Silver White Winters

Christmas at Moonrise Records: part 1

Written by my lovely friend high5olivia

Part 1:
A Lost Love and Cold Chinese Food

'Tis the season, huh?

I sighed and blew a strand of hair out of my face. Faint classic rock played in the background. The snow outside muffled any noise, not that there was much to begin with. Everyone is home, tucked into blankets and pillows and endless mugs of cocoa. Cue "Love Actually", "A Christmas Story" and "Die Hard."
Or, like me, stuck at work.
Somewhere along the line, I decided to turn my passion for music into a store. "Moonrise Records", it's called. I've got my own little sign outside of a record disk blending into the moon. I designed it myself: I thought it was very clever. Now it's covered in frost and snow, but it's battled far worse than the cold. I'll have to repaint it soon.
The faint bell at the door rang and I jolted awake, seeing the figure bundled in a scarf and a thick coat shake the snow off their clothes and onto the soaking welcome mat below.
"Hi," I said, eager for a customer. "Can I help you find anything?"
The figure unwrapped the scarf from their face and smiled politely. "Nah, just browsing." A girl, mid-twenties, with curled, lavender dyed hair tucked under a grey toque. Her cheeks and her nose were rosy from the cold.
"Alright, just let me know it you need help." I slumped my shoulders again and pretended to do work: sorting through random records and tapping the clock to see if the time's right.

"Got any plans for the holiday?" She asked, now hiding behind towering stacks of CDs marked "clearance."
Lots of the Halloween-spooky-themed songs in there: you can't listen to the "Monster Mash" all year. Well, some can.
"Stay away from those people, Viv," my cousin told me. "They have no control." That was an odd thing to say to a seven year old, but I let it slide.

"Well," I said, unsure of how to respond. Customers try to avoid confrontation. "I've got a few friends on the block, Haven is a surprisingly excellent cook. Going to her place for dinner. You?"
"My parents are flying out from Toronto at the end of the month. My whole family is there."
"What're you doing in rainy, old Vancouver?" I chuckled, rolling up the sleeves to my festive, plaid shirt. It suddenly got boiling in here.
"UBC is my dream school," she grinned. "Besides, I like the rain."
"You get used to it after a while."
She smiled at my joke. "I'm actually looking for a Christmas gift. Any ideas?"
"Well," I started. "What do they like?"
"Uh, pop, I think. She's always listening to that," she said, cocking an eyebrow in deep thought. "Any suggestions?"
"Uh, I'm not big on pop music. But I know that Ariana Grande is big this year?"
"That sounds great! She's been looking for the newest album of Grande."
"I think I've got a few left in the back, hang on."
I ran to the cluttered back room, where I have dozens of CDs labeled and marked in the albums and genres. More popular in the back: the hipsters are very impatient when it comes to rare music, so I put the lesser-known in the front. Then I spotted it: Ariana Grande. I leaned foreword on my toes, but my foot slipped and I tumbled to the ground and the CDs crashed around me.
"Shit," I muttered, fumbling for the CD I needed.
"Uh, you alright?" The girl called from the counter. "Did you fall?"
"No no," I grunted, trying to find something to balance myself. "I'm okay." I pulled myself up and clumsily staggered to the counter. Smooth, Vivian.
"Okay then," she sighed, trying to stifle laughter. "How much will it be?"
"Five dollars." I said. She handed me a ten and I fumbled around in the vintage cash register my Dad gifted me. I handed her the change and she smiled as I placed the CD in a generic, plastic bag.
"Thanks for your help," she glanced at my name tag. "Vivian."
"No problem. Come again!" I grinned as she left, bundling up and bracing herself for the cold.

"And then she left! And I didn't even ask her name! Or number! Nothing!" I complained after collapsing on the couch in Hazel and Haven's coffee shop.
"Oh, poor you," Haven rolled her eyes. "Do you know what it's like in a bookstore in December? It's madness!"
"Yeah, but you're straight," I retorted with a scoff. "Us gay people are awkward as hell when it comes to dating."
"It's true," Blue smirked. "My girlfriend and I are too scared to even hold hands. In private. And I've been dating her for...a year."
"See! I'm hopeless dating both genders!" I said. Haven rolled her eyes again.
"I guess you're all bi-yourself." Blue joked, but that only sank me lower. Haven snorted slightly, again trying to hide a goofy smile. She looked like she was holding in a sneeze.
"Well, what did you say to her?" Haven asked, seating herself on an armrest on the couch and conducting herself like a functioning adult who definitely doesn't laugh at farts.
"I said, 'no problem, come again.' Which is like, standard for every employee to say," I groaned. "I'm hopeless."
"We all knew that," Skye chimed in, strutting inside from the blistering cold. "What are we talking about?"
"Viv fucked up." Haven crossed her arms, obviously fed up with my antics.
"I'm not surprised," Skye took off her scarf and sighed. "You will never believe the day I've had."
"Government-ty stuff?" Blue deadpanned.
"Sure." Skye sounded exasperated with our combined ignorance and snark.
"Guys, you will not believe the day I just had," Nova announced, combing her hair back with her fingers as she burst through the door.
"What happened?" Blue whipped around to check.
"What? You don't care about my story but you care about hers?" Skye argued.
"Okay: she's dealing with witchcraft and demons. You've got stuffy, white guys in suits complaining about how the government should 'be more effective.' What's your point?" I responded. Skye huffed and tried to bite back a smirk: she knows it's true.
"Well," Nova sighed. "One of the spirits escaped from it's case, so I had to catch it. And a couple of teenagers were breaking everything and knocked the crystals over!"
"Wait, a spirit escaped?" Haven asked.
"Yeah, but it's fine now." Nova waved a hand dismissively. Haven pinched the bridge of her nose.
"Haven, I need you over here!" Hazel desperately shouted from the counter in front of a long line of busy customers.
"Ah, that's my cue." Haven sped off, smoothing her blouse.
"I should probably go too," I yawned. "I've got a long day of no money, a cold apartment and zero customers ahead of me." I gave an unenthusiastic salute as my friends waved and continued with their meaningless conversation. My life is basically a Friends episode without the lack of jobs and the nice apartments. That's how I like to see it. I'm probably Chandler.

I fumbled for the keys to get inside the dim storefront and quickly sped upstairs, afraid that there was a demon in the dark chasing me up to my room. I slammed the door shut and panted. Take that, Freddy Kruger.
Throwing my keys on the kitchen counter, I buckled to my knees and slumped onto the faded chair in the corner of the flat. It had the same texture of an antique carpet. I flicked the lights on in my "reading nook", which isn't much. Just a bookshelf, the ugly chair, a 1990-something, thrifted television, a dusty lamp and the record player that I found in the dumpster behind a White Spot when I was nineteen. I cleaned it up, of course. It turns out that old Triple-O sauce makes me wanna vomit. Who knew?

Listen, I actually really like my apartment. It's homely. It's messy, but I know where everything is. There's a big difference between "messy" and "dirty", and my place isn't dirty. There's posters for old movies all over the place, such as Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Terminator, Back to the Future: everything I grew up with. I've also got paintings and postcards and random maps, both vintage, world maps and city maps. Something about having the world laid out makes the whole planet seem a lot smaller. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing quite yet. But it is comforting, whatever the answer.
I looked around in the fridge for dinner. I had cold Chinese food? Or a "fun-bun" from Cobs. I'd asked if I could get one of the free ones for my little brother, who had a fever at home. That was a dirty, straight-up lie. I often picture myself manically laughing while holding dozens of fun-buns hostage. I'm a god.

Chinese it is.

I searched up John Mulaney on Netflix on my laptop, settling on the chair with my cold noodles and half-eaten spring roll. Netflix is one of the luxuries I can afford, but it's not even the American Netflix.
"Hello, New York!" My hero chuckled into the mic. "I'm so honoured to be here."
I heard the snow pound against the window. Pulling back the curtains, all I could see was white against the black sky and the faint glow of the hazy streetlight. I curled up tighter in my chair, silently wishing I had a blanket. Something about watching the snow makes you cold.

'Tis the season.