I’m pretty sure this must be you because that dog is your lock screen. I’ve grown very fond of your dog, by the way. I like looking at him when I pick up your phone. It makes me happy. I love him.
That picture of Truck made him happy, too. That’s Truck. And there’s an explanation for this photo, too.
She responded with a few laughing emojis. Pretty self-explanatory! Anyway, sorry to disrupt your Christmas Eve. I just thought you’d want to know that Boobs misses you and thought maybe you’d want to let her know that you don’t have your phone right now. I figured if I said it, she’d think she was getting the old heave-ho.
A likelier guess was that Tamara had texted him by mistake. Appreciate it.
Once again, Merry Christmas. She sent a GIF of dancing Santas.
Yes, he liked this girl.
“Hello?” Allen said, leaning across the table.
“Yep, sorry,” Jonah said, and slipped the phone into his pocket. “Okay, the Star.” He took a long drink of his wine and tried to explain to his cousins that the family was facing a seismic change whether they liked it or not.
Three
On Christmas morning, Harper was startled awake by a foghorn ring tone. “What the hell?” Oh, right. She had someone else’s phone. She kept forgetting.
She groped around for it on the bed. When she located it, she could see that it was a video text and tapped the screen. Four people popped into view who looked to be about seventy or so and wearing Santa hats and reindeer antlers. “Merry Christmas, Joe! And Andy and Allen!” they said in an attempt at unison, but one of the men switched the names around. “And Naomi and Lena!” They were laughing and immediately burst into a rendition of the old familiar “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.”
Her mother’s cat, Mr. Snuggles, crawled onto half of her face. He began to purr and stretched his claws into her scalp, and that was the reason Harper was a dog person. “Okay, all right.” She pushed him off and he gave her a perturbed meow, then lifted his tail and presented his butt to her. “You are so obnoxious,” she said to Mr. Snuggles, and put him on the floor. “You should be like this guy,” she said, and showed the picture of Truck to the cat.
He pranced out of the room.
Harper glanced at the clock on the bedside table of her old room at home. Seven o’clock—too damn early for anyone to text singing videos.
She closed her eyes, determined to get a few more minutes. But the phone pinged again. And kept pinging. Halfway through her second cup of coffee, Harper figured out that the woman who kept texting was Jonah’s mother. She’d texted fuzzy pictures of a Christmas tree. And then a fuzzier picture of a pile of presents. She’d texted a picture of a Christmas sweater, her eyes peeking up over the top of it as she held it up. See what you’re missing?
Harper saw what she was missing, all right. It looked like a lot of fun and a lot of libations would be drunk. But it was still too early to get that party started.
Harper turned off the phone and went back to sleep.
Later, when she was dressed and ready for the day, she walked through a very quiet house on her way to the kitchen. Her father and his mother, Mimi, were seated in the area off the kitchen. He insisted on calling it a den. Harper’s mother insisted on calling it a keeping room.
Dad and Mimi were reading. Her mother was in the kitchen, bent over, looking for something in the fridge.
“Merry Christmas,” Harper said.
“Oh, Merry Christmas, lovely!” her mother chirped. “You’re just in time. I was about to start heating the food I picked up from Whole Foods.”
This was how Harper’s small family celebrated the holidays. Which was to say, not at all. There were no sweaters and piles of gifts. There wasn’t even a tree. Her parents weren’t religious or secular or, really, anything that she knew of. But in a bow to the nation’s obsession with Christmas, Harper’s mother generally picked something up at Whole Foods that had to be heated, and they would sit at the kitchen bar, and they would discuss which movie to watch later, until one of her parents would remark that, really, they’d rather read, and then they would opt for that, and Harper would scroll through Instagram and dream of fabulous trips and count the hours until the holiday was over.
It was no secret that Dr. Edward and Mrs. Marlena Thompson had been surprised by a pregnancy at the age of forty. They were quite open about the fact that they’d never wanted kids. “But we are so happy we have you,” one of them would invariably add. The two of them had never managed to get into the child-rearing mindset. Instead, they’d cheerfully allowed Harper to exist in their sphere. She’d had a good childhood, and she had no complaints—but now that she was an adult, they seemed even less inclined to put on any act of parenting.
Harper’s mother had bought ham, mashed cauliflower, green beans, and wine. For dessert, a towering chocolate cake from their favorite bakery. There were only a few gifts. Harper had something for each of them: a new e-reader for her mother. A box of fancy cigars for her father. A wine club membership for Mimi—she lived in a senior village and liked to entertain. In return, her parents had handed her an envelope stuffed with money and a thin gold chain from Tiffany’s. Mimi had given her a pair of sweatpants.
By seven that evening, Harper’s father was snoring in the easy chair in the TV room, and her mother and Mimi were reading. Her father was awakened by a call on the landline at eight. Harper was in the kitchen when he finally stumbled in and handed her the phone. “Hello?”
“What the hell?” It was Olivia, from next door. “Why aren’t you answering the phone number you gave me? I had to call your parents’ house phone and then I had to talk to your dad, Harper.”
“Oh, right,” Harper said. “I had to silence it, because the guy’s mom was blowing up his phone.”
“His mother? Not Boobs? I’m coming over. I mean, if that’s okay.”
“Get over here,” Harper said.
Harper loved Olivia like a sister. And Olivia could definitely annoy her like a sister. When Harper was six, she had moved with her parents into this neighborhood. It had been maybe a day before Olivia was on the doorstep demanding to know how old she was. Harper had been a little intimidated—Olivia had the warm glow of olive skin and sleek dark hair. She was beautiful, and she’d grown into what the magazines confirmed was a perfect figure. Harper’s hair was the color stuck somewhere between blond and brunette, and she was two inches taller than all the other girls. When they were teens, Olivia was always the one in a string bikini at the neighborhood pool, and Harper the one in the modestly cut one-piece.
Every time Harper saw Olivia, she was reminded that she had lived in the shadow of a truly beautiful friend all her life. Boys who showed any interest in her usually wanted to meet Olivia. Men fell over themselves trying to open doors for Olivia, then forgot Harper was there and would let the door slam in her face.