Eric Shaw Quinn

Rose loved the holidays.  Because she loved them, the holidays were her least favorite time of year.

Her own loneliness and disappointment stood in stark relief against those numbered days counting down to the end of another year.  The potential for joy and happiness surrounded her.  The promise of life fulfilled was inescapable.  Every television advertisement and Christmas special, every carol and shop window, every twinkling light and street corner Santa seemed to offer her a glimpse of life as she longed to live it.

She stood in the aisle at CVS.  The glittering ornaments and red and green foil wrapped kisses mocked her.

Where was her Christmas sweetheart? Where were the fond feelings of friendship and family that surrounded even Ebenezer Scrooge in the end?

It filled her with ire.  Ebenezer had been a miserable son of a bitch all his life.  Then in the end, for spending some of the fabulous wealth he’d amassed, all had been forgiven.  He’d been embraced with open arms by the nephew he’d rebuked and the employee he’d exploited.

“I’d settle for the fabulous wealth,” she thought.

Or at least she hoped she’d only thought it.

More and more she wasn’t sure.  She was alone so much of the time, she’d gotten in the habit of talking to herself out loud.  Not a problem until she was out in public.  The shocked expressions of fellow shoppers and elevator passengers greeted the lapses when her thoughts leaked out.

She looked around the drug store to see if she recognized the familiar startled look.

A black woman with a Christmas scarf tied into her hair eyed her furtively over a pile of President Obama Chia Pets.

Their eyes met.  The woman smiled nervously.

“Those look great,” Rose said.  She smiled to try to put the other woman at her ease.

The woman frowned.  “They look sort of racist, to me.”  The woman’s voice was surprisingly deep.  Rose wondered if her fellow shopper had always been a woman.  Then she worried that she’d said that out loud.

“I guess you’re right,” Rose sighed.  She’d come for some moisturizer and a Secret Santa gift for her office party.  Now she was discussing life in a post-racial America with a transgendered black woman in the seasonal aisle at CVS.

Where was her perfect Christmas?

“Are you all right, honey?” the black woman asked.

“Oh, God,” Rose sighed.  “Did I say that out loud?”

“Did you say what out loud?” Mr. Black Woman asked, taking a step back.

“Why did you ask me if I’m all right?” Rose asked, unsure of what else to say.  She looked longingly toward the exit.

“You keep staring at me,” the woman said.  “How would you like it if people stared at you?”

“People mostly ignore me,” Rose shrugged.  “Try it some time.  You might miss the stares.”

“So, you are staring at me,” the woman accused.

“I’m just getting one of these,” Rose said.  She took one of the awful racist terracotta Chia Pets and put it into her basket with the Nivea.  “I was afraid you’d be offended after what you said.  I’m sorry.”

Rose fled.

“What did you think you said out loud?” the woman called after her.

Rose paid for her errant purchase and beat a hasty retreat rather than risk facing her nemesis at the checkout.  The horrid presidential likeness would have to be her gift for the office party.  She hoped it would seem ironic.  Perhaps her co-workers at the small ad agency where she worked would think her choice sophisticated.  As the office manager, the creative staff members tended to dismiss her.  They regarded her more as part of the office equipment than co-worker.  At least, that’s how it felt to her.

She grinned at the thought of their amused stares as her wit was revealed through the inadvertent purchase of the racist planter.

The phone was ringing when she got home.   She sprinted to catch the call.  Rose didn’t get a lot of calls.  After the CVS incident, she was in no mood to spend another evening talking to herself and watching the Christmas episodes of her shows.  She longed for her own Christmas episode.

“Hello,” she gasped desperately.

“Rose?” her mother’s voice cut into her heart.  “Is that you?”

“Hi, Mom,” Rose sighed.  “Who did you think it might be?”

She loved her mom, but the only thing she thought more pathetic than getting no calls was getting only calls from her mom and telemarketers.  On her cop shows they always looked at the calls people had been getting prior to their murder.  She imagined the cast of The Closer snickering at her sad little phone log.  Don’t let me get killed tonight, she thought.  Not until there’s something more interesting to find out about my life.

“Let you get killed?” her mom asked.  “Is there someone there with you?”

“No Mom,” Rose laughed.  “Just kidding around.”

“Well, are you all ready for the holidays?”

Rose looked around at the barren apartment.  It was clean, almost clinical.  Rose never decorated for Christmas.  She’d just never gotten around to it.  At first she’d thought she’d wait until there was a special someone to decorate with her.  But as 30 came and went and there was still no sign of HIM, the task had seemed more and more overwhelming.

“Yeah, Mom,” she lied.  “I just got in from the store to get a few finishing touches and then, all done.”

“You’re a terrible liar, Rose,” her mother said with a bitter tone of amusement.  “You should come home for Christmas this year.”

“Mom,” Rose smiled.  She did love her mother, it just wasn’t enough.  “You know I can’t afford it.  Besides, you’ll be at Mindy’s with her husband and the grandkids.”

“You could come, too,” her mother suggested hopefully.

“Thanks, Mom,” Rose said.  She couldn’t help the smile or the tears.  “I’ve got plans here.  You guys have a great time.”

In truth, facing her sister Mindy’s happy family only made her holiday prospects seem worse.

“Look, I gotta run,” Rose said.  “I’ve got to get my present wrapped for the office party tomorrow and I haven’t even gotten dinner started yet.  I’ll call you Christmas day at Mindy’s for a holiday conference call.”

“You know, Rose,” her mother said.  “I’m not asking you to come home for Christmas for me.  I’m asking for you.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Rose said softly.  “I know.”

“Do you?” her mom asked.  “Do you know that you’re life has already begun?”

“Of course I do,” Rose said, confused by her mother’s words and tone.

“Your life isn’t going to start later,” her mother went on.  “Don’t wait to have a life when conditions are perfect.  This Christmas isn’t coming again.  If you don’t celebrate it now, you never will.”

“Look, Mom,” Rose said, stung by her mother’s word.  “I’m sorry I can’t come home.”

“You are home,” her mother cut her off.  “Look around you.  Are you where you want to be?”

“Thanks, Mom,” Rose said.  “I gotta go.”

“Love you, Rose.”

Rose hung up.

Her mother’s words took her breath away.

Rose hated to admit it — and she never would — but her mother was right.  She’d been waiting to have her life all her life.  Life was a party and she’d been sitting home, waiting to be invited.

Mariah Carey serenaded her with Christmas cheer from the television as Rose wrapped the awful Secret Santa gift.  The Holiday Special wasn’t loud enough to drown out Rose’s thoughts.  She’d been putting off Christmas along with everything else in her life.  She had no plans for her holiday.  There was not a single invitation awaiting her besides the one from her mother.

She resisted the urge to toss the wrapped present against the wall.  Only the prospect of having to go back out to CVS saved the terracotta president.  Then the plan hit her.  It was elegant, simple and perfect.  It solved both her no-holiday-invitations problem and her spending-the-holiday-alone problem.

A Grinchy smile split her face.  She’d show her mother and join Christmas already in progress.

“I’m going to have a Christmas party,” she said out loud.

To be continued . . .