by Brianna Karp
That’s how he’d want it to be, and how I wanted it to be. But I had no idea how to make it happen.
OK, that’s a lie. I totally did know how to make it happen. I’d go to the person I always went to in dire straits. Brandon.
“You need to borrow how much this time?”
“Enough to get me on a plane to Scotland. Maybe for about three weeks. I’ve got a few hundred to last me for food and stuff while I’m there, but I don’t have enough for plane fare.”
Brandon always lent me money when I was in an extra tight spot, because I always paid him back. And I’d also take him out to dinner a few times to make up for it, and maybe to a couple of movies.
He didn’t bat an eyelid.
“No problem.”
“Thank you sooooo much. I really appreciate it. I’m sorry to ask right before Christmas, and I’ll totally understand if you can’t swing it, but this way I can surprise him, and he can still be with Kelsey for the holiday the way he wants!”
“It’s totally no problem. Come over tomorrow and I’ll give you the money.”
“Thank you again. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You know I’ll pay you back as soon as I can.”
“Shut up.”
“OK. I love ya.”
I had ten days to prepare for my flight. I’d arrive on Christmas Eve, I decided. Matt would love the surprise. When he proposed to his first wife, he’d secretly made arrangements with her boss to have her take time off, and then he’d “kidnapped” her and spirited her away to Prague, where he proposed at the top of some elaborate architectural tower. He loved grand, romantic, spontaneous gestures, and often lamented that he’d always wished a woman would do something like that for him. Well, this was my chance.
I spent a stressful eight hours in the Los Angeles passport office to pick up my first passport. I’d only ever been to Canada and Mexico in my life, before passports were required. This would be my first time off the continent. My first stamp in my passport. Despite all the stress and exhaustion, I allowed myself to get more and more excited. I would fly from LAX to Dallas to Paris to Manchester to Aberdeen. Only the longest flight and the furthest trip away from California I’d ever been on. Nothing to it.
Meanwhile, things were pretty silent on the Matt front. His birthday came and went, and it took him a couple of days to respond to my “Happy Birthday” email. He was thirty-seven. Later that day, he bundled Kelsey up in a coat and walked down to the corner for a surprise phone call.
He loved and missed me so much, and he was so sorry about all this technical trouble. Soon the internet company would replace his SIM card, and things could get back to normal. In the meantime, he was worried. What if they didn’t fix it by Christmas?
I giggled to myself.
“It’s OK, baby. You can send me a text or something. I’ve shipped your Christmas presents, so expect them any day now!”
“I can’t wait! I’m so excited! I’m going to wait to give you yours in person, though. I know what I want to get you, but I haven’t been able to buy it yet. Things have been tight, with Kelsey. Do you think you can wait until I come out to California?”
“Of course, I understand. Enjoy your Christmas. Talk soon. I love you.”
“I love you more.”
After I hung up, I emailed a couple of his Homeless Tales writers. Shhh, don’t tell Matt, but I’m surprising him for Christmas!
They all thought it was a fabulous idea, as did Sage. Have a safe flight; enjoy yourself!
I’d already finished my internship with E. Jean, but we chatted occasionally on gtalk. I let her know where I’d be.
“Wonderful, have lots of fun in Europe, darling! Enjoy your man, and for heaven’s sake, don’t get pregnant,” she added cheekily.
Oops. Well. Um.
My friends, Ben and Aubrey, picked me up and drove me to the airport. I had packed lightly as far as clothing went. It was mainly stretchy, warm flannel pajama bottoms, cotton robes and sweatshirts. I figured I wouldn’t be wearing all that much clothing in Matt’s flat anyway, and all I really needed were a few things for outside in the snow. All my clothes fit in a tiny rolling suitcase. My Netbook and cell phone I shoved into my purse, which I slung over my shoulder.
The only heavy item, which would need to be checked, was a large metal trunk I’d bought at a thrift store for $5. Most of the Christmas presents went into it, and all the clothes that I’d bought for Kelsey
I wore an empire-waist top and tied the arms of a hoodie around my waist. Nobody would suspect anything. I just looked like I’d eaten a couple too many burritos lately.
Ben had been slightly miffed at me when the media storm broke, and he found out that I’d been homeless all this time. A couple of years before, when I was in between places to live for a couple of weeks, he and Aubrey had let me crash on a mattress on their dining room floor until I was ready to move into my new place.
“We could have done that again, you know! You’re always welcome to stay with us!”
I supposed I believed it, too. Following the publication of my story, people I hadn’t seen or heard from since junior high school had contacted me.
Remember me? From Mr. Dotson’s seventh-grade science class? You were, like, my best friend in that class.
I vaguely remembered most of them, although many of them I couldn’t recall ever actually speaking to. I was just amazed that anybody had noticed me or remembered my name, much less made the connection so many years later.
But things weren’t like that with me and Ben. I had always considered him one of my best friends, and I adore Aubrey. It was just that things were somewhat strained in the recession; they, too, had both been laid off and were busy with their own lives, it had been a couple of months since we’d really spoken, and it never occurred to me to put even more strain on them now, with both of them out of work themselves. I’d simply, I explained to Ben, made use of what I had.
“I guess,” he said quietly. “But if this ever happens again, you need to call us first. We would have taken care of you.”
I’d nearly made it. I was on the flight from Manchester to Aberdeen, and two women in front of me were chatting.
“Yes, I’m going home to Huntly for Christmas!” exclaimed one in her thick Scottish brogue. What sheer luck! This lady could tell me how to get to Huntly. I tapped her on the shoulder.
“Excuse me, but I couldn’t help overhearing. You’re going to Huntly? So am I. I’ve never been there before. Is there a bus or train from the airport that I can take to get there?” I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I figured I’d just ask the help desk once we landed.
“There’s a bus, though there probably won’t be a train this late at night. But you know what, my brothers are picking me up at the airport. You can just hitch a ride with us!”
“Oh, you mean it? Wow, that’s so kind of you! Thanks!” My luck was running high.
We landed in Aberdeen and I made my way to the baggage claim. My trunk with the Christmas presents didn’t come out on the conveyor belt. The kind lady and I went to the help desk. I’d been delayed in Manchester and put on a later flight, and apparently the trunk had been lost. They’d find it and deliver it to Matt’s address, but probably not until Boxing Day. I had the Jules Verne book and the ring, but Kelsey’s clothes and the photo album would miss Christmas. Oh, well! It wasn’t that big a deal. I was in too optimistic a mood to worry much about it. I gave the clerk Matt’s address, I was bundled in the woman’s car with her brothers, and we were on our way, making the one-hour drive to Huntly.
Chapter Twenty-One
Huntly was an adorable little town—I could tell that even in the dark. A tall clock tower, a charming square with cobblestone streets, an old library hundreds of years old, everything crafted of stone. It was exactly how you’d picture a sleepy little rural town in Scotland. It had a population of only four thousand people. I loved it on sight. Snow began to fall in great flurries. Snow on Christmas Eve. It was too perfect.
The car screeched to a halt outside Matt’s flat, and the two men pulled my rolling suitcase from the “boot,” as they called the car trunk. Then they each kissed me dramatically on each cheek, loudly proclaiming, “Good luck to ye, lass!”
My heart pounded as I climbed the stairs to Matt’s flat. Seconds to go. Somehow I had pulled it off!
I knocked.
Footsteps.
Then he opened the door.
He looked so good I could have jumped his bones right there. He had grown a stubbly beard, which made him look a little rough and edgy. He was so sexy I immediately felt self-conscious of my tired, bloated appearance and blushed, staring at my toes. His eyes widened in shock. He just stood there. He didn’t say anything.
Why was he just standing there? Say something!
Finally, I shuffled my toes and looked up at him, smiling shyly. I had no idea why, after all this time, I was suddenly bashful, but my heart overflowed with love.
“Merry Christmas.”
He still just stood there, looking at me with the oddest expression on his face. It took me a moment to realize what it was. It was panic.
“You can’t come in here.”
The overwhelming initial sensation was that of finding oneself in a Coen brothers’ movie—like everything had been going absolutely swell, not perfect perhaps, but damn close to it…then one day, one tiny, seemingly insignificant thing goes wrong, and you barely notice at first, but suddenly it all snowballs and does a plummeting death spiral until before you know it, someone’s bludgeoning your head open with a hatchet or feeding your body into a wood chipper, and you’re too stunned to react or defend yourself, because you’re busy wondering just exactly where and when life so dramatically shifted course, to bring you to this point.
Yeah. I was there.
“What are you talking about? Why can’t I come in? I’ve come all this way to surprise you…”
He interrupted me.
“Lori’s here.”
Nothing had happened, he started to explain. It wasn’t what I thought. She’d just shown up, said it would be too hard for her to spend Christmas without her daughter. He didn’t feel right sending her away, and the buses wouldn’t be running again until Boxing Day. He’d agreed to let her stay on the couch.
“You promised you’d never do that! You promised!”
“Look, I would have told you. I’m sure I would have, in a couple of days. But I had to make the decision now. She’s Kelsey’s mother. I couldn’t be cruel! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to lie to you. It just happened. But nothing inappropriate has happened or will happen. You know I would have been happy to see you, if it weren’t for these circumstances. But now you’ve put me in an awkward position.” He glanced over his shoulder furtively.
“Where am I supposed to go? What am I supposed to do tonight? I brought a little money for the trip, but I haven’t exchanged it yet!” I heard Kelsey stirring in the living room behind him, and tried to keep my voice to a whisper, even though my impulse was to scream at the top of my lungs and brain him with my Netbook.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out £40 ($65).
“The post office won’t be open until Monday, probably. You can exchange your money then. Here. That’s all I’ve got on me right now. Go find a hotel for tonight. There are a few in the town square. I’ll try to get rid of her in the morning.”
I took the money.
“I’ll come back in a few minutes and let you know where I’m staying and how long this’ll buy me.” Tears were streaming down my face. None of this was going as I’d planned it.
The first two hotels I tried shook their heads.
“We don’t take people in on Christmas Eve.” I figured it must be some local custom I didn’t know about.
The largest (and most expensive) hotel in town, the Huntly Hotel, did give me a room. The girl at the desk looked like she was about seventeen years old, as if she was on her way home, and as if she thought I was the stupidest and weirdest person in the world for asking for a room on Christmas Eve. Crazy Americans. She took me upstairs and let me into a tiny, bare room. There was no telephone and no internet access, but that didn’t matter. I’d only be here for a night. She handed me the room key.
I dropped my suitcase and ran back around the corner to Matt’s flat.
“I’m at the Huntly Hotel. It’s the only place that would take me on Christmas Eve. That’s only enough money to pay for one night.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Does she know that it’s me at the door?”
“Yes, I’ve explained it to her. She’s not taking it well.”
“What the hell do you mean she’s not taking it well? You’re my fiancé! You’ve spent months telling her that you’re my fiancé! Hell, you’ve spent months telling me you already consider me your wife!”
“I do—it’s just—you shouldn’t have done this! You shouldn’t have come here.”
“Why not? Since when is it considered improper for a wife to surprise her husband, or even for two engaged people to surprise each other for Christmas? It’s not! You’re only upset now because you’ve been caught in a lie!”
“Look, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to tell you….”
Lori stormed up to the door. I turned my head. I didn’t want to see her; didn’t want to know what she looked like. Somehow it would just make it that much more painful. Out of the corner of my eye, though, I saw her throw a giant garbage bag of trash at Matt violently.
“Take out the fookin’ trash!” she screamed. It was a possessive scream. As though she considered him hers. Kelsey began to cry in the background, and Lori ran back into the living room.
Matt looked away from me helplessly, turning to pick up the garbage bag. He didn’t even notice me flee. By the time he looked back up, I was already down the stairs and gone. I didn’t want him to see me fall to pieces.
There was no sleeping that night. In the morning, ordered to check out by 10:00 a.m., I headed downstairs with my luggage.
There was nobody at the front desk. The lights were out; all was silent. I decided I’d just leave the key at the front desk and slip out.
The front door to the hotel was locked. I was locked in. All the doors I tried in the hotel were likewise locked—no access to any other area. I’d mistakenly hoped that perhaps I could gain access to the manager’s room behind the front desk and use the phone to call for help. No luck.
Since there was no phone in my room, and no internet access, I couldn’t call or email anybody. I kept checking downstairs all day to see if anybody had showed up to the hotel, but there was nobody. It’s as if they’d all gone home, forgotten that they had a guest and taken Christmas Day off.
I went back to my room, sobbed some more, showered and drank all the coffee creamers in the little basket on the nightstand. There was no other food to be found. I hoped that Matt would come looking for me; perhaps call the police when I didn’t show up. But everything was silent—for the rest of Christmas Day and all that night.
On the day after Christmas, the front door to the hotel was unlocked, though there was still nobody at the front desk. Does anybody actually come to work in this town? I left the room key on the counter and left with my luggage, figuring that at least I’d gotten an extra night’s stay for free in exchange for the hassle. It was freezing outside, so I pulled on an oversized, shaggy blue coat that made me look like the unholy spawn of the Cookie Monster. It was the warmest thing I had found at the thrift store.
I walked back to Matt’s flat and knocked. There was no answer. It was about 11:00 a.m., so I figured he shouldn’t still be asleep. I waited a bit, and then knocked again. I could hear some shuffling around inside, so I knew somebody was there. I had no intention of leaving. I kept knocking, at five-minute intervals, until I heard a door slam inside, and Lori screaming in her thick Scottish accent for him to answer the door. She threw in a few curses for good measure. Matt came to the door.
> “Wow. She’s…charming,” I spat, looking him dead in the eye. He pulled his jacket on.
“Let’s take a walk.”
We wandered until we found an empty church parking lot.
“I got locked in the hotel all day yesterday. They locked up for Christmas and forgot about me.”
“Oh, my God. You poor thing. I’d wondered where you were!”
But you didn’t come looking for me.
“Yeah, well, I guess at least I got a free night’s stay. So… Lori sure made a point of coming to the door the other night.” He smirked a bit. I couldn’t see why. I didn’t find any of this funny at all.
“Yeah, she sure did, didn’t she? Your being here really winds her up, for some reason.”
I can tell you exactly why it’s winding her up.
“I looked up and you were gone,” he continued.
“You wanted me to go.”
If circumstances had been different, he insisted, he’d have been ecstatic to see me. He’d have happily taken me in and we’d have celebrated Christmas and I’d have met Kelsey. He still hoped I’d get to meet Kelsey soon. He was so sorry about all this. He hadn’t meant to lie to me.
He started to shiver violently from the cold.
“Oh, my god, you’re freezing…I want to hold you, but…I don’t know if…” if you still love me.
He opened his jacket and pulled me into him.
“I love you so much. And now I’ve fucked everything up.”
“It’s OK. We’ll figure it out. Will she be leaving soon?” He looked uncomfortable.
“Last night, she called her entire family and told them to come down to Huntly. I only found out this morning. They’re arriving later today. I don’t know how long they’ll be staying.”
