Madeline
Maya dropped her monogrammed Louis Vuitton duffle bag on the wide front porch of the old Victorian house belonging to the Myer’s family. Maya gave her older sister, Trina, a hug, embracing her niece she had never met, propped on her sister’s hip.
“Welcome home, sis,” Trina said, bouncing the baby up higher on her hip. Trina dressed herself in blue Wrangler denims and a blue sweater that likely came from Sears over a decade ago. Maya noted her own attire, a Fendi velour sweatsuit and Gucci sneakers. It was the first time she wore either of these items.
“Thanks. It is good to be back,” said Maya. She gave a closed-mouth smile.
“Are you sure it is good to be back? Look at you miss fancy pants. Driving a fancy car and wearing fancy clothes.”
“It’s nothing. I just…”
“You just forgot your roots. Come on inside. Mom is cooking up fajitas for dinner. Mom has gone on some kind of craze where she tries cooking various ethnic foods. Someone needs to tell her that cooking Mexican food will not change the fact that we live in a multi-culturally deprived part of the United States and she should stick to the back of the box recipes she made our whole lives.” Trina shook her head, leading the way inside the house.
“At least she did not take a crack at Dosas,” said Maya.
“At what?” Trina responded.
Something then occurred to Maya, “her recipes came from the back of a box? I always thought they were family recipes.”
The smell of cinnamon and chili powder filled the air and the warmth hit Maya in the face.
She took in her surroundings and felt at home. It was a strange feeling, one that felt way too familiar and yet foreign, like a language she hadn’t spoken in years.
“There she is!” Maya’s older brother, Finnegan, scooped her off her feet. Then he whispered, “Mom is making ethnic food again. She can’t seem to realize she does not know how to make real Mexican food.” He led Maya through the house to the family room that was added on in the 90’s at the back of the house.
“You remember Oliver, right?” Finnegan gestured to a tall man with shaggy blonde hair and a chiseled jaw. He looked familiar but Maya could not place where she knew this handsome man from. “His mom moved to Florida last year, so he will be spending the holiday with us,” Finnegan said.
“Florida is too far to visit for the weekend. Nice to see you again, Maya,” said Oliver, rising from his seat on the couch and reaching out to shake Maya’s hand. She gave a tight smile and reciprocated the gesture, reaching out as if she was entering an important business meeting, like she had done hundreds of times, but she still did not know who this stranger was.
“Nice to see you too, Oliver.” Then it clicked for Maya. Oliver was Finnegan’s best friend from High School. The last time she saw Oliver was at their graduation, when she was ten. Maya always had a schoolgirl crush on him, but as an adult, she hadn’t thought about him in years. He had filled out, he got a haircut that he could style into curls, and his acne had cleared up. She never noticed his eyes before that were a bright blue that matched her cobalt Birkin bag.
Maya shook the thought of Oliver out of her head. She was going to be spending the holidays with him in a family setting, she couldn’t think of how sexy he looked in a plaid flannel shirt. Plus, she didn’t date lumberjacks. She dated men in Armani suits who get Botox and facials. Oliver was clearly not her type.
“Dinner is ready,” mom called.
As everyone gathered around the table Maya did what she could to not sit by the handsome lumberjack. But as everyone sat by their preferred people, she found herself directly next to him.
“For dinner tonight, as you all know, I am serving fajitas. I got the recipe from Rachel Ray so you know it is authentic,” Mom said with an emphasis on ‘fajitas.’ “I know some of you are surprised I know how to cook Mexican food. But I have been to the restaurant, El Torito. And the refried beans I found in the store are even better than Taco Bell’s. And the salsa is not from New York city, so you can all shut your mouths. There are two baskets of tortillas, one corn and one flour. Anyway, enjoy.” She said tortilla as if the double “L,” sound came from the American alphabet for “L”.
Mom sat down as everyone grabbed for the dish in front of them, then passed around the dishes. Tristin, Trina’s five-year-old son, held up a flour tortilla, it was stiff as a board.
“You guys are lucky you don’t always have to try her new culinary concoctions,” said Dad.
“Oh, come on. You like them,” replied Mom.
“So, Maya, what do you do for work now?” Oliver asked.
Maya had made herself a burrito bowl on her plate–she was particular about her macros and she avoided carbs at all costs–she now held a fork of it inches from her face. She paused but before she could answer, Trina spoke up for her.
“She used to work at a hedge fund but is now the chief technology officer of a tech startup that buys stocks.”
“It doesn’t buy stocks. It uses artificial intelligence to read the news and rate stocks. It also has a machine learning element that learns from past picks. Honestly, it is really boring stuff,” said Maya, putting the loaded fork down.
Finnegan piped up, “Well, Oliver is a lawyer. He was on the team who defended some women, including Alysia Malano, in the whole me too movement.”
“It was not that big of a deal. I was one of many lawyers on that case.”
So, he was part lumberjack and part hero, Maya thought.
Maya nodded attentively while the conversation moved away from their careers to the twenty pound prime rib that was to be served for Christmas eve dinner the next day. Dad was concerned that it was not big enough, while Mom insisted that with all the sides they would have leftovers until July. At least Christmas dinner was something their mom had perfected over the years, even if it did all come from boxes and cans.
***
In the morning Maya woke to voices downstairs. She took her time in the bathroom, swiping blush on her cheeks and mascara on her lashes as a last-minute addition to her usual routine and headed down the stairs.
“Look at what Oliver made for breakfast,” said Tristin, pointing at the plate in front of himself. Maya could see a round pancake with two smaller pancakes attached at the top. In the center of the large pancake were two bananas with blueberries for eyes, a strawberry nose, and a whipped cream mouth.
“I made them from scratch. Don’t tell mom. She insisted I use the boxed Bisquick. Do you want one?” Oliver called from the kitchen looking up at Maya.
“Uh, no,” Maya said in a stutter.
“You know they are just pancakes, right?”
“I don’t eat carbs,” Maya spit out.
“But it’s Christmas.”
“It’s Christmas eve.”
“Potato patato.”
Maya rolled her eyes, landing them back on Oliver, “sure.”
“I have one right here for you.”
Maya sat down as Oliver slid a plate in front of her with a similar Mickey Mouse shaped pancake as was in front of Tristin.
“Do you still live in town?” Maya asked, trying to make polite conversation and ward away the awkward silence. She took a bite of the pancake and it tasted like heaven. After almost half a decade of not eating carbs she forgot how good they tasted.
“No, I moved to the bay area after college. Finnegan insisted I come up here for the holidays.”
“So you are staying here? In this house?” Maya choked on her Mickey Mouse pancake.
“Yes. Why do you look so shocked?”
In her mind Oliver was here because he still lived in this small town. When she went to bed last night, she had no clue that Oliver was sleeping soundly under the same roof. This thought gave her a jolt that felt scary but then warm.
“What are you doing? You never unsealed the Bisquick box. How do you make pancakes without Bisquick?” Mom said, entering the room followed by Trina with the baby on her hip.
Oliver held up his palms, “I’m making pancakes from scratch.”
Mom lifted her eyebrows. “Well, now you can do the cleaning from scratch.”
“We are heading to the ice rink soon. Do you guys want to come?” Trina asked.
***
As Maya laced up her white rented ice skates, she suddenly got nervous. She had not been on skates since she was a kid. Would she remember how to do this?
She followed Trina, Tristin, Finagin, and Oliver into the rink, tiptoeing on the blade as she walked. She grabbed the side of the rink as she entered the rink. What would happen if she let go? She would need to find out eventually. She let go of the rail as a skate slipped below her and she grabbed onto the rail again.
“I think I’ll just watch,” she said, making her way to the exit of the rink.
“No you don’t,” said Oliver, taking her hand. “I went to college at Purdue and joined the intramural ice hockey team. I didn’t know the first thing about skating when I started. Now look at me,” said Oliver, spinning in a circle like a ballerina.
Maya gave a single laugh.
“Come on,” he said, holding out a hand. Maya hesitated, then reached out and clasped onto his hand. “There we go.”
Maya scooted the blades of her skates forward as Oliver stabilized her by grabbing her by both hands.
“Okay good. Now keeping your feet shoulder-width apart and parallel to the ice, slide one foot forward.”
Maya did as he said, as Oliver skated backwards with both her hands in his.
“Good. Now slide the other foot forward.”
Maya followed his instruction.
“I’m doing it!”
“You are doing it. You are a pro.”
Oliver let go of her hands, but he didn’t go far in case she needed him for stabilization, as Maya skated on her own.
“You don’t need my help anymore,” Oliver stated. But this statement gave Maya a feeling she couldn’t name. She enjoyed holding his hands. She liked the help from someone else, rather than her always staying strong.
Maya lost her concentration and one of her skates moved sideways. She reached out to Oliver as he grabbed ahold of her waist. But it was too late, the pair went crashing into the hard ice. Her head collided with his as he fell butt first onto the ice, Maya on top of Oliver.
“Well, that is going to leave a big bruise,” he exclaimed and gave a chuckle.
“That was pretty embarrassing. I think I’m going to go back to watching,” Maya said with a chuckle of her own getting up on all fours and making her way back to the rink exit.
“Yeah, that might be a good idea,” said Oliver, picking himself up and brushing off.
***
After Maya showered and changed, she gave a swipe of mascara across her lashes and approved of her comfortable yet cute outfit in the full mirror, head to toe in Rag and Bone. She made her way down the hall as Oliver was coming out of Dad’s study. She realized there was a pullout bed in there and presumably where Oliver had been sleeping.
“Sorry. I didn’t see you there,” said Oliver.
“No problem. Heading to mom’s appetizer spread?” Maya asked.
“You know it. I am looking forward to the creamed cheese appetizer she keeps talking about.”
“You know it is literally a block of creamed cheese with fig jam on it, right?”
Oliver shrugged, “it still sounds good. I like creamed cheese. And I like fig jam.”
They walked down the stairs, Maya leading the way when she stopped abruptly and Oliver nearly knocked right into her.
“Sorry.” She said to Oliver. “Fiona is in the way.” Fiona was the family’s thirteen-year-old Golden Retriever who loved to nap especially in the most inconvenient of places like at the bottom of the stairs.
“That is fine. But we have a bit of a bigger problem.”
“What’s that?”
Oliver pointed to the ceiling. Hanging directly above them, Mom had placed a single sprig of mistletoe tied in a red bow. Mom had a tendency to over decorate the house in mistletoe, forcing her children and her husband to give her love every time she caught herself underneath some.
Maya looked up, “we are not going to…”
But before she could finish, Oliver planted his lips directly on hers causing her to give a squeak before reciprocating the kiss. His pillow lips felt like clouds and heaven presented by God himself. Maya couldn’t remember the last time someone had kissed her, which made the kiss that much better.
“That was nice,” he said when they parted.
“It was,” Maya agreed.
“There you are,” said Finnegan as he approached the pair. “Mom was looking for you, Oliver. She can’t wait for you to try her creamed cheese appetizer. You know it’s just a block of creamed cheese with fig jam on it, right?”
“I still can’t wait to try it.”
As Finnegan turned, Oliver gave Maya a wink and followed Finnegan into the family room. Maya blushed.
***
At dinner, Maya was once again placed next to Oliver, but this time it was different. When she caught his eye, he would reciprocate with a smile at the corner of his mouth and once he gave her a slight nod.
“When do you go back home, Maya?” Trina asked.
“I leave in the morning. I need to get back to work, unfortunately. Stocks won’t buy themselves,” Maya smiled but inward she was cringing at her stupid remark.
“Isn’t that the whole point of using AI? Plus the stock market is closed on Christmas day,” Trina asked.
“We are still refining some of the basic functionality and I have some changes I need to make before the stock market opens back up.”
“You are in the bay area too, aren’t you?” Finnegan said, pointing back and forth to Maya and Oliver with a mouth full of potatoes.
“Yeah, I’m in Menlo Park. And you?” Maya asked Oliver.
“Downtown San Jose. So we are near each other,” responded Oliver.
“You guys should exchange phone numbers. Catch up some time,” suggested Mom.
“No, it’s fine. We don’t have to,” said Maya at the same time Oliver spoke up.
“Yeah, we should.”
The rest of the evening the family sat around the fireplace, singing Christmas carols and each person opening a single gift, a Myer’s family tradition. But one thing that was not exchanged was phone numbers.
***
The next morning Maya awoke before anyone woke up. She didn’t want to deal with the fuss of her leaving and Mom making wait for a lunch she would not eat. She packed her bags, left a gift for Tristin and the baby under the tree. The last thing she did was slip a piece of paper under Dad’s study door scribed in blue ink with her name and phone number. She was certain Oliver would call once they were both safe back in the bay area.
Lumberjacks maybe her type after all.
