Now that Maggie is getting paid, she wants to make a big deal out of Christmas. She makes Nanaimo bars and shortbread. She says she’ll take Nan to the Basilica Mass on Christmas Eve after they have supper with Kenneth and Susan. She rents A Christmas Carol and It’s a Wonderful Life and Scrooged. She aims to keep Nan distracted through festivity. The house is full-on decorated with wreaths, pine cones, and Santa statues. The air hums a cacophony of holiday scents: gingerbread, pine, cranberry, all the flavoured candles she picked up in Churchill Square.
And overall, she is new and chipper. She goes to work fresh-faced, with extra mascara. She gets a haircut and a tight sweater. She eats rice cakes on the couch while watching The Simpsons, laughing in a high musical jangle, like she’s practicing for later. Imogene overhears her on the phone with one of her Ontario friends and she mentions a Max, one of the managers at the Carpet Factory. Of course. Why else would she be in a good mood? Everything is about havin’ a man. But then, what determines the state of Imogene’s mood? Jamie. She is a wretched hypocrite.
Nan is more chipped than chipper. “Not the same here,” she says. “No home to go home to. No visitors. No mummers. Just traffic and locked doors. I’d love to look out the window and see a familiar face comin’ up the walk.”
“Maybe next year we can spend Christmas in St. Felix’s,” Maggie says.
“We’ll stay at the hotel or something. I’m making money now, we can do it.” Well, go right ahead, Imogene thinks. Christmas at the Petro-Can cabins. She’ll find an excuse to stay behind. Or go somewhere else. She has been listless and contrary since finals ended. She leaves the house whenever she’s able, she holes up in coffee shops to read and make lists.
Reasons for Telling Jamie True Feelings on New Year’s Eve Rationale:
Plan:
That’s it then. She’s going full-on, disrobing, dry-humping seduction if necessary. She’s going to take advantage of the clearance sale.