The Christmas Orphans Club(77)
Theo rushes to her side. “You fell, don’t you remember?” He looks at me with panic in his eyes. “Should I get Dr. Ben? I googled it in the cab and memory loss could be a sign of a concussion. Did you hit your head when you fell?”
“Oh my god, calm down!” Priya says, shoving his hands off her shoulder. “I don’t have memory loss. I’m just saying, we shouldn’t have done Christmas in the first place this year.”
I wonder if she has a point. This is the third year in a row that Christmas has ended in disaster. But my brain keeps cycling back to something she said a minute ago. “We never ask about your life?”
“Literally never,” she confirms.
“If that’s true, which I still don’t think it is, it’s only because you’re so normal and . . . happy?” Finn adds the last word like it tastes strange in his mouth.
“That doesn’t mean I don’t have any problems! I’m sorry I can’t compete with you in the trauma Olympics, but sometimes my life sucks, too. Ben dumped me for the millionth time, and oh yeah, last week I got fired.”
“You got fired?” I’m shocked. Priya has talked about her job at Glossier nonstop since starting in April. Who wouldn’t want someone as passionate and experienced as Priya on their team? I feel a surge of rage on her behalf.
“Yep. A pretty shitty month on all fronts.” She flops her head back against the pillow and stares at the ceiling. The fire’s gone out of her after her tirade. She looks exhausted and resigned, and completely at odds with her surroundings because she’s still wearing an intricately beaded flapper costume.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” I ask.
“Because you didn’t ask. And it’s embarrassing. How do I bring that up? ‘Oh hey, guys, you know the job that I keep bragging about? The one that I love? Yeah, turns out they didn’t feel the same way.”
Theo perches on the bed beside Priya and clasps his hand with hers.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her from where I’m standing frozen beside her bed. “Finn’s right, you’re always so happy. I guess sometimes we forget to ask about you.”
“Well, it’s bullshit,” she snaps with a second wind of rage. “I’m ‘happy.’ You say that like it’s a mythical island you’re not invited to. You don’t want to be happy. It’s like you’re allergic to happiness. Why aren’t you with David right now? Or why isn’t he here? I mean, how dare he have a family who loves him! Who loves you, too!”
My hackles rise at her accusation. “I’m not with David because this is our tradition and it’s important to me. You’re my chosen family. That means something to me. But apparently it doesn’t mean anything to you.”
“Hannah, we’re together all year long. This one-day-a-year tradition isn’t what makes us a family,” she scoffs. “This is just a way to pass the time on a day that would otherwise be a real bummer for the three of you.” She pauses. “I’m sorry, I know that was harsh, but—”
“She’s kind of right,” Finn says.
I stare daggers in his direction. They don’t understand. None of them do.
“I’m going for a walk. I need a minute.” I tear aside the curtain and storm off.
twenty-two
Hannah
Christmas #3, 2010
“Fries?” Finn asks as we pass a glowing orange open sign in the grease-stained front window of a diner.
“Fries,” I confirm.
Everything in Boston closes early. It feels miraculous to stumble on a diner open at 11:00 p.m. on Christmas, especially when we still have an hour to kill before the midnight Chinatown bus. Brooke suggested we stay the night, but nothing about sharing the pullout couch in the middle of her living room, which now smelled like charred ham, felt appealing. And if we stayed, we’d only have another awkward meal with Brooke and Spencer to look forward to in the morning, although at least his family wouldn’t join for that.
When she offered, I gave Finn the signal we devised for parties when one of us wanted to leave and dipped my right ear to my shoulder like I was stretching my neck. “You know what, I have to get back tonight. I forgot to feed my pet turtle before we left and he’s probably hungry,” he lied.
“You have a pet turtle?” Brooke asked.
“Big turtle guy,” Finn deadpanned.
I made fun of him for the turtle when we made it outside. “The first rule of improv is yes, and,” he rebutted, “If you’d yes, anded me, you could have had a fictional exotic pet of your very own.”
“Are turtles exotic? I don’t think that counts.”
“I’m just saying that you lost your opportunity to yes, and a pet parrot into existence.”
Inside the diner, I shove my backpack into the red vinyl booth before sliding in and stripping off my winter layers. A sixtysomething waitress in a pink bowling shirt embroidered with her name takes our order. Martha’s bleach-blond hair is shellacked into a beehive and the smell of hairspray radiates off her in waves.
“That sucked, right?” I ask Finn after Martha retreats to the kitchen to put in our order and tempt fate by standing anywhere near an open flame with her choice of hairstyle.