Holly and Nick Hate Christmas

Holly and Nick Hate Christmas

Two Weeks Before Christmas


Christmas was so overrated.

Nonetheless, I found myself standing in line for a coveted red cup of coffee, determined to drown my sorrows in white mocha syrup and ignore the fact that I probably shouldn’t be paying six dollars for a drink when I’d just lost my job.

Excuse me—­was downsized.

The aroma of slightly bitter beans wafted toward my spot several people back in line. One of the baristas had tiny bells on her sleeve cuffs that jingled every time she worked the register. The man in front of me wore a Santa hat, and it took more self-­control than I’d like to admit not to bat it off his head like a cat.

“Everyone knows ‘downsized’ is just fancy holiday talk for fired.”

I turned my woes away from Santa and toward my favorite co-­worker—­make that former co-worker—­Piper Schaulis, who’d joined me in my quest for coffee-­induced endorphins. She was just on her lunch break, though. I was on a permanent one.

Who gets fired two weeks before Christmas?

“Holly.” Piper faced me as we shuffled another step in the endless line pouring out of the popular coffee haunt in downtown Detroit. Her long dark hair poured like silk over the shoulders of her ugly Christmas sweater. As always, she somehow managed to look fashionable. And as always, I’d chosen not to participate in the ridiculous workplace tradition. “Look, I—­”

“Wait.” I held up my gloved hand. “You’re using your ‘I know you don’t want to hear this’ voice.”

“I know you don’t want to hear this—­”

“Aha!” I pointed at her.

“But you didn’t even like your job.”

“That’s not true.” I rolled in my lips as we inched up in line. Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” was now stuck in my head because of the social media reel I’d created earlier that morning from my suffocating cubicle. The reel I’d made through gritted teeth. The reel I’d had to remake five times because the client wanted more red and green instead of the gold and silver I’d defiantly used.

Piper squinted at me. “You threw away the candy canes someone left on your desk.”

I bristled. “That’s not work-­related. That’s Christmas-­related.”

“This time of year, Christmas is your job.”

“Was my job,” I retorted.

“Maybe that’s part of why you got let go.”

At least she wasn’t pitying me with the “downsized” lie. “What do you mean?”

“Because you hate Christmas.”

“I don’t hate—­”

Piper crossed her arms and arched her dark brows.

Now it was Santa’s turn in line. He ordered a peppermint latte with extra sprinkles, which irritated me.

Okay, maybe Piper had a point.

“Fine, maybe Christmas is my least favorite time of year.” I grabbed a handful of my wavy red hair and shook it at her. “But how would you feel if you were a Christmas baby—­a redheaded Christmas baby—­named Holly?”

She shrugged one slim shoulder. “Grateful I had extra gifts at Christmas?”

“Ha. More like no birthday gifts, because everyone forgets. Well, except my brother, Ryan . . . but not even my three sisters or parents remember.” Ryan and I had always been close, more so than with our older sister, who was thirty-­five, and our two younger sisters.

He never forgot.

“Okay, that one I’ll give you.” Piper dipped into a half squat to peer into the display case of holiday cookies and scones. “Birthdays should be remembered. Isn’t this a milestone year for you?”

“Don’t remind me.” I bit back a groan. “Turning thirty wouldn’t be quite so bad if it wasn’t the same month I also find myself unemployed. And single.”

“You know, those things aren’t so bad individually. You’re just stringing them together with a lot of specific inflection and making them sound worse than they are.”

Right again. But—­ “I want sympathy, Piper. Not a logical lecture.”

She held up both hands. “Sorry, that’s just how my brain works.”

Santa left. I lifted my eyes from the annoyingly cheerful row of holiday gifts cards to the green-aproned barista, who wore a smile and jingle-­bell earrings the size of golf balls.

“What can I get you?”

“A new job.”

Piper’s sharp elbow made contact with my rib cage.

“I mean, a white mocha, please. Grande. Hot.”

The barista picked up a cup. “Peppermint shavings?”

“Heck, no.”

Piper rolled her eyes skyward. “Throw in a shot of holiday spirit while you’re at it.”

It was my turn to elbow Piper.

The barista pressed her lips together, but her smile still escaped. “Name?”

“Holly.”

Her eyes, laden with glittery green eye shadow, darted to mine.

“I know.”

She scribbled with her black Sharpie. “Six twenty-­nine.”

As I pulled my coin purse free of my bag, I mentally calculated how many more mochas I could afford before I crossed the line from charmingly irresponsible to stupid.

“Don’t worry about it. Coffee’s on me,” Piper said, pressing my coin purse back into the depths of my canvas tote.

I hesitated, the numbers I’d been crunching fading. “You don’t have to do that.” I hated pity—­but I also really loved coffee.

“It’s fine.” She shot me a wink as she pulled out her debit card. “Merry Christmas.”

“Funny. Also, thank you.” My cellphone rang, saving me from the explosion of Christmas cheer around me. “Oh, it’s Ryan. Let me grab this.”

He didn’t call often. Usually, we kept a running text message going, most of which consisted of slightly inappropriate memes and family gossip.

I left the line and maneuvered through the crowd toward the holiday-­decaled window. Apparently real snow wasn’t holiday-­ish enough anymore. Now we had to default to stick-­on snowflakes. “Hey.”

Through the phone I could hear a keyboard clacking. Always multitasking, that Ryan. He worked for Brand Blizzard in Cleveland, several hours from our family home in Point Bluff. “Have you heard?”

I leaned one hip against the stir stick and napkin station. “That I got fired? I did hear, actually.”

“What?” Disbelief coated his tone. “You, fired from a job you hated?”

Not disbelief. Sarcasm. “Cute. I’ve been there for almost three years. And if you don’t recall, it’s two weeks until Christmas.”

“Oh, I recall, Holly Berry.”

I stiffened. “That’s not funny.” Neither was Holli-­days or Holly Jolly or the myriad horrid nicknames I was labeled with growing up. Kids could be cruel—­even at Christmas.

“You’re right. It’s not.” Now his tone held genuine apology. “But this could be a good thing for you. Let me guess, they used the word layoff?”

“Downsized.”

“That was my next guess.” More clacking, followed by a few mouse clicks. “Sorry, I’m trying to finish this holiday jewelry ad before I leave for lunch.”

“Let me guess. Something about five golden rings?”

“All right, Scrooge, what’s really going on?”

“Just a bad day.” I scuffed my knockoff UGG boot against the tiled floor. I was having a pity party for one, a party I didn’t even want to attend. But it was hard to un-­RSVP. I kept picturing my boss’s face as she leaned across the desk, eyes sympathetic but firm. Downsized.

Sort of like my plans for the new year. So much for shopping for a new apartment. I was now gifted with figuring out how to pay rent on the one I had.

“You’re really bummed about this job thing, aren’t you?” Annoying Big Brother had turned into Protective Big Brother.

“I just . . .” I briefly closed my eyes. This was so embarrassing, but it was Ryan. “I thought I was going to get promoted.”

“Ouch.” Clack, clack. “That’s awkward.”

“To put it mildly.”

A little girl wearing a faded pink jacket, at least one size too small, skipped past the window, her unmittened hand clutched by a woman wearing thin leggings and no coat at all. It had to be thirty-­something degrees outside. The girl gazed longingly into the coffee shop, but her mom tugged her along with a slight shake of her head.