She was watching the snow with the expression of someone who had given up trying to figure out what came next. The cafe was getting ready to close. A young employee was stacking chairs at the far end of the room. Another was wiping down the espresso machine. The woman at the window hadn't moved.
Gavin picked up his pie box. He told himself it wasn't his business. He got as far as the door. Then he turned around. Rough night, he said.
She looked up. There was a beat of something guarded in her eyes. Not quite suspicion, more like the reflex of someone used to handling things alone. Then it passed. Flight got cancelled.
She said, "My plans for Christmas are gone, and honestly, I have no idea where I'm supposed to go now. You don't have family here?" "No, I was supposed to be in Denver, a friend's place." She glanced at the crumpled ticket. "We had it all planned out." "Hot? I called three. Everything's booked." A small dry laugh.
Apparently, a lot of people get stranded on Christmas Eve. Her name was Elise Warren. She told him she worked in strategy consulting, traveling client to client, project to project. Minneapolis had been a work stop, not a destination. She had assumed she'd be gone before the holiday.
She was very composed about all of it, calm in the way people get when they've decided composure is the only option left. But Gavin noticed that she hadn't asked the employee if the cafe could stay open longer. Hadn't made a call while he was watching. Hadn't pulled out a laptop to search for options. She was just sitting there very still as though waiting for something to arrive from outside herself.
The employee with the chairs glanced over politely, the kind of glance that means we're closing. Gavin set the pie box down on the table across from her. "My mom always makes too much food," he said. She's been doing it since I was 12 and she hasn't stopped. There's going to be a turkey that could feed 10 people and there are six of us.
He paused. If you don't want to be alone tonight, you could come. Elise looked at him for a long moment. Not evaluating something else. More careful than that and harder to read.
You don't know me, she said. I know you've been sitting here for a while and you don't have anywhere to go. A pause. All right, she said. Yes, thank you.
She reached for her coat and stood. As Gavin turned to collect the pie box from the counter, she looked down at her phone and typed something quickly. She slipped the phone into her pocket before he could see the screen. The message said, "He invited me. Don't follow." His mother's house in St.