Kiss Her Once for Me: A Novel

Chapter One Chapter One
Tuesday, December 13, 2022

There is almost an inch of snow on the ground, so naturally, the entire city is on the verge of collapse.

Since buses are delayed, I tighten the red, hand-knitted scarf around my neck and plow angrily down Belmont Street. Cars are Tetrised bumper to bumper from the arcade all the way to the dispensary because no one here knows how to drive in the snow. Schools have prematurely closed for the day, and children appear in every doorway and walkway, dancing joyfully, catching snowflakes on their tongues. Up ahead, I watch two kids attempt to make snowballs that are at least 90 percent dirt.

Leave it to Portland, Oregon, to be simultaneously so delighted and so horrified by such a modest amount of snow.

And, quite frankly: fuck the snow.

By most meteorological definitions, this doesn't even constitute snow. It's small and wet, falls too quickly, and halfway melts into the concrete as soon as it lands. Still, it's enough to delay the buses and completely derail my day.

I reach into the pocket of my puffy jacket and pull out my phone to check the time again.

Three minutes. I have three minutes and ten blocks to go, which means I'm going to be late for work. And if I'm late for work, I definitely won't get the promotion and pay raise I so desperately need. And I'll probably get fired. Again. And if I get fired again, I'll probably lose my apartment.

Two days ago, the neon-yellow flyer appeared in the slit of my front door, informing me of the raise in rent January first. Fourteen hundred dollars a month for four hundred square feet of subterranean hellscape in Southeast Portland.

If I lose my apartment, I will have to find housing in a city with a horrible housing crisis. And if I can't find a new place to live…

The anxiety extrapolates and catastrophizes all the way to its natural conclusion: if I'm late for work again, my trash heap of a life will finally be put in the compactor and crushed into a cube of steaming hot garbage once and for all.

Why does Portland snow always insist on ruining my life?

The image creeps in. The girl with fire in her eyes and snow in her hair. Dancing on a bridge at midnight. The sound of her laugh in my ear and her breath on my throat and her hands-

But no. There's no point in torturing myself with the memory of last Christmas.

I look down to check the time again just as my phone buzzes with an incoming call. The cracked screen on my iPhone 8 flashes with the name Linds along with a photo of a woman holding a two-gallon alcoholic beverage outside the Bellagio.

I briefly consider ignoring the call, but Catholic guilt, solidified in infancy, wins out. "Hey, Linds-"

"Did you Venmo me that money?" my mother starts as soon as the call connects. It's abundantly clear that no, I did not Venmo her the money, or else Lindsey Oliver would have no reason to call me.

"Not yet."

"Elena. Lovey. Baby girl." Linds adopts her best mom voice-the one she probably learned from watching Nick at Nite reruns while stoned through the better part of the late nineties. Lindsey Oliver insists everyone, including her only child, calls her Linds, while she exclusively calls me Elena despite the fact that I'm Ellie, that I've always been an Ellie, that Elena fits me like a too-tight pair of jeans.

"I really need that money, sweetheart. It's just two hundred dollars." I can perfectly picture my mother's pouting face on the other end of the line. Her dark brown hair, which she dyes a stark blond; the natural waves she straightens every morning; the pale skin she's eradicated through numerous tanning salon punch cards; the high cheekbones she highlights through contouring.

I can picture her face because it's my face, except I still have the curly brown hair Linds calls "frizzy" and the pale skin that makes me look "washed out." If my mother isn't asking me for money, she's probably criticizing my appearance.

"I promise, this will be the last time I ask," she insists.

"I'm sure it will be," I huff as I jog to catch the tail end of a "Walk" sign. Not for the first time in my life, I regret that my only means of physical exercise is the occasional kitchen dance party while I wait for my frozen burrito to heat up in the microwave. "I'm just a little strapped for cash at the moment with my...