The Christmas Strike

There was a time when I thought I’d had it all. A husband I loved who adored me. Two beautiful, healthy little girls. A life as shiny as the diamonds twinkling on my wrist. This would have been our thirty-second Christmas together. I smiled softly—and a little sadly. By now, Charlie would have been able to afford to buy me something from Ivan for Christmas. Something I’d wear when we went out on New Year’s Eve.

I held my arm out. The bracelet draped just right. But my nails—what a mess. It would be a travesty for a woman like me to own a bracelet like this. There was a time I’d taken better care of my hands—when Charlie had been here to hold them.

I took off the bracelet and handed it back to Ivan. “I’m sure your customer’s wife will be very happy with it.”

When I left the jewelry store I kept thinking about the shape my cuticles were in. How shameful they’d looked next to that bracelet. Iris’s House of Beauty was across the street. It had been years since I’d had a manicure.

“Hey, kid,” Iris said. “Did you come in here to sell raffle tickets or something?”

I laughed. “No—I actually thought about treating myself to a manicure.”

Her eyes widened. “What’s the occasion?”

“I was feeling nostalgic.”

Iris looked puzzled. “Nostalgic for a manicure?”

“Something like that. Can you fit me in?”

“You better believe it. I’ve been trying to get my hands on your cuticles for years. Why don’t you let me highlight your hair today, too? And maybe shape your brows.”

“Don’t push it. Just be happy I’m getting a manicure.”

“Honey, I’d jump for joy if these boots weren’t killing my feet.”

The place was buzzing with gossip, as usual. Iris had three stylists and a manicurist working for her and they relished regaling the customers with details about their various love lives, diets and favorite soap operas. If anyone had gained weight in town, was on the verge of bankruptcy or divorce, this was the place you heard about it first.

It was, “Girl, did you see those hips in those boot-cut leggings?” or “They say the balance on her MasterCard has more digits than her phone number.” I’d always felt a tiny bit uncomfortable with it all. Probably another reason I tended to avoid the place. Plus, I wasn’t fond of having so many mirror images of myself to look at and be judged. I didn’t need any reminders that my chin was getting slacker and my laugh lines were turning into crow’s feet.

Sally, the manicurist, had graduated a year ahead of me so we knew each other only slightly. Still, I got every detail about her brilliant grandchildren.

“I told my son, you’d better start saving your money. The oldest is going to wind up in one of those expensive Ivy League schools out east—you mark my words.”

I assured her I would.

She leaned closer. “Say, is it true what they say about Mary Stillman?”

I had no idea who Mary Stillman was, but Sally gave me the complete picture on what was being said about her, anyway.

An hour and a few dozen confidential tidbits later, I walked out with a set of fake nail tips elongating my fingers. I’d given in to Sally’s choice of polish—a purplish red that looked even more garish out in the cold afternoon. And now I was really running late. I had two more clients to drop in on and I still wanted to start my Christmas shopping.

As did everyone else in the county, apparently. When I finally got there, the discount store was packed. I lost a fingernail nabbing the last of the most popular video game of the year off the shelf for Matt and I’d hovered near a woman who was deciding over a sweater that I knew would be perfect for Natalie. When she put it back down and looked away, I swooped in like a hawk on a field mouse. Before I got into line at the checkout counter, on impulse I turned down the music aisle and started to search. There it was—our prom theme—on a compilation disk of seventies soft rock. I dropped it into my cart.

The checkout lines were long. By the time I made it back to the car, I was exhausted, but I wrestled with the frustrating CD packaging anyway, losing another nail tip in the process. I wanted to hear that song again. Now.

I sat in the parking lot, puffs of my warm breath visible in the cold car, and listened to the song. Twice. I felt like I wanted to cry. Was it for the loss of the girl who’d danced with such hope in her heart? Was it for the woman who I was supposed to have become who’d never quite materialized?

God, this was insane, I thought. Sitting in a cold car—a rusty station wagon no less—listening to love songs from my high school years.

I popped the CD out of the player. It immediately switched to a radio station playing all Christmas music. I bit the bottom of my lip and shook my head. “Abby,” I whispered into the icy air, “you picked a great time to have a midlife crisis.”

I drove home, hauled the packages into the house, stowed them in the front hall closet and went into the living room.

“Well, it’s about time,” Gwen said from the sofa. “I’m starving.”

Natalie looked up from her magazine. “I’m starving, too. And, Ma, the kids keep asking me when you’re going to decorate for Christmas.”

“Yeah, don’t you usually have a tree by now, Mother? By the way,” Gwen added, a secret little smile on her face, “David called seven times today. I think your answering machine is almost full.”

The kids suddenly ran down the stairs, squealing, and Nat shushed them. “Daddy’s napping.”

You know that saying I saw red? Well, it’s true. I saw red. And we’re not talking festive lights here. I think it was the red of my blood boiling up to my eyeballs.

“What does Daddy have to nap for?” I asked testily. “He’s not working. And he’s certainly not doing anything around here.”

Natalie got up and quickly glanced at the stairs. “Ma—shh, he’ll hear you.”

“Nat, I think Jeremy already knows he’s not working. And he sure as hell knows he’s not doing anything around here.”

She cocked her hip. “What the hell has gotten into you?”

“That’s another thing. Will you please watch your mouth? You gripe if anyone else uses bad language in front of the kids but you’re the worst of all.”

Gwen, wearing yet another expensive nightgown and robe ensemble, snickered from the sofa.

I swung around to face her. “And you. You’re a grown woman. Isn’t it time you got dressed and started doing something around here, too? Like maybe, for instance, making dinner?”

From the look on her face you’d think I’d asked her to sign up for boot camp.

Nat gave a short laugh. “Princess Gwen doesn’t cook, Ma. She orders.”

“Then what about you? You can’t make a damn box of macaroni and cheese for your kids?”

As if they’d been cued from offstage, the kids came running through the living room again.

“Grandma! When can we get a Christmas tree?”

“Do you know where my skates are?”

“Can I have a sleepover this weekend?”

“Aren’t you going to put stuff up outside this year, Grandma?”

“You know what,” I said as I eyed the other adults in the room, “I think you’d better start asking your parents those questions—or Auntie Gwen—because as of right now, Grandma is on strike.”

“What?” Both Nat and Gwen asked in unison.

“I am going on strike,” I enunciated clearly. It wasn’t something I’d planned to say. But while my blood boiled, the story Mike had told us on Friday at the diner bubbled up with it. If a man could go on strike against his wife for lack of affection, why couldn’t a woman go on strike against her family for lack of cooperation? “As of this moment, all of you are on your own. For meals. For laundry. For Christmas.”