Read Online Hot Flash Holidays by Nancy Thayer - Free Book Online
Authors: Nancy Thayer
Tags: Fiction, Contemporary Women
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permit Jehoshaphat to touch the set of natural wood blocks Polly gave him, and for five blissful minutes, Polly was allowed to sit playing on the floor with her grandson.
In spite of the herbal tea Polly brewed, Amy complained that her headache was growing worse.
You need caffeine, honey, you need chocolate,
Polly thought.
You need a personality transplant.
She walked them to the door, waving until their pickup truck was out of sight. For a moment, she stood looking out at the black sky with its frosty stars. All the houses up and down the block glowed with Christmas lights.
Polly returned to her smoke-stained living room. Her artistically decorated brown wrapping paper and yarn ribbons lay discarded on the floor like yesterday’s trash. The present from Amy and David, the woven place mats, looked like hair shirts for a clan of masochistic dwarves. Roy Orbison sniffed through the crumpled paper and found a bit of unsalted cashew. From the CD player, the little drummer boy drummed for the fiftyninth time that evening. Polly turned off the music.
“Merry Christmas, humbug!” she told her dog, and collapsed on the sofa.
It was only a little after eight o’clock on Christmas Eve. If only Hugh had been here! He wouldn’t have let the place catch fire. Or he would have assured everyone, with his gentle physician’s authority, that everything was really all right. He would have lent authenticity and gravity to Polly’s gifts and food.
But Hugh wasn’t here, and he wouldn’t be tonight.
Tonight Hugh was spending with his grown children, their spouses, and his ex-wife, Carol.
Carol was—Polly had seen pictures—a tiny size six, and if that wasn’t irritating enough, she was also a dependent little princess. Hugh and Carol had been divorced for several years now, but Carol, who had kept the house in which she and Hugh had raised their three children, was forever phoning him when the downstairs bathroom’s pipes froze, or a bat got into the attic, or one of their grandchildren lost a tooth. Carol desperately needed daily conversations with Hugh, and Hugh took it all in his stride, listening to her complaints and soothing her with the same kind manner with which he spoke to his patients when they phoned. Also, he was diligent about attending his grandchildren’s plays, recitals, and soccer games as often as possible. Polly admired him for this at the same time she hated how it limited their time together.
When they’d discussed their holiday schedules, Polly had thought it made perfect sense for Hugh to be with his children—and their mother—on Christmas Eve, while Polly was with her son and his family. Tomorrow, when she got to see Hugh, she would be glad to have the Carol part of Christmas behind them.
But tonight she was irrationally lonely. For a while, she indulged in a morass of negativity, imagining everyone else she knew celebrating the season in the bosom of their families. Quickly she got bored with that scenario. She’d spent too many holidays in the home of her mother-in-law, Claudia, Queen of Disdain, to believe all other families in the world were happy.
Besides, it wasn’t celebrating she missed—she did a lot of that, with Hugh and with her Hot Flash friends. It was a sense of being useful, of being part of the world, that made her feel so solitary now.
But then, how useful could someone be who set her house on fire on Christmas Eve?
4
MARILYN DIDN’T KNOW WHETHER HER MOTHER WAS truly an exceptionally pretty woman, or if it was just that Marilyn loved her so much.
Ruth came out of the guest bedroom, dressed for Christmas Eve dinner in a red wool dress and a strand of white pearls. Red lipstick brightened her pleated lips and cheerful rouge blushed her wrinkled cheeks. From her ears dangled shiny little Christmas ornaments, one red, one green. Her snowy white hair bobbed around in curls, and the bit of pink scalp showing through made Marilyn’s heart ache. Her mother had had such thick
In spite of the herbal tea Polly brewed, Amy complained that her headache was growing worse.
You need caffeine, honey, you need chocolate,
Polly thought.
You need a personality transplant.
She walked them to the door, waving until their pickup truck was out of sight. For a moment, she stood looking out at the black sky with its frosty stars. All the houses up and down the block glowed with Christmas lights.
Polly returned to her smoke-stained living room. Her artistically decorated brown wrapping paper and yarn ribbons lay discarded on the floor like yesterday’s trash. The present from Amy and David, the woven place mats, looked like hair shirts for a clan of masochistic dwarves. Roy Orbison sniffed through the crumpled paper and found a bit of unsalted cashew. From the CD player, the little drummer boy drummed for the fiftyninth time that evening. Polly turned off the music.
“Merry Christmas, humbug!” she told her dog, and collapsed on the sofa.
It was only a little after eight o’clock on Christmas Eve. If only Hugh had been here! He wouldn’t have let the place catch fire. Or he would have assured everyone, with his gentle physician’s authority, that everything was really all right. He would have lent authenticity and gravity to Polly’s gifts and food.
But Hugh wasn’t here, and he wouldn’t be tonight.
Tonight Hugh was spending with his grown children, their spouses, and his ex-wife, Carol.
Carol was—Polly had seen pictures—a tiny size six, and if that wasn’t irritating enough, she was also a dependent little princess. Hugh and Carol had been divorced for several years now, but Carol, who had kept the house in which she and Hugh had raised their three children, was forever phoning him when the downstairs bathroom’s pipes froze, or a bat got into the attic, or one of their grandchildren lost a tooth. Carol desperately needed daily conversations with Hugh, and Hugh took it all in his stride, listening to her complaints and soothing her with the same kind manner with which he spoke to his patients when they phoned. Also, he was diligent about attending his grandchildren’s plays, recitals, and soccer games as often as possible. Polly admired him for this at the same time she hated how it limited their time together.
When they’d discussed their holiday schedules, Polly had thought it made perfect sense for Hugh to be with his children—and their mother—on Christmas Eve, while Polly was with her son and his family. Tomorrow, when she got to see Hugh, she would be glad to have the Carol part of Christmas behind them.
But tonight she was irrationally lonely. For a while, she indulged in a morass of negativity, imagining everyone else she knew celebrating the season in the bosom of their families. Quickly she got bored with that scenario. She’d spent too many holidays in the home of her mother-in-law, Claudia, Queen of Disdain, to believe all other families in the world were happy.
Besides, it wasn’t celebrating she missed—she did a lot of that, with Hugh and with her Hot Flash friends. It was a sense of being useful, of being part of the world, that made her feel so solitary now.
But then, how useful could someone be who set her house on fire on Christmas Eve?
4
MARILYN DIDN’T KNOW WHETHER HER MOTHER WAS truly an exceptionally pretty woman, or if it was just that Marilyn loved her so much.
Ruth came out of the guest bedroom, dressed for Christmas Eve dinner in a red wool dress and a strand of white pearls. Red lipstick brightened her pleated lips and cheerful rouge blushed her wrinkled cheeks. From her ears dangled shiny little Christmas ornaments, one red, one green. Her snowy white hair bobbed around in curls, and the bit of pink scalp showing through made Marilyn’s heart ache. Her mother had had such thick
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