After advocating for Eddie to have more visits with his mom, she was supposed to meet the woman for the first time next week. Eddie’s caregiver was dropping him off at Cold World, and then his mom and the caseworker would arrive for one of the biweekly visits. It had seemed like a good idea when Lauren had set it all up—she was able to get them all in for free after using the complimentary employee guest passes she’d never taken Dolores up on before. She’d get to see Eddie and his mom interact, would hopefully get to strengthen her relationships with both Eddie and his caseworker.
But now, when all she wanted to do was sleep, the prospect seemed daunting.
Lauren placed Miss Bianca’s card on the bookshelf in her bedroom, the only nod to any Christmas decor in her entire apartment.
She’d just collapsed back on her bed, trying to find the energy to do anything, when her phone buzzed from her purse. She thought about letting it go, but it wasn’t like she got that many texts—for all she knew, it could be important.
It was Kiki. Is the date tonight?
Asa had filled Kiki in on the stakes for the gift-wrapping contest after she’d declared Lauren the winner. It was clear that Kiki was psyched to have had a role in helping Lauren along whatever burgeoning thing was happening with Daniel, and if she was a little confused because she’d thought they already had a date, at least she didn’t say anything that would make it awkward.
But Lauren had left work with no definitive plans, which was fine. She didn’t have it in her to even think about getting all dressed up, having to smile and try not to be her usual awkward self all night at some nice restaurant with Daniel. A date with him had been her fantasy for so long, but tonight she’d rather have a date with her bed.
No, Lauren typed back to Kiki, but the single word looked plain all by itself, so she added a crying emoji afterward. A little overdramatic, but oh well. There wasn’t really an emoji that properly conveyed ambivalence.
Kiki’s message popped up a few seconds later. We’re about to watch the best Christmas movie ever made. Wanna come over?
It’s been a long—Lauren started to type, then deleted it. What movie? she typed, but then deleted before sending that one, too. Finally she just typed Sounds fun. See you soon!
* * *
? ? ?
The issue, Lauren learned once she got there, was that they hadn’t actually decided which Christmas movie was the best ever made. Elliot was making a passionate case for It’s a Wonderful Life, John was a surprisingly large fan of Elf, and Kiki had Love, Actually already up on the screen, pressing play before Elliot grabbed the PlayStation controller and turned it off again.
“You’re trying to get away with it because Asa’s not here to stop you,” Elliot said. “But we are not watching that movie again.”
“I didn’t know you hated true love,” Kiki said. “You’ve seen it, right, Lauren? Especially the Sarah-Karl storyline?” She waggled her eyebrows like those names were supposed to mean anything to Lauren.
“It’s over two hours long,” Lauren said, glancing up at the frozen still from the movie on the TV, the runtime information paused at the bottom. “Where is Asa, anyway?”
She hoped her voice sounded casual. She’d specifically checked his schedule before leaving work, just out of curiosity, and he wasn’t supposed to close. Then something about the way Kiki had asked her over, the we in her text, had made Lauren assume she was referring to both her and Asa. But of course, Kiki had meant her other housemates. Which was fine.
“Crisis line shift,” John said. “He does it on his laptop from his room.”
“Ah.” Lauren already knew from her previous visits to the house that Kiki’s room was through the door leading off the dining room. She’d never gone to the other side of the house, through the kitchen, so she assumed Asa’s room would be somewhere over there. Either way, it didn’t matter. It was probably for the best that she didn’t have to worry about facing him again.
“Which is perfect,” Kiki said, “because he’d make us watch A Christmas Story again.”
“I like that one,” John said.
Elliot made a disgusted sound, scrolling through the recommended movies on Netflix, each of which looked cheesier than the last. “Manufactured nostalgia,” Elliot said. “Hear me out, but are we sure the live-action Grinch isn’t so bad it’s good? Or maybe it’s just good? I haven’t seen it in years.”
That really set off the bickering, with overlapping opinions coming in from each side, somehow degenerating to a heated debate about whether The Nightmare Before Christmas was a Halloween movie or a Christmas one （“Which of those holidays is in the fucking title?” Kiki said, while Elliot started listing all of the creepy features and characters in “Halloweentown, you know, the actual setting”）。