Elin Hilderbrand - Winter Street

“Hi,” he says, casually, almost cheerfully. “Merry Christmas.”

“Oh,” she says. “Thanks? Merry Christmas to you, too.”

“Where are you?” he says. He realizes he never asked George yesterday where they were staying. He supposes he thought they might be sleeping in the back of the 1931 Model A fire engine.

“I’m at the Castle,” she says.

“The Castle” is their name for the behemoth luxury hotel that summarily stole all of Winter Street’s business. The building is opulent and beautifully appointed; it has a pool, a bar-restaurant, a spa, and a state-of-the-art fitness center. Kelley can’t compete with that. People love amenities. Amenities trump home-baked muffins and four-poster beds any day of the week.

“You got a room at the Castle,” Kelley says. He is close to hanging up. He might feel more betrayed about Mitzi’s staying at the Castle than he does about George.

“It has no soul,” Mitzi says. “Just like we always thought.”

Of course it has no soul! Kelley thinks. He can’t believe she is paying money to stay there. And he does not appreciate her use of the pronoun “we.”

“Have you heard from Bart?” he asks. This is all he really needs to know.

“No,” she says. “Have you?”

“No,” he says.

They sit on the phone for a second in silence. He is terrified about the safety of his son; Mitzi must be a thousand times worse.

“Listen,” he says, “would you and George like to come for Christmas dinner?”

Mitzi starts to cry. This comes as no surprise; she cries at AT&T long-distance commercials.

“I’d love to,” she says. “Oh, thank you, Kelley! You have made my Christmas! What time should we come?”

“Come at five,” Kelley says.

“We’ll be there,” she says.

As far as Christmases go, it isn’t too bad. Her father has bought her cashmere sweaters from J.Crew in three colors, and her mother has gotten her a diamond circle necklace that is, without a doubt, the best gift of Christmas, and, furthermore, it is now the most beautiful and glamorous thing Ava owns. She wonders where she will ever wear it. It’s too fancy to wear to work at Nantucket Elementary School, and when she and Nathaniel go out, they go to places like the Bar and the Faregrounds, neither of which is an appropriate place for a diamond circle necklace. If Nathaniel ever takes her back to the Wauwinet, she supposes she can wear it. And when she goes to visit Margaret in Manhattan.

Ava gently removes the necklace from the box and tries it on, looking in the hallway mirror.

She starts to cry.

Her mother is standing behind her in the mirror, and Ava can see how strongly they resemble each other, but even that doesn’t cheer her.

Margaret says, “You don’t like it?”

“I love it,” Ava says, but her tears keep falling. What girl doesn’t love diamonds? And yet it isn’t the kind of diamond she wanted this Christmas. She wanted to be Isabelle-a girl whose boyfriend loves her so much, he surprised her with an engagement ring. The only person she identifies with is Patrick-his facial expression closely resembles her own. He has good reason: he has been abandoned by his wife and children. Ava’s boyfriend has gone home for the holidays, which doesn’t mean a thing-nobody has even asked where Nathaniel is-except to Ava. To Ava, it means she is unloved, unlovable, unwanted, undesirable.

Then she thinks about Scott Skyler, and her face grows warm. If Scott were here right now, she might let him kiss her again, maybe in her bedroom, lying on her bed with Scott on top of her.

Margaret says, “Now, there’s a smile. That’s what I like to see.”

Ava waits until noon before she checks her phone. She only has a few moments, because her father wants her to play carols-(“I will in a little while,” Ava says, “but no ‘Frosty,’ no ‘Silver Bells’… and absolutely no ‘Jingle Bells.’ ”)-and then she and Margaret must start making dinner.

She closes her bedroom door and takes a sustaining breath.

Nothing from Nathaniel. No missed calls, no texts. She even checks her e-mail, in case he lost his phone or dropped it in his wassail.

She plops down on the bed. She hates herself, hates the weak, groveling, infatuated-beyond-all-reason center of her being. Her core is made of Nathaniel jelly. She is 100 percent sure that if she asks Margaret, Margaret will say she has never been this far gone over a man before-not over Kelley, certainly. And any other boyfriend Margaret has ever had is eating his heart out right now.

She calls Nathaniel because she can’t not call Nathaniel. He answers on the first ring. His voice is chipper, as if he has been awake for hours.

“Hey there,” he says. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas to you,” she says. She tries to match his jovial tone; he sounds like he’s wishing the mailman a Merry Christmas. “Whatcha up to?”

“We’re still opening presents, believe it or not,” he says. “At least, I am. I just got home a little while ago.”

“Home?” Ava says. “From where?”

“From the Cabots’,” he says.

Cardiac arrest. Ava is going to die.

“You slept there?” she says.

“I passed out in the den,” Nathaniel says. “Nobody even knew I was there until I popped up in the middle of their Christmas morning.”

“Oh,” Ava says. She has a hundred questions, among them: how did he end up in the den downstairs? He was down there drinking with Kirsten, it was safe to assume. “What, were you down there drinking with Kirsten until late?”

“It must have been late,” Nathaniel says. “I’m not sure what time I zonked.” He has a casual and open tone in delivering this news, as if nothing about it should give Ava pause.

“I called you at eleven o’clock,” Ava says. “Your phone was off.”

“Huh,” he says. “That’s weird. I mean, it wasn’t off, but there’s no reception in anyone’s basement around here, so my phone probably just acted like it was off.”

“Ah,” Ava says. “Well, you said you’d call at nine, and you didn’t.”

“Yeah,” he says. “I ended up hanging out.”

Ava is silent, and so is Nathaniel. In the background, Ava can hear the high-pitched, happy screams of Nathaniel’s nieces and nephews.

Finally, Nathaniel says, “Hey, so, how’s Hawaii?”

“I didn’t go,” Ava says. “There’s… a lot of stuff going on around here. So my mom just flew here instead.”

“That’s cool,” Nathaniel says. “Your mom’s there? Staying at the inn? How’s Mitzi handling that?”

“Mitzi ran off,” Ava says. “With George the Santa Claus.”

Nathaniel laughs, not because he finds what she just said completely absurd, but, Ava thinks, because he suffers from selective listening and he’s laughing in an attempt to humor her so he can get off the phone and enjoy his family.

“Wow,” he says, confirming her suspicions. “Funny.”

She says, “Well, I’ll let you go.”

“Hey!” he says, suddenly finding new energy. “Since you’re home, you can open my present.”

“Your present?” Ava says. Her heart resuscitates. “What present?”

“I dropped it off at the inn before I left on Tuesday,” he says. “I gave it to Isabelle.”

“You did?” Ava says. “That was thoughtful.”

“Yeah,” he says. “I wanted you to be able to open it.”

“Thank you,” Ava says.

“All right,” he says. “Well, text me and let me know how you like it.”

“I will,” she says.

“I should go,” he says. “Do you have plans for the rest of the day?”