On Strike for Christmas (7 page)

“Tyler,” Amy scolded. “Daddy, Tyler's caught in the lights. Tyler!”

Glen looked around the tree just in time to see his son with his foot in the string of lights, stumbling backward. Now both feet were caught. The light string went taut and the tree began to tip right along with Tyler.

There went the tree, there went his kid. Which to grab? Glen opted for the tree, figuring Tyler's fall would be a lot less painful if he didn't have a six-foot Douglas fir on top of him.

Tyler landed with a yelp, managing to push Amy backward in the process. She landed in the box of ornaments, creating a chorus of crunches.

Shit
. Glen leapt from around the tree, hauled up Tyler, then pulled a crying Amy out of the box.

“He pushed me,” she sobbed.

“He didn't mean to,” Glen said. He lifted the tissue padding and peered into the box. The whole top layer of ornaments was a flattened mess of shattered pieces. Thank God Laura was out of the house. Glen picked up the box and took it to the kitchen, the kids trailing behind him.

“What are you doing, Daddy?” asked Amy.

“Destroying the evidence,” Glen muttered. “We're just going to get rid of these broken pieces,” he told her, “so nobody gets hurt.” He shook out the broken shards into the garbage, then went back into the living room, the kids skipping along behind. He set down the now half-full box and pointed to the couch. “Okay, you two. You sit there until I tell you that you can move. Got it?”

“But we want to help,” Amy protested.

“You can. As soon as the lights are up.”

Glen went back to the tree and raced around it with the remaining tree lights. This was always a time-consuming production when Laura was involved. She liked the lights strung just so, so that they had a nice balance of color all around the tree. Well, this year Glen was more concerned with keeping the tree itself balanced and off the kids. He plugged in the lights and stepped back to survey his work. Not bad, actually.

“Okay, guys. Time for the ornaments. Now you can get up.”

The kids were off the couch and to the tree in about one second, and digging through the box, sending tissue paper everywhere.

Glen had a vision of more broken decorations. “Take it easy. We've got lots of time.” He pulled an ornament out of the box, put a hook on it, and handed it to Tyler. “Okay, big guy. Put that up.”

“I'm hanging up my special ornament,” Amy announced, putting up a Disney princess.

“Good job,” Glen said, and felt himself relax. Okay, they were going to make it through this just fine now.

Five minutes later, he wasn't so sure. He was just trying to decide when, in this process, he was supposed to hang the tinsel garland when Amy cried, “Tyler!” then burst into tears as Tyler ran off with something in his mouth.

Oh, no
! Glen caught him in two steps and found he was munching on what looked like a gingerbread boy.

“My ornament,” Amy sobbed.

“It looks like a cookie,” Glen said, thoroughly confused. And then he remembered Laura and Amy making some useless dough you couldn't eat last Christmas and baking up a batch of stuff to hang on the tree.

“Mommy and I made that!” Amy was practically going ballistic now.

Glen took the ornament from Tyler. “Hey guy, you can't eat this. It'll make you sick.”

Tyler let out a howl of protest and now Glen had two of them crying. “Okay, okay, let's take a break. Who wants eggnog?”

Amy's cry settled down to a whimper. “Can we have the Christmas mugs?”

“Sure, sure.”
Anything.
“Um. Where are the Christmas mugs?”

Amy pointed to the buffet in the dining room. The buffet. That was total woman territory. Glen never got into it, never went near it. It was filled with Laura's fanciest dishes and crystal and decorations. He hesitated, undecided.

Amy, however, had no reservations. She scampered over to the buffet and opened the bottom door, then started pulling stuff out. It was bad enough they'd broken ornaments, but if any of that broke, Glen could just start planning his funeral.

He jumped into action and raced over to the buffet. “Here, let Daddy do it.”

Getting the mugs felt like disarming a bomb. There were any number of delicate plates and dishes he had to move.
Oh, God, please don't let me break anything. Please, please, please.

His prayers were answered, and he made it out with two Christmas mugs. He breathed a sigh of relief, then went to the kitchen where he poured the eggnog. “Okay,” he said, “back to the tree.”

And back at the tree, Tyler dropped his mug. It hit the carpet with a sick thud, making Glen's heart stop in the process. The mug looked like it survived in one piece, but he now had an eggnog lake on the carpet.

The music from the CD filled the room, mocking him. “Deck the halls with boughs of holly…'tis the season to be jolly.”

In what universe?

Wednesday morning a fresh pang of regret struck Joy when Melia called to find out when they were going to make their traditional Christmas bonbons. She and her daughter had been making the candies together ever since Melia was in grade school. They had started out giving the bonbons as gifts for the kids' teachers; then, after Melia got older, she gave them to the aunts and uncles and her best girlfriend. Joy had tired of the candy making, but her daughter still enjoyed it and she enjoyed being with her daughter.

So, what to say? “Um.”

“We are making them, aren't we?” Melia's tone of voice betrayed a sudden suspicion of unpleasant news.

“I can't make the bonbons this year,” said Joy, feeling like arat.

Suddenly, she needed chocolate. She pulled open the junk drawer where she had half a bag of Hershey's Kisses stashed. Nothing. Bob must have found them and polished them off.

“Why?” asked Melia. She sounded hurt.

“I'm taking Christmas off,” Joy said, keeping her voice light. Phone to her ear, she hurried to the dining room and opened the top drawer of the buffet, her favorite chocolate hiding place. Thank God. Three little Dove dark chocolates winked at her. She took two.

“So, what does that mean? Are you, like, taking off for Hawaii or something?”

And miss Christmas Eve with her family and Christmas Day with her children and her new grandbaby? Not unless she'd been drugged and kidnapped. She already had presents she'd bought months ago stashed away to give the kids at Al's on Christmas Eve, just in case Bob failed to find any Christmas spirit.

“No.” She walked back to the kitchen, unwrapping her chocolate as she went. “I'm just not doing anything. I'm leaving it all up to your father, and that includes all the Christmas baking and candy making.”

“Mom, no offense or anything, but are you out of your mind? All Daddy can make is toast, and he usually burns that.”

“It's time he learned how to burn something else. If anything happened to me he'd be helpless,” Joy said, and popped the chocolate in her mouth.

“I don't understand why you have to have him learn at Christmas. And why can't you do this one thing? Let Daddy do everything else.”

“I can't because I'm kind of on strike. Making bonbons would be cheating and if I cheated it would end up in the paper.”

“Oh, my gosh! You're in the paper?”

“I'm going to be. A reporter from the
Herald
is following the whole thing.”

“Wow, Mom. You're a mover and shaker.”

“It's not just me. Some of my friends are doing this, too.”

“But why? You love doing all this stuff. And we always make the bonbons, together,” Melia added, coming full circle to her initial disappointment.

Joy's skin was beginning to sizzle. Was it menopause or guilt? She opened the back door and stepped outside. That was better, like standing in front of the fridge on a hot, summer day.

The cool air got her brain cells working again, and she came up with an idea. “Well, why don't you come over and teach your father how to make them and I'll keep you company and feed you,” she suggested.

“Okay, that works,” Melia said, satisfied with the compromise.

“But you have to make sure he does everything I normally do.”

“That means he has to buy the ingredients,” Melia said doubtfully.

“He can handle it.”

“Okay.” She still sounded doubtful.

“This will be good for him,” Joy told her.

“Yeah, but will it be good for the bonbons? I give these to people. Remember?”

Joy chuckled. “Trust me. It will be fine.”
I hope.

“I guess,” Melia said. “I still don't understand why you're doing this strike thing, though.”

“I'm doing this because your father and I…”
need to reconnect.
She couldn't say that to her daughter. That would sound like their marriage was in trouble, which wasn't really the case. There was a difference between a marriage being in trouble and a husband being in trouble. Wasn't there? Joy popped another chocolate. “We just need to learn how to celebrate the holidays as empty nesters and I want to establish some new ground rules. That's all.”

“Well, okay,” Melia said dubiously. “So, when should I come over?”

“How about one day next week? Friday looks clear. You and Cam can both come for dinner if you want; then he can take Sarah home and put her to bed and you and Daddy can do your Candy Land thing.”

“Hmmm, a free meal and a free evening. Twist my arm.”

They chatted a few more minutes, then Melia hung up and Joy put Bob's candy-making date on the calendar.
Melia and Bob: bonbons.
It should have been her doing this with her daughter. What was this proving, anyway?

Bob sauntered into the kitchen in search of coffee. “Who was that on the phone?”

“Melia.”

“Oh? What did she want?”

“To know when we're going to make the Christmas bonbons.”

“You're going to do that?” He asked the question casually, but she could hear the hope hiding in his voice.

“Not this year. That's going to be your job.” She smiled sweetly at him.

He didn't smile sweetly back. “What if I don't want to?”

Joy shrugged. “Then you can tell your daughter that Christmas bonbons are just, let's see, how did you put it? Oh, yes, a big ‘pain in the neck' and that you don't want to do it with her.” Like that would ever happen. She had him trapped.

He paled. “Those candies take hours.”

“You're right. Who needs them anyway? I'm sure Melia will understand.”

He capitulated with a sigh. “When's she coming over?”

“Friday evening,” Joy said, careful not to gloat over her victory.

“Can't we do this a different time? You know I like to relax on Friday nights.”

True. Friday was always their night to sack out side by side on the couch and watch a DVD.

“I guess you can call her and reschedule,” Joy suggested.

“Never mind,” he said grumpily. Then, after a minute, “So, how's that going to work? She's going to buy the ingredients?”

“You're going to get the ingredients and then you'll both make them together.”

“I guess I can handle it,” he said. “I managed the tree just fine.”

It was a veiled threat and they both knew it. Score another point for Bob Humbug.

“Cute,” Joy said, and went to retrieve the last chocolate from the buffet.

 

Carol met Sharon at the Java Hut after Sharon got off work from her part-time job at Finest Floral. An instrumental jazz version of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” greeted her as she walked in the door, and the smell of freshly ground coffee made her mouth water. The place was all done up with tinsel and multicolored lights, with potted poinsettias in the windows. It felt cozy and Christmasy, unlike her own place, which was hanging in holiday limbo.

Limbo was fine with Carol. The last thing she wanted was to haul out all the favorite, old decorations and infect the condo with bittersweet memories. Anyway, she got a big enough taste of the season every time she went out, she told herself, and ordered a Super Grande eggnog latte to prove it.

Sharon came in just as Carol was taking her drink off the counter.

“What are you having? It looks good.”

Carol told her and she nodded. “I'll take one, too,” she told the barista. “Make it a double. I've got a powerful thirst.”

They were barely settled in a couple of overstuffed chairs in a quiet corner when Sharon launched into a report on how the interview with the reporter had gone. “When Santa reads that article the best Pete Benedict can hope for is a lump of coal in his stocking. Serves him right, too,” she concluded with a sneer. “This year Pete's going to learn firsthand what it feels like to do things and have no one appreciate them.”

Carol looked at her with concern. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

Sharon found a stray crumb on the table and brushed it away. “That sounds suspiciously like something my mama would say.”

“Sorry,” Carol said.

“Whose side are you on, anyway?”

“Yours, of course. I just hate to see you make yourself and your family miserable. Why are you doing this, really?”

“Now you sound like Jerri playing Dr. Phil,” Sharon said, and frowned. “Come to think of it, maybe I should write Dr. Phil about our strike. He'd have a thing or two to say to that man of mine. I'm busier than a one-armed paperhanger this time of year, but does Pete care?”

What to say to that? Carol studied the contents of her coffee mug. No answer there.

“Okay, spit it out,” Sharon commanded.

“What?”

“How sick and wrong we all are. I know you think it so you might as well get it out of your craw.”

Carol gave an apologetic half-shrug. “It just seems like such a waste of energy when you all have such nice husbands. At least they all sound nice.”

Sharon took a sip of her drink. “I never said Pete wasn't nice, but that doesn't mean he couldn't use some improving. He's no help at all this time of year, and the boys take their cue from him. And it doesn't exactly help that he calls me Yulezilla.”

“Are you?”

“No. I just try to make things nice.”

“Maybe things don't have to be so nice,” Carol suggested.

“Well, they won't be this year. And that's exactly what it's going to take for me to finally get some respect and cooperation.”

“R-e-s-p-e-c-t?” Carol's tone of voice was judgmental. She knew it. But, somehow, she couldn't help it.

“That's right,” Sharon snapped. “Find out what it means to me.” An uncomfortable silence slipped in between them. “I know I sound a little hot under the collar,” Sharon said at last, “but I've had it up to here. I truly have. Maybe your relationship with your man was perfect, or maybe you've just forgotten all the things he did to irritate you. But I'm telling you how it is at my house, okay? Things need improving.”

Carol sighed and shoved aside her empty mug. “I'm sorry.” She wasn't sure whether she was sorry for what she'd said or sorry for Sharon's situation. Maybe she was just sorry she'd agreed to meet Sharon at all. “Good luck in your mission.” That had sounded insincere. Sharon was frowning. “I'd better get going,” Carol decided.

Sharon didn't beg her to stay, and she left the coffee shop feeling thoroughly depressed. Why were husbands and children wasted on women who didn't appreciate them? It seemed so unfair.

Of course, not everyone had a husband as wonderful as hers had been. He hadn't been perfect and they'd had their disagreements, but they'd respected each other. And she would never have dreamed of pulling this kind of silly stunt. How did that help anything, really?

Decorations were going up all over town, but it didn't feel like Christmas to her. Maybe it never would again.

Her second Christmas alone—what was she going to do to make it meaningful? She knew she couldn't sit around moping all month, but, honestly, Ray's death had left such a big hole in her life she still didn't have the foggiest idea how to fill it, at least not this time of year.

Maybe it was time to go back to work. She enjoyed real estate, loved matching up families with the perfect house. Families, houses—the thought made her eyes tear up. She wasn't ready yet. Maybe after the holidays. Things were slow in the market right now, anyway.

She turned on the car radio to her favorite talk station. “Corey Carlson and Flo are still at Toy Town, taking donations for our Santa Surprise program,” said the afternoon drive guy. “How's it going over there, Corey?”

“We're doing great, Don. Lots of generous folks out today. And it's still not too late if you want to come by. I'll be here with Flo until seven.”

“Well,” Carol told herself, “it's a start.” She turned at the traffic signal and headed for the toy store.

The parking lot wasn't as full as she'd anticipated, and she decided it was probably because the main toy purchasers were all busy plunging into after-school activities with their kids. Inside, the store wore the deserted look a store gets in between shopping rushes.

Carol looked to her left and saw the radio station had set up a donation booth just past the checkout registers, complete with cookies and coffee. And there stood the morning traffic lady along with Corey Carlson, the morning drive personality.

A tall, slim man with salt-and-pepper hair and a face that should have gone into television, he was talking to a couple of middle-aged women. Actually, flirting would have been a better word. And they were certainly holding up their end of the deal. She couldn't blame them. He was a hunk.

Carol felt suddenly conscious of the way she'd let herself go. She'd lost weight and turned herself into a stick. What she'd lost in weight she'd more than made up for in new wrinkles, and her blond hair was now shot with gray. After Ray's death there had seemed no point in bleaching it anymore.

She started down the first aisle, which was dedicated to games. It took less than a minute for her to find the perfect gift. Clue, how she'd loved playing that classic mystery game herself as a kid. She picked one off the shelf. That should do it. Oh, but there was Chutes and Ladders. She'd played that with John when he was little. She shied away from the vision of a little boy with a sweet face and strawberry blond curls, instead forcing her mind to stay with the business at hand, and piled that game on top of the other. Look at all these aisles, she thought. So many toys. What else did they have that might tempt her?

They had plenty, and before she knew it Carol had a teetering pile of goodies in addition to her two board games: a puzzle, a doll, a baseball and mitt, and a kit for growing sea monkeys. Okay, enough already.