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Kalinda spends the Christmas holidays alone.
Sure, there are people she could visit. Perpetually lonely folks like her, too jaded and cynical to view her company as anything other than someone to pass the time. But she was in no mood for the gloom the future held.
Instead, she had guzzled tequila with Will, who muttered about the sinister side of Old Saint Nick (the irony was not lost on Kalinda, who picked up the tab for the unknown gesture of support). She sipped beer out of wine glasses with Alicia, listening to her drunkenly rant about the commercialism, her son's new laptop, her daughter's new iPod. “The world just needs to calm down,” she had whined, and Kalinda warned her that she was showing her age. Bumped into a breathless Diane and an equally tussled ballistics expert-and as awkward as that was, managed to exchange pleasantries on firearms before bidding the couple adieu. She had even sat with Cary and his old classmates for few drinks, taking a shot with him every time someone said “Harvard”.
So she is not a loner, she is simply alone. If she was desperate, there were police friends and fed friends and campus security friends. “Friends”, as she does not have but still refers to as.
She goes to the supermarket. Her apartment is still bare. She goes and buys her favourite absurdly priced organic skim milk in vintage glass bottles. She likes it because it is fresh and light and does not try to weigh her down. Since she is feeling festive and because she doesn't like eggnog (or eggs, for that matter), she buys a new satchel of sugar and a tin of cocoa.
She buries her nose in her scarf. It's cold outside.
Christmas Eve can only bring so much cheer to Chicago streets-there is a permanent grayness that no amount of tinsel or bells can erase, the kind that is slathered onto the pavement along with the rain and the snow. Kalinda likes that about Chicago-she always knows what she's stepping onto.
She has no pots in her house, so she uses her deepest pan to heat up the milk. She doesn't put much sugar. She doesn't really like sweets.
There's a pile of unopened gifts on her chair-unopened not because Kalinda is a romantic, or anything of that sort-but because even though Kalinda does not like stuff she likes the meaning behind it. The people who give it to her. It means something.
She doesn't know why they bothered, though. She didn't get them anything. She has nothing for them.
Her hot cocoa is done. She has exactly one mug to put it in, so she undergoes the treacherous task of pouring the burning liquid into the cup. She's thankful it all fits, because she would have considered lapping it up like a cat. Her chair is occupied, so she sits on the ground.
Lately, that's where Kalinda has been sleeping. In the living room, on the floor. The gifts have set up permanent shop on her armchair. She doesn't want to bother moving them, so she simply bundles herself up in a cocoon of blankets. She feels safe.
Kalinda is not good at letting go of people, so she does not hold on. But she made a mistake, so she won't sleep in her own bed. How can she sleep, while her bed is burning?
Kalinda really doesn't like being haunted.
She's woken up by the same thing every morning-the cold. The kind that stagnates in the air as a ceaseless chill, and the kind that hums through the fall as an icy slab while it cuts through her cocoon. She likes this, the cold of Chicago, fresh against her thin stockings. She liked it a lot better than the searing burn of matches against her fingertips.
(Last year, she got a postcard from Blake. “Sunny 100 degrees here-Blake”, scrawled on the back of a postcard from New Mexico. She had been infinitely perturbed by the card, by his attempt of knocking her off balance. But there was no card this year, and now she knows it was a goodbye, a farewell, a thank you. A sorry, in his twisted, twisted way. Sorry, for calling your husband.)
There are these moments, like now, on Christmas day, when Kalinda wishes she was not such a self-preservationist. But then she remembers her life, her scars, all the men and women she's kissed and all the disappointment she's caused. It's no use, opening up. Even still, loneliness is a peculiar thing.
Kalinda pauses for five beats before turning to her armchair. The colours of the wrapping paper taunt her, mock the life she lives, the ones she doesn't. She can't stand being ridiculed by the cheery ribbons.
She gets up. Rips open the first box.
It's from Cary, she finds out from the label half-torn on the ground. Funny, she doesn't even remember receiving it. Surely she would remember, the indulgent tilt of his smile whenever he addressed her. He would tease her, just as she hated it, the pseudo camaraderie. Every heartfelt gesture, every second chance, Kalinda wondered if it was even her fault anymore.
(Little known fact: Kalinda really liked Cary.)
It was a crimson red scarf, so rich in its colour that Kalinda swore it was dyed in fresh, pure blood, stilled at that gleaming stage where not one corner dried and dulled. It the softest, most aqueous silk, foreign and at a price Cary most definitely would not have afforded six months ago.
Kalinda holds it in her two hands, frozen. She will not cry.
Life is a funny, funny thing.
Best Wishes, Kalinda -- Cary
There are things she doesn't want to think about-and Cary has a bad habit of falling into that category. So she places the fabric neatly back in the box.
Next up is Will, with a perfectly square box and plain, dark green wrapping. The rouge ribbon pulls of easily, and the paper is thin and insubstantial.
The stench of leather hits her, and she peers into the small box to see red stitches keeping ruddy-white leather tightly sealed. A baseball, thick and heavy.
Keep juggling those balls – Will
The weight is astounding against her wrist, and it takes her a moment to realize it wasn't simply the bulk of the sphere. There was a similar strain between her and Will; she couldn't shake the memory of his enraged features looming over her, the sharp mistrust he threw at her. Deserved, she knew, but couldn't really understand. This is why love could never be trusted.
She gives the baseball one more turn before putting it away. Last thing she needed was another heavy object she could break a window with just lying around.
There's a card outside the last one, a garishly printed cartoon of Santa Clause chasing a flock of reindeer.
I know you're not going to read this book, but I got it for you anyways. It was pretty relevant to my life at the time, but it won't be for you. Or maybe it will.
We've got your back. All of us. It's okay, to ask for help.
Your best friend,
Alicia
Eat, Pray, Love, $24.95 for the hardcover edition. She was right; Kalinda was probably never going to read it.
But it was full circle for something. Alicia was her...friend. So was Will. So was Cary.
So she didn't hold onto people. Or believe in things. But sometimes she couldn't help but care about people. Her friends.
Kalinda knew that things were going to go back to a version of normal soon. Lana would forgive her, because Lana cared. Will would get so caught up in his problems he'd forget about the ones she's caused, Diane would order her from location to location. Alicia would invite her out to drinks, because Alicia was a good person. Cary would smile at her. She'd buy new boots, new leather jackets.
Everything would be fine. Except there's something just so significantly different. She wasn't sure she'd get over the feeling of hands simultaneously at her throat and on her hip, the shards of his eyes drawing blood. She was supposed to be Kalinda.
But, she supposed, she just had to keep carrying on. Tomorrow, she'd go to her storage locker. Then she'd go to work. No rest, for the law.
She'd be just fine.