Page 8 of Ghost of Ex-mas Past
“Yeah. Pithole was...” I struggle to think of the right word without offending Charlie. We always went to Pithole because that’s where his grandma had lived. It was a dying town, but when his grandma was alive, the Dunskys had, every December 22, packed up their son and Christmas presents and drove to Pithole to spend Christmas with his grandma.
When she died during our junior year of high school, the Dunskys invited my family to join them.
“It was a pit hole; you can say it.”
I wince, thoughpit holeis a much nicer word than I would use. In fact, it’s a much nicer word than what I used back then. My sisters and I, being catty teenagers who already thought anything to do with our family was uncool, had verbally roasted the place when we first saw it until, furious, my dad had dragged us aside and told us that ungrateful girls get their Christmas presents donated to charity.
“It was a pit hole,” I allow, “but it was our pit hole.”
“True. I guess we’ll have to find a new pit hole.” The way he says it is a little cheeky, and I bite my tongue before a that’s-what-she-said joke slips out. “Have you been upstate before?”
Psht. With my job, I travel for work, and not the other way around. Nash and I travel the world for our work, so there’s no way I have time to travel for fun. I barely have time to date. “No.”
“Me neither.”
There’s a moment of quiet while the streetlights flash past us. I don’t want to admit it, but I am excited to visit Here. There was very little to enjoy about Pithole and nothing to do outside the house (except join my mom on her walking expeditions or my dad on his five-times-a-day grocery store visits), and one week is plenty of time to build alliances and backstab over several Monopoly games, so we often got a serious case of cabin fever.
This year, there’s shopping, dining, skiing—no ice-skating, so I’ll have to rely on Tinder to help me discover a small-town romance instead—and the house we are renting is a significant upgrade from the cabin we would stay at in Pithole.
All that being said, our parents love the trips up north for the winter.
“I wonder why we’re not going back,” I muse.
Charlie turns to me, resting an elbow on the car door. “It might have been because the infamous Marinara Stain of 2022 was still present on the couch in 2023. I thought your mom was going to give herself a heart attack while disinfecting the house.”
I smile. She’d bought, like, eight different bottles of cleaning supplies and said that if a rental place is choosing to flip the couch cushions over instead of cleaning them, then who knows what else they skimp on. “My mom? Your dad was the one who went on and on about the fact that they charged us for damages and clearly they’d taken the money and run.”
There’s a flash of white teeth as Charlie smiles too. “He hates wasting money. Remember that one year after the ShopRite in Pithole had closed and Dad had wanted to stop at the Giant on the way in so that he could save gas?”
“Oh my god, yes. I couldn’t believe your mom put her foot down.” Charlie’s mom, Susan, is a pretty carefree, go-with-the-flow lady. But after an overnight drive, the last thing any of us wanted to do was shop for a week’s worth of food for nine people. “It makes it even more bizarre that we’re renting such a nice place in Here. It’s such an upgrade. I’m surprised our parents wanted to spend the money.”
There’s a beat of silence and I mentally kick myself. Long ago, our parents agreed to split the rental costs per person so the Dunskys aren’t footing a disproportionate bill. Money has always been a sore spot for the Dunskys, and I shouldn’t judge how they want to spend it. I don’t know how to recover from my faux pas, so I say nothing.
Charlie turns his face away from me and looks out the window again.
6
Charlie
This iswhat I’m up against. Bea and I have so many minefields to navigate, it makes it hard to see a path forward.
I can’t comment on paying for the cabin in Here. I’m proud, but I don’t think it’ll go over well and, besides, it would open a can of worms, and there’s the NDA to think of.
I wish, for the thousandth time, that I’d understood at age twenty that what Bea and I had was irreplaceable. That I’d worked harder, saved more money, and kept Bea in my life. Would we be navigating this together?
We drive through a few small towns, the terrain getting hillier as the miles go by. In my senior year of college, I allowed myselfonesplurge—a friend’s family had a house in Lake Tahoe. I spent a week there learning to ski, and I know that the Catskills, while beautiful, offer a better beginner-skier experience than skiing out west. Which is good, since Bea doesn’t know how to ski.
Finally, we make it to Here. We have to drive through the town to get to the cabin, which is closer to the ski resort. Bea slows the car and we both peer out the windshield at the glowing Christmas decorations.
Bea gasps when she sees a giant Christmas tree in the town center, and something in me swells.
This year could be different.
A new leaf.
“Wow,” she says, and I don’t think she’s talking to me, but I agree anyway. The tree is enormous, and I’m not sure what magic exists in Here, New York, but the lights are moving along the tree, dancing and twinkling while they wind their way up.
There’s a honk and Bea lets out a small “whoops” before jolting the car back into motion. She glances in the rearview mirror, watching the tree fade away behind us.
