“Glen’s doing our Christmas party,” Laura told Joy as they drove to the Stitch In Time for their weekly Monday night knitting session. “Want to come?”
“I’d come in a heartbeat, but with Bob in charge of our social calendar, don’t hold your breath waiting for us to show up on your doorstep.”
Laura gave her a sympathetic look. “Poor Joy.”
Joy shrugged, like missing out on all the fun was no big deal. “What can I say? I’m married to Herman the Hermit.”
Laura turned sideways and studied her. “You two are so different. How’d you ever get together, anyway?”
“Opposites attract. One of nature’s little jokes.” Only these days she wasn’t laughing.
“Tell me about it,” Laura said as Joy stopped the car for a light.
“You two aren’t really that opposite, are you?” Joy asked.
Laura rolled her eyes. “One of us is a grown-up and one of us is a big kid. I’d say that’s pretty opposite.”
“Well, other than the obvious.”
“Oh, I guess not. We both like to have a good time. What I don’t like is to have to do all the work while he does all the playing. And he is a slob, which makes even more work.” She smiled over at Joy. “But I’m betting by the end of the strike he’ll be a changed man.”
The way things were going with Bob, Joy wasn’t making any bets.
The light turned green and they drove into downtown Holly. With its festive decorations, it looked like a scene out of It’s a Wonderful Life. How Joy hoped this strike would wind up with her George Bailey appreciating what he had!
They parked the car and walked into the knitting shop to find it abuzz with excited voices.
Debbie waved to them from the cash register and called, “Saw you in the paper. I saved you a copy.”
“Thanks,” Joy said, trying to sound appreciative. The last thing she wanted was another copy of that picture of Bob and herself and the Bob Humbug tree. She caught a whiff of cinnamon and cloves and hot apple juice. Mulled cider. Good. She needed a stiff drink.
“Hey, there, fellow strikers,” Sharon greeted them. She looked like Christmas in her red sweater with its appliquéd snowmen. “How’re y’all doin’?”
“Life at my house is good,” Laura bragged. She dropped her knitting on the table and made a beeline for the pot. “All right, cider!”
“Deb knows how to keep up our morale,” Kay said.
“How are things going at your place?” Laura asked her.
“It’s going. You should have seen Jack’s eyes bug out when he read my name in the paper. Of course, he had a rude remark to make,” she added in disgust.
“What did he say?” asked Laura.
“He said we’d probably save a ton of money because I wouldn’t be out buying decorations we don’t need.”
“What a weasel,” Sharon said.
Kay’s lips thinned. She looked like a general in the war room. “That’s a polite way of describing him,” she said, and dipped into the little bowl of holiday Hershey’s Kisses that Sharon had brought. “What about Pete? What was his reaction?”
Sharon scowled. “Not the right one, I can tell you. He thinks he’s doing fine and he’s one happy camper. And if he calls me Yulezilla one more time he’ll be pushin’ up daisies.”
Joy wasn’t surprised by Pete’s nickname for his wife. No matter what the weather, Sharon’s car remained shiny and clean, and she, herself, always looked like she’d just had an Oprah makeover. Joy could easily imagine Sharon’s house looking like something right out of Southern Living, and at Christmas it would, of course, have to be perfect.
“According to Pete I go overboard every year and drive them all insane,” Sharon continued. “Just because I like to have the tree look a certain way and the house decorated nice.”
“How do you like the tree to look?” Laura asked.
Sharon’s cheeks bloomed pink, but she raised her chin and said, “I always coordinate the ornaments and the wrapping paper, and I like to put the breakable and smaller ornaments up on the top with the larger ones on the bottom, and the tinsel hung, not just thrown.”
“Who bothers with tinsel?” Laura said.
Carol smiled and gave a knowing nod. “Boys like to throw.” Her eyes turned misty. “My son was a thrower.”
An awkward silence settled over the women. Joy knew it had been nearly fifteen years since Carol’s son died, but losing a child wasn’t something from which a woman ever recovered. She reached over and patted Carol’s arm.
“It’s okay,” Carol said, pulling herself together. Then to Sharon, “They grow up so fast. Having a messy tree can be kind of fun.”
Sharon frowned. “I guess. Anyway, Pete claims he and the boys are doing it this year and they’re going to show me how to do it right. They’ll probably break half my ornaments.”
“Hide the ones you really want,” Laura advised. “That’s what I did.”
“So, how’s Glen doing?” Sharon asked. “I’ll bet reading your interview in the paper went over about as well as a flannel nightgown on a wedding night.”
A corner of Laura’s lip lifted. “He said it made him look like a jerk. Imagine that.”
“Him and every other husband represented here, bless their hearts,” said Sharon. “I swear, this is the first time in years I’ve read an unbiased news story.”
“I’ve got to admit, he’s being a sport,” Laura said. “So far he’s decorated the tree, gotten the Advent calendar, and taken the kids to see Santa. And he’s started on the Christmas cards. Oh, and he’s already gone through half a bottle of Excedrin,” she added, making her fellow strikers snicker.
“How about our fearless leader?” Sharon asked. “How’s Bob doing?”
Too well. “So far this isn’t working out like I’d imagined,” Joy confessed. “Someone could make a movie about us and call it Scrooge Wins.” She sighed. “I think I need some chocolate therapy. Somebody pass me that candy.”
Jerri shook her head like a frustrated Dr. Phil as she passed the bowl to Joy, and Carol said, “Some things play out better in our heads than in real life.”
“Hey, this is playing out just fine for me,” Laura said with a snap of her gum.
“And me,” Sharon agreed. “My Pete’s going to find out it’s not so easy to pull off Christmas.”
Kay maintained a thoughtful silence.
“Kay?” Joy prodded.
She gave a little shrug. “I’m just wondering how I wound up with such a tightwad.”
Joy sensed her friend paddling from the burbling waters of playful retribution toward more dangerous currents. In an attempt to turn Kay back from the looming waterfall, she said, “Most men are budget-conscious.”
Kay looked her straight in the face. “This is more than that. If he had to choose between me and his savings account, I think he’d pick savings.”
“Oh, don’t be silly,” Carol chided. “Of course he’d pick you.”
“Maybe,” Kay said, and rubbed a finger over the modest diamond on her left hand.
Watching her, Joy began to worry that all was not well in the Carter castle. Kay had nine years invested in this marriage, and she’d always seemed relatively happy. Except for the times she complained about her husband’s tight fist in all matters financial.
But every man had his faults. A woman couldn’t just give up on hers because they didn’t see eye to eye on one or two things.
“Don’t worry, honey, he’ll appreciate you by the time Christmas is over,” Sharon predicted. “That’s what this strike is for, to open our men’s eyes.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Laura cracked, and hoisted her cup of cider in salute.
Joy saw Carol and Jerri exchange a wise woman glance, and she couldn’t help feeling petty and trivial.
“I know you think this is silly,” she said to Carol later that evening as the women made their way out of the knitting shop.
“I do think it’s beneath you,” Carol said, “and I don’t really understand why you’re doing it.”
“Menopause-induced insanity,” Joy suggested. Carol gave her a look that said, “Be serious,” and she shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess my marriage isn’t as perfect as yours was. Maybe I want to make it into something more before it’s too late.” She sighed. “You’d think after so many years of marriage a couple would have all their differences worked out.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Carol said. “You’re always two different people.”
“Even when you’re different, you still have to live together. I thought I could, somehow, push us onto some middle ground where we could both share more of the holiday experience. Bob hates so much of what I love.”
“And vice versa?” Carol suggested.
The three little words hit Joy like a rock-hard snowball. They were on the street now, next to her car. If she’d come alone, she’d have jumped in and driven away fast. She leaned against the door. “So, you’re saying I’m selfish.”
“No, not at all. I’m just wondering if you’ve gotten so locked in to what the season should look like that you can’t see other possibilities. Maybe your husband represents those possibilities.”
Horrible possibilities, if you asked Joy.
“It’s just something to consider,” Carol said.
Laura had joined them now, and Carol ended the conversation and gave Joy a hug.
“That looked like a serious talk you two were having,” Laura observed once they were in the car. “She’s still trying to convince you to end the strike, right? Make you feel guilty?”
“I guess I can’t blame her. She doesn’t want to see anyone create problems in their marriage.”
“Yeah, well, it’s easy to tell other people what to do when you’re not walking in their Jimmy Choos. She has no idea what our marriages are like. It’s not a crime to give your husband a wake-up call, and you don’t have to feel guilty. Got it?”
Joy nodded. Still, she found herself turning over Carol’s words as she turned over the engine. She wasn’t the problem, she decided as she and Laura drove away. She’d been paring down her life for years, always containing her personality in smaller and smaller spaces, pruning guest lists, leaving functions early or going alone because Bob didn’t want to climb out of his shell. She didn’t want to pare down any more. There’d be nothing left of her.
Anyway, Bob was the one in the wrong here. She loved him dearly, but she wanted him to realize that spending time with family and friends was important, especially at the holidays, and that they needed to participate in those gatherings together, as a couple. She wanted him to see what happened when someone simply checked out.
Let the Carols and Jerris of the world shake their heads, but at her house, the strike had to continue, no matter what people thought. And if they thought she was enjoying this they were nuts. Proving a point was sucking all the fun out of her favorite time of year. Picketing was the pits.
“Have you seen the letters to the editor?” Bob asked the next morning, handing Joy the paper. She set aside the recipe clippings she’d been sorting through and took it and began to read.
Dear Editor,
Hats off to Joy Robertson for her brave stand. It’s about time women shook off the shackles of holiday planning and gave the men something more to do than eating cookies and making a run to the store on Christmas Eve. Count me in.
Erna Johnson
“I’m surprised you were able to convince your mom to go in on this,” Bob said, sounding half-accusing.
“You’re not nearly as surprised as me,” Joy said. “I didn’t recruit her, believe me.”
“She could have at least mentioned that men put up the Christmas lights,” Bob said in disgust. “I don’t know a single woman who does that. You’ve opened Pandora’s box,” he added in a voice of doom.
Joy envisioned all manner of cackling, little gremlins hopping out of a big, beribboned box. She could see them rushing in front doors and hopping down chimneys, all the while screeching, “Joy Robertson sent us. Ha, ha, ha, ha.” Don’t be ridiculous, she told herself. “I refuse to feel guilty,” she said, more for her benefit than Bob’s. She peeled off her sweater and turned her attention back to the paper.
The letters-to-the-editor page was crammed. It seemed everyone in Holly had an opinion about the strike.
Dear Editor,
I’m positively inspired by this strike. These women are brave and Joy Robertson is a genius.
Susan Steinham Johnson
Cute, Suki. Had everyone in her family written to the paper?
Dear Editor,
A strike at this time of the year hardly matches Holly’s wonderful Christmas spirit, and I’m sorry to see the paper encouraging it with so much publicity.
Sincerely,
Beth Samuelson
Big shock that the owner of The Pantry, a popular kitchen shop in town, would be down on the strike. Every year Beth Samuelson gave classes on how to make the perfect gingerbread house, then displayed her students’ art work in her store window. She also sold a ton of gingerbread house–building materials. No ulterior motive in that letter, huh, Beth?
Dear Editor,
My wife has joined the strike and now I’m in charge. How about getting your food editor to put some Cookies for
Dummies recipes in the paper this weekend?
Glen Fredericks
Poor Glen. Joy almost felt sorry for the guy. Almost.
Dear Editor,
Is the Herald having trouble finding real news? Is that why they have to print this kind of tripe? Husbands work hard enough all day trying to make a living without having to come home and find out they’ve been put in charge of
Christmas.
Jack Carter
Uh-oh, thought Joy.
Dear Editor,
I’m glad my wife is on strike. This is the first Christmas in years she hasn’t pestered me about getting the lights up.
Keep it up, ladies.
Pete Benedict
Joy felt slightly sick. This was all becoming a nightmare.
The phone rang, making her start.
Bob, who had been hovering nearby, grabbed it. “Hi, Mom. Yeah, she’s right here,” he said and handed over the cordless. “I’ll leave you and your mother to talk about me in peace,” he sniped, then left.
Meanwhile, Mom was teasing, “Is this my inspiring daughter?”
“That’s me,” Joy said, “the inspirer of tripe.”
“That one grump,” Erna said, easily dismissing Jack Carter. “Sounds like his wife needs to go on strike permanently.”
The last thing Joy wanted was to be responsible for the failure of someone’s marriage. “Geez, Mom. Don’t even say things like that. Anyway, he’s not the only one who’s not impressed.”
“Oh, big surprise about Beth,” scoffed Erna. “Everything in her place is overpriced, anyway. Any woman with half a brain is going to join you.”
“So you made it sound in your letter to the editor. A little over the top, wasn’t it?”
“I didn’t think so.”
“How does Dad feel about this, by the way?”
“He’s not happy, believe me. He’s off at the store buying cookies right now.”
Joy couldn’t help smiling. “If you thought joining the strike was going to give you an excuse to pull out Dad’s sweet tooth, I guess you thought wrong.”
“I guess,” her mom agreed. “And speaking of sweets, does this mean you’re not going to host the cookie exchange this year?”
Disappointment settled in Joy’s stomach like a heavy sauce. She was on strike and that meant no baking, and no baking meant no family cookie exchange. She’d been hosting it at her house for the last ten years. “Probably not,” she said miserably. Phone to her ear, she went to her baking cupboard and shook out a handful of chocolate chips. She popped them in her mouth, then slumped back down at the table.
“Oh, that’s a shame,” said her mom.
“That’s an understatement,” Joy said and started drawing a Snidely Whiplash mustache on the picture of Bob she’d found in the paper.
“Well, we can do it here this year, or at Lonnie’s. And nobody will tell on you if you sneak over for a little while.”
“Thanks,” Joy said, “but that would probably be considered crossing the picket line.” She tried to imagine the cookie exchange at someone else’s house. She couldn’t.
You have to sacrifice for the cause, she reminded herself. And no sacrifice was too great to give Bob a George Bailey–style epiphany. She flashed on an image of Bob running down Main Street calling, “Merry Christmas everyone!” and smiled. For that, she could give up a cookie exchange. For that, she could give up a lot of things.
“Sweetie, are you sure you want to do this? I mean you’ve had your fun. Why not call off the strike now and get back to normal?”
Bob normal? No way. “Did Bob pay you to say that?” Joy teased.
“Of course not, and I’m with you one hundred percent.”
“Good. I’d hate to have my own mother deserting the cause, especially after she’d written a letter to the editor.”
“I’m no deserter. Well, sweetie, I’d better let you go. I’m sure you’re going to have lots of people calling. Anyway, I want to get a few things done before I officially start my strike.”
“Like what?”
“I’m decorating the tree today and there’s no way I’m letting your father near it.”
“With me one hundred percent, huh?”
“All right, ninety-nine percent, and the other one percent needs to get busy. Love you, sweetie. Bye.”
That was Mom. Only on strike one day and already crossing the picket line.
If Joy hadn’t been determined to inspire Bob to change, she would have crossed it, too. This was all getting out of hand, and the lack of holiday baking smells in the house and the empty social calendar were beginning to get to her. And, to make matters worse, Rosemary Charles was showing up for another interview later that morning.
This was one Bob, Mr. I’m-Not-Available-for-Comment, had scheduled. What he could possibly have to say Joy couldn’t imagine. And she wasn’t even sure she wanted to try.
She wished she had something to report. My husband’s caving. Just the prospect of a bleak Christmas is more than he can stand. He finally realizes how much everything we do means to both of us.
She was beginning to think that would happen the day she found Rudolph and the other reindeer playing on her front lawn. So far, no matter what she said or did, Bob kept his Scrooge armor firmly in place. He’d done nothing but remain holed up in his office with his imaginary friends. So, basically they were going to give Rosemary Charles a nonarticle to go with their non-holiday.
Rosemary arrived promptly at ten with her photographer in tow. Joy tried not to look at the Charlie Brown tree as she led them into the living room where Bob was waiting to hold court.
“How would you say the strike is going so far, Mrs. Robertson?” Rosemary asked, her pen poised over her steno tablet.
Sucky. “I think we’re gaining in numbers,” Joy said, fishing for something to report.
“Oh, it’s definitely growing,” the reporter said, and gave her photographer a look that was positively devilish.
Joy wondered what that was about, but the reporter didn’t give her a chance to ask. She was already querying Bob, wanting to know if the strike had affected him adversely yet.
“So far so good,” he said amiably, filling Joy with a desire to dunk his head in a punchbowl of wassail and give him a swirly. “I just finished sending out Christmas cards,” he added.
Joy’s jaw dropped. “You did Christmas cards?” The king of bah, humbug?
“I like Christmas cards,” he said.
“When?” Had he been up working at midnight? Had elves been addressing the envelopes for him? “I didn’t see you working on them.”
“Well, they’re done,” Bob said.
“That’s impossible,” she informed him. It took her forever to do Christmas cards. It was a huge project, the one thing on her Christmas to-do list she dreaded every year.
“It’s a cinch when you do e-cards,” Bob said.
“E-cards,” Joy echoed. Oh, she had to have misheard.
“Very efficient,” Rosemary Charles said diplomatically.
“Very tacky,” said Joy. Never mind that she hated writing Christmas cards, never mind that Bob’s way was more efficient. It was sick and wrong and…cheating.
“May I quote you on that?” asked Rosemary.
“You sure may,” Joy said, glaring at Bob.
Bob shrugged. “Just because it’s technology it’s tacky?”
Rosemary was scribbling frantically now.
“Well, yes,” Joy said. “What thought goes into sending a Christmas card over the Internet? That’s so impersonal. Where’s the connection? Did you get that?” she asked the reporter.
Rosemary nodded, smiling like she’d found gold in her Christmas stocking.
“I connected,” Bob insisted. “I told everyone we were doing fine and wished them a merry Christmas, which is pretty much what you say in your cards every year. And it took plenty of thought. I had to go to the site, pick the card, type the message, get it sent.”
Joy shook her head. “That’s pathetic.”
“It’s efficient,” Bob corrected her.
“But everyone on our Christmas list doesn’t have e-mail,” Joy informed him. Ha! Got him there.
“Who?”
“Aunt Evie.”
“Who else?”
There had to be more than that. “I don’t know right off the top of my head,” Joy said. “I’ll have to check my address book.”
“Let me know who’s left and I’ll send them a card,” Bob promised.
“I will,” Joy said, and vowed to give him a list as long as her arm, even if she had to lift names from the phone book.
“Okay, how about a picture?” Rosemary suggested.
“Of what?” asked her photographer, looking at her like she was nuts.
“Let’s get a shot of Mr. Robertson with his computer, sending an e-card and we’ll put Mrs. Robertson in front of him, reading a traditional card. Have you got a pretty one?” she asked Joy.
Her mother had already sent hers out, and this year’s was gorgeous. “I sure do,” Joy said. This would be a great picture. Joy would be looking at something beautiful while Bob sat with his cold, tacky technology. Joy liked it.
After they had posed for the picture, Rosemary turned to Bob. “Now I’d love to hear about that plan you said you had to help the husbands of the strikers.”
So that was why Rosemary Charles was here. And what plan was she talking about? Whatever it was, it was news to Joy. What was Bob up to now?
“I thought your editor might like a list of suggestions for the men on how to survive the strike. I’d be happy to provide one.”
Rosemary Charles nodded slowly. “I’m sure my editor would go for that. How soon could you e-mail it to me?”
“Right away,” Bob said, looking disgustingly self-satisfied. He probably had it done already, had probably written it while his e-mail cards were going out.
Next to him, Joy smiled politely. The only way she’d been able to dredge up that smile was by envisioning her husband out in the garage, tied to a chair with strings of Christmas lights and being forced to listen to Alvin and the Chipmunks singing “Christmas Don’t Be Late” over and over and over again.
“Real cute, Bob,” she said to him after Rosemary Charles and her sidekick were out the door.
He held out both hands in a typical male don’t-blame-me gesture. “The men need help.”
“The men need to shape up.”
“Maybe my suggestions will help them,” Bob said.
“Maybe you should just worry about your suggestions helping you,” Joy snapped. She left him to think that over and shut herself in the bedroom with the phone.
“We have complications,” she said as soon as Sharon answered the phone. “Bob is dishing out advice for the men now. It’s going to be in the paper.”
“Well, bless his heart. Isn’t he just the clever one?”
“Too clever.” Now Bob not only was deliberately missing her point, he was publicly declaring war.
“Don’t worry, sugar,” Sharon soothed. “A man writing advice on how to do Christmas is like a rooster trying to give a hen lessons on how to lay an egg. We’re fine.”
“I sure hope so,” Joy said, but she was having serious doubts.
“The chicks are gonna lose this one,” Rick Daniels predicted as he and Rosemary drove back to the paper.
“It’s still early in the game. I’ve got faith in the women,” Rosemary said.
“Gee, I wonder why.”
Rosemary gave him a playful punch in the arm. “Not just because we’re all women.”
“Sure.”
“No, seriously. I think the strikers have got a point. Women bring something to special occasions that just wouldn’t be there if the guys were in charge.”
“Yeah. Extra work.”
She frowned at him. “How’d you get to be such a cynic? You’re not even married.”
“I’m not a cynic,” he said. “I’m a realist.”
“No, you’re a cynic. And, mark my words, before the women are done these guys are going to have a whole different outlook.”
“Even Robertson?”
“Even Robertson.”
“Wanna bet on that?” he said.
“Okay. Why not? What should we bet?”
“Loser buys the winner dinner at one of those all-you-can-eat places.”
“A cheap restaurant. Boy, I can see you really believe in putting your money where your mouth is,” Rosemary taunted.
“Okay. Fine. Loser buys the winner dinner at—”
“Chez Louie’s.”
Rick turned to stare at her, bug eyed. “Chez Louie’s! You don’t get out of that place for under fifty bucks a person.”
“Like I said, you really believe in putting your money—”
He cut her off. “Okay, okay. Chez Louie’s it is. So, when do we decide who won and who lost?”
Rosemary considered. “Christmas Day. The strike will be over then and we’ll know who won.”
“Okay. So, if she gives up.”
“If he gives in.”
“He won’t.”
“It’s not over till it’s over,” Rosemary said.
Rick was grinning. “Man, I’m gonna enjoy my dinner at Chez Louie’s. Let’s do it New Year’s Eve.”
“New Year’s Eve? What if someone has a date?”
The look Rick gave Rosemary sent a zing all the way from her chest to her panty hose. “They break it.”