out.

  “Glad I caught you before you left,” Dad says through the window, pulling into the spot next to mine in the little lot. “Wanna talk to you a bit, and this is a good place for it.”

  “What’s up, Dad?” I lean against my rental, my heart beating faster at the idea that I’m about to get read the riot act about fooling around with the next door neighbor’s daughter.

  “I’m worried about you because you don’t seem to have much of a plan when it comes to the army. The anniversary parties seem to have taken over your vacation and I thought it was time to focus on what’s happening in your life,” Dad says.

  I almost breathe a sigh of relief at that opening.

  “I’ve got a couple of months to think about it before I have to pull the trigger,” I say.

  “I got to thinking, when I heard you were up for discharge, you might be somewhere shacked up with someone, or at least on your way to hooking up. That’s what you kids say these days, right?”

  I have to laugh at the sound of my Dad saying ‘hooking up.’

  “Yeah, something like that,” I say.

  “I used to take your mom out here for the occasional romantic picnic, so I figured if you did find a girl, this might be where you’d go,” Dad says, and flashes me a grin. “Imagine my surprise to see you here by yourself.”

  “I just came out here to think,” I tell him.

  “What’s on your mind? The reenlistment thing?”

  I think about it for a minute and decide to mostly go with that. “Everyone I know from high school is doing stuff with their lives,” I say.

  “So are you, serving your country, making rank,” Dad points out.

  “Yeah, but they have actual, like, lives, you know?” I decide to sit on the warm asphalt of the parking lot and Dad perches himself on a parking bumper near me. It’d be more comfortable to go out to the actual shore of the lake, or on the grass that slopes down to it, but I don’t care.

  “Okay, here’s the thing. I don’t know if I want to reenlist or not, and it’s kind of complicated the reason why,” I tell him.

  “Well, talk to me about it, and we’ll figure out if it’s as complicated as it looks from the inside,” Dad suggests.

  “It’s about a girl,” I say, making a face.

  Dad laughs. “It’s almost always about a girl at the end of the day, even if it doesn’t look like it,” he says.

  “Anyway, so there’s this girl that I’m sort of… I guess I’m sort of into her. I’ve known her for a while now, and it’s only in the last… couple of weeks that I started seeing her differently, as someone I might want to date,” I explain.

  I want to cover the fact that it’s Harper I’m thinking about as much as I can. I don’t even really know why I’m asking my dad for advice about Harper at all. Except for the fact that it’s only just occurred to me that there’s more to the situation than some fun fooling around.

  “Have you been dating her or anything? Is that why you didn’t get a date for the party the other night?”

  I shrug. “We’re talking, and we’ve done some stuff together, but there’s no real tie there,” I say. That’s as close as I can come to telling the truth without coming right out and saying it’s Harper.

  “But you’re into her, more than just a fling, or a one-night stand,” Dad says.

  I nod. “I mean, we haven’t really talked about what it is specifically, but I guess things aren’t… they’re not serious, but I have some feelings there.” It feels weird to talk to my Dad like this. We don’t really talk about feelings, even feelings towards girls.

  “And this is mixing up in your mind about whether or not you should reenlist?” Dad’s confused by the connection, and I try to think of a way to explain it without telling him about Harper. I want to put that off as long as possible.

  “She lives away from base. Like, really away from base. So it would be easier to keep seeing her, to see if there’s anything to it, if I don’t reenlist. But I don’t even know if there’s anything to it, so what if I get out and then find that it’s just some three-month thing?”

  Dad looks down at his hands for a few moments and I wonder what he’s thinking. I wonder if it sounds as stupid to him as it does to me, wondering if I should leave the military for a woman.

  “This is someone you’ve known a while, I take it. If it’s someone you’re starting to see, I couldn’t see this coming up as a reason not to reenlist,” Dad says finally.

  “Yeah, I’ve known her a really good, long while,” I tell him. “Years, in fact. Just, I didn’t really think of her that way before, but now that I do, it sort of feels weird to let it drop when it might be something.”

  For a few minutes Dad’s quiet, and I don’t know what to think. Has he figured out that I’m talking about Harper? I sure as hell hope not. Sitting there in the parking lot at the lake, I realize I might have tipped my hand off to him on accident.

  “I think you need to look at the whole situation if you want a good answer to this. Obviously, this is an important thing right now, but it’s not the only important thing,” Dad says.

  “I know, making my decision based on some girl I might or might not be with this time next year seems stupid,” I agree.

  “You should think about what the military has to offer you, and the fact that, being a vet, you’re actually a pretty good candidate for a lot of non-military jobs. And you need to decide how serious you are about this girl,” Dad tells me.

  “Right,” I say, nodding. I know it’s going to take me a while to mull over what he’s saying, but for the time being I’m just glad for advice of any kind. I can’t tell whether or not Dad knows it’s Harper.
That bit about me knowing her for a while might be a hint, but I want to hear what he has to say, think about it, and figure it out from there.

  “If you’re serious about this girl, and you know you’re serious about her even if it doesn’t last beyond a few months, you should consider leaving the military if it will make it easier to figure out where things are between the two of you,” Dad continues.

  “I should?” I would have figured that Dad would tell me not to think about that aspect of it at all.

  “If you’re serious — not if it’s just something you’re pinning a lot of promise on that isn’t going to go anywhere. At this point you’ve served your country honorably, and they’re letting you leave if you want to. What’s the harm? But if you don’t think it’s that serious, you need to reenlist and break all ties with her as soon as you can so you can both move on with your lives.”

  I nod. It’s actually kind of solid advice, and I’m surprised at the fact that I’m surprised by it.

  I chat with Dad a little while longer and we both decide that we’re tired of sitting in the parking lot. I have no idea what’s going on with Harper, but I figure I will find out soon enough once I get back home.

  Dad tells me he’s going to go to the store to pick up some bread to make sandwiches of the leftover meat, and I tell him I’m going to head back to the house and see if Mom needs my help with anything.

  The whole drive home I’m lost in thought. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I know I have to make up my mind one way or another.

  Harper and I are going to have to talk at some point.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  HARPER POLSEN

  I’m actually pacing in my room, feeling like some kind of trapped animal, because I know that in less than six hours, the Lewises are going to be under the same roof as me, all three of them. Never in my entire life has the knowledge that Bev, Nolan and Zane will be coming for dinner managed to make me feel anxious, but here I am, dreading it.