Twelve Months of Kristal: 50 Loving States Maine

Kristal shakes her head, “So you don’t love her, you’re just putting up with her…?”

Siobhan screws up her face. “What the hell are you talking about? That woman’s the best friend I’ve ever had. You think I’d put up with all her nonsense if I didn’t love her more than my own mother?”

“No…no, I don’t think you would…” Kristal says as if realizing the words at the same time she’s uttering them. “And that means…”

She looks up at Siobhan with a wonder-filled expression. “Oh, my Santa! I don’t have a drawing for you! That must mean Maeve’s going to be okay!”

Kristal throws her arms around Siobhan and hugs her.

“Wow, you’re strong for such a small woman,” Siobhan says, standing angry and stiff inside Kristal’s enthusiastic hug. “And warm. I almost believe you are an elf and not just some story Declan made up to get his mom to the doctor.”

“Ooh, speaking of Declan…” Kristal launches into her Gaelic love poem, right there in the middle of the street….

“Más fuath leat anois mé mar a deir tú,

An féidir leat dearmad a dhéanamh chomh luath

Conas tusa agus mise, an domhan ar shiúl,

Chomh luath agus a leagan agus féachaint ar an ngealach?”

Despite my abject embarrassment, I find myself recalling the translation Maeve gave us earlier….

If now you hate me as you say,

Can you forget so soon

How you and I, the world away,

Once lay and watched the moon?

“Stop that! Stop that now!” Siobhan waves the shovel threateningly at Kristal. “I’m the only childless divorcee currently living on this street. They’re probably all looking out their windows at us as we speak. So please make my life way easier and just go.”

Kristal lowers her shoulders, looking a little dejected. “Okay, we’ll go now.”

“Hey, look, I’m not trying to be mean,” Siobhan says, her expression softening with guilt. She lowers the shovel. “It’s just me and Dec were a really long time ago. Old news. And sure, I loved him once. Really loved him…”

Her voice trails off for a moment, only to become hard again, “But I mean, look at me. I’m a mess. There’s no way he’d…” She breaks off, her face resetting to hard and bitter. “Yes, you should go. I have to finish shoveling my sidewalk since apparently I like Sisyphean tasks. Like trying to get my marriage to work for years, just to get left by the guy who was supposed to be the safe choice.”

“Yes, I kind of understand.” Kristal takes a step closer to the much taller woman. “My cousin Krista says that for some people it’s too scary to believe in True Love after their heart’s been broken.”

“I’d edit scary to stupid,” Siobhan says, her hand tightening on the shovel handle. “It’s too stupid to believe in stuff like that after your heart’s been run over with a tow truck.”

It’s as if she’s translating my own thoughts on the subject of love. And I look to Kristal to see how she’ll respond. Will she give me—I mean Siobhan a reason to believe in this True Love her cousin Krista insists really exists?

But Kristal merely says, “Hmm.” She then gives Siobhan a bright smile and says, “Well, see ya.”

And with that, she turns and walks away. Leaving me to throw Siobhan a quick bow before following her.

Uwa, I think, as we begin to make our way back down the street. I really didn’t expect for Kristal to give up that eas—

Without warning, Kristal falls to the ground beside me.

“Are you okay?” I ask, bending to help her up.

“No, don’t touch me!” she exclaims, grabbing hold of her ankle and rolling back and forth as if she’s in excruciating pain.

Real concern rises inside of me, until she suddenly stops flailing, her eyes darting in Siobhan’s direction. She grabs my arm when she sees the taller woman running toward us and gives me the same chagrinned grimace I recalled from our first meeting.

“Elves can’t lie,” she whispers to me, her voice desperate.

I narrow my eyes, not understanding.

But then Siobhan asks behind me, “Oh, hell, did she break something?”

And suddenly, I understand exactly what Kristal is asking me to do.

23

The Right Somebody to Love

KRISTAL

I’ve done something I shouldn’t have, and now I’m trying to figure out how to live with the consequences.

Hayato Nakamura is the exact opposite of “The Right Somebody to Love,” yet the Mamas and Papas cover of that naïve Shirley Temple song plays in my head as we drive back to the inn. Loudly.

He didn’t just lie for me when Siobhan came running up to ask if I was hurt, he also physically committed to the story. After Siobhan pulled up beside me in the truck she’d just conveniently dug out of the snow (as Krista often says, “won’t Santa do it?), he picked me up like I weighed nothing at all and gently set me down inside the cab as if I really did have a sprained ankle.