Page 71 of The Holiday Whoopie
When you can’t fix a problem, open a spreadsheet. Tabs march across the bottom like good intentions: Permits. Budget. Contacts. Listings. I open the spreadsheet labeled HH—Vet Relocation.
I’ve never been remotely interested in real estate as a profession, and yet I built this file under the guise of helping a friend. Clicking Listings, I find the real reason I started this file in the three houses I flagged for my personal what-if project. Fenced yards. A swing set in one photo. A mudroom that looks like it could survive a childhood of hockey players.
I drag the “Houses” tab toward the trash icon, hover, let it go—then pull it back like a coward and rename it “Misc.” Congratulations, me. I’ve rebranded denial.
A calendar reminder pops up:WPAD— schedule posts (pre-set).I already did that, but I check anyway. The social media captions are still there, cheerful and as unassailable as Eileen was when she helped me with them.
Buy one, gift one to help the Harbor Veterinary Clinic move!
Try the Peppermint Bark Whoopie—Love at First Sip staff favorite!
Nothing says holidays in Maine like Making Whoopie.
I close the laptop like it burned me.
Suitcase on the bed. I toss shirts in like I’m mad at them. The Brioni folds crisply, almost smug about it. On the dresser, a Haven boutique bag I forgot I bought—flannel, impulse purchase when I bought the coat. It’s the kind of thing you wear when you’ve decided to look like you belong here. I pull it out and hold it up. Could be a twin for the one Eli was wearing earlier.
I hate it. But I pack it anyway.
Phone buzz.
Amanda:How’d it go?
I type:Fine.
She types back immediately:Liar.The bubbles tell me she isn’t done.If that were true you’d be in town right now and not sulking at the hotel.
I turn it off, not understanding why I get cell service when I don’t want it but can’t when I do.
All part of Hideaway’s charm, I guess.
No phone. No laptop. No work. Just the kind of silence that lets you replay the recent gut-wrenching transcript line by line.
“…a Hollywood agent-lawyer isn’t part of the life I moved here for or want.” Audrey said it calmly, like she’d lived with the verdict long enough to make peace with the sentence.
What if she’s right? What if everything she said was what I refused to accept the whole time I was playing the part of a local and doing my best impression of a forever family guy? What if leaving now makes her life lighter? Easier? More complete?
I can live with the weight of missing her if it means she gets her happily-ever-after.
Even if it means I don’t.
It takes a night of tossing and turning in my Haven bed, all high-thread-count sheets and downy quilts wasted on a man too restless to sleep, before I finally call time of death on my future in Hideaway.
Gathering the rest of my things, I zip up my suitcase and pocket the key. I don’t even check airline departure times. I’ll wait for whatever flight is next when I get there.
Killing the room lights, I shoulder my coat and head downstairs. The lobby smells like fir and patchouli, and when I check out early, the clerk gives me a sympathetic nod I pretend not to understand.
Outside, the BMW chirps. Snowbanks wear Sunday’s storm like heavy collars, and the plows have since carved the road into a narrow, patient lane. I point the rental toward the airport and let caution set the pace.
Ten under the limit. Wipers metronoming. Headlights stitching a tunnel through the gray.
I keep my phone dark so I don’t get Amanda’s earful and because there’s nothing I can say that won’t make this harder for Audrey— or myself.
Plenty of time, then, for the rerun. And not the heartbreak.
I replay her laugh during my cloven-crush disaster at the farm. The constant sprinkle of flour or cocoa powder on her cheek. How her brow pinches in concentration over the smallest details when she bakes. And the way she looked past me to the life she’s building and didn’t blink.
Okay, a little of the heartbreak.
