By Design by Jayne Denker

the street corners. The donuts, cider, and hot chocolate being doled out at the Kiwanis booth were nice, the carolers were nice, every part of the night was perfect for walking around and getting to know this genial Avery person.
    Plus, it was a relief to focus on a pleasant event after her semi-awkward Thanksgiving dinner with her aunt’s family two days before. She didn’t have anything against her Aunt Phyllis, but she would have vastly preferred having her father there as well. But—surprise, surprise—her father had left her a voice mail on Tuesday, announcing he was going on a cruise. A cruise! Over a family holiday! When he had just gotten back from a tropical vacation! She was starting to think her father wasn’t only running away from the memory of her mother, but also was running away from spending time with his only child.
    That stung, but Emmie had to admit it was a real possibility. She and her father had never had a super-close relationship; her father was always blustery and clumsy with her, and she had never been a daddy’s girl by any stretch of the imagination. Oh, she loved him, and he her, but their relationship worked better in a more abstract sense. Emmie was her mother’s daughter all the way; she’d looked for her mom whenever she needed help or advice or someone to confide in. Her mom had been her friend; her dad was the somewhat distant guy in the recliner in the living room, watching TV.
    On occasion, Emmie recalled, her mother tried to nudge her toward spending more time with her dad, but it always ended up being an excruciatingly awkward episode for the both of them. Bob tended to be clumsy with his affection and his communication even on the best of days, and it seemed that was even more of a problem when it came to dealing with his daughter.
    No, they had been far better off with Jennifer in the middle. So, of course, once she was gone, that was when things got really messy. Emmie couldn’t blame her father for keeping his distance now. The parameters of their relationship had been set decades ago. It was just that . . . sometimes she thought it would be nice if they could build something new, now that it was just the two of them. Maybe that was too much to ask, after all these years.
    But Emmie put all that behind her to enjoy her date with Avery, and so far it was going just fine. They got along well, talking easily about art and design and pop culture. He had bought her a hot chocolate without asking her to fork over some money, like Kyle would have done; he didn’t clank when he walked, having squirreled away a six pack of beer in all of his pockets, like Kyle would have done; he made room for her on the sidewalk and held shop doors open for her but didn’t do that damned hand-on-her-back-to-steer-her thing, like Kyle would have done. However, he also did something that Kyle wouldn’t have done—not in a million years.
    Nice, Emmie thought, glancing at her date. Real nice. Had she really seen what she thought she saw?
    Emmie felt completely neutral about Avery, no matter how nice he was. She compared her reaction to him to the capering butterflies Graham inspired—oh, look, there they were now, still in her belly, acting up at just the thought of him—and she knew that Avery didn’t measure up in the slightest. So, because she really didn’t care whether they had a second date or not, let alone whether they ever forged a real relationship, she decided now was the perfect time to start being more assertive when it came to dragging the truth out of men. Even if it did guarantee she’d end up a perpetually single, old, crazy cat lady someday.
    “Avery?”
    The young man leaned his blond head closer to hers as they walked; the holiday parade was passing, presently featuring the middle school band’s honking, squeaking rendition of what may or may not have been “Jolly Old St. Nicholas,” and it was difficult to hear much of anything else. “Yes?”
    Once they were on the