Christmas By The Shore (A Winter To Remember #1)

Chapter 6

6

I t wasn’t until Wednesday morning that Catherine next saw McKenzie.

After their night out, her best friend had made a vaguely threatening promise to come up with something fantastic for them to do that holiday season and then went MIA for the next thirty-six hours. Not that Catherine was complaining. She was able to get quite a lot of work done in that time; therefore, she wasn’t feeling as stressed about taking a half day on Thursday and spending the afternoon sipping hot chocolate and watching the parade with McKenzie.

Unfortunately—that was no longer the plan.

“Listen up, because we’re going to Cape May.”

McKenzie hadn’t even said so much as a “hello.” She’d simply walked into Catherine’s office, put a large to-go coffee cup on the desk before her, and announced this. To Cat’s credit, she took a moment to absorb the words and sip from her over-caffeinated latte before responding.

“What did you just say?” she asked once she was done savoring the coffee.

“You heard me.”

“But I didn’t understand you,” Cat clarified. “You said we were going to Cape May, but I already told you, my parents are going to be out of town. There isn’t any reason for us to go down south for the holiday… Or did you miss that part?” She furrowed her brow. “I didn’t think you had that much to drink that night.”

“I didn’t!” she said, offended. “I remember what you told me, but I don’t care.”

“You don’t?—”

“I’ve been thinking about it,” McKenzie cut her off, “and I’ve decided the two of us are going to go to Cape May even though your parents aren’t going to be there. In fact, it’s because they are not going to be there that I’m so excited about this plan. No offense to Mr. and Mrs. Anand. You know I love them, but with them gone, that means their beach house is just sitting vacant!”

“And…?”

“And it’s a dream vacation home!” she said. “With the snow and the quaint little town, there’s no better place to spend the holidays, in my opinion, and it would be such a waste for the house to just be sitting empty while we are here in the city, where there’s only dirty slush and traffic this time of year.”

“You love the city.”

“Not as much as I love Cape May.”

Catherine looked at her dubiously. “Since when?”

“Since always.” She shrugged and took a seat across the desk. “Or maybe just since I had this brilliant idea.”

“That sounds about right.”

“But who cares where this idea came from? It’s perfect! I already called your parents and made sure they were okay with it. They said it was fine. Actually, your mom was thrilled because she had been kind of worried about leaving the house unattended for so long. Now, she doesn’t have to be concerned.”

“Woah, woah, hold on a second. You called my mom? I thought they were already out of the country!”

“They’d only just taken off from the docks,” she explained. “But I used FaceTime. She had a Wi-Fi connection.”

“She doesn’t even FaceTime with me!” Cat shook her head. “What else do you do with my parents behind my back?”

“Besides talk about you?”

Cat shot her a look. “Very funny.”

“I’m joking,” McKenzie said. “I swear, this is the first time I’ve ever FaceTimed your mom, and she didn’t seem to know how to hold the phone at all. She kept putting me down and walking away but still talking. It was honestly kind of annoying.”

Cat would’ve laughed if she wasn’t still so confused and caught off guard. “So—you did all of this without even talking to me first?”

She smirked. “I had to. You and I both know that you never would’ve allowed me to put this plan into motion if you knew about it ahead of time. But now it’s not just in motion. It’s fully on the track and moving, baby! I told your mom we would be there tonight, and she said you knew the code for their security system. Oh, and get this, they just installed one of those fiber lines or whatever, so your parents have faster internet than even SparkPlug HQ has!”

“Can we just take a step back?” Catherine asked. She reached for her coffee, but mostly just so she could have something to hold on to as she tried to make sense of everything her friend was telling her. “If I’m understanding you correctly, you expect me to come with you to Cape May for six weeks ? Do you have any idea who you’re talking to? I’m not going to take that much time off work!”

“Obviously, I know that! I’m not an idiot. Why do you think I brought up the Wi-Fi? You can work from there.”

Cat scoffed. “I cannot work from there! I don’t care how good the Wi-Fi is. I’ll be distracted! Plus, I know you’re going to constantly be trying to get me to go out and do stuff, so that’s not going to be conducive for productivity either!”

“I swear, I will give you time each and every day to get work done.” She put a hand up like she was swearing an official oath. Too bad Catherine didn’t have a Bible on hand. “But in return, I want you to try to remember that it’s very normal for people to take time off during this time of the year. It’s supposed to be when you hang out with family and reconnect with things that are important outside of your career. Don’t you think that really does you some good right about now?”

“Why do you say that?”

She twiddled her thumbs. “Because… I don’t know… I’m worried about you.” If she was waiting for Catherine to react to this, she would be waiting a while. Cat didn’t have a retort, nor did she have any way of assuaging her friend’s fears. She was a smart person who understood that burning the candle at both ends wasn’t sustainable, so what argument could she even make at this point? No, McKenzie, you’re wrong. Working myself into an early grave is a good way to live my life? That was obviously not an option, so she opted to remain silent.

“Look,” McKenzie continued after a while, “I understand that you’re an adult, and you can make your own choices. Heck, if I thought I had any control over you whatsoever, I would’ve already tried to get you to do something like this. But… the truth is… I feel like I’m starting to lose you. And like, maybe you’re starting to lose yourself. And that really scares me.”

Catherine was mid-sip, and when she swallowed her coffee, her throat made a loud gulping noise. “You think I’m losing myself? In what sense?”

“Er—” She paused. “Okay, like, take my dad as an example, right? You know how obsessed with work he was. That man spent forty years of his life at the same company, putting in overtime and never refusing a call to pick up someone else’s shift. He gave everything he had to that job and saved up every single penny so that he could retire when he was sixty-five. Which was all well and good, except for the fact that at the age of sixty-seven, he was diagnosed with lymphoma, and, well, you know the rest of the story.”

Catherine looked down at her lap. McKenzie’s dad was still alive, two years post-diagnosis, but his life had changed a lot during that time. He had gone through many rounds of chemo and radiation, had been hospitalized for multiple infections, and was generally just a shell of the person he used to be. All his dreams of spending his golden years traveling and being out in nature were dashed just sixteen months into retirement, and he had been very vocal ever since about his regrets.

“I don’t want something like that to happen to you,” McKenzie continued, her voice rough with emotion. “I’m worried that you’re going to keep throwing yourself into work, then wake up one day and realize that your life has passed you by. Your friends and family have been falling in love, going on adventures, seeing the world, and you’ve been… here. Enclosed in these same four walls, reading about things you never actually experienced in real life.”

McKenzie and Catherine had had many conversations around the topic of Catherine overworking herself, but this one was going much further than any of the others had. Nobody had ever spoken to Cat in such a blunt and harsh way before, which is perhaps why it had never occurred to her that she was on a similar path as the one McKenzie’s father had been on. When Cat first heard about Mr. Louis’ diagnosis, her heart broke. She’d been hearing that man talk about his hopes and dreams for the future ever since she and McKenzie were kids, and knowing that much of what he wanted to do was now going to be impossible, made her want to scream at the Universe for being so unfair.

But had she ever connected this man’s upsetting reality to her own life?

Of course not.

If she had ever felt as if she might face a similar fate as Mr. Louis, she probably would’ve quit her job that day. Or she would’ve at least taken all her vacation time and gone to Europe since she’d never been out of the country and had always dreamed of seeing the cathedrals in Italy, the cliffs in Scotland, Buckingham Palace?—

“I’m not trying to be a jerk,” McKenzie said, interrupting Catherine’s train of thought. “I know this is a lot to throw at you all at once. It’s hardly fair that I came in here with a planned speech, and you are being caught totally off guard, but I didn’t know what else to do. I see this as an opportunity for you to get back into the real world for a little bit. It almost seems like it was meant to be. And I’m terrified of what’s going to happen to my best friend if you spend another Christmas alone in your apartment.”

Cat nodded to indicate that she was at least hearing everything McKenzie had to say. It took some time to fully sink in, and these hard truths, mixed with the strong coffee, were settling into her stomach in a not-so-friendly way. She sat back with her cup cradled in her hands and contemplated for a few seconds longer.

“I’ll admit,” she said with a laugh, “scaring the hell out of me is a strange way to go about convincing someone to come spend the holidays with you.”

McKenzie smiled. “I know, but I felt like I had to get creative.”

“How many hours?”

“Hmm?”

“How many hours a day are you going to give me to work?” Cat asked. “I want numbers, and then I want you to shake my hand in agreement. Because if I’m going to take this much time away from the office, then I want to at least know that I will have enough time to get everything done before the end of the year.”

“Okay. I get that. How about five?”

“Six.”

“On weekdays,” McKenzie said. “But no working on the actual holidays, and I’ll give you three hours Saturday and Sunday each.”

Cat did some mental math and realized that this equaled thirty-six hours on the weeks that didn’t have any major holidays breaking them up. It was a lot less than the fifty or so hours she was used to clocking in each week, but she was pretty sure she could get everything done in that time. Mrs. Kendall was going to be out of the office for all of December anyway, and people had naturally been winding down a lot of the work as it got closer to the end of the year.

“I can do that,” she said eventually. “But there’s one more thing I need you to agree on if I’m going to say yes and go with you to Cape May.”

“Anything.”

“You have to finish your book.”

McKenzie’s eyes widened. “You want me to finish it?”

“At least draft one.”

“But—that’s crazy. I have at least another forty thousand words, maybe more!”

“I know,” Cat said. “But we are going to be in a quiet town, relaxing in a beautiful beach house, with few interruptions and even less worries, so what better place to crank out the rest of your book, huh? Back in the day, you used to average five thousand words a day. At that rate, you could be done in two weeks!”

“I’m not in the right headspace to be writing that much.”

“Promise me you’ll at least try,” Cat pleaded. “It would take a huge weight off my shoulders. Besides, what else are you going to do in the house during the hours that I’m working? I get that Cape May is cute, and there will be holiday cheer in droves, but it’s not busy enough to keep you occupied for six weeks straight.” She smiled. “Honestly, I think you’ll find it really helpful for your writer’s block.”

McKenzie breathed in deeply, but her sigh was shallow when she exhaled, like she knew this was very much a fair trade. “Okay, fine. I will finish the first draft. Happy now?”

“I’d say content, but maybe not happy. I’m still not thrilled about how you are going about all of this.”

“But you’re going to come with me to go pack, right?”

“Yes.” Catherine got up. “I’m coming with you to pack. We can take my car, but you’re driving the whole way. I will be using my phone as a hotspot so that I can get in my designated six hours on the road.”

McKenzie shook her head. “You’re impossible.”

“I’m just holding you to your end of the bargain,” Catherine said, trying to make her voice sound innocent and cheery, even as the stress of walking away from her desk was settling in. She couldn’t believe she was doing this.

“Well, hurry up then,” McKenzie said, waving over her shoulder. “We’re going to hit traffic if we don’t get on the freeway soon.”