Cosima fell asleep right away, but not before mumbling something almost unintelligible into the pillow.

"I brought a present for you," she said, laying on her stomach, her face pointed away from me.

"What?" I said, touching her bare shoulder.

"I brought a present for you," she repeated. Then she weakly gestured with her arm. "It's in my bag."

I looked around the room, realizing that her bags were not there. Her bags were still out in the living room with Laurent. I sat up and pulled on my robe. I stood at the door and listened, and sure enough, I could still hear the TV.

"Do you want a glass of water or anything?" I asked with my hand on the door knob.

There was no answer.

"Cosima?" I whispered.

She was completely out.

I smiled to myself and left the room as quietly as I could. When I opened the door, the lights in the living room and kitchen had been turned off. I couldn't see Laurent's head over the back of the sofa, so I assumed that he must be asleep. I tiptoed to Cosima's bags first, examined them, tried to guess which one she was talking about. I started to unzip the smallest, then thought better of it. Moving them would make too much noise, and whatever present she had brought for me, it could wait until morning.

Or could it? I thought. Morning is only a few hours away, and so, too is my departure. Maybe I should wake her up! Maybe we shouldn't waste these precious moments!

In the bluish glow of the TV lights, I reached my hand out, touching the rough fabric of Cosima's largest suitcase. It was just a suitcase, but somehow it had been imbued with value; because it was hers, because she had carried it all the way from San Francisco from her apartment with the red curtains and the high bed; the apartment that reminded me of Christmas and the place where I had first let myself imagine a future with her.

And now, here she was, in my bed, in my apartment, during Christmas, and none of this was what I had imagined. I had no chance to anticipate her arrival, her kisses, her sex; and now that I had already consumed them, I stood with my finger on her suitcase, and allowed the anticipation of the those things to catch up with my reality. I felt butterflies.

She is here. I thought. And she loves me.

"Bonsoir," Laurent said, sitting up on the couch and rubbing his eyes.

"Merde!" I said. "You scared me."

I stepped away from the suitcases and walked toward the refrigerator. Much to my discomfort, Laurent stood up from the couch and joined me in the kitchen. He sat at the table and watched me as I poured a glass of water, drank it down, and poured another.

"Would you like some?" I offered.

"No thanks," he said, staring at me with a smirk.

"What?" I said.

"What, what?" he said, shrugging his shoulders.

He knows, I thought. I thought we were being quiet.

"Why are you staring at me?" I said.

"It's nothing," he said. "I'm just wondering what the plan is tomorrow."

"Plan?" I said. "What plan? It's the same as before. I'm leaving at seven o'clock for the airport."

"Oh, okay," he said, still smirking.

"What?" I said, nearly slamming the water bottle on the table.

"It's just, I thought you'd changed your mind," he said.

"Why would I have changed my mind?" I said.

"I don't know," he said, fiddling with the corkscrew that was left on the table. "Because Cosima is here...I thought you'd stay. I mean, she came all the way here for you. It would be a shame to leave right away."

"I know," I said, taking another drink. "But what can I do?"

"You could call out," he said.

"Call out?" I said. "How exactly do I call out of a trip to Kenya?"

"Just like that, with a telephone," he said. "Say you're sick. The 24-hour flu, or food poisoning. Say you aren't fit to be on an international flight. Say you will catch up as soon as you feel healthy."

"24-hour flu?" I said, feeling a bit incredulous.

"Yes," Laurent said. "Stranger things have happened. Besides, if you really are sick, you don't want to put your fellow passengers at risk. It's the responsible thing to do."

"You're kidding," I said.

But Laurent just looked up at me, not saying another word.

"The responsible thing?" I said with a forced laugh. "This, coming from you, the least responsible person I've ever met?"

Still, he said nothing.

"God!" I said. "That's so easy for you to say, because you have never worked hard for anything in your life! I'm not like you, Laurent. I don't just blow people off like that...God! The 24-hour flu! Seriously?!"

Then I was silent, too. It was no fun fighting with someone who wasn't fighting back. I sat down at the table, and we stared at each other. I couldn't really read his face. He was hiding behind his hands, which he had crossed in front of his mouth - not to mention that beard, which looked especially dark in the glow of the TV.

"Look," he finally said. "You can insult me if you want, but I'm trying to help you."

"Yeah, help me lose one of the best opportunities of my career," I said.

"Just listen," he said. "You're not giving up the whole trip. How long are you supposed to be there? In Kenya?"

"Six weeks," I said, immediately understanding his reasoning.

"What's two, maybe three days, out of six weeks?" he said.

"No, I can't," I said after a breath. "It's not right."

"Look," he said. "I didn't want to mention it, but let's just say I heard how much you care for Cosima. Actually, the whole floor probably heard how much you care for her."

He definitely knows! I thought, immediately wanting to leave the room.

"Oh my God!" I said, closing my eyes. "I don't want to hear this."

"If you're embarrassed, you don't have to be," he said. "I'm happy for you. She seems like a really nice girl."

"We're not having this conversation right now," I said.

"Why not?" he said.

"Because..." I said, crossing my arms. "Because we haven't talked about anything important in years, and it's one o'clock in the morning, and I'm in my robe...and we're not suddenly BFFs. That's why! Because...what I feel about Cosima is none of your business."

"Fine, then all I will say is...all I will say is..." he started twice and then he stalled.

"Is what?" I said, looking in his face, though I was extremely uncomfortable with this new level of candidness in our relationship.

"There are very few things that are important in life - the people you love and the time you have, those things are important. Everything else is...well, less important." He slouched his shoulders at the end, looking away, looking down at the corkscrew in his hands.

I was about to call him a hippie and thank him for his less than eloquent advice, but we both jumped at the sound of the floorboards as they creaked in the dark.

My bedroom door opened.

"Delphine?" Cosima said, only her face peeking out from behind the door.

"Yes," I said. "I'm coming."

"Okay," she said. "Got any H2O out there?"

"Sure," I said. "I'll be there in a minute. Go back to bed."

I stood up as the bedroom door closed. I poured the water until the glass was full.

Laurent grabbed my hand as I passed, looking up at me with his blue eyes which were uncharacteristically void of mischief.

"You're making a mistake, Delphine," he said. "Trust me; it's not worth it."

"Go to bed, Laurent," I said, dismissing him and the entire conversation.

/

When I got back to my room, Cosima was laying on her side, the blankets pulled up around her shoulders. I sat on the bed beside her and handed her the cup. She took it, drinking in large gulps, then handed it back to me.

"Sorry," I said. "Did we wake you?"

"No," Cosima said, plopping back down into the bed and pulling the blankets up. "I just wondered where you were, that's all."

I smiled and touched her face, her cheek still rosy and warm from sleep. I leaned over to kiss her forehead.

"Did you find my present?" she said.

"No," I said. "I didn't want to wake Laurent, but now he's awake anyway."

"Then you should go get it," she said.

"Which bag is it in?" I asked.

"The little one," she said. "Just bring it in here."

When I brought the bag, I set it on the bed, and she sat up, squinting and looking around the room.

"Where are my glasses?" she said. "Oh, shit! Where are my glasses?"

"Right here," I said, laughing at her panic. "Don't worry, I put them right here."

I handed them to her and watched her nose scrunch up as she slipped them on. It was a face she pulled often, every time she put on her glasses. It was one of my favorite faces.

Once her glasses were firmly in place, she went about opening her bag and digging around, a smile on her face the whole time.

"So," she said as she began pulling things out and setting them haphazardly on the bed, "Initially, I wanted to bring you a piece of San Francisco that was meaningful. Actually, as lame as it is, I wanted to bring you a snowball..."

Awwwwww, the sound actually escaped my mouth.

Cosima blushed.

"The only problem is," she continued, taking a lunchbox of sorts out of her bag, holding it to her chest, looking shy and vulnerable. "The only problem is, it never snows in San Francisco. Well, not never-never, but so infrequently that it might as well be never. In fact, the last time was in 2006, so, as you can imagine, all of that snow dried up a long time ago."

"Okay," I said, my eyes lingering on the lunchbox thing in her arms.

"So," she continued, "I brought you a substitute."

"A substitute?" I said. "For a snowball?"

"Yes," she said, handing the lunchbox over to me. It was heavier than I expected.

"What is it?" I said.

"Open it," she said.

I unzipped the top and peered inside. I saw a dark blue ice pack.

"An ice pack?" I said. "How romantic?"

"No, look under it," she said. "I hope they're not completely melted yet."

I took the ice pack out, and beneath it were what looked like ice cream popsicles, both labeled Eskimo Pie.

"Ice cream?" I said.

"Not just any ice cream," she said. "Eskimo Pies! I'm going to go out on a limb and say that they are the next best thing to snowballs."

"Right," I said, taking them out of the lunchbox, handing one to Cosima.

"Are they melted?" she asked.

"No, not completely," I said.

"Good!" she said. "I was worried, because I got held up in JFK, which is why I was late, so I wasn't sure if the ice packs would keep for this long. I couldn't bring myself to open the lunch box and check on them, because I was afraid I'd let the refrigerated air out."

She was babbling and fiddling with the ice cream wrapper. At that moment, I could care less about the ice cream in my hand, because I only wanted to devour her.

"It'd be a pretty crappy gift," she said, "to bring melted ice cream; especially if said ice cream was supposed to represent my feelings for you."

"Cosima," I said.

She stopped talking and looked up at me, with the tip of the Eskimo Pie on her lips.

"Yeah?" she said.

"I love it," I said. "Thank you."

"Good!" she said. "Then let's eat! They won't last much longer!"

And it was true, the Eskimo Pies were melting fast, threatening to drip all over my bed. I ate as fast as I could, watching Cosima between bites.

I can't believe she is really here, I thought.

The sounds of her mouth - the sloppy smacking sounds which might have grossed me out, had they been generated by any other - somehow shook me up, forced me to pay attention to that moment, to snatch at it with every neuron of my hippocampus.

My heart was screaming, Hey this is important! Remember this!

And I did.

So much so, that my senses started to converge. The tastes of the chocolate candy shell and the vanilla ice cream center were mixing with the sight of her in my memory, so that even now, sometimes in a convenience store, when passing by the freezer section, I am struck with the image of Cosima's shoulder, peeking out from beneath my white blanket. Even now, both the very mundane smell of vanilla and the very specific chemical smell of lunch box ice packs hold a very dear place in my heart. They both stir up visions of her; her handing me a chewed up popsicle stick; her watching me as I set it aside; her watching me as I slipped off my robe and shut off the light; watching me in darkness, as I crawled into bed over her.

"That was a wonderful present," I said. "The best Christmas present ever."

"Shut up," she said, sliding her hands around my back.

"No, seriously," I said. "Hyperboles aside, I'm really, really happy you are here. The most happy."

"The most happy ever?" she said. "Because that's a hyperbole."

"You know what I mean," I said, holding her face between my hands. "I can hardly believe you're here. I never knew you were so sneaky."

"I know," she said. "It was torture not telling you. I'm actually really bad at keeping secrets."

"You could have fooled me," I said.

"Although, in retrospect," she said. "I probably should have included you so that we could have planned it a little better."

"Oh, I don't know," I said. "It's not like you could have predicted you would be stuck at JFK. And the surprise was pretty amazing."

"I know, but..." she said, looking away for a moment, "...now, you're leaving so soon. It feels like..."

"Déjà vu?" I said.

I traced my thumbs along her jaw, still smelling the chocolate on her breath.

"Yeah," she said, still looking away.

"Maybe," I said. "And, maybe not."

Her eyes snapped back to mine and her brows furrowed in confusion.

"What do you mean?" she said.

"When is your return flight?" I said.

"Back to San Francisco?" she said.

"Yes," I said. "You're not planning to leave tomorrow, too, are you?"

"No," she said. "I'm flying out on Christmas Day. It was the cheapest day."

"I see," I said. "Then I think I might have to fly out on Christmas, too."

"What?" she said. "You're joking."

"No," I said. "I'm very serious, and I think I have a very serious case of the flu coming on."

Not missing a beat, Cosima touched my forehead with the back of her hand.

"I'm no doctor," she said, "But I've seen this in alligators. And you're right. It's seems pretty serious."

"So," I said. "In your professional opinion, speaking as an employee of the California Academy of Sciences, what would you advise me to do?"

"As a scientist, and an expert on the health of albino alligators, I would say you should definitely not get on that flight," she said. "It wouldn't be fair to the other passengers."

"As an expert in immunology and communicable diseases, I think I'm going to have to agree with you," I said. "For the sake of the other passengers."

Her smile was so big, the tops of her cheeks pushed up on the bottom rims of her glasses. A tear formed but did not drip from her right eye. I kissed her cheeks as she laughed, and she wrapped her arms around me again.

"For the other passengers," she said again. "You're very considerate."

"It's only fair," I said, sliding down her body and kissing all the places that I knew would make her laugh, this time, not caring to be quiet.