The Eggnog Chronicles (3 page)

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Authors: Carly Alexander

BOOK: The Eggnog Chronicles
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And very long,
I thought, wincing at the lethal-looking syringe on the counter. If Keanu Reeves had a weapon like that in
The Matrix,
there would be no sequels. One wave of the syringe and the machines would fall to their knees.
But I could take it. Women were so much better at tolerating. . . well, everything, and I figured if I could survive chronic sinus pain, a little jab to the neck would be minimal.
In fact, the needle biopsy was okay—not nearly as unsettling as the image of Dr. Parson coming at me in protective goggles, gloves and reflective headband.
“I'll have the results in three to five days,” he said, removing his gloves with a “thwack.”
Honestly, I was just desperate to get those antibiotics into my swollen nasal cavities. Dr. Parson had prescribed an antibiotic I hadn't tried before; a drug “directed toward the sinuses,” he promised. I hurried through the checkout and copay, shrugged on my elegant Ralph Lauren cashmere coat and dashed into the elevator. I needed my pharmaceutical fix! The cure!
3
“I
shouldn't be here,” I said an hour later as I scanned the menu at Duke's, my favorite neighborhood bar, café, and overall hangout spot. “Aren't sick people supposed to stay in bed and drink chicken soup?”
“You need to do whatever feeds the soul.” Emma closed her menu and tore off a piece of Irish soda bread. “Gotta have lunch, right? It'll be short, though. I'm due back at telemarketing hell by one.”
Once I'd returned to my apartment and gotten those wonder drugs into my system, I'd paused in the kitchen and stared into the fridge. Leftover Chinese, or Lean Cuisine? I needed cultural nutrition, which mere food couldn't provide. So I called Emma, who was glad to escape from work for a quick lunch.
I lowered my menu to watch Noah, the waiter, pass by with a tray of drinks for a table in the back room. “I'd kill for one of Duke's bloody marys right now.”
“So have one. You don't need to go back to work.”
“I've got an interview . . . which never stopped me before,” I said. “But it's not a good idea with the antibiotics.”
“Oh, right!” Emma nodded sagely, her maternal streak emerging. Emma Dombrowski was one of the most motherly people I know, and now that she and her boyfriend had broken up it looked like she might not get the baby she wanted. Wasn't that just the way life kicked you in the teeth? Teenagers in high school were having these babies they didn't want while Emma, who had bought a two-bedroom condo with a nursery in mind, was left empty-armed and unfulfilled.
“Right now you need to focus on feeling better,” Emma went on as she pressed a dab of butter onto the bread. “I'm glad you finally saw a specialist. Did he mention a saline flush? Peggy at work had one. Said it was painful, but seemed to do the trick.”
“He didn't seem too worried about my sinuses,” I said. “He just wanted to stick a needle in my neck.”
“What?” Emma's blue eyes opened wide over her mouthful of bread.
“He said it's probably nothing. Apparently I have a lumpy thyroid. I'm just looking forward to feeling better. I'm feeling fragile, but I've got this interview that can't wait. Then, I'd planned to do some of my own writing, but I'll see how I feel.”
Emma nodded. “How's the book going?”
“It's going well,” I lied, figuring that if I pretended the book was rolling along, maybe my karma would fall into line. “I just wish I had more time to work on it. I'm always stuck in the office until seven or later, then I don't have the energy to get creative all over again. So . . . if you've read those pages, what do you think?”
“I think . . .” Emma squinted, as if trying to remember. “I think it would help if I could read the beginning. I think it's really great, what you've done, that you've done so much, but—”
“Go on and say it,” I interrupted. “You hate it.”
“No, not really.” She toyed with the lights on the garland. “The thing is, I just don't understand these people. I can't tell what makes them tick; whether or not I'm supposed to like them.”
“You don't have to like them. The question is, do they interest you?”
“Well . . . I have some trouble with the guy who's cheating on his wife, and the woman is so obsessed with her weight. The way she drinks down the boullion then weighs herself, then takes those diuretics . . .” She shook her head. “I didn't buy it.”
“Have you ever heard of bulimia?” I asked, feeling a little put out.
Emma pressed her hands together in a gesture of prayer. “Don't be mad, Jane. I know they're real problems, but I just didn't believe it in the story. I mean, the issues are so far from your life. Maybe they're not the best choice for you?”
“Write what you know,” I said. It was the mantra of every workshop for beginning writers. “You hit that one.”
“And I wasn't sure if it was going to develop into a romance or a mystery or . . . what.”
I nodded. “You're right. You're absolutely right.” I'd slugged my way through without an outline or a plan. “I need to approach this with better organization.” At work it was easy to churn out pages of text, much of which was edited down to fit in the precise columns that wrapped around photos and squeezed between ads. But when it came to writing The Novel, the lack of clear guidelines and the pressure to be brilliant was overwhelming. Who would've thought that creative freedom could be so daunting?
“It's clear that you're talented,” Emma said earnestly. “I really admire that.”
“You don't have to shovel it, Emma. I was writing without an outline. Pretty stupid of me.”
“But I can tell you worked hard on it. And you know what? We all work too hard. I think that's a problem for New Yorkers. You know, when I call the bank offices in Chicago, everyone lams out of there at five. People might be on the phone with you at four forty-five, but within minutes they wrap things up and head home. Meanwhile, we're an hour ahead, so already it's pushing six and I'm entrenched in work. What's wrong with us?”
“We're workaholics,” I said, wishing I could apply the same diligence to my novel.
Emma rubbed the porcelain-white skin on the back of her hand. “Leave at five in Chicago and the boss calls it effective time management. Leave at five in New York and you're off the fast track. What's that about?”
As we griped about work Duke came over and took our orders—two salads, which he promised to get out quickly so Emma could get back to work. “Jane, you are the last person I'd ever expect to have a dry lunch,” Duke said wryly.
“Antibiotics,” Emma explained, nodding at me.
“That explains it,” Duke said as he went off for our diet Cokes.
“I'll drink to that,” I called after him, raising my water glass. First, let me say that I have never slept with Duke, mostly because he never made those moves and subsequently he has become something like a brother to me. There was some speculation a while back that he might be gay, since he was still single and had never dated anyone I knew, but Emma talked me out of that one . . . or at least, she talked me into respecting Duke's privacy and forgetting about the question altogether.
He brought our drinks, gracefully balanced on a round tray. “Lemon on the side, ladies. Let me know if you want a whiskey chaser for that.” Duke has an innate sense of cool, which is probably why he can get away with hair down over his shoulders at his age—early thirties, I think—though he's never told me.
“Thanks, Duke,” I said as he disappeared into the back room.
Emma pushed the bread basket away. “God, I have to stop eating compulsively, but I'm so stressed. I hate my job now. Really, really hate it. I hate telemarketing.” Part of Emma's executive training program at the bank was a rotation into nearly every department and property owned by the corporation. Telemarketing was just one of the many adventures in banking Emma would suffer to earn an executive title and an office with a window.
“Don't we all? I think most of the nation would join you there, the president included.”
“But I don't hate the people who do it,” Emma said. “I mean, to them it's a job, and for some of them it provides food and shelter and medical coverage for their kids.”
I slugged back some ice water. “Your point being?”
Emma lifted her auburn red hair—hair Clairol would kill for—from her collar, then dropped it onto the back of her navy suit jacket. “I don't wish these people ill. I just don't want to go back to that damned office after lunch. The sleaze factor is so high.”
“Poor Emma Dee.” Emma's girlfriends had started calling her that in middle school, when we decided that her last name, “Dombrowski,” needed fixing. These days, it was one of the first things Emma checked out when she met a guy—his last name. For Emma, a new last name would be one of the bonuses of marriage. “So I guess telemarketing is not the place to find that Christmas lover?”
Emma shuddered. “Not unless you want him to call you out of the shower to sell you credit card protection you already have.” She shook her head. “I wish this rotation would end.”
“When do you finish with the telemackerels?” I asked.
“Not soon enough. I'm there until March first.”
“Oh, poor Emma. It's going to be a blue Christmas for you.”
“It won't!” Her eyes flashed with defiance. “This is going to be a wonderful Christmas—the Christmas of my liberation. Jonathan managed to ruin the last few holidays for me and I'm determined to make this the best Christmas ever.”
“Jonathan? Brrr.” I shuddered. “Did someone open a window, or did his ghost just pass through me?”
“You know, I thought I'd miss him, but I don't. Not at all. It's kind of scary.”
“He was more work than he was worth, and you should be glad he's gone.”
“I am.” Emma fingered the fake garland lit with tiny lights that was draped along the room divider beside our table. “But it's hard at Christmas, you know? Hard not to have someone.”
“You mean a man to validate you?” I made a mock gasp. “Emma Dee, I gasp on your behalf.”
“Don't go all Femi-Nazi on me. I'm talking about a man to exchange gifts with. Someone to share the brandy and snuggle beside the Christmas tree.” Her fingers framed the tiny white bulbs so delicately, I had to stop in my tracks and really listen to what she was saying. It was the ultimate American dream, really—spending a happy holiday with someone you love. It was fodder for Christmas carols and cards, coffee commercials in which Johnny makes it home from war in time for Christmas morning or the man gives his mate a diamond necklace under the Christmas tree, print ads with his-and-hers cell phones spilling out of Santa's voluminous bag.
“Oh, what am I saying? You've got Carter.”
I nearly choked on a lettuce leaf. “Carter is
not
a boyfriend.”
“Then what would you call him?”
“A boy, but not a friend. Carter is a way to relieve stress. You have a high math aptitude, right? Here are the equations: Great sex = great time. Commitment = annoyance overload.”
“And you don't love him,” Emma said thoughtfully. “I had that with Jonathan, and I'm so glad he's out of my mainframe. But we deserve more, Jane. That's my Christmas wish for us. Someone to love. A man for all time.”
“Humbug. We may want a man like that, but December twenty-sixth always rolls around with a few extra pounds, a handful of department store returns, and a truckload of regrets. For me, those regrets usually involve some loser who thinks I understand him because I'm the first girl who's dropped her bloomers since his wife divorced him.”
“Aha! So you
have
been disappointed,” Emma said.
“Not anymore,” I said with a coolness I didn't feel. “That's my new policy. Keep your expectations low and you'll never be disappointed.”
“Ah, but low expectations breed lackluster results.”
I tilted my head. “Where the hell did you learn that?”
“I don't know,” she said, her eyes filling with panic. “Maybe telemarketing school! Oh, God, I have to get out of that place. The sales patter is seeping into my brain.”
“But you love your job—at least most of it—and you're so well suited for banking.” Unlike me, Emma has always enjoyed working with numbers. She clings to the solid sense in calculations; the surety and reliability that one plus one will always equal two (unless you are me, balancing my checkbook, and then everything seems to equal a zero balance). “Stick it out until the next rotation, kiddo. They wouldn't have put you in the training program if they didn't realize how smart you are.”
“Do you think?” Emma asked as Duke delivered our salads smoothly and disappeared again. “I'm such a wreck. Sorry! It's still killing me, Jonathan and the weather girl. Talk about public humiliation. I became the ditched one—the dumpee—and all you have to do is tune into Weather Watcher on channel six to see why.”
“Oh, Emma, don't go there. It's not about him.” We'd been over her ex's exploits way too many times. “It's seasonal blues.” I stabbed a grape tomato. “What's that line? I think it's Shakespeare. ‘Now is the winter of our discontent.'”
Emma turned away, her bottom lip quivering in an unexpected show of emotion. “Yeah, but I usually don't feel that way until after Christmas.”
“You know, I've read that the post-Christmas blues are really a product of lack of sunshine. Our spirits are up for the holiday, and then suddenly it's over and we're cornered in darkness, stuck in the darkest phase of the year. In Australia, people don't suffer post-Christmas depressions. Instead, they're bummed out in July. Weird, huh?”
Emma swallowed and wiped one tear away with a pinky finger. “Let's move to Australia. I hear they have like, eight men for every woman in the outback.”

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