This isn’t your typical “happily ever after” story. This is the story after the story. Because after ‘happily ever after’ is, well, everything that comes after. If this were a typical story I would be the side character villainess. The one with only two or three lines who comes off as snotty or mean because that’s all she gets before her boyfriend breaks up with her because he found true love right before Christmas and-
And, you know what, that girl was a person too. She had no idea what was going on before she was dumped right before a major holiday. A holiday about family and love. So of course she’s going to sound mean and crabby. She’s hurting.
It probably says a lot about me that I think of myself as a character in a story. Reveals some sort of childhood trauma or some such. I don’t think so. Sometimes you just need to think that way. It makes the hurt a little less to remember it wasn’t really about you. To think you played an important role in somebody else’s story. The idea that maybe they wouldn’t have found the same type of love if you weren’t there.
What was that? Oh, right. The story. Sorry. So this isn’t the holiday story of how I found true love - because I lost it that Christmas. This is the story of what happened after. It all started on December 27th…
I stood on the top rung of the step stool reaching up to remove the holiday decorations from the ceiling. Most people would have left them up for at least a day or two more, but I’d never been so over a holiday in my life and I was ready to pack up all the smiling snowmen and silly Santa faces for next year. “These things are crap,” I called down to my sister as yet another one ripped. “We should get new ones next year. Good ones.”
“Those are the good ones,” Carol called back from where she was wiping down the shelves under the register. “Maybe not the best ones, but they’re good enough.”
“Maybe for a year or two,” I grumbled as I circled my shoulder around to stretch it. Holding it up high like that for too long wasn’t comfortable. “We’ve had these five.”
Carol shrugged as she plopped her towel back in the bucket of water and stood up, doing a few slight stretches herself. Neither one of us was in the best of shape, and we didn’t need to be. What good were shiny twelve-packs of rock hard abs when a two year old was the toughest thing you had to chase down? “Sales will need to pick up next year if we want anything fancier. And that’s if the boss-lady lets me order it.”
The bell rung over the door and Carol immediately put on a smile and greeted the customer.
“Well aren’t you a bundle of sunshine,” the man said with a pleased smile and a bit of an accent. “I’ll have whatever your special is up there.” He pointed to the advertised flavor of the month and I could feel Carol’s flinch as I held in my snickers.
At least we knew it wasn’t one of those jobs.
“And that’s my cue to go to my real job,” I said as I climbed down and packed up the step stool. Carol and I were part of - well, calling it a gang or an organization sounds wrong. That’s just going too far, I think. It was a group of people who did odd jobs in addition to regular work, sometimes covertly, and held customer privacy at a premium. I was a last-minute nanny for all the workers who needed to go out for those jobs. Usually that meant the boss and the boss-lady, but sometimes I watched others too. Carol was good at sussing out secrets, and her husband was one of the top bodyguards.
“I’ll see you later,” I called out to Carol after stashing the ladder away. “Thanks for stopping in, sir.”
What a hassle. I hated that Carol still had to work there. She had two kids, though, and jobs through the organization weren’t steady enough for them to pay all the bills. I was lucky enough to live alone and only had myself to support. I didn’t even have a pet fish. Most of my belongs fit in my car. When I was full-time nannying then I would stay at the kids’ house, and when I wasn’t I either stayed with my sister for a night or two or booked a cheap motel. It wasn’t much of a life for a boyfriend, I guess. Maybe that’s why he dumped me for the first better thing to walk along.
I shook myself out of those dark thoughts. The kids would immediately pick up on it and I couldn’t really handle two depressed munchkins all night long. I popped in some Disney tunes to cheer myself up and get myself in the right mindset for little tykes, and managed to drive up to their friend’s house right on time.
Timmy and Jo saw me and immediately deflated. They obediently went to the car and climbed in, and I made sure they were all buckled in nice and tight before we went anywhere.
“Where’s mommy and daddy?” Jo asked as I clicked my own buckle into place.
“I’m sorry baby, I don’t know,” I answered honestly. They could be on the other side of the world right now if they wanted. The boss and boss-lady were that rich. I started the car and made sure Under the Sea was playing at a tolerable level. “When we get home we can check the schedule and see. I bet they’re going to be home soon. Didn’t you just see them for Christmas?”
“Yeah, but they were going to let us stay up until midnight for new year’s,” Timmy complained as he crossed his arms and glared out the window. “You never let us stay up that late.”
“That’s because it’s wa~y past your bedtime,” I said with as much gentleness as I could. “New Year’s is special though. It’s a holiday. I might be able to make an exception since you did so good and fell asleep before Santa came.”
Even the mention of their favorite character didn’t garner any smiles. “I’m sorry, kids,” I said again. “But your parents need to work to make sure you have food to eat and nice clothes to wear and can stay in that really nice house. I’m sure they’ll be home as soon as they can. Hey, are you hungry? How about I fix some chicken nuggets for dinner?” Chicken nuggets were usually a hit and a serious change of subject was needed. Badly.
“I want to watch TV,” Timmy said. “I don’t want to watch the kiddy shows either. I want to watch real cartoons.”
I did my best not to giggle at the term ‘real cartoons’. Timmy had only recently graduated from muppets and singing dinosaurs. His cartoons were sometimes too much for his younger sister since she still had a fondness for quick shows with catchy tunes. It was still funny to hear him say ‘real cartoons’ with a serious face. “How about we watch a few episodes of Wishbone and then have dinner. After dinner you can watch cartoons while your sister takes her bath. Deal?”
That seemed to be an acceptable compromise, and Jo started bouncing along when the speakers started with the catchy “Animal crackers in my soup!” from a movie too grown up for either of the kids. They seemed to enjoy my playlist of songs from old-school semi-musicals, though, and the boss and boss-lady didn’t object.
When Part of your World starting playing there was a slight argument over the words which changed the pre-dinner plan to the Little Mermaid instead, but it was a minor disagreement. Typically these two got along fairly well.
I pulled into the driveway and parked the car. As soon as the engine turned off Timmy unbuckled himself from his carseat and jumped down onto the floorboard, eager to get out. Jo was a bit slower and I had to help her while grabbing both bags from the back. It was a slow night - a movie, dinner, and then a bath and cartoons as promised - and that made it easy. No homework to worry over and no practices or recitals to go to meant little fuss over going to bed.
It was only after they were tucked in that I curled up on the couch and wrapped myself in a blanket to look through the feed on my phone.
I’d been avoiding it most of the day because I knew what I saw would just depress me. My breakup with Jake had drawn a lot of questions. The timing was just awful and it was hard to understand why someone would be cruel like that right before the holiday. I was keeping my silence because it still hurt. I didn’t want to talk about it and I didn’t see why I needed to explain his choice to a bunch of people when I wasn’t ready.
But my silence was answer enough for some. The comments on my social feed were enough to see that. I didn’t look to see who exactly was missing from my friends’ list but I saw that it was smaller. The ones who stayed didn’t have the nicest comments either. And maybe they were right. Maybe I hadn’t loved him enough. Maybe I hadn’t given him the attention he needed.
That didn’t mean I wanted to be hurt, though.
After the fifteenth “True Love conquers all” post - probably not about me, but it still felt like it was - I gave up, closed the social app, and sent a goodnight message to Carol. The boss-man was supposed to be back tonight or tomorrow, so instead of going up to the bedroom I just turned off the light and curled up on the couch by the door. Sleep wasn’t easy, but eventually it came.
I didn’t know it at the time, but one of the biggest changes in my life had already happened. There was so much that I didn’t know because I’d been too wrapped up in my own life. After Jake I’d tried so hard to make Christmas for my family so I could forget the hurt and move on. I’d offered to take on the kids just so I wouldn’t need to bum it out in a hotel right after Christmas, and I’d agreed to a New Year’s gathering with my sister which seemed like such a small step towards re-socializing myself.
But it was going to be monumental. All because of a guy who ordered coffee.
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