By Proxy (23 page)

“Sammy-bro! Merry Christmas, man!” his friend shouted from where he leaned against the bar. “What’re you drinking?”

“Scotch, rocks!” Sam yelled over the thumping house music. Lady Gaga was singing her newest Christmas anthem:
The only place you’ll want to be is underneath my Christmas tree…light you up, put you on top, let’s ho-ho
…

As the Lady Gaga song phased out, a new beat thumped into place and Sam was surprised to hear the xylophone chords that opened the remixed version of “All I Want for Christmas is You” cut through the monotonous beat. And just like that, he was back in Gardiner. Sure, his body might still have been standing in the sweaty, cacophonous throng in Club Blue in downtown Chicago, but suddenly his heart and head were a thousand miles away as memories of the Gardiner Christmas Stroll came into sharp focus. He swallowed the lump in his throat as he remembered the feeling of Jenny’s hand laced through his while they walked up and down Main Street, eating gingerbread, sipping cider, looking in shop windows—

“Scotch?” Joe confirmed.

“Make it a double!” he shouted back as the song picked up, Mariah’s voice belting out the familiar words over the dance beat.

“Wha-a-a-t?”

I just want you for my own, more than you could ever know…

Sam held up two fingers, thrusting them at Joe. “A DOUBLE!”

“Yeah! Sure!”

Sam gave his friend a tight smile, reaching across two heads of seated people to take the drink Joe passed to him. A big plop of liquid sloshed from the rim of the glass onto one of the heads, drawing Sam’s attention down to a blonde woman sitting on a barstool between him and Joe, with her back to him. Long blond hair ended halfway down her back. Sam’s head whipped back up, his mouth opening slightly in hope, his heart suddenly beating wildly with the music. Every hair on his arm stood upright as he stared at her.
Her hair was the same color as… Could it be—?

She turned around, frowning at Sam over her shoulder with an
are-you-kidding-me?
glare
.
“Hey! Watch it!”

Sam didn’t realize he was holding his breath until it came out forcefully. Irrationally disappointed it wasn’t Jenny, he mouthed “Sorry” to the girl’s annoyed face and took a bracing sip of scotch
.

Jenny wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like this, Sam! What’s the matter with you? You’re losing it!

Joe backed away from the bar and maneuvered through the tightly packed bodies to stand next to Sam. It was too loud to talk without shouting, so the pair stood there side by side, looking out at the packed club.

Lights painted everyone royal blue. Women danced in skimpy metallic dresses, businessmen pursued scantily clad girls who looked half their age, bodies gyrated on a packed dance floor, couples made out in dark corners, small clusters of people sat around bottles of expensive champagne in the velvet booths of the roped-off VIP area.
Thump, thump, thump
went the music and the floor and Sam’s head.

I just want you here tonight, holding on to me so tight…

He took another swig of scotch, wishing Mariah would just finish up her damn song so that he could try to enjoy his evening without constant memories of Jenny.

“Sam!”

Sam leaned his head down to Joe, who was a few inches shorter.

“Max and the guys have a table over there!” Joe gestured to a space way up near the dance floor and to the left the way an army scout would indicate friendlies hidden in the jungle.

Sam nodded, taking another sip of his drink. Before he could lower his glass, someone bumped him forcefully from behind and a quarter of the drink splashed onto his shirt. He turned and the blonde girl from the bar looked at him with challenging eyes, smirking at the wet spot on his shirt. She yelled over the thumping noise. “How do
you
like it?”

“Thanks! Are you for
real
?” he yelled at her sharply.

“All’s fair,” she shouted. Then she shrugged sexily.

Edgy. Interesting. Okay, I’ll play
.

“Is this love or war?” he asked, licking his lips, letting his eyes trail up and down her body with a deliberate glance.

She moved in closer and yelled back, her warm breath tickling his ear, “Ask me again tomorrow morning.” She leaned back, raised her eyebrows in inquiry, and smirked again. “I’m Monica.”

So, here it is, Sammy. She’s amusing, good-looking, blonde and blue-eyed. Yours for the taking. What’s your move?

All I want for Christmas is you, Baby…

He stared at her, working his jaw. The answer was quick and clean, like an arrow to the heart:

I don’t want her. I want Jenny.

“Sorry, Monica. I’m taken.”

She frowned and snapped her fingers in regret. “The one that got away.”

He smiled his first genuine grin of the evening and winked at her before she moved on, giving him one last come-hither look over her shoulder. “All I Want for Christmas is You” faded out and another more raucous song started thumping.

His head pounded from the music and the scotch, and if Monica couldn’t persuade him to stay, it was unlikely any other girl could either. He pushed his way out of the club onto the sidewalk, where he filled his lungs with icy cold air and walked home.

***

Without a hangover to deal with, getting up early the next morning to attend church services at St. James near the lake wasn’t physically painful, per se, but comparisons were inevitable, and the cavernous sanctuary and enormous congregation made the service feel impersonal to Sam after the intimate warmth he had found at Grace Church in Gardiner. He knew he was trying to comfort himself by attending church as he had with her, but without Jenny beside him the service felt cold and he felt empty. He left halfway through and walked home in disappointment, lonelier for her than ever.

It wasn’t just at the club or at church either. He was looking for her everywhere. After a week, he realized his search stemmed from the outlandishly ridiculous hope she would suddenly arrive in Chicago to find him, tell him she’d been just as miserable as he, declare her feelings for him, and they would finally be together. His pathetic puppy-dog hopefulness started to disgust him. His heart still leapt in his chest whenever his answering machine blinked with messages, or when he checked his personal e-mail account to find a message waiting, which was ridiculous. He’d never had a chance to give her his contact information, so unless she’d tracked him down through Ingrid it was unlikely he’d hear from her. Even so, he couldn’t seem to stop hoping, couldn’t seem to accept the fact that the feelings he had for her should be truncated. His heart simply wouldn’t move on.

Another problem, though, was Chicago didn’t feel comfortable to him anymore. It didn’t feel like home. It wasn’t Chicago’s fault, but everything about the city he used to love felt different since he got back from Montana. What used to be chic felt fake. What used to be cool felt cold. What used to be fun felt…empty.

Not to mention, he saw everything filtered through Jenny’s eyes now, and it was maddening and funny and heartbreaking to have her constantly in his head and not in his arms. With every passing day, he longed for the wholesome Christmas fun of familiar carols, homemade gingerbread and watching Christmas movies in pajamas. He wanted Christmas tree–lightings and a Christmas pageant followed by hot, spicy Glögg. Quite simply, he longed for Christmas Jenny-style.

He wished he could stop looking for her. He wished he could stop missing her. He wished he could forget every moment he had spent with her and—mercifully—let her go.

He thought of her in the courthouse whispering, “This never could have worked out,” and it made him wince with regret, but the refrain in his head was the same:

She didn’t want you, Sam. She didn’t want you enough. Let her go.

***

He got up for a run the next morning, dark and early, even though the wind off the lake would be brutally cold. He put on long underwear and sweatpants, then layered on top with a thermal long-sleeved t-shirt, sweatshirt and his North Face wind jacket. The key was to keep moving at a decent clip and the wind wouldn’t be so bad. He put on some shearling gloves and a black wool skullcap before heading out the door.

From his apartment in posh Streeterville, it was only two short blocks across Lake Shore Drive to the Lakefront Trail, a decent stretch of paved path perfect for joggers, cyclists and walkers who wanted to enjoy the views of the lake as they exercised. Living in Streeterville was a huge status symbol, and when Sam had purchased his apartment he was chuffed to officially be a part of the exclusive area where he could claim celebrities like Oprah Winfrey as neighbors. With views of Navy Pier and the lake beyond, Sam’s Chicago enclave was part of a glamorous world of nightclubs, museums, parks, skyscrapers and some of Chicago’s finest restaurants.

But it was his building’s proximity to the Lakefront Trail that had been the clincher for Sam when he purchased the modest, though exorbitantly priced, studio. The lake was hands-down Sam’s favorite part of living in Chicago. No challenge was so insurmountable it couldn’t be solved by spending some time jogging, walking or thinking by Lake Michigan. He had, in fact, spent a good deal of time on the Lakefront Trail after his concussion, walking slowly first, then briskly as he worked back up to his usual two- to three-mile daily run. It was on that very trail he had decided to break up with Pepper. It seemed every important life decision Sam had made in the past five or six years had originated with a run along the lake.

More than ever, he needed to remember why he loved Chicago and why staying here was so important to him. How better to reaffirm his allegiance to his hometown than by enjoying the very best it had to offer?

Dawn fought through the clouds that covered the somber sky until the city glowed with a hazy light. There was a dusting of snow on the ground—it was December, after all, and this was Chicago—but that didn’t slow Sam down, and after a good stretch in the lobby of his building he found his way to the path.

In May, the blue of the sky and lake would contrast against the crisp gray of the paved trail and bright green grassy patches of park. Budding trees in cheery shades of lime green and yellow and flowering trees with bursts of pink or white would paint the landscape with vibrant color.

Today, of course, the scene was bleak and colorless. City buildings created a cold, steel-gray basin that held the austerity of the winter scene: the gray path dusted white, and the lake colorless and hazy. Dark brown leafless trees with wiry branches were stark against the muddled morning sky.

He didn’t love the trail any less for the severity of its cold, ashen palette. The trail was his friend in any season—in all seasons—and he valued it as much for its spare, quiet beauty now as he did for its vibrant, cheerfulness in spring and summer.

Few people passed him: one on a bike and later two joggers. It wasn’t an ideal day for exercise: the sun hid behind murky, undecided clouds, and until it made a solid appearance and warmed the air, only the most intrepid athletes—or confused insomniacs—would venture out. He kept his pace up, and his body felt warm despite the unforgiving wind. At some point, Sam realized his brain was keeping rhythm with his pace by verbalizing the beat in his head, and it frustrated him when he acknowledged the sound his brain had chosen, like a pulse with each stride:

Jen-ny. Jen-ny. Jen-ny. Jen-ny.

Jenny.
He slowed down until he stopped, staring out at the lake, lacing his hands behind his neck, as the wind scraped and buffed his cheeks until his eyes shone.

Here, in his sacred place, in his favorite place, his mind could not turn away from her. And suddenly it occurred to him that the trail—where every important decision of his early adulthood had been made, where every problem found a solution, where every trouble was soothed—was part of his past. His weekend in Gardiner was acting as a cornerstone, and his life now existed in two parts: an older, outdated part that included everything he loved about Chicago on one side, and a newer, more vibrant, more visceral part that included Jenny on the other.

It wasn’t that the Lakefront Trail was any less beautiful or meaningful to Sam, but in the blink of an eye its meaning went from actual to sentimental. The soothing place where he had solved his life’s conundrums was nothing more than a picturesque snow-covered trail beside a cold gray lake where a man could run and run and run, but couldn’t run away.

He turned his eyes to the sky.

Make. It. Stop. Or tell me how to make it stop!
How do I get over her? How do I move on? Tell me, because I don’t want to feel like this anymore! I don’t want to miss her like this every second of the day! Please!

His answer was the muffled sound of cold winter waves and the crackle of wind in his ears.

He closed his eyes and let his head drop to his chest. The place that always held neat and tidy answers to tough questions had none to offer today. He shook his head in heavy-hearted frustration before starting back to his apartment.

***

Ron stuck his head in Sam’s office, rapping lightly on the door. “Sammy-boy!”

“Hey, Ron.” Sam squinted and rubbed his eyes. He’d been working for eight or nine straight hours, only breaking for a bag of chips and bottle of water from the vending machine.

Ron plopped down in one of the guest chairs. “Heading to the old family homestead for Christmas?”

“Yep. Thinking about leaving tomorrow.”

Sam generally slept at his apartment on Christmas Eve and joined his parents and sisters on Christmas morning at his parent’s house north of the city. This year he thought he’d leave on the 23rd and spend a couple of days with his folks
.
He was hoping that his suburban childhood home and the company of his family would help him not feel so lonesome.

“So, duuuude…we missed you at the Christmas party! What
happened
? Couldn’t believe it when I heard you were still here working on a deal Friday night! Must’ve been the deal of the century because you missed quite a PAR-TAY!”