That Wasn't Hay You Were Throwing!

It's the day of the Stag and Doe, so I had to get my writing done earlier today so that I could clear my schedule for the hoedown that will commence at 8 o'clock tonight. The World Cup final is tomorrow, so I likely will be facedown in an alley somewhere clutching my Dutch flag. This isn't conducive to writing.

Before my excerpt, I guess I should point out that Sadie and Paul have kissed in the present. While Sadie is nervous about starting something new, she is very happy.


Sadie is at home in Toronto for Christmas, basking in the glory of her fellow Desmans. Her cousin Shawn is performing a special Christmas concert for them, peppered with his own hits. Amazingly, he manages to sing the same Christmas medley that the Hanson brothers made famous, but single-handedly. The overall effect was more than pleasing. Sadie’s mother passes around the room offering cheery fruit cups made out of glassine and parchment paper. While Sadie thinks that these easy paper fruit pouches may have been more perfect for a summer gathering, the honeydew and watermelon balls are just too delightful to resist.

In a less appropriate turn of events, Shawn launched into a rendition of a song off of his latest album, titled ‘Sexy’:

“She was unlike anything I've ever seen.
Body so phat so I said,
‘I got to be that one man leaving tonight with your hand in mine.’
Oh whats your name, push up on me, do your thang.
I love that you have no shame,
So sexy I feel your game.”

The family was visibly uncomfortable, like the time that they had been forced to watch The Barry Manilow Christmas Special. No amount of alcohol should make anyone comfortable with that much crushed velvet, or his spiky bottle blonde hair.

Sadie misses Brett, and worries about him alone with his family. Sadie discerns that relations have been even more strained in the Hall household since Thanksgiving, but of course, not from anything that Brett has said; he never overtly tells her how he feels about anything. It’s more what he doesn’t say that tells Sadie when something is wrong. He has spoken about his family less than he used to, particularly regarding his father.

She also misses Brett considerably more than she would like. By winter, Sadie and Brett had fallen into a pattern of seeing each other almost every day. Not seeing him for the three weeks of Christmas vacation has been hard on her. She knows that she shouldn’t be thinking about him, or checking the Greyhound schedule to see how long it would take her to get to Portland, Maine. She can feel it in her bones that Brett does not miss her the way that she misses him, and she makes a conscious effort to hide this from him. Sadie is tiring herself out, putting up the appearance of the carefree and casual girlfriend. It’s a strange state for her, since she has never been carefree or casual about anything. Brett should know better.

In any case, she continues to worry and miss him, and calls him every few days with some kind of weak excuse. It may have been a little unnecessary when she called him to find out if he knew where her “Zack Attack” CD was, since she has it on her computer, on her iPod, and “Friends Forever” as her ring tone. No, she probably doesn’t need to call him to ask if she had left her copy of “Model Behavior,” Justin Timberlake’s incomparable acting debut, in the bro-mansion. Of course she didn’t, since Brett has his own copy.

That is actually untrue.

She is counting down the days until they can see each other again, but it is still days away. They are both planning on returning to the city for New Year’s Eve to ring in the New Year together. Actually, Brett had been planning on returning for a party at his friend’s house, and Sadie decided to join him. They didn’t exactly make plans together; as usual, Sadie changed her schedule to accommodate him and to spend time with him. They are like pieces of a puzzle that were ever meant to interlock, but can if you force them to. Sadie just hasn’t quite realized how pointless of an exercise this is.

She doesn’t call him on Christmas Eve. She sits alone in her room after her family has gone to bed hoping that he will call to wish her a Merry Christmas, but of course, he doesn’t. And from her experience at his home in Maine, she knows that it isn’t because he is having too much fun with his family. On Christmas Day she waits for him to call again, but by 7 pm she just gives up and calls. Perhaps he is distracted, she tells herself. Maybe I told him that I would call, and he is waiting for me. He is probably worried that I am ignoring him. Perhaps he is travelling or snowboarding or there was a storm in Maine and the phone lines are down.

None of these things even sound true in her head, but what else can she do? These are the lies that get her through the day. She needs to believe that there is a reason that Brett seems to be indifferent to their separation, and that he actually loves her and misses her.

When she finally does call, she doesn’t confront him. What is she, a girl? She’s carefree, remember? She puts on the best front that she can, with the tone of someone who hasn’t really noticed that her boyfriend doesn’t seem to miss her in the slightest. She sounds like someone who is just too busy having fun to even think about Brett. Those voices in her head that tell her that something is wrong are pushed to the side, as she does her best to silence them.

As she watches the Bing Crosby classic “Holiday Inn” with her family, she prays that what Bing sings is true.

How can our love go wrong if we start the New Year right?