Page 1 of Go Back to December

Chapter One

Ihate mornings like this.

They start without a hitch. A smooth beginning swindles you into believing the day ahead is a shiny blank canvas of promise and possibility. Then, one small hiccup lights a fuse that blows up your entire life.

These mornings are a bitch in sheep’s clothing.

It’s 5:17 a.m. For most of the civilized world, that’s good God early. But I run a café in the center of the business district, and I’m right on time for the first train downtown.

I enjoy being on time. And not just because I was raised in a military household, where being on time meant you were already late. Timing matters. Anyone who’s ever relied on public transportation will attest that a tiny change has immense non-linear impacts on complex systems.

Too many times, I’ve paid a price for a missed connection.

Today, I’m not worried. Thanks to the complimentary glasses of wine at last night’s volunteer phone banking fundraiser, the prancing buffalo that dwell in the apartment upstairs didn’t wake me. I have rescued my favorite vintage sweater from stain purgatory and the holiday hollows that usually creep up on me this close to Christmas have not surfaced.

As I stroll into the train station and fish out my pass, a blur of camel wool darts in front of me and knocks my shoulder in its haste. I teeter back on my heels to regain my balance, and the blur materializes into the exact coat owned by the man who lives to ruin my mornings.

That luxury outerwear shouldn’t be slumming it in my neighborhood, at this hour. Its regularly scheduled program of my persecution is restricted to business hours at the café. The possible reasons for its appearance here, now, are terrifying.

The coat doesn’t pause to explain why it has altered the order of the universe. It bobs down the escalator and floats onto the platform below.

An arrogant cashmere-wool blend will not make me late today. I tumble after it and stagger past the cold weather-clad commuters jockeying into position for the incoming train. As the coat ducks through the car at the end of the platform, I rush toward it.

The doors slam shut.

On the track, the train pauses, and from inside the car, the coat turns to face me. A complete stranger bearing no resemblance to the villain I expected peers back.

My penalty for chasing after the phantom menace is waiting an eternity for the next train, which then has the balls to halt in the tunnel, forever, for some unknown and unspecified reason.

Usually, I love the train. Sure, there are plenty of man-spreading, pole-hogging chuckleheads, and those douchebags who don’t get out of their seats for the elderly, disabled, and pregnant people are destined for a special circle in hell. But otherwise, it’s an egalitarian sphere. It doesn’t matter where we’ve come from, or where we’re headed; the train is equal opportunity.

In the stuffy car, my brain wants to unpack why I chased after that coat. I swerve around those thoughts like they’re potholes. The real coat has been suspiciously absent from the café all week, and I’ve managed not to think about it. At all.

If I were a better person, I wouldn’t be so harsh on that coat. I’d forget it existed.

A balding man in a reindeer tie blares carols through his headphones. He’s violating the silent social contract of the early commuters, but I don’t mind as I supply my own lyrics to the “Twelve Days of Christmas.”

Three workdays until the holiday.

Two paychecks before I pay off my student loans.

The partridge in a pear tree: one more month until the announcement of the Lightman Fellowship awards. This is the gift that gets me through the rest of the commute. The possibility that next Christmas, I’ll be researching international economic development in Paris. If everything aligns this week, I’ll land the nomination letter that will complete my application. I’m so close to getting what I’ve been working for, that the prospect of achieving it—of putting all my failures behind me—feels like a fantasy.

When I finally arrive downtown, the sky is as dark as an auditor’s heart, but there’s a patchwork of lighted windows illuminating the glistening office buildings surrounding me. Holiday decorations hang across facades and lampposts, softening the stark steel and glass that reign over the commerce corridor.

The cold bite of December air burns my lungs as I wheeze from the jog up the stairs, and my gasping doesn’t ease when I notice the man lurking in the dark corner of the station exit.

As a single woman who’s spent most of my adult life in aid work, I’ve had to train myself to be aware of my surroundings. Assess potential environmental risks, my brother Craig calls them, which he swears is not a military term.

The man staring at me isn’t old, but his gaze is withered and wired above his grizzled beard. While I’ve seen him at the station before, we don’t trade chummy greetings. He doesn’t ask me what dreams I’m pursuing as we charge into the day. He’s a live wire I sidestep.

It’s my only choice, since I’m out here in the dark, alone. I make a mental note to pack up some extra sandwiches for him when I leave today, and hurry across the street to the café.

In the kitchen, lemongrass turkey sausages sizzle on the grill, baguettes are toasting for the breakfast banh mi, and the savory mix of spices has my mouth watering. At the front of the house, the bamboo floors glisten beneath the black-topped café tables. The first service shift unloads silverware and fills saltshakers, and the sound of clinking glass punctuates the side-work Ted Talk they’re giving our new hire.

A chorus of “Morning, Mel!” greets my arrival, and my heart tugs a little. A year ago, we were on the brink of closing, fighting for survival, but with a lot of sweat, love, and tears, the café is finally flourishing as a social enterprise.

This morning routine is so much more than the rhythms of a workday. Walking into the café feels like coming home. If fortune favors me with the Lightman, it will hurt to leave.