I woke up Christmas morning alone. It’s the way I wake up every morning, of course, but not my preferred way to do such. I can handle the quiet solitude of late nights playing with the word over a few drinks, of pacing back and forth in my apartment as I fish for the right phrase, sipping and turning and sipping and turning and then running to the laptop when inspiration comes. I’ve dropped beers doing such. I’ve fallen down, banged my knee on the corner of the futon, cursed at the top of my lungs, “Son of a bitch!” but those were good nights. It’s the mornings that are hardest.

In the pitch blackness that is my room, I’ll wake up and feel the emptiness that is my king size bed, and it doesn’t help that the guy who lives upstairs and his girlfriend like to have sex in the morning, and quite often at that. She’s a loud one, too. One morning, I heard him leave his apartment, heard his footsteps on the stairs, and then there was a knock on my door. It was 6:00. When I opened it, he got right to the point, “Hey man, you got any condoms?” I didn’t. Another time, it sounded like there were two women up there. Lucky him.

I lay sometimes in the dark on my half of the bed as they go at it before work and coffee. There’s always a bang or two on the wall, and I try to block out the sounds by thinking about what I wrote the previous evening or what I want to write. There is all kinds of room and space and time to fill the pages, and so I do. There is also room to sleep, a whole half a bed, and all the time and space of every single night if I could, but I can’t. Sleep does not come easily anymore without the arms of another so I don’t even go to bed until 2:00, fall asleep, maybe, around 3:00 or 4:00, and with the rare exception, I get up no later than 7:00.

My Christmas Eve turned into Christmas in that fashion. I was up just before 7:00 with my standard three hours of sleep, and as I rubbed my eyes on my way to the kitchen, I listened, but there were no sounds upstairs. They must have been visiting family. I considered making scrambled eggs but instead ate one cold potato roll, then another. I wrote for a few hours, but the prospect of staying home alone on Christmas day began to weigh on me so I left. I drove out, and luckily, I found a small coffee shop in West Seattle that was open. As I was walking in, one of the women working recognized me, “Hi, Dave! Merry Christmas.” She was Amy, the drummer for a band I’d once written about.

“Merry Christmas. When are you guys playing next?”

“New Year’s Eve for a house party. You should come.”

“Maybe I will. Send me the details.”

“Done. What’ll you have?”

“Just a coffee in a mug for here.”

“Done. I’ll bring it out to you when it’s ready. We have to brew a fresh pot.”

I went to a table, sat down, and glanced through of The 1st Treasury of Herman which was a Christmas gift from my brother years and years ago and maybe for that reason still makes me laugh. After a few moments, Amy called out, “Hey, Dave, you want any…” I thought she was going to say cream or milk so I prepared my usual joke of saying that I preferred only caffeine, but she surprised me, “…Bailey’s or Frangelico in this? It’s Christmas after all.”

“Uh…sure. Bailey’s, please.”

“Done.” She brought it over, “Here you go, a little Christmas cheer.” Indeed it was, made me glad I left the house. I got to work on the Bailey’s and more of Herman and overheard her talking to the other woman who worked there.

“You know,” the other woman said, “We need to have a smoke break.” Amy’s eyes brightened.

“Damn straight!”

The other woman looked pretty good, black hair, straight, long, a few visible tattoos, a nose piercing, but I shook my head and thought I’d never understand smoking. It just doesn’t make sense to me, and the last woman I loved, which sadly was over a year ago, told me smoking was a deal-breaker for her. That made me smile then. “It is for me, too,” I replied, “The smoky breath and the butts and the lingering smell of ashes on lips, hair, clothes. Yuck.” And it was. “Yeah,” she agreed, “And don’t even get me started on kissing a smoker.” She put her index finger in her mouth, mimicked making herself vomit. “Might as well kiss a steaming pile of shit.” I smiled. We kissed. It was one of those early conversations in the relationship that illuminated one more connection, one more common thread. Neither of us smoked. Neither of us had any desire to date a smoker, a deal-breaker for sure. We clinked bottles, “Cheers to that,” and we drank. We dated for a while, thus, and then that ended as most relationships do. Things just don’t last, but I am still the same. Some things are more important than the empty space in my bed.

I had three coffees, each infused with a large shot of Bailey’s, the last one finishing the bottle. “Merry Christmas to me,” I said to Amy as she handed me that third one. The other woman and I made eye contact a number of times as I browsed the Herman laughing, read the Christmas edition of the newspaper and a Rolling Stone magazine left on a table, but we didn’t trade names, didn’t speak at all. I just kept looking and in my mind dubbed her the Other Woman. I left the coffee shop at 2:00 when they were closing up. “Bye,” Amy said, “I’ll send you the info for New Year’s.” The Other Woman smiled and waved, “Merry Christmas!” She was pretty when she moved her hand like that.

I walked to my car and sat for a few minutes fiddling with the radio and then fumbled in the clutter of the back seat to find the CD I was looking for, Radiohead’s I Might Be Wrong. I put it in, skipped forward to “Morning Bell”, one of my favorite tunes, cranked it. The drums began. I imagined Amy playing this beat and so looked back at the coffee shop before I pulled away. Amy the Drummer and the Other Woman were out front smoking. Yeah, they were indeed pretty, but I wasn’t attracted.

I drove across Lake Washington to the AMC Theater near Factoria Mall intending to catch a movie of some sort in an effort not to go home, but there was time to kill so I went to the a  grocery store first. I bought some toilet paper and some beer, the essentials, and put them in the trunk of the car before going back into the store where there was a Starbucks kiosk in one corner with a few tables around it. I sat at one and read more of Herman. I laughed out loud a few times while thinking I should call my brother more often.

A sadness hit me then. It was Christmas day, and I was sitting alone at a table next to a Starbucks kiosk and reading. I was planning to see a movie later, alone. I woke up alone. I would go to bed alone. Alone. I looked around and said it out loud, “I’m in a fucking grocery store on Christmas.” A young couple came in then. They were holding hands and made haste to disappear in the aisles to seek whatever they wanted. After ten minutes or so, I saw them leave. The woman was carrying a bottle of red wine, the guy a plastic bag. I wondered if there were condoms in it, and then for no reason at all, I bought some condoms myself, a three pack of Fire and Ice because it was the first box I saw on the shelf. I supposed I’d be ready the next time there was a knock on my door at 6:00 in the morning.

When it came time for the movie, I walked through the parking lot thinking, again, that it was Christmas, that I was alone with a pack of condoms in my coat pocket. Perhaps the movie would cheer me up. I crossed the street to the theater. There were two women on the sidewalk about thirty feet in front of the box office, and as I approached them, I heard my name.

“Dave!” It was the Other Woman from the coffee shop, with a friend.

“Hi.”

“You know Amy! She’s a rad drummer, isn’t she? You going to write about her band again?”

“Yeah, I think I will. I’m sorry, but I didn’t catch your name this morning.”

“Clara. This is Lisa.” I shook hands with them both. Clara still looked pretty good, a few extra pounds maybe, but I liked that. I’d rather have a little more than too little. I’d noticed at the coffee shop earlier that the tattoo on her forearm was not a design but some writing. I usually ask of such but hadn’t this morning. I thought maybe I would there in front of the theater, but things took a turn. Clara pulled a pack of cigarettes from her purse. She gave one to Lisa. She offered one to me, and I remembered seeing her smoke outside the coffee shop.

“No, thanks. I don’t smoke.” I thought to make an excuse to get away from them but was too slow.

“What movie are you going to see?” Clara asked.

“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.”

“It’s sold out.”

“Yeah,” her friend chimed in.

I put my hands in my coat pockets. “Oh,” I said. “I’m not sure then.” I was suddenly at a loss. Even with the cigarette, she still looked good, and that surprised me. I never think such of a woman holding a smoke. I squeezed the condom package with my right hand and got a little excited.

“I like your coat,” Clara said. It was a black, wool topcoat that went down just above my knees. “Makes you look like an artist.”

I squeezed the condom package again and looked down at my coat not sure exactly what she meant, but it felt good to hear her say it, “Thanks. Coat makes the man.”

“Hardly.” Eye contact. Squeeze . “Amy told me you wrote a book. I’ve never known a writer.”

“I did.”

“You wrote a book?” Lisa asked.

“Yeah.”

“Quote me a line.”

I thought for a moment and said the first line that popped into my head, “We write books and songs and poems. It is the only way to make love seem eternal.”

“I like that,” Clara said, “and I agree. Nothing ever really lasts.” Her head was tilted slightly, and she was looking at me in a way that made me think she was considering something. “Amy and I looked the book up online, and I ordered a copy after reading the first few pages. It seemed interesting.”

“Thanks.” Those words, of course, made her look even better. I ordered a copy… It seemed interesting … Squeeze.

“Since the movie is sold out we’re going to go to a bar nearby. It’s the only place open on Christmas night that we know of. Want to come?” She took a drag, exhaled. She was polite to turn her head, but the smoke still drifted back to the non-smoker. Lisa was checking something on her cell phone.

I thought about that last woman, the non-smoker, the connection I‘d thought we had in that. It had seemed so strong, the air so clean, but it wasn’t a thread of any sort. It was just a detail, a choice, and in the end, she never loved me back. She went her own way, at her own pace, other interests and habits, other men, and I realized only there in front of Clara that I would still have loved that woman regardless. Can one help such things? I wondered how many possibilities I’d passed because of a lit match, how many times I turned away from all that could have been, or at least the good moments that could have been for that’s what life is, really, our attempt to collect those good moments. The deal-breaker should be the person, not the action. I looked around at the white Christmas lights on some of the trees at the edge of the parking lot, sighed. Merry Christmas to me in the realization that I was the problem, me, something about me just wasn’t right, maybe many things.

Clara spoke, “Well?”

“Shit. Hey, I gotta run,” Lisa said looking up from her phone. “Family stuff. Got to love the holidays.”

“She’s my ride,” Clara said.

“I’ll give you a ride. I’m parked right across the street.” I pointed.

“Okay.”

“Sorry, I really do have to go. I’ll call you tomorrow,” Lisa said hugging Clara, “Merry Christmas. Nice to meet you.” We shook hands. She left.

“Where do you live?” I figured I should ask since I’d volunteered to give her a ride.

“West Seattle.”

“Good. Me too.”

We started walking toward my car. She stamped out her cigarette, bumped into me a couple times, felt the package in my pocket. “What’s that?” She reached in to get it out. “Oh…condoms, eh? You always bring condoms to the movies?”

“You never know what will happen when you get out of bed in the morning.” I was trying not to blush.

“Fire and Ice. Hmm… never cared for these.” She opened the package, and as we walked through the parking lot, she placed a condom under the driver’s side windshield-wiper of three different cars. “I don’t think we’ll need these.” She was laughing, having fun, darting between the cars. We would not need them. I wondered what I would do if I found a condom on my windshield. She pulled another cigarette out but did not light it. Instead, she bumped into me again, and we spun around. She grabbed my hand, and we continued walking to my car. “And anyway, if it comes to it, I have my own.” From the tone in her voice, I was pretty sure it would now come to it.
“You live alone?”

“Yeah.”

“Me too.”

We got to the car, entered. “So where’s the bar?”

She just smiled, “Got a light?”

And for the first time ever, I made use of the car’s cigarette lighter. She cracked her window a bit, exhaled a stream of smoke, and I put the car in drive, eased it onto the street. “This way,” she said pointing, and I followed the direction of her finger. I remembered the tattoo.

“What does that tattoo on your arm say?”

She looked at me, puffed again, smiled again, pointed again, “This way.” When we got to the bar, she tapped her coat on her forearm, “It says, ‘Merry Christmas’.” I knew that wasn’t true, but rather than question her on it, I thought that, finally, I would get some sleep tonight.

After a couple beers, I paid and we got back in my car and headed west over the I-90 bridge. She fumbled through the CDs in the glove box and the back seat, found one, the soundtrack for Singles. She popped it in, clicked forward to “Drown” by the Smashing Pumpkins. She tapped to the slow rhythm of the song on the door, puffed away, mouthed the words as she looked straight ahead and let it play all the way through the feedback solo after which she hit the back button, and the song started again. She took out another smoke and pushed the cigarette lighter in, “I like this.”

I didn’t know if she meant the night or the music or me or Christmas or the beers or that I’d let her smoke in the car, but I didn’t care. I spoke to all such questions.

“Me too. Where’s your apartment?”

She sang along this time, maybe needing that first pass through the song to remember the words. “Let’s go to your place,” she said between verses. I listened to her sing. I was no longer alone, but I wondered if she was like me in simply not wanting to wake up in an empty half bed on the morning after Christmas as others made noises, if this was a one-time thing, just a bit of Christmas cheer, but I decided that question could wait until we had a chance to compete somehow with the guy upstairs.