HOLLY
“SORRY I’M JUST NOW CALLING you,” Carmen apologized over the phone Tuesday morning while I was making lunches for Dad and me. “Both my abuelas decided to stay in town a little longer. They have joined forces and decided I need lessons on how to catch a husband, which included buying me a new wardrobe. My closet now looks like an Anthropologie store. And I’m now the proud owner of ten tunics embroidered with ancient Mayan patterns. I even have a new bra that was woven on a loom. But with the bra came a warning—apparently if anyone but my husband sees it, he’ll die. So, that’s my life in a nutshell. How are you? How did it go yesterday?”
I couldn’t answer for giggling so hard. I loved Carmen’s abuelas. Maybe if I told them I was searching for a husband, they would buy me a new wardrobe too. I loved Anthropologie, but I hadn’t been able to afford that luxury in years. I was now proudly in my bargain rack and clearance era, or my Costco phase. Who knew the wholesale warehouse would ever come in clutch for me? Once I got my snickering under control, I was able to fill her in on the evil that was Brandon.
“Get this: He brought me coffee and reminded me I used to play court with my stuffed animals. I would totally have scored a conviction if not for him.” Scotty the Squirrel had been bad news. Seriously, of all the things from our past he could have brought up, he chose that? If he were a decent person, he might have said something like, “I’m so sorry I stole your first kiss and made you believe I had feelings for you.” I wouldn’t have believed him, but at least he could have apologized.
“Oh. My. Gosh. The horror,” she said in mock outrage. “He bought you coffee and brought up a funny childhood memory? You should report him to HR.”
Actually, I could report him. I left out the most vital piece of information on purpose—the sticky note thing would remain my dirty little secret. As dumb as it sounded, those notes had been kind of sacred to me in an unholy way. A piece of my childhood I loved, even if Brandon was a part of it. Honestly, I never expected it to follow us into adulthood, but apparently Brandon thought it was a good idea. I guess he wanted to make sure I knew he really hated me. The jerk left me this lovely note yesterday after I headed to the bathroom for an extended period of time, hoping to avoid him and catch up on the office gossip: Be careful there, Holly-Pops, your scowl makes you look like you caught a case of resting Grinch face. You heard me right. The man said I had RGF.
Like, how old was he? I so badly wanted to raid the office supply closet and grab a stack of sticky notes, but then I reminded myself I was a mature adult. You know, after I worked in the bathroom for an hour. But that’s beside the point, which is that I chose not to retaliate and tell him his face isn’t worth sunburning. Of course, that would have been a lie. He looked so incredibly gorgeous yesterday, strutting in like he was walking off the pages of a fashion magazine, wearing chinos with a dress shirt and jacket that were tailored to fit him perfectly. To top off the ensemble, he paired it with leather sneakers like he was too cool for school. Don’t even get me going on the stubble so masterfully painted onto his strong cheeks and jawline.
“I’m telling you, he’s up to something,” I whined to Carmen.
“Okay,” she said like she wanted to believe me but wasn’t so sure. “Did he act like he didn’t want to close any deals?”
“Well ... no. But he has to put on a show. He’s the company rock star and everyone loves him. They just don’t know the real Brandon like I do. I know this is just an act. This is exactly what he did to me growing up. He lured me into his trap, making me feel things I never should have, and then he pulverized my heart like the butcher he is. He’s just waiting to pull out his meat cleaver again, I know it.”
“Wow. Such violent imagery this morning.”
I stopped slicing a mango for our lunches and set the knife on the outdated tile countertop, feeling foolish even though I knew I was right. “You don’t believe me.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“Ugh,” I groaned. “You think I’m crazy.”
“Of course I don’t. No doubt the guy is pendejo, but maybe he feels bad about what he did to you.”
“Then why doesn’t he just apologize?”
“That’s a valid point. And listen, if you want me to think of a revenge plot, I’m your girl. No questions asked.”
“I appreciate that more than you know. Right now I’m just trying to ignore him the best I can. By the way, I got the lowdown on Rita and Amy in the bathroom yesterday. They plastered Joel’s desk with transcripts of the texts he’d sent them, with the dates highlighted to make sure everyone knows he was seeing both women at the same time.” I also learned from Nadia in accounting that Brandon is quote, Fresh meat ready for the taking , unquote, and there’s a bet among several women in the company to see who lands a date with him first. I’ll tell you this: It won’t be me.
“Classic,” Carmen laughed. “That’s good. I’ll have to remember that one in case I ever need it.”
“How goes it with Marco?” I walked over to the ancient mustard-colored refrigerator to retrieve a container of hummus.
“Ugh,” she groaned. “So many women throw themselves at him after class, I hardly get a chance to talk to him. I was planning on disappointing my parents for Christmas this year with him. I suppose still being single will have to be their gift again this year. It’s the gift that keeps on giving,” she grumbled.
I sighed, feeling her pain more acutely now that Brandon was back in town. As he’d so rudely reminded me, I was a gray sprinkle with RGF. Did all men see me that way?
“On that depressing note, I need to go. I’m teaching an early class this morning.”
“Have fun. While you’re chaturanga-ing, I’ll probably be in the bathroom hiding from the man I hate most in the world.”
“Well, good luck with that. Let me know if you find out any more about Amy, Rita, and Joel.”
“Oh, I will. See you later.”
“Bye.” She hung up.
“Did I hear you say you hate someone?” Dad strolled into the kitchen with his tablet in his face, reading the news like he did every morning. He believed it was a travesty that newspapers weren’t delivered anymore. And don’t even get him started on typos. He loved to say, “Abandoning the practice of precise language is asking for a civilization to crumble.”
“Umm ... yes.” I swung open the fridge, grabbed the hummus, and scooted back to the counter where I was making our lunches, waiting for Dad’s view on hatred. He’d expressed it many times before.
Dad stood next to me and lowered his tablet, revealing his gray man bun and stubbly salt-and-peppered cheeks. He totally had the Sam Elliot vibe going for him. “Honey, hate has played a role in every lost civilization. To hate is tantamount to death and destruction.”
Yikes. Well, I guess I was going to die.
“So, tell me, whom do you hate?”
Oh, I did not want to tell him—Dad loved Brandon. For this very reason, I hadn’t mentioned that Brandon was in town. “I made you a green smoothie.” I pointed at the small white Formica table I’d found at Goodwill. It went well with the tiny old kitchen that smelled musty no matter how many times I sanitized it.
Dad looked between the smoothie and the bento boxes I was filling for our lunches. “Holly,” he said tenderly. “You, my dear daughter, need to stop taking care of me. I’m not your responsibility.”
“I don’t mind.” More like if I stopped taking care of him, I was afraid of all the bad things that would happen. I’d seen the charts in my mind, and it wasn’t pretty.
Dad rested a hand on my cheek. “I do mind. You have done far too much for me. It’s time I earned my dignity back. Please, let me do that.”
Oh. Wow. When he put it that way, how could I refuse? Yet my palms started to sweat as I considered whether I could stop worrying. What was my life without worry? Once upon a time there had been a non-worrying version of me, but I wasn’t sure she still existed. She went the way of Holly Hollydays. “All right,” I stuttered out, a tear rolling down my cheek. This was a big deal. I wasn’t sure I would ever see this day. I felt like a mother sending her child off to kindergarten for the first time.
Dad’s thumb swiped the tear on my cheek before he kissed my head. “Thank you. For everything.”
“You’re welcome. Now go drink your smoothie. Might as well not waste it.” I grinned.
He smiled and headed over to the table. “Now tell me whom you hate.”
Dang it. I hoped he might have forgotten. I refused to look at him while scooping hummus into the bento boxes. “If you must know, it’s Brandon Cassidy. He’s in town, and I’ve been assigned to work with him until the end of the year.”
“You’re not still holding on to childhood grievances, are you?”
Childhood grievances? You mean the one where he ripped my heart out and then stomped on it for good measure? And I hadn’t even mentioned how, if it weren’t for him, Christian might still be alive. Christian had sworn to me he would spend that day with me. He said he’d missed me while he was at college. I missed him so much too. I’d just found out what a liar our mom was, and I really needed to talk to him—he was the only person I felt I could tell. But Brandon called and said, “Let’s go skiing.” That was all it ever took for Christian to ditch me, even though I’d begged him to stay. It hurt even worse because he knew how much Brandon had humiliated me. So, yeah, I guess if those were childhood grievances, I was still holding on to them.
“I wouldn’t say that,” I responded, thinking of Brandon’s recent notes. Those were enough grounds to hate him in the present.
“Do you still have a crush on him?” Dad chuckled .
I whipped around, holding up the spoon. “Absolutely not. Who said I ever did?” The truthful accusation was beyond offensive.
“Honey, from an anthropological perspective, it clearly makes sense. Both you and Brandon are attractive, raised by highly educated parents, your body mass indexes are healthy, and your IQs are high. To be drawn to each other just makes sense when you look at it through the lens of mating strategies.”
Leave it to my dad to make this all about science. Regardless, there was nothing scientific going on between my old neighbor and me. And ... “There will be no mating between Brandon and me.” I shook my head in disgust for effect, even though once upon a time I’d named all three of our children. Adriana, Cordelia, and Portia. I’d been in my Shakespeare era. Still not sure why I pictured Brandon as a girl dad.
“That’s a shame. The offspring you two would produce would be exceptional.”
My mouth fell open. “Excuse me? Since when have you wanted me to have a child with Brandon?” This was front-page news for me. For some women, this might be a weird conversation to have with a father. But Dad was never weird about things like sex and our bodies. When I started my period, he gave me a book about how different cultures celebrated it as something beautiful. He always made sure I never felt ashamed of my body.
“I never said I wanted you to. That’s up to you, of course. I’m just stating as far as the betterment of society goes, combining your gene pools would be beneficial.”
I spat out a laugh. “Brandon wouldn’t agree with you. He thinks of me like a gray sprinkle on a rainbow cupcake.”
“That’s absurd. No one would say that about you, especially Brandon.”
If only Dad knew that was exactly how Brandon felt about me.
“Please, just take my word for it.”
“I would love to, except all the empirical evidence speaks to the contrary.”
“What evidence is that?”
“The utter fascination in his eyes every time he looked at you. ”
Fascination? More like anticipation for all the new ways he could torture me.
“Dad, I love you, but you’re not remembering things clearly.”
“You think so?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye.
“I know so.”
“All right, honey, if you say so.” He went back to reading the news and drinking his smoothie.
I turned around and finished our lunches, feeling unsettled about the conversation I’d just had with my father. Normally, Dad read people and situations well, given his study of cultures and the world, so for him to think I’d ever fascinated Brandon was off-putting. On the other hand, he still believed my mother had only left him because of his drinking. I’d never had the heart to tell him the truth. I’d never had the heart to tell anyone but Christian, and I never got that opportunity. Maybe it was better that way.
“I think we should get a Christmas tree this year,” Dad said out of the blue.
I slammed a bento box shut and turned around, my heart erratically beating. Where was this coming from? First, he wanted me to stop worrying about him, and now he wanted to reintroduce the possibility of magic into my life. I wasn’t sure I could take that. “What? Why?” I begged to know, like he was asking for some horrendous thing. I thought we were on the same page when it came to the holidays—ignore them. It wasn’t like we were scrooges who went around bah-humbugging. We simply muddled through them and kept to ourselves as much as possible.
“I was just reading this abstract about how Christmas is more important now than ever. It’s a connection to family and friends and links us as a society and to our past.” Dad gave me a poignant look. “I think it’s time we revisit Christmas. You used to love it so much.”
Oh, had I ever. But ... “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I stammered.
“Holly,” Dad said tenderly. “Do you know why we named you Holly?”
I nodded, loving the reason so much.
“Holly is a sacred name, especially this time of year. It was believed that holly trees offered refuge and protection during the Winter Solstice, the day on which you were born. The best day of my life,” Dad choked out.
“What about when Christian was born?” I smiled through my watery eyes, missing my brother and my old life so much.
“That was a wonderful day too, but there was just something special about you, Holly. There always has been. Like your name, you have offered refuge and protection to many, especially me. It’s about time I offered the same to you. I want to give you back the things you love. Or at least as much as I can.”
“What if those things never really existed?” I asked like a frightened child.
He pressed his lips together thoughtfully, scrubbing a hand over his salt-and-pepper stubble. “Honey, I think you know the answer to that. You wouldn’t be so afraid if it had never existed. As a people, we are most afraid of the things we lost or of what we can potentially lose. So much so, we wind up losing more because we are afraid to live. I’m sorry for what you’ve lost and especially for my part in it. But you are the bravest person I know. Maybe it’s time to brave Christmas and live again.”
I nibbled on my bottom lip, feeling like I might hyperventilate. “I’m not sure I’m all that brave.” Just ask my charts. They spelled out all the things I could lose.
“We both know that’s not true, but I understand your trepidation. Just promise me you’ll think about it.”
I nodded absently.
“Thank you.” He paused. “Perhaps this will be good for you. Working with Brandon, that is. He’s a link to many happy holidays and Christmases. Times I think you have forgotten. Or ... perhaps do not wish to remember.”
Dad’s comments left me stunned. He was wrong about working with Brandon, but he was right about not wishing to remember.
I feared my memories might swallow me whole.