Adam is fighting through the sea of shoppers at Paragon Sports, inching his way little by little to the front of the store. He can see the registers - they're only about ten feet away now, but it might as well be a mile. The shop is packed, a fact he notes with dismay but not much surprise; the store's annual pre-Presidents Day sale always draws a big crowd. A crowd he could have avoided, if he hadn't waited so long to replace the gloves he'd left behind at his grandparents' chalet in Chamonix over winter break. But he hasn't had much time to shop since classes started back up; apparently, law school professors don't believe in easing their students back into the semester.
He's just about to make a break for an opening in the crowd when a sound that's somewhere between a groan and a cry stops him in his tracks. He pokes his head around a tall spinning rack full of tuning kits, thinking someone has been hurt. But the sound appears to have come from a young woman who is struggling to reach her cell phone while juggling two packages in her hands. Her phone slips from its spot between her cheek and her shoulder, and for a moment it looks like it's going to fall. But the woman's arm shoots out, and she manages to catch the phone in the crook of her elbow, without dropping anything. Nice catch, Adam thinks, as he moves forward to help.
"Do you need help, miss?"
The woman blows a strand of hair out of her face as she turns toward him. He can't tell if her eyes are brown or green, and there's a slightly flustered look in them at the moment, but also a warmth that Adam finds himself immediately drawn to. She blinks at him, looking honestly confused, before blurting, "I - do you work here?"
Adam is so surprised by the question that he laughs. "No, I just shop here a lot."
"You must like to ski," she says.
He's never really thought about skiing in terms of "like" or "dislike;" it's just something that's been a part of his life for as long as he can remember, since the first time his mother guided him down the bunny hill at the age of three. But when he thinks about it now, "like" seems like a massive understatement. The feel of the wind whipping past him as he sails through a sous bois still manages to make him feel alive in a way that nothing else can. And he could spend hours waxing poetic about watching the sunrise from the top of a snow-capped peak. But maybe now isn't the time to bore the pretty girl he's known for all of thirty seconds with his life story. So instead, he simply says, "Been doing it for almost as long as I've been walking. Do you ski?"
It turns out that she's never been skiing, but she's been invited along on a ski trip by some of her other single girlfriends (she's single - Adam mentally files that fact away for future reference) and has no idea what to pack. Adam, who is suddenly in much less of a hurry to leave the store, offers to help her figure out what she needs for the trip, and she gratefully takes him up on the offer. They settle into an easy, pleasant repartee as they hunt through the racks for some basics to get her through the weekend.
Her name is Belle, which seems apropos, and she's a senior at NYU, just about a semester away from getting her bachelor's degree in English (a useless major, his father would surely opine, but personally Adam thinks there are more than enough bankers and lawyers in the world). She's clever and curious and wants to know all about what law school is like ("It's mostly a lot of reading," Adam tells her, which provokes a whole other series of questions). She also has lots of questions about skiing, and Adam does his best to offer her advice ("Almost no one ever falls from the lifts," he reassures her. "You're more likely to fall getting off the lifts - oh, but I'm sure that won't happen to you!"). And every time she smiles at him, he feels like he's hurtling down a mountain at full speed.
When their shopping excursion finally comes to an end, she asks if she can buy him a hot chocolate as a thank you for his help, but he needs to get back to school for an evening class. So instead, he helps her carry her bags to the subway. They part ways on the platform - she's heading downtown and he's going up - but they exchange phone numbers and make tentative plans to meet for lunch after Belle gets back from her trip. She offers one last smile as she hurries off to catch her train, and Adam is so busy thinking about that smile again that he misses his own train and has to wait for the next one. The professor frowns at him when he slinks into class five minutes after the lecture has started, but Adam has zero regrets.
Adam is making himself a late dinner when the email from his professor comes through on his phone:
Dear class, I regret to inform you that I must cancel our class on Thursday morning due to a scheduling conflict. Please read pages 212-275 in your textbooks, and be prepared to discuss pre-trial procedure next Monday. I will send another email next week regarding potential makeup dates. Kind regards, Professor Cogsworth
With Civ Pro cancelled, Adam's first class on Thursday isn't until 3 PM, which means that for once, his morning is wide open. He could sleep in, or go to the gym, or read about something slightly more exciting than motion practice … or better yet, he could call Belle, and see if she finally wants to meet up for lunch like they've been talking about doing. Even if they went out somewhere by NYU, he'd still have time to get to midtown for his first class.
He sends a short text to ask how her ski trip was, and gets a reply almost immediately. Great! she responds. I got through the whole weekend without any frostbite or broken bones. And I even managed to attempt a blue trail on our last day.
Adam smiles. That must mean she braved the lifts, and he can't help but feel a little proud of her for that. He starts to type back when another text comes in. Confusingly, this one is just a photo of two pairs of men's board shorts: one set is blue with a palm tree pattern, and the other sports some sort of floral design. Adam frowns, and then realizes that the photo isn't from Belle - it's Eugene.
Eugene follows up with a second message: Which ones should I pack for Mexico?
Why can't you pack both? Adam writes back, shaking his head in amusement. They're not even leaving for spring break for another two and a half weeks, and Eugene is already worrying about swimwear.
Then he turns his attention back to Belle. I'd love to hear more about your trip. Any chance you want to meet for lunch on Thursday? My afternoon class got cancelled. I can meet you somewhere near NYU?
The response comes back a minute later: Uh, aren't you the one who PLANNED the trip?
Startled, Adam looks back through his messages and realizes that he accidentally sent the lunch invite to Eugene instead of Belle. He groans and writes back, Sorry, meant to send that to someone else. Then he sends the message to Belle, double checking this time to make sure it's going to the intended recipient.
Who did you mean to send it to? Eugene writes back. When Adam ignores this message, he sends another: Is it a girl? It is, you sly dog, isn't it? Do I know her?
Adam is about to fire off a rude response to Eugene when a message from Belle finally comes in. But it's not the answer he was hoping for. I can't Thursday. I'm sorry. I have to meet with a group from my history class. We have a project due end of next week. Are you free the week after St. Patrick's Day? My spring break starts on the 21st.
That's the day before Adam and his friends leave for Mexico, and their flight is obscenely early. But he and Belle agree to make plans once they've both returned from their breaks, and that will have to do for now. He wishes her a good night, and as he's sinking down onto the sofa with a bowl of spaghetti, a final text from Eugene comes in:
Where are you going for lunch? I'm free on Thursday if she can't make it.
"I've never been so bored in all my life," Adam moans, slumping against the wall of the elevator as soon as the doors slide shut.
Shang looks over at him curiously. "You were bored?"
"You weren't?" Adam replies in disbelief. "Shang, we just spent four hours looking through about six hundred pages worth of emails for every occurrence of the word 'croissant!'"
Shang shrugs. "Document review is a vital part of the discovery process. And we should be grateful for the opportunity to be a part of it." The doors slide open again, and they stride through the lobby, out onto the busy Manhattan street, and head in the direction of their favorite sushi joint. "Not many 1Ls get the chance to do real, junior associate-level work for one of the biggest civil litigation firms in the city."
"Not many 1Ls have dads whose names are on the friggin' door," grumbles Adam.
Shang appears to consider this. "True," he concedes. "But that only means we need to work even harder to prove that we belong here."
But Adam doesn't want to talk about work anymore. And besides that, he knows that he and Shang will never see eye to eye on this point. Shang has dreamed of following in his father's footsteps since before he could even walk, whereas all Adam has ever wanted was to get out of his father's considerable shadow. So he changes the subject. "Are you still up for going out on the boat this weekend?"
"Oh yeah, about that," Shang begins, and Adam looks at him sharply.
"Don't tell me you're bailing."
"No!" says Shang. "Not bailing. But I was wondering...would you mind if I brought someone? A girl," he clarifies, when Adam raises an eyebrow. "There's this girl from my fencing class who I've been talking to, and she wanted to know if I wanted to hang out this weekend. She's cool, I think she'd get along with everyone."
Adam shrugs. "Why not? I'm sure Tia would be glad for some company besides the guys."
"Is Lottie not coming?" Shang asks in surprise.
"No. She's back in Louisiana this weekend for some family wedding."
"Oh. Well whatever happened to that girl who you were talking to?" Shang asks. "The one from NYU. Belle?"
Adam sighs. "I haven't actually spoken to her in a couple of weeks. Not unless a few texts complaining about finals count."
"Everything okay?"
"Yeah, I guess. We just never seem to be able to find any time where our schedules line up. I invite her to lunch, she has a meeting for a group project. She invites me to a graduation party, I'm stuck finishing my paper for the writing competition. I'm starting to think maybe it just wasn't meant to happen, you know?"
"Well why don't you see if she wants to come out on the boat?"
The suggestion is so obvious, and so simple, that Adam wonders why he didn't think of it sooner. And the possibility of seeing Belle on Saturday actually manages to buoy him through the slog that is the next four hours of document review. But the boost is only temporary.
"I would love to go out on your boat with you, Adam," Belle says when he calls her that night, and his heart sinks because he can hear the "but" before she says it. "But I'm housebound this weekend. Doctor's orders, unfortunately."
She declines his offer to stay indoors and watch movies instead - probably just as well considering it's his boat everyone is supposed to be going out on (or his father's boat anyway, but he's the one with the keys). But they agree to try again in a few weeks, once her sunburn has had a chance to heal.
"Union Square, right?" the driver of the blue Prius -Vinny, according to Uber - asks as Adam hops into the back seat.
"That's right," Adam says as he settles in for the short drive. The park is actually still a few blocks away from Naveen's place, but he knows that with the Halloween revelers out in full force, he's better off walking the last bit of the way rather than driving. He doesn't want to be late for Naveen and Tiana's party, especially not now that Belle has agreed to meet him there.
"Who are you supposed to be, one of 'dose guys from Cats?" Vinny asks.
"Uh, no. Wolverine," says Adam, carefully scratching at a fake sideburn. Man, these things are itchy.
"A wolverine?" Vinny glances back in the rearview mirror. "If you say so," he says doubtfully. He keeps up a light stream of (mostly one-sided) chatter as they join the flow of traffic heading south on Columbus Avenue. Adam is too busy thinking about seeing Belle to process most of what he says, though he does register the fact that Vinny used to work in a flower shop, which strikes him as kind of funny. Vinny doesn't seem like much of a flower guy.
As they're waiting for the light at West 34th Street to turn green, Adam notices that the traffic around them has started to get a bit heavier. The light changes, and just as they start to roll forward, a cyclist veers in front of the car. Vinny slams on the brakes and shouts out the window in rapid Italian (Adam doesn't actually speak much Italian, but he manages to recognize a few choice words in Vinny's outburst). The cyclist continues on his way, unscathed and oblivious. Unfortunately, the driver behind them is not as quick with the reflexes. There is a metallic crunch at the same time that Adam is thrown slightly forward against his seatbelt. "What was 'dat, another bike?" Vinny asks.
"I think we've been hit," says Adam, turning to look out the rear window. And sure enough, there is a minivan with a crumpled fender sitting directly behind them, one headlight dangling lazily from its socket.
Vinny and the other driver gesticulate wordlessly to each other for a few moments, before moving the two vehicles to the side of 7th Avenue. Then the driver's door of the minivan opens, and out climbs Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It's not really the Notorious RBG, of course, but an agitated looking twenty-something wearing black-rimmed glasses and a long judge's robe with a lace collar. And she's not alone. When the passenger-side door opens, another robed figure jumps out to inspect the damage. And then the side door slides back, and, sweet fancy Moses, there are six more of them spilling out onto the sidewalk.
Vinny gets out to talk to the driver of the minivan, then whips out his cell phone, presumably to report the accident. The minivan driver wanders back to her group of friends, who have taken to pacing restlessly along the curb. Adam leans his head against the window and looks up at the Madison Square Garden marquee, looming just a block ahead and glowing like a beacon above the entrance to Penn Station. Apparently the Knicks are at home tonight. He's never followed them that closely, despite the fact that his family has had courtside seats since the Dinkins administration. But he wonders if Belle would be interested in going to a game with him. He'll have to ask her when he gets to Naveen's. Whenever that ends up being.
It's getting stuffy in the Prius, so Adam decides to get out and get some fresh air, maybe stretch his legs a bit. "I knew we should have taken the Holland," Adam hears one of the minivan passengers say as he opens the car door. Her Jersey accent is almost as thick as the curious crowd that their little fender bender has started to draw.
"You wanted to spend all night sitting in traffic on Canal Street?" another argues. "And miss the parade?"
"I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Esme," mutters a third, shaking her hair out of its tight, slicked-back bun. "But at this rate, we're going to miss the parade anyway." Adam looks up at the marquee again and realizes that she may not be that far off the mark; the parade started fifteen minutes ago.
He thinks of Belle, who has by now almost surely arrived at a party where she knows exactly no one. He's cleared her invite with Naveen and Tiana, of course, so it's not like her appearance will come as a surprise to anyone. And he knows those two will go out of their way to make Belle feel welcome. Still, he had hoped to be there to introduce her to his friends personally. He knows how awkward it can be to be the odd man out.
He walks up to Vinny, who is standing alone near the rear of the Prius and looking impatiently at his phone. "Hey," says Adam. "I think I'm gonna take the subway the rest of the way down. But I'll pay you for the full cost of the ride, okay?"
Vinny grabs his arm, his expression pleading. "Wait. You can't go yet."
"What? Why?"
"I need you to stay here until the police show up," says Vinny. "You're the only witness I've got." He casts a mistrustful look over at the group from the other vehicle.
If you can't trust a minivan full of Supreme Court Justices, Adam muses, who can you trust? "Did they say when they'd get here?"
Vinny throws up his hands - not an encouraging sign. "Soon, I hope. 'Dey said the traffic might slow 'dem down."
Adam agrees - reluctantly - to stick around to give a report to the police. At this point, though, he knows he'd better check in with Belle. Her voice is a little hard to hear, what with the parade passing by on her end of the line and the sirens of the police approaching on his. But she seems to get the gist of his predicament.
"How long do you think that will take?"
"I'm not sure. The cops are apparently having some trouble getting through the crowds. But I'll be there as soon as I can, I promise."
As soon as he can ends up being 10:45. He arrives at Naveen's almost two hours after the last parade float has passed the building, and about fifteen minutes after Belle has decided to call it a night.
"Tough break," says Eugene, passing him a beer. "But for whatever it's worth, the Wolverine costume looks amazing."
"Can't you come out for a few days after your interview? It's not the same without you here." Adam's half sister, Jenny, is nearly in tears; he can hear it from 4,000 miles away and it makes him feel guilty as hell. He might not have much use for his stepmother, but he has to give her credit for at least one thing: she managed to produce a pretty great kid. Jenny is sweet and polite and everything that Adam most certainly wasn't when he was ten.
"I'm sorry, Jennybean, but it's not just the interview. I've got a ton of work to do on my journal article too."
"But you said you'd teach me how to ski moguls," she sniffs.
"And I will," says Adam. "I promise. Tell you what, when you guys get home, I'll take you up to Windham for a weekend, just you and me. By the time we're done, you'll be leaving me in the dust."
"Promise?"
"Cross my heart."
"Well...okay," Jenny agrees. Then, more cheerfully, she adds, "And I hope you do good on your interview."
A voice in the background - Adam's father's voice - suddenly chimes in. "Interview? Who's got an interview?"
"It's Adam, Daddy," says Jenny, and Adam can hear her trying to cover the receiver with her hand. "Do you want to talk to him?"
"No, Jenny, don't," Adam begins, but Jenny is gone before he can finish that thought.
There is a shuffling sound on the other end of the line, and then his father's voice is in his ear. "So. Still going through with that DA interview."
Adam's fists clench, but he fights to keep his voice steady. "Yeah. I think I have a good shot at it."
His father grunts. "You know, Adam, I'm not footing the bill for law school just so you can waste your time in some low-paying public service job."
"And I'm not going to law school just so I can waste my time helping all your rich clients get richer," Adam counters, knowing he is treading onto thin ice but unable to stop himself.
"I didn't hear you complaining about my job when you got a BMW for your sixteenth birthday..."
"Oh, you mean that birthday where you and Georgiana were visiting friends in the Caymans?"
"...or when you got to spend your summers at sailing camp, or study for a year in London," his father continues, ignoring Adam's interruption.
Adam is uncomfortably aware of the fact that his father could continue with this line of argument all night. And he hates that he has no good comeback for it. So he decides to get out of the conversation before it gets more heated than it already is. "Dad? I have to go, I've got dinner cooking. Tell Jenny I'll call her tomorrow."
And he hangs up before his father can respond. Then he lets out a breath and runs a hand through his hair. His father will have seen through his lie, but he is just glad to have gotten out of the argument, even if he does feel like a bit of a coward.
He's still filled with nervous energy though, can feel it vibrating through every part of his body, so he decides to go for a walk to try to burn some of it off. There's still a good bit of slush left over from the snowstorm two nights ago, so he pulls on his boots and zips his parka all the way up to his chin before setting off. He stops at the Starbucks on Astor Place for a cup of coffee to go and makes it all the way to Ferrara's in Little Italy for a sfogliatella just before they close. Christmas on his own isn't so bad, Adam tells himself as he looks out at the lights that are strung above Mulberry Street. They twinkle against the darkening sky as the last few shoppers hurry back to their homes for dinner, and when Adam realizes that he's the only customer left in Ferrara's, he decides it's probably time for him to start heading home too.
It's getting late, so he takes the subway this time, riding a mostly empty 4 train up to Union Square. He comes out of the station near the A&P, and that's when he remembers that he still needs to pick up the ingredients for cranberry sauce. You can't have Christmas Eve dinner without the cranberry sauce, and that canned atrocity that the stores try to pass off for cranberry sauce is, quite frankly, a national disgrace. A&P is fortunately still open - but only for another five minutes, the manager informs him, just before locking the entrance behind him.
Adam grabs the first bag of cranberries that he can find and a nice, fat orange from the produce aisle, and then gets in line at the only register that's still open this late on Christmas Eve. There are a few people ahead of him in the line, so he passes the time by reading the headlines off the tabloids that are stacked on the nearby rack. He looks up as the woman ahead of him shuffles forward a few steps, and the hood of her anorak falls to reveal a head of thick, chestnut brown hair that's been pulled back with a ribbon. He can't see her face, but there's something so familiar about the way she blows at a few strands that have come loose from the ponytail. And he knows he's seen that jacket before. And then it hits him. Could it actually be...
"Belle?" he says, reaching forward tentatively to tap her on the shoulder. "Is that you?"
She turns, and the look on her face is absolutely priceless. "Adam! What are you doing here?"
He explains that he's flying solo for Christmas this year, and she says she's doing the same. And then, inexplicably, she starts to laugh.
Adam frowns, wondering if there was a joke that he somehow missed. But then Belle holds up another bag of cranberries, and suddenly he's laughing too. "You mean, you forgot cranberries too?"
Belle smiles shyly at him. "You know, I've already got my turkey in the oven. It should almost be done by the time I get home. I wouldn't mind the company...if you wanted to come over for dinner? We can fly solo together."
"Really?" says Adam, and he realizes that for the first time all year, he has absolutely no reason not to accept her invitation.
"Really."
Adam smiles back at her. "Well, yeah. I'd love that. But if you're doing the cooking, then here," he says, motioning for her to hand her groceries over. "The cranberries are on me."
Happy holidays! If you're reading this, it means I've actually managed to remember my FF password, which is a minor Festivus miracle. Hope you are healthy and safe as we bid adieu to this absolute shitshow of a year.