I feel like “lie” is a bigger word than is strictly called for. I am from Colorado; it is Christmas; I have aunts, uncles, cousins, friends who would be delighted to see me and only too happy to have me stay for Christmas dinner. That cruise George somehow remembered my parents going on? It’s a three week Antarctic Odyssey along the coast of South America that doesn’t dock in Buenos Aires until like January tenth. My brother Cam is spending Christmas with his girlfriend’s family, I think in Boston, and so my sister tagged along on some ski trip to Steamboat with a friend from school.
My plan was in fact to be that exact guy, alone in the dorm with his Christmas dinner from Del Taco, kicking around an empty campus looking for any excuse to put off piano practice. Then George appeared in th
