ONE
Top Ten Reasons Why the Holidays Suck
- I’m fat. As much as I hate to admit it, the point was driven home with brutal clarity by Granny Gums when she saw me at Thanksgiving and said with a cackle, “Looks like somebody already ate the turkey!” I’d blame it on her dementia, but the photos Mom sent me this morning offer irrefutable proof that sometime over the past few years, I have acquired an alarming similarity to a barnyard animal.
- Snow. Manhattan snow is never white. It’s a drab, listless brown, like my hair. (Note to self: call the hairdresser. Red???)
- Christmas movies. Why is Home Alone considered a good holiday family movie? Kevin McCallister and his siblings should be adopted by concerned relatives. And It’s a Wonderful Life? I’m sorry, but someone has to say it: George Bailey is a dick. There are so many examples of his dickery during that movie, it’s another list altogether. One of my favorites quotes: “You call this a happy family? Why do we have to have all these kids?” I can feel the love, Superdad.
- Christmas shopping. Also known as Standing in Line until You Die, Christmas shopping includes three of my all-time favorite things: screaming children, angry soccer moms, and me aimlessly wandering around a crowded public space until I’m drenched in sweat. December in a mall is like The Hunger Games meets Lord of the Flies, completed with a reenactment of Death Race in the parking lot when you finally try to leave after twelve hours of spending money you don’t have. Fun times.
- Office Christmas parties. Oh, great! Awkward, forced conversations with coworkers I want to unfriend on Facebook!
- Christmas music. It is awful and depressing. As a perfect example, I offer the lyrics to “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” by Band Aid: “There’s a world outside your window / And it’s a world of dread and fear / Where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears / And the Christmas bells that ring there / Are the clanging chimes of doom.” Please excuse me while I go jump off a ledge.
- Santa is a lie.
- Kiss at midnight on New Year’s Eve? The chances of being flattened by a stray asteroid are better.
- Michael still doesn’t love me.
- See number nine.
“Jocelyn!”
I jerk, startled from my list making by the sound of a voice. It’s Portia—blade-thin, elegant, blonde editorial director Portia—looming over my desk, smiling in that way she does that makes me self-conscious and uncomfortable, attacked by her physical perfection and how hideous I feel in comparison.
The woman looks airbrushed. I have back fat, pores a toddler could fall into, and cat hair on my sweater. Normally I wouldn’t let her get this close, but the witch snuck up on me.
“Hi, Portia.” I peer up at her and nervously adjust my glasses, too weirded out by how she can materialize from thin air like Dracula to be annoyed that’s she’s called me by the wrong name. Again.
“Would you mind taking a look at this manuscript? Maria called in sick, and we’re behind deadline.” Without waiting for a response, she drops a thick rubber-banded sheaf of papers on my desk, right on top of the Holidays Suck list I was making on a yellow legal pad. “We need it by Monday.”
“Monday?” I stare in horror at the enormous pile of papers.
“Thanks! You’re a doll!” Portia turns to leave.
I stand abruptly, knocking over my chair in the process. Because of course I would. It clatters to the floor and makes heads turn in my direction. I sit in the middle of a warren of cubicles on the thirty-third floor of Maddox Publishing, where I’ve worked for the past ten years. It’s four o’clock on a Friday afternoon, and I’m about to make a fool of myself.
So it’s situation normal in the world of Joellen Bixby.
I blurt, “Wait!”
Portia stops. She turns slowly, pivoting in a pair of red-soled heels that likely cost more than I make in a paycheck, then props a hand on one bony hip and stares at me with arched brows.
Conscious of the sudden quiet and the field of my coworkers’ staring eyeballs, I clear my throat. “Um. I, uh, don’t think I can finish it by Monday.”
The field of eyeballs eagerly shifts to Portia, who is gazing at me with all the warmth of an iceberg. “You don’t think?”
She makes it sound as if my cognitive ability is in question. Someone in a cubicle nearby coughs into his hand to hide a laugh.
“I . . . I mean, I’m already so busy with all my other projects, and this one looks like it’s fairly substantial . . . I’d have to work all weekend.”
Portia sends me a narrow-eyed look that could wither crops. “So you’re saying you’re incapable of handling your workload. Is that correct?”
Whispers begin to rise all around me. A trickle of cold sweat snakes down between my shoulder blades, and my cheeks flame with heat. “No, I . . . I’m sure I can work it in. Monday it is.”
“First thing in the morning,” says Portia, in the same tone someone pointing a gun at a cashier would say, “Give me the money.”
I swallow. Gulp, actually, like a goldfish. Then I nod, but Portia doesn’t see it because she’s already turned around and left.
I duck down, avoiding all the smirks and stares aimed in my direction, right my chair, then sit hunched over my desk in misery like Quasimodo. I stay that way for several minutes, silently ordering my hands to stop shaking and my stomach to settle while I gaze at the calendar pinned to the gray felt wall of my cubicle. It features twelve months of Grumpy Cat. December shows the cat in a Santa outfit, complete with a little red hat and black boots.
It’s a present from my mother. I must’ve done some truly awful things in a previous life.
“Why didn’t you just say no, Joellen?”
Sue Wong, recent college grad and youngest person to be promoted to the position of acquisitions editor in Maddox Publishing’s eighty-year history, stands at the entrance of my cubicle. Sue has shiny black hair that falls to her shoulders, a fringe of bangs so precise it looks like it was sliced with an X-ACTO blade, and an adorable pair of dimples that make her look years younger than her actual age of twenty-three.
I am insanely jealous of those dimples. And of how she can consume approximately five thousand calories per day and never gain an ounce. And of how she is not terrified one bit of Portia, Dragon Queen of the Upper East Side, or of anything else as far as I can tell.
“Because I’ll get fired if I say no! I have these little things called bills? Rent? You’ve heard of them?”
Sue finds my logic faulty and waves a hand dismissively in the air. “Pfft. They’ll never fire you. You’re a workhorse.”
For an unpleasant moment, I imagine myself as a Clydesdale with steam billowing from my nostrils, clumps of dirt flying behind my thick fetlocks as I pull a Budweiser hitch through Central Park.
“And you’ve been here forever,” Sue continues. “Besides, you’re in a protected class. Portia wouldn’t want to risk a lawsuit.”
Genuinely confused, I stare at her. “What protected class is that?”
“Age,” she says, as if it’s obvious.
“Age?”
“Yeah. You’re, like, totally old.”
“I’m thirty-six!”
“Oh. Really?” She looks me up and down. “Huh.”
I say drily, “Thanks. Are we done with the pep talk? Because I’ve got a ton of work to do.”
“I just wanted to see if you felt like going to that new tapas place after work. A bunch of us are going for happy hour.”
She’s being nice because I’m so pitiful, which makes me feel even worse. “It’s sweet that you always include me, but . . .” I gesture helplessly at the sheaf of papers Portia left on my desk.
“Okay. Maybe next time.” Sue departs with a shrug and a smile.
I spend the next few hours at my desk with my nose buried in pages. I keep at it long after everyone else has gone home for the weekend, long after any sane person would’ve packed it in.
Maybe I ate my sanity with the gallon of ice cream I had for dinner last night.
By the time I get back to my apartment, I’ve got a headache that feels like a serial killer is drilling a hole into the top of my head with a rusty drill bit soaked in hot sauce. My plan is to eat something, get a few hours of sleep, and get back into the office bright and early to work on the manuscript. Normally I can work on my projects from home using the computer, but paper files aren’t allowed to leave the building for security reasons, so I’m stuck going back to my desk.
Thank you, Portia.
As soon as I step off the elevator, I hear the music. It’s extremely loud and thumping with bass—some kind of rock. Or maybe rap. I can’t tell for sure. All I know is that the lyrics include a few words that would curl my mother’s hair.
As I walk down the hall, I’m alarmed to discover the music is coming from the apartment directly across from mine. Judging by all the voices and raucous laughter, my neighbor isn’t alone.
Kellen never has parties.
Irritated, I pull up my coat sleeve and look at my watch. I debate whether or not I should knock on his door, but my stomach is making some aggressive rumbling noises that manage to penetrate through the thundering bass, so I decide to eat first and deal with Kellen on a full stomach.
In the event of a nuclear war, the first thing I’d do is eat. I can’t handle life when I’m hungry.
As soon as I unlock my door, Mr. Bingley attacks.
“Rr-ow!” He stands on his hind legs and sinks his claws into my skirt.
“I know, baby, I’m sorry I’m so late. Mommy’s gonna feed you right now, okay?”
Another howl tells me I better, or there will be hell to pay.
I scratch behind Mr. Bingley’s ears, talking baby talk to him the way he likes, which makes him sink his claws deeper into my skirt in pleasure, which in turn makes me wince in pain, keeping the eternal feline/human relationship in balance. He’s lucky he’s so adorable, or I might . . . do nothing. Never mind.
When it comes to Mr. Bingley, we both know who’s in charge.
I close the front door, drop my purse on the table in the foyer, avoid looking at myself in the mirror, and hang my coat in the closet. Then I head to the kitchen, Mr. Bingley trotting at my heels.
He’s a bossy, plump ginger tabby cat with amber eyes and a fluffy plume of a tail. He’s also totally deaf—the unfortunate side effect of a reaction to antibiotics prescribed for an ear infection. He doesn’t seem to mind, however, or even realize he’s handicapped. I think he’s learned how to read lips.
The only problem is that I can’t sneak up behind him. I startled him once, and he ended up hanging by his claws from the living room curtains, wild eyed and hissing.
“You’re lucky you can’t hear that music,” I tell him, removing a can of cat food from the cupboard. “Somebody sounds like they have anger management issues.”
Mr. Bingley twines around my ankles, purring and rubbing his head against my legs. I fork the food into his special china dish, put it on the floor, and watch, smiling, as he digs in.
Then I jump at the sound of a woman’s scream.
“What the hell?” I rush to the front door. My heart galloping, I flatten myself against the door and peer through the peephole. The hallway is empty. Warily, I ease open the door and poke my head out. Then I hear another scream, this one accompanied by the sound of female laughter and a chorus of male hoots.
The noise is coming from the apartment across the hall.
Relieved I’m not dealing with murder, only a house party spiraling out of control, I start to fume. I picture an inflatable kiddie pool filled with Jell-O in the middle of Kellen’s living room, a pair of naked girls squirming around in it while a bunch of frat boys gleefully spray them with champagne and dollar bills.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I’m marching across the hall and applying my knuckles with vigor to Kellen’s door.
The music doesn’t lower, but after a moment, heavy footsteps approach. Then the door opens and I’m rendered speechless.
A man I’ve never seen before stands in the doorway. He’s tall, broad, solid as a mountain and about as large. He has shaggy brown hair, hazel eyes, lots of tattoos, and a devastating smile, which my brain notes at the same time it’s trying to process that the man is wearing unlaced combat boots, a kilt, and nothing else.
You could get lost in the canyons between his abs. If he has any body fat at all, it must be hidden beneath the kilt, because his muscles are so defined it’s like looking at an anatomical drawing.
Staring open mouthed at his stomach, I say, “Uh . . .”
The Mountain says, “Can I help you, lass?”
Cannae help ye, lass?
Dear God, he’s a Scotsman. A huge, half-naked Scotsman in a kilt. Smiling at me like he knows all my secrets, what color my panties are, and that I’m curious what it would be like to have a man pull my hair during sex.
“Uh . . .”
“Ach, sorry, it’s the music, innit? Just havin’ a wee party. I’ll get it sorted.” Over his shoulder he thunders, “Turn the bloody music down, you dumb knobdobber, you’re disturbin’ the neighbors!”
Inside the apartment are people of both sexes, drinking and laughing, in various stages of undress. They lounge on the sofa and sit cross-legged on the floor around the coffee table, where a blonde woman with stupendously large naked breasts is dealing cards.
I start to blink as if I’m trying to signal someone in Morse code.
The music lowers one decibel, and the Mountain turns back to me with a triumphant smile. He’s weaving slightly on his feet. And unless he doused himself in malt-and-barley cologne, he’s been drinking what smells like an awful lot of beer.
Before I recover the power of speech, he belches loudly, sends me a jaunty salute, then slams the door in my face.