My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories (2 page)

That was significantly more kissing than Mags had managed in her sixteen years.

She glanced over at Pony again. He was standing near the television, studying his phone. Simini was a few feet away, talking to her friends.

“Still,” Mags said, “it feels like cheating.”

“How is it cheating?” Noel asked, following her eyes. “Neither of them is in a relationship.”

“Not that kind of cheating,” Mags said. “More like … skipping ahead. If you like someone, you should have to make an effort. You should have to get to know the person—you should have to
work
for that first kiss.”

“Pony and Simini already know each other.”

“Right,” she agreed, “and they’ve never gone out. Has Simini ever even
indicated
that she’s interested?”

“Sometimes people need help,” Noel said. “I mean—look at Pony.”

Mags did. He was wearing black jeans and a black T-shirt. He had a half-grown-out mohawk now, but he’d had a ponytail back in middle school, so everyone still called him that. Pony was usually loud and funny, and sometimes loud and obnoxious. He was always drawing on his arm with ink pens.

“That guy has no idea how to tell a girl he likes her,” Noel said. “None at all.… Now, look at Simini.”

Mags did. Simini was small and soft, and so shy that coming out of her shell wasn’t even on the menu. If you wanted to talk to Simini, you had to climb inside her shell with her.

“Not everyone has our social graces,” Noel said, sighing, and leaning into Mags’s space to gesture toward Pony and Simini. “Not everyone knows how to reach out for the things they want. Maybe midnight is exactly what these two need to get rolling—would you begrudge them that?”

Mags turned to Noel. His face was just over her shoulder. He smelled warm. And like some sort of Walgreens body spray. “You’re being melodramatic,” she said.

“Life-or-death situations bring it out in me.”

“Like coffee table dancing?”

“No, the strawberries,” he said, sticking out his tongue and trying to talk around it. “Duth it look puffy?”

Mags was trying to get a good look at Noel’s tongue when the music dropped out.

“It’s almost midnight!” Alicia shouted, standing near the television. The countdown was starting in Times Square. Mags saw Pony look up from his phone and inch toward Simini.

“Nine!”
the room shouted.

“Eight!”

“
Your tongue looks fine,” Mags said, turning back to Noel.

He pulled his tongue back in his mouth and smiled.

Mags raised her eyebrows. She hardly realized she was doing it. “Happy anniversary, Noel.”

Noel’s eyes went soft. At least, she thought they did. “Happy anniversary, Mags.”

“Four!”

And then Natalie ran over, slid down the wall next to Noel, and grabbed his shoulder.

Natalie was friends with both of them, but she wasn’t a
best
friend. She had caramel-brown hair, and she always wore flannel shirts that gapped over her breasts. “Happy New Year!” she shouted at them.

“Not yet,” Mags said.

“One!”
everyone else yelled.

“Happy New Year,” Noel said to Natalie.

Then Natalie leaned toward him, and he leaned toward her, and they kissed.

Dec. 31, 2013, almost midnight

Noel was standing on the arm of the couch with his hands out to Mags.

Mags was walking past him, shaking her head.

“Come on!” he shouted over the music.

She shook her head
and
rolled her eyes.

“It’s our last chance to dance together!” he said. “It’s our senior year!”

“We have months left to dance,” Mags said, stopping at the food table to get a mini quiche.

Noel walked down the couch, stepped onto the coffee table, then stretched one long leg out as far as he could to make it onto the love seat next to Mags.

“They’re playing our song,” he said.

“They’re playing ‘Baby Got Back,’” Mags said.

Noel grinned.

“Just for that,” she said, “I’m never dancing with you.”

“You never dance with me anyway,” he said.

“I do everything else with you,” Mags whined. It was true. She studied with Noel. She ate lunch with Noel. She picked Noel up on the way to school. “I even go with you to get a haircut.”

He touched the back of his hair. It was brown and thick, and fell in loose curls down to his collar. “Mags, when you don’t go, they cut it too short.”

“I’m not complaining,” she said. “I’m just sitting this round out.”

“What’re you eating?” he asked.

Mags looked down at the tray. “Some kind of quiche, I think.”

“Can I eat it?”

She popped another one in her mouth and mushed it around. It didn’t taste like tree nuts or strawberries or kiwi fruit or shellfish. “I think so,” she said. She held up a quiche, and Noel leaned over and ate it out of her fingers. Standing on the love seat, he was seven-and-a-half feet tall. He was wearing a ridiculous white suit. Three pieces. Where did somebody even find a three-piece white suit?

“S’good,” he said. “Thanks.” He reached for Mags’s Coke, and she let him have it—then he jerked it away from his mouth and cocked his head. “Margaret. They’re playing our song.”

Mags listened. “Is this that Ke$ha song?”

“Dance with me. It’s our anniversary.”

“I don’t like dancing with a bunch of people.”

“But that’s the best way to dance! Dancing is a communal experience!”

“For you,” Mags said, pushing his thigh. He wavered, but didn’t fall. “We’re not the same person.”

“I know,” Noel said with a sigh. “
You
can eat tree nuts. Eat one of those brownies for me—let me watch.”

Mags looked at the buffet and pointed to a plate of pecan brownies. “These?”

“Yeah,” Noel said.

She picked up a brownie and took a bite. Crumbs fell on her flowered dress, and she brushed them off.

“Is it good?” he asked.

“Really good,” she said. “Really dense. Moist.” She took another bite.

“So unfair,” Noel said, holding on to the back of the love seat and leaning farther over. “Let me see.”

Mags opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue.

“Unfair,” he said. “That looks delicious.”

She closed her mouth and nodded.

“Finish your delicious brownie and dance with me,” he said.

“The whole world is dancing with you,” Mags said. “Leave me alone.”

She grabbed another quiche and another brownie, then put Noel behind her.

There weren’t that many places to sit in Alicia’s basement; that’s why Mags usually ended up on the floor. (And maybe why Noel usually ended up on the coffee table.) Pony had claimed the beanbag by the bar in the corner, and Simini was sitting on his lap. Simini smiled at Mags, and Mags smiled back and waved.

There wasn’t any booze in the bar. Alicia’s parents put it away whenever she had a party. All the barstools were taken, so Mags got a hand from somebody and sat up on the bar itself.

She watched Noel dance. (With Natalie. And then with Alicia and Connor. And then by himself, with his arms over his head.)

She watched everybody dance.

They had all their parties in this basement. After football games and after dances. Two years ago, Mags hadn’t really known anybody in this room, except for Alicia. Now everybody here was either a best friend, or a friend, or someone she knew well enough to stay away from …

Or Noel.

Mags finished her brownie and watched Noel jump around.

Noel was her very best friend—even if she wasn’t his. Noel was her
person.

He was the first person she talked to in the morning, and the last person she texted at night. Not intentionally or methodically. That’s just the way it was between them. If she didn’t tell Noel about something, it was almost like it didn’t happen.

They’d been tight ever since they ended up in journalism class together, the second semester of sophomore year. (
That’s
when they should celebrate their friendiversary—not on New Year’s Eve.) And then they signed up for photography and tennis together.

They were so tight, Mags went with Noel to prom last year, even though he already had a date.

“Obviously, you’re coming with us,”
Noel said.

“Is that okay with Amy?”

“Amy knows we’re a package deal. She probably wouldn’t even like me if I wasn’t standing right next to you.”

(Noel and Amy never went out again after prom. They weren’t together long enough to break up.)

Mags was thinking about getting another brownie when someone suddenly turned off the music, and someone else flickered the lights. Alicia ran by the bar, shouting, “It’s almost midnight!”

“Ten!”
Pony called out a few seconds later.

Mags glanced around the room until she found Noel again—standing on the couch. He was already looking at her. He stepped onto the coffee table in Mags’s direction and grinned, wolfishly. All of Noel’s grins were a little bit wolfish: he had way too many teeth. Mags took a breath that shook on the way out. (Noel was her
person.
)

“Eight!”
the room shouted.

Noel beckoned her with his hand.

Mags raised an eyebrow.

He waved at her again and made a face that said,
Come on, Mags.

“Four!”

Then Frankie stepped onto the coffee table with Noel and slung an arm around his shoulders.

“Three!”

Noel turned to Frankie and grinned.

“Two!”

Frankie raised her eyebrows.

“One!”

Frankie leaned up into Noel. And Noel leaned down into Frankie.

And they kissed.

Dec. 31, 2014, about nine p.m.

Mags hadn’t seen Noel yet this winter break. His family went to Walt Disney World for Christmas.

It’s 80 degrees,
he texted her,
and I’ve been wearing mouse ears for 72 hours straight.

Mags hadn’t seen Noel since August, when she went over to his house early one morning to say good-bye before his dad drove him to Notre Dame.

Noel didn’t come home for Thanksgiving; plane tickets were too expensive.

She’d seen photos he posted of other people online. (People from his residence hall. People at parties. Girls.) And she and Noel had texted. They’d texted a lot. But Mags hadn’t seen him since August—she hadn’t heard his voice since then.

Honestly, she couldn’t remember it. She couldn’t remember ever thinking about Noel’s voice before. Whether it was deep and rumbled. Or high and smooth. She couldn’t remember what Noel sounded like—or what he looked like, not in motion. She could only see his face in the dozens of photos she still had saved on her phone.

You’re going to Alicia’s, yeah?
he’d texted her yesterday. He was in an airport, on his way home.

Where else would I go?
Mags texted back.

Cool.

Mags got to Alicia’s early and helped her clean out the basement, then helped Alicia’s mom frost the brownies. Alicia was home from college in South Dakota; she had a tattoo on her back now of a meadowlark.

Mags didn’t have any new tattoos. She hadn’t changed at all. She hadn’t even left Omaha—she got a scholarship to study industrial design at one of the schools in town. A full scholarship. It would have been stupid for Mags to leave.

Nobody showed up for the party on time, but everybody showed up. “Is Noel coming?” Alicia asked, when the doorbell had stopped ringing.

How would I know?
Mags wanted to say. But she did know. “Yeah, he’s coming,” she said. “He’ll be here.” She’d gotten a little chocolate on the sleeve of her dress. She tried to scrape it off with her fingernail.

Mags had changed three times before she settled on this dress.

She was going to wear a dress that Noel had always liked, gray with deep red peonies—but she didn’t want him to think that she hadn’t had a single original thought since the last time she saw him.

So she’d changed. Then changed again. And ended up in this one, a cream-colored lace shift that she’d never worn before, with baroque-patterned pink and gold tights.

She stood in front of her bedroom mirror, staring at herself. At her dark brown hair. Her thick eyebrows and blunt chin. She tried to see herself the way Noel would see her, for the first time since August. Then she tried to pretend she didn’t care.

Then she left.

She got halfway to her car, then ran back up to her room to put on the earrings Noel had given her last year for her eighteenth birthday—angel wings.

Mags was talking to Pony when Noel finally arrived. Pony was in school in Iowa, studying engineering. He’d grown his hair back out into a ponytail, and Simini was tugging on it just because it made her happy. She was studying art in Utah, but she was probably going to transfer to Iowa. Or Pony was going to move to Utah. Or they were going to meet in the middle. “What’s in the middle?” Pony said. “Nebraska? Shit, honey, maybe we should move home.”

Mags felt it when Noel walked in. (He came in through the back door, and a bunch of cold air came in with him.)

She looked up over Pony’s shoulder and saw Noel, and Noel saw her—and he strode straight through the basement, over the love seat and up onto the coffee table and over the couch and through Pony and Simini, and wrapped his arms around Mags, swinging her in a circle.

“Mags!” Noel said.

“Noel,”
Mags whispered.

Noel hugged Pony and Simini, too. And Frankie and Alicia and Connor. And everybody. Noel was a hugger.

Then he came back to Mags and pinned her against the wall, crowding her as much as hugging her. “Oh, God, Mags,” he said. “Never leave me.”

“I never left you,” she said to his chest. “I never go anywhere.”

“Never let me leave you,” he said to the top of her head.

“When do you go back to Notre Dame?” she asked.

“Sunday.”

Noel was wearing wine-colored pants (softer than jeans, rougher than velvet), a blue-on-blue striped T-shirt, and a gray jacket with the collar turned up.