The Holiday Read online

  ‘No,’ she answered without pause.

  ‘I was,’ I replied.

  ‘Easy to say now that you’re married to Reilly. And easy for Prudence to get all caught up in the excitement of her big art show, but I told her there’s a perfect match for her, and Mr Right is out there looking for her.’

  ‘You told her that?!’ I said, panic-stricken that she’d tipped our hand. ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She said she’s happy on her own. I told her I had the perfect man for her, but she just laughed. Didn’t even want to hear about him.’

  ‘Who?!’

  ‘What who?’ she asked.

  ‘Who’s this perfect man for her?’

  ‘I haven’t met him in person yet, but I have a crystal clear image of him in my mind.’

  ‘Does she know this? I mean, did you tell her that the soul mate you’re going to introduce her to resides only in your imagination? Because she’s going to think you’re crazy, and frankly I do too.’

  ‘It’s not crazy,’ Gwen defended. ‘Now that I’ve met Prudence, I know exactly the type of man she needs. Remember Isaac Franklin?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The widow,’ Gwen reminded me. ‘The one you and Sophie thought was too old for Prudence?’

  ‘Oh, right, the ninety-year-old marathon runner,’ I recalled.

  ‘He’s sixty-three. And it’s biking. Anyway, I set him up with Esther Finley in my building and when I saw her this morning in the elevator, she was nothing but smiles and gratitude. I’m telling you, I think I have a gift for this.’

  ‘Maybe she was just smiling because she was filled with the Christmas spirit,’ I suggested.

  ‘She’s Jewish,’ Gwen returned, with satisfaction. ‘So how was your night? Did you meet any nice men after your husband went to sleep?’

  Chapter Six

  Reilly called that afternoon to tell me that he won a set of lift tickets at his office holiday party raffle. ‘I know you said you didn’t want to ski this year, but how ’bout letting me take Hunter up for a few days and teaching him how to ski?’

  ‘A few days?!’

  ‘We’ll be home before dark on Christmas Eve,’ Reilly explained. ‘Why not, Sarah? Hockey camp ends today. Skiing will help his game.’ Realizing that this argument held no appeal for me, he changed tack. ‘Did you know that half of all business deals are made on the golf course and on the slopes?’

  ‘Really?’ I asked.

  ‘No, not really, Sarah. It was a joke. Hunter’s six. What type of deals do you think the kid’s gonna make?’

  ‘Oh,’ I said.

  ‘It’ll be fun, Sarah,’ Reilly said, stressing the word as if to remind me that there is value in recreation. He wasn’t the first person this month to notice that I’d lost my ability to enjoy life.

  Though I’d miss my husband and son, the reality was that I wasn’t spending a lot of time with either of them as I wallowed in self-pity and anger. If Reilly thought taking Hunter off to the slopes for a few days was a good way for them to bond, who was I to argue? They’d be back by Christmas Eve and in the three days that they were off, I could screen plenty of potential husbands for Prudence.

  ‘Okay,’ I said.

  The next morning, I watched Reilly and Hunter’s taxi pull away and checked my watch. I had less than an hour until my coffee date with Ron, thirty-eight-year-old actor. His photo was quite impressive. He had GQ bone structure and his brown hair was attractively cut. I’d cast him as a leading man, and with any luck, so would Prudence.

  Ron was waiting at a table reading a newspaper. Or, rather, posing as if he were reading a newspaper. ‘Hey,’ he said, looking up and shaking his hair from his eyes. ‘You must be Prudence’s friend,’ he said, standing and kissing my cheek.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, smiling at him, though I was disappointed to find that he was about twenty pounds thinner than he looked in his photo. And the GQ bone structure in his head shot was actually good lighting used by the photographer. Still, Ron was above average looking and seemed nice enough during our chat online just ten hours earlier.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said, in his radio announcer voice, ‘why is it that women always hide their underwear when they go into the gynecologist’s office? I mean, do you ladies think they don’t know you wear panties?’

  What? Was he testing material on me? I started blankly, hoping he’d realize I was not amused.

  His facial expression was pure anticipation.

  It was a standoff.

  Finally, after a few moments, he spoke. ‘My grandfather says women are like toothpaste. As you get farther to the end, you need to squeeze harder, but there’s still good stuff in there,’ Ron said, laughing alone. He stopped to gasp from laughing so hard, only to observe that I had ‘no sense of humor.’ Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve had a definite case of the holiday doldrums, but this was not the cause of my antipathy for Ron. Ron was.

  ‘I have a perfectly good sense of humor,’ I said, as flatly as I could deliver. ‘I just haven’t sensed any.’

  ‘Ouch!’ he said, pulling his hand from the table as if he’d burnt himself. ‘You don’t hold back, do ya? S’alright, s’okay, I like that in a woman,’ he said, as though he might actually be in a position to judge. It was only after that comment that I laughed.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I began. ‘I may not have the greatest sense of humor, but I do have a pretty good sense of people. As terrific a guy as you are, I don’t think you and Prudence are going to click.’

  ‘Really? Why not?’

  ‘Why not?’ I repeated incredulously. ‘You just wouldn’t, that’s all.’

  ‘ ’Cause I can knock off the jokes. What’s she looking for?’ Ron asked desperately.

  ‘Ron, this isn’t a casting call. You and Prudence just aren’t going to work, okay?’

  ‘But how do you know for sure?’

  For the first time during our coffee, I felt sorry for him. ‘I just know. Look, it’s not you.’

  ‘Don’t say that!’ Ron snapped. ‘Of course it’s me. You want your friend to find someone nice, you met me, and you decided I’m not the one. How is that not me?’

  When did everyone in the world get so damned blunt? Didn’t anyone value subtlety, gentility, or even social lying anymore?

  ‘I’m sorry, I think you’re a very nice man, but the combination of you and Prudence together is not going to work. It’s neither you nor her; it’s the coupling that’s wrong.’

  ‘Well, this is fine. I’ve been dumped on the first date before.’ I believe it. ‘Even during a first date.’ I believe that too. ‘But never before a first date, and by the friend, no less,’ Ron said, shrugging. He laughed, though it was clear he didn’t find his failure with women at all funny. I stood to leave, realizing that my early dismissal would give me an hour to do a little Christmas shopping before my lunch with Sophie and Gwen. ‘You’re not leaving, are you?’ Ron said, looking up with his brown eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ron. I really need to run along. I have a million things I need to do and I’m already hours behind schedule. It was really a pleasure meeting you, though, and good luck finding someone compatible.’ I smiled and began walking away from the table.

  ‘Stuck-up bitch,’ I heard him mutter. I hadn’t been called that since Rudy, who, though he was a successful attorney, was always quite cognizant of the fact that he came from far more humble a background than I. I should have had the composure to just ignore Ron’s comment the way I was able to dismiss Rudy’s outbursts, but I was unable to contain my rage.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said, my body snapping back to face him.

  ‘You heard me,’ he said defiantly.

  I glanced over at the table next to Ron and saw a preschooler coloring his place mat. I decided not to challenge Ron to repeat himself. And yet, I felt physically unable to leave the coffee shop without doing something to defend myself. I’d spent a lifetime doing the whole Katharine Hepburn thing. I knew how to deliver smart one-liners
and leave a man disarmed by my coolness. But on this day, I decided to give myself the early Christmas gift of complete emotional freedom. I knew I’d maintained an ounce of sanity because I remember thinking that throwing hot coffee at Ron was definitely crossing the line. So I reached at the closest cold drink I could see; which was the child’s milk; tore off the plastic lid, and drenched Ron in a tidal wave of years of repressed anger. It was so liberating that I picked up the kid’s half-eaten biscotti and threw it at Ron like a dart. I was pleased with my aim.

  The little boy was overjoyed with my outburst, but no one else in the place seemed to understand the therapeutic value of splashing an imbecile with milk. Sure, my actions were extreme, but so what?! The man called me a stuck-up bitch. I had reached my limit on how much I could swallow and just walk away from.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?!’ the boy’s mother shrieked. A twentysomething came rushing out from behind the counter with a mop.

  ‘He deserved it!’ I told her. ‘He’s an obnoxious jerk.’

  I’d hoped she’d take my side, but instead she was annoyed with me. ‘They’re all obnoxious jerks, lady. Deal with it.’

  ‘You should call the cops,’ Ron said, capitalizing on his public approval rating. Instead, Ron’s comment turned the tide.

  ‘What are you going to charge her with, assault with a cookie?’ she snapped.

  ‘Biscotti,’ the mopping clerk chimed in.

  Gwen couldn’t believe what I’d done, but Sophie seemed thoroughly unimpressed with my lactose revolution. ‘The guy was a jerk,’ she said, shrugging. ‘He had it coming. Good for you, Sarah.’ Then she took out a sleek notebook with an abstract design on the cover and continued, as if she heard stories of biscotti pelting every day, ‘So that guy’s definitely off the list. Who’ve we got next?’

  ‘I met a wonderful man at the ballet last night,’ Gwen said.

  ‘Straight?’ Sophie asked.

  ‘With his mother,’ Gwen explained. ‘I love this assignment. It gives me an excuse to approach all of these great guys I would’ve only admired from afar.’

  ‘So is he single?’ I asked.

  Gwen nodded. ‘He’s going out with Rachel tomorrow night.’

  ‘Rachel?’ Sophie asked.

  ‘Rachel, your sister Rachel?’ I asked. She confirmed. ‘What about Prudence?’

  ‘No, no, no, this is Rachel’s future ex-husband, trust me on this one.’

  Sophie threw her hands in the air and suggested we just host a party. ‘We haven’t found a single good one out there. Jennifer went to this speed-dating thing last night and said it felt like she was visiting inmates in prison. They had to face off at these school desks and spend four minutes chatting while in a crowded room. The only thing missing was the glass window between them.’ She continued. ‘I screened this guy this morning who was trying to impress me with all of the deals he was making on his cell phone, until guess what happened?’ We waited. ‘His cell phone rang.’

  ‘What? I don’t understand,’ I said.

  ‘He wasn’t really on the phone. It rang because he wasn’t really talking to anyone on the other end. Get it? Big deals were not happening.’ Sophie sighed. ‘I liked him, too. They’re not the most trustworthy lot, are they?’

  ‘Maybe we should have a party,’ Gwen conceded. ‘It seems an efficient way to go.’

  ‘First of all, men aren’t going to show up at a party to meet their soul mate. They don’t put as much effort into relationships as we do,’ I said. ‘We all knew that when Prudence said she wasn’t looking for a guy, we’d need to do it for her because he wasn’t going to put out the effort. The lazy bastard is probably at home right now watching some stupid college bowl game.’

  Sophie grimaced. ‘She has a point. Hey, what if we don’t let them in on it? What if we simply bill it as a party with free drinks, sports on big screens, and strippers?! And we can hire dancers who all have short black hair like Prudence and put them in little cages?’

  ‘Have you lost your mind?’ I asked. ‘You want to put dancing naked women who look like Prudence in cages?’

  ‘Yeah, why not?’ Sophie asked.

  Finally Gwen came to her senses and remembered that we are cut from a different cloth from that of Sophie. ‘I have to agree with Sarah on this one, Soph,’ she said. ‘Why limit ourselves with dark-haired girls? Let’s mix it up and throw in some blondes and redheads.’

  ‘What?!’ I gasped.

  ‘Don’t be so uptight, Sarah,’ Gwen chided. ‘Stripping is very in now. We’re taking a class at the Y next month.’

  ‘We are?’ I asked.

  ‘Soph and I are. You’re welcome to join.’

  ‘What type of guy are we trying to attract with strippers?’ I asked, hoping to return the conversation to a rational one.

  ‘Guys with dicks,’ Sophie said plainly, jotting something in her notepad. ‘Come on, Sarah. We want to get a lot of guys in. What better way than to promise sports, free booze, and naked women?’

  ‘What about promising them the possibility of meeting the woman they’re going to spend the rest of their lives blissfully in love with?’ I asked.

  Sophie and Gwen laughed before realizing I was serious. ‘I’m sorry to laugh,’ Gwen said, patting my thigh. ‘But you’re in a state of marriage-induced delusion. No men are going to come to this party if we’re honest with them. I say we go with the strippers.’

  ‘I say we nix the idea of a party entirely. Let’s stick to our plan and we’ll find a great guy for Prudence.’

  That afternoon I was stood up by Bill Tourmaline, a man who said he was really looking forward to meeting me when we spoke on the phone. I wondered if he had an accident on his way to meet me.

  When I arrived home it was already dark. The stillness of the apartment was soothing, not lonely as I’d feared it would be. The answering machine light was blinking with a message from Reilly and Hunter, who had arrived safely at their cabin. Hunter said he saw reindeer on the road.

  After dinner, I checked my e-mail. As I thought about my day, I laughed at the image of my sole date drenched in milk. My only regret was that Rudy wasn’t alive for me to throw drinks at. The outburst really was like hitting a reset button, one I wished I’d discovered years ago.

  I heard the familiar chime of an instant message and saw that it was Dr Jay. When will technology allow women to throw drinks at their computer screens and have it splash out at the jerk on the other end?

  Dr Jay: Hi Prudence!

  Prudence: No.

  Dr Jay: No to what?

  Prudence: Whatever it is you want.

  Dr Jay: Why so angry at me?

  Prudence: I find you irritating.

  My heart raced with excitement as I typed such rudeness. It was freeing to be so unabashedly blunt. It was nice to finally tell the truth after a lifetime of making excuses, like ‘I’m not angry,’ or ‘I’m sorry. It’s not you. I’ve just had a hard day.’

  Dr Jay: Why is that, Prudence?

  Prudence: Because you ask too many questions. You are presumptuous and generally pesky.

  I got up and walked around my desk, unable to contain my energy.

  Dr Jay: I apologize. I’m trying to get to know you.

  Prudence: Isn’t anyone else out there interested in you? Why do you keep coming back to me?

  Dr Jay: I find you interesting. I get a lot of bland responses from women on the internet. I must say, that is not the case with you.

  Prudence: Guess what I did today?

  Dr Jay: Tell me.

  Prudence: I threw milk at my date. Then I nailed him with a biscotti.

  Dr Jay: Why did you do that?

  Prudence: Because if I can throw milk at just one person, my day is complete.

  Dr Jay: I’m not sure what you mean.

  Prudence: Look, Dr Know It All. I have spent a lifetime politely dealing with whatever crap has come my way, and you know what? I’m tired. Throwing milk at this moron today was such fun, I think I’
m in danger of becoming a serial milk thrower. You’re a shrink so you’ve got to maintain confidentiality, right? So if you hear about random guys in Manhattan being hit by milk-filled balloons, you can’t turn me in.

  Dr Jay: Well … you’re not a patient, though the more I talk to you, the more I think you should be. I’ll refrain from any bad puns about your serial milk hits.

  Prudence: Very funny.

  Dr Jay: Tell me more about the milk throwing. What led up to it?

  Prudence: I simply told the guy that I didn’t think we were a good fit and he called me a stuck-up bitch. My dead husband used to call me that. I wish I’d thrown milk at him!

  Dr Jay: You did.

  Prudence: No, this happened today. I threw it at some guy named Ron who came in with a string of cheesy jokes.

  Dr Jay: Prudence, I really want to meet you. What are you doing tomorrow?

  Prudence: Sorry, Doc. I have a ton of shopping to do. Would you believe I haven’t done any shopping yet?

  Dr Jay: Is that unusual for you?

  Prudence: Everything that’s happened this week has been unusual for me. Do you mind if I ask you a question?

  Dr Jay: Not at all.

  Prudence: Have you ever heard of a person freaking out when everything in her life is going perfectly?

  Dr Jay: Yes. People who are extremely organized.

  Prudence: What do you mean?

  Dr Jay: Have you ever heard of mothers who get sick only after they’ve taken care of every other ailing member of their family? It’s good planning. Their bodies finally say, ‘Okay, everything’s taken care of; now it’s time for me to break down.’

  Prudence: That’s how I feel. Like I’m breaking down. But it makes no sense because things are better than they have been in years.

  Dr Jay: It makes perfect sense, Prudence. I’d really like to meet you.

  Prudence: Maybe, but tomorrow is out. I really have to do some shopping.

  Dr Jay: If you change your mind, please e-mail me.

  The next morning I woke up feeling like my old self again. A good night’s sleep can be incredibly transformational. Plus, I had a naughty dream that I wasn’t the least bit embarrassed by. Who else had to know that in the wee hours of the night, I was Paris Hilton dancing naked in a cage? When I burst out from behind the bars, everyone was cheering wildly for me. Sophie and Gwen were there. Prudence was in the back capturing the whole spectacle in silver wire. Reilly was among the cheering masses.