Twelve Months of Kristal: 50 Loving States Maine

“Tell me about your cousin, Krista,” he says, once again picking up his pencil. “Has she made any love matches this year?”

Okay, I shouldn’t have said Jae-Hyun didn’t know anything about me. He’s been curious about my elf cousin, Krista, ever since she match-made one of his shop employees with a struggling musician named Lawrence Shephard. Yes, that Lawrence Shephard, the lead singer of The Leaping Larrys.

These days Lawrence receives plenty of coverage from magazines like People and even serves as one of the All-American Music Star judges. But believe it or not, just a few years ago, Lawrence was a down-and-out musician who answered Krista’s ad for 10 Leaping Larrys, the day ten installment of that year’s annual 12 Days of Christmas panoply. Jae-Hyun had been down in the store when Krista had announced that Lawrence and one of the Elemental Outpost’s then clerks were a True Love match. He was tickled by my cousin’s antics and has been demanding stories of her matchmaking adventures ever since.

“Who was this year’s Christmas match?” he asks me now, as he returns to sketching at his usual pace.

Which makes it that much weirder when I have to answer honestly, “Actually, it was me.”

He completely stops drawing, all his wrinkles converging into a mask of astonishment. “You!”

“Yeah, me,” I admit, deliberately dropping my eyes down and returning to my sketch. “But I’m pretty sure her matchmaking gift is broken due to her pregnancy. She matched me with this guy who was way, and I do mean, way, out of my league. He doesn’t believe in true love, only hookups, because he doesn’t do relationships. So, trust me, it’s not going to work out.”

My heart feels like it’s cracking a little as I say those words, but I know they’re true.

“Is that him?” Jae-Hyun asks, reaching across the table to tap a crony finger against my drawing on my pad.

I glance down and realize... “Yes, that is him.”

Sometime during our conversation, I’d filled in all of Hayato’s features, down to the nose I was sure I’d never get right.

But I got it right. That and everything else. The man in my sketch is beautiful…a Josie hero come to life and save for the 2D nature of the drawing, an exact representation of the man I met on the eleventh day of Christmas.

An idea occurs to me then. “His name is Hayato Nakamura,” I say, turning the pad around so that Jae-Hyun can see it better. “Do you know him?”

Jae-Hyun frowns at the drawing and says, “No, I do not know that man. But he does not seem out of your league to me, daughter. I think he would be lucky to have your true love.”

My heart melts with appreciation for Jae-Hyun’s sentiment, but then immediately re-sinks with guilt and confusion. Hayato says he doesn’t know Jae-Hyun, and Jae-Hyun says he doesn’t know Hayato. So why did Santa’s gift, which was only supposed to apply to loved ones, make me draw a picture of Jae-Hyun for Hayato?

The door’s buzzer interrupts my jumbled thoughts.

“Did you order dinner?” I ask Jae-Hyun, just as the melancholy intro for “The Warmth of the Sun” comes ah-ahhh-ah-ah-ah-ah-ing across the record player.

“No…” Jae-Hyun’s face has gone tight again. He doesn’t like strangers at his door. He’d given me a key to the apartment almost laughably early into my mentorship, just so he wouldn’t have to answer it.

“I’ll get it,” I offer, hope suddenly filling my chest.

If Jae-Hyun isn’t expecting someone after comic shop hours, maybe that means Hayato has finally come to his senses! I rush down the box hallway to open the door. But when I do, my heart sinks.

It’s not Hayato, but a man I vaguely recognize from that strange eleventh day of Christmas night. The silent male driver who ferried us from the restaurant to the hotel. He has a linen bag with The Tourmaline San Francisco stamped across it, hanging off one beefy arm.

“Hi,” I say, glancing in both directions to see if his boss is anywhere in the vicinity.

“Hey, Mr. Nakamura sent me to find you,” he answers, revealing a run-of-the-mill American accent. “I went to that Pier 22 looking for you first. But I ran into this woman, who I guess is your cousin, but was dressed in a bird suit, along with her husband, and a bunch of other people. And they were all kissing for some reason.”

“Yeah, that would be Krista,” I tell him, easily filling in the gaps. “She does a 12 Days of Christmas panoply every year. And this year, she did Two Lovey Doves as her second-day display.”

“What’s a panoply?”

“Kind of like a collection of things—it’s hard to explain, but that’s what she calls it.”

Hayato’s driver scrunches his face, obviously still confused. But since I doubt there’s anything I could say to make him less baffled by my wacky cousin's annual display, I move on to the next question. “You said Hayato’s trying to find me? Is he here with you now, waiting in the car downstairs maybe?” I ask, hope surging once again. I mean, surely Hayato would be willing to come up for a minute or two if he was right outside.