smile was a mile wide. “You’re afraid to tell him.”
I stuck my chin in the air and gave my version of her snort. I wasn’t about to admit she was right.
“One thing I want to know,” Jolene said, making one of her patented changes of topic. “How can someone who looks so much like a football player be an artist?”
I smiled, picturing Curt’s dark curly hair and glasses and shoulders so broad he could block an entire movie screen at thirty paces.
“I think I’m falling in love with you,” he told me recently.
“No, you’re not,” I said in something like panic. “We hardly know each other. Love takes time to grow.” I knew because my mother had told me so all my life.
Still, when he looked at me a certain way, my knees buckled, I had trouble breathing and my heart barrumped in time with the Minute Waltz.
“Things between Curt and me are fragile,” I told Jolene. “New. Too new. I don’t know how to tell him.”
I must have looked as disconsolate as I felt because Jolene patted my hand. “It’ll work out. Don’t worry.” She grinned at me. “Just keep me informed, you hear?”
We took our checks to the cashier by the door. Jolene eyed me while she waited for her change.
“You didn’t tell Curt about Jack. Did you tell Jack about Curt?”
I made a big deal of buying one of those little foil-wrapped mints.
She snickered. “You’re better than any movie I ever saw, girl. And I want to be around when they meet.”
Perish the thought!
“I have to visit the ladies’ room,” she said. “Come on.”
I followed her into the cozy, well-lit room, admiring her black leather and faux-fur coat and black boots. The lady had style if not class.
I looked at myself in the huge mirror over the sink. My short, thick, spiky black hair was drooping a bit as usual. I wet my fingers and ran them through it, trying to wake up the mousse that was supposed to keep it sticking up in what the beautician had assured me was a very stylish do when she cut off my almost waist-length hair back in August.
Sighing, I gave up on my hair. I stared instead at the Christmas candle sitting on the vanity.
Christmas. My first in Amhearst, and I was facing it with some excitement (two men) but also with much misgiving. For the first time ever, I wouldn’t be with my family for our warm and wonderful celebration. No fat Christmas tree with Grandma Kramer’s heirloom angel gracing the top bough. No hot mulled cider that Dad tried to foist on everyone. No marvelous turkey smells and no Aunt Sissy’s famous pumpkin pie.
Jolene would have a warm, cozy family Christmas with hugs and presents and all that stuff. She wouldn’t sit alone all day, staring at her cat. That would be me.
Every time I thought about my holiday solitude, I suffered mild depression. As a result my little apartment on the first floor of an old carriage house sported only a wreath on the door. I hadn’t gotten myself a tree or put electric candles in my windows like everyone else in Amhearst. Of course I now had a silk poinsettia sitting on an end table.
It was my job that prevented a trip to Pittsburgh and home. I had only Christmas Day off, if being on call means “off.”
“Someone has to be available in case a big story breaks,” said Mac, my editor at The News. Then he grinned. “I guess you’ve drawn the short straw, Merry.” He didn’t even feel sorry for me.
I kept telling myself that I didn’t mind. I was an independent career woman, pressing on with my new life. I didn’t believe myself for an instant. But, I reminded myself before I started weeping on the spot, I was the one with two men!
Not that I needed or wanted two. One would certainly be more than enough since monogamy was my preferred lifestyle. I just had to decide which one.
“Hey!” Jolene said as she came out of a stall. “You’re smiling. Which one are you thinking about?”
“Not telling.” I swung my purse strap back onto my shoulder and slammed the bag itself into the blonde woman walking out of the other stall.
“Oh, I’m sorry!”
She smiled at me, her gray eyes crinkling at the corners. “Don’t worry about it. It’s o—”
Her voice faded to nothing, and her face lost its pleasant smile. She stared past me with a sudden look of great distaste. I blinked and turned to see what she was looking at, and there stood Jolene. Her face had also lost all its charm and warmth.
“Well, well,” Jo said. “Look who’s here.”
“Hello, Jo,” the woman said in a tight, tense voice. “How are you? And how’s Arnie?”
“We’re both fine.” Jolene matched icy politeness for icy politeness. I could get frostbite just standing here.
“Tell him I said hello,” the woman said.
“Like he cares,” Jolene spat the words like little pellets flying from a straw to land stinging blows on the back of an unsuspecting neck.
The woman sighed in disgust. “You haven’t changed a bit, have you?”
Jolene bristled. “Watch it, Airy. I don’t like being in the same room with you any more than you like being in the same room with me.”
My eyes widened. I am Polly Peacemaker, and if I’m caught in conflict, I never know what to do. But it appeared I was the only one uncomfortable here. These two women were obviously sluggers, though Jo was clearly batting champ.
“Believe me,” Airy said, “if I’d known you were going to be here, I’d have avoided Ferretti’s at all costs.”
Jolene, face haughty, sniffed. “My coworker and I were having a business lunch.”
Airy sneered. “Don’t give me that snotty attitude about your job, Jolene. People at your level don’t have business lunches.”
Jolene glared. “You just think you’re so smart.”
I looked at Jolene, disappointed. Certainly she could do better than that worn-out old line.
“Tell me.” Airy’s voice dripped acid. “Which of us graduated valedictorian? Um? It certainly wasn’t you.”
What? At twenty-five years old or so, she was bringing up high school? What was next? Elementary school jealousies?
“Like test grades show intelligence,” Jolene scoffed with a wonderful disregard for the entire educational system. “I’d rather have my social smarts than your boring IQ any day.”
“You used to be nice, you know.” Airy nodded slightly as if agreeing with herself. “Up until about third grade. It’s been downhill ever since.”
Yikes,
