Hot Flash Holidays Read Free Page B

long as your health isn’t affected,” Shirley warned. “Statistics show that the leanest people live the longest.”
    “Yeah, but do they have as much fun?” Rebelliously, Alice grabbed another cookie.
    Marilyn was cooling down. She pulled her sweater back on and returned to her chair. “I’ve decided to take a sabbatical starting this June. I keep thinking perhaps my brain is just overloaded. I mean, in the past two years my husband left me for a younger woman, I had the most fabulous sex of my life with a guy who turned out to be a creep, I met all of you and joined the Hot Flash Club and the board of The Haven, I became a grandmother, and I started dating Faraday.”
    “That’s enough to blow your fuses,” Alice confirmed.
    “What will you do?” Faye asked Marilyn. “Take a trip? Write a book?”
    Marilyn shrugged. “Before I can plan anything, I’ve got to deal with my mother. I’ll have a chance to see whether she needs assisted living when she’s here over Christmas.”
    “Christmas,”
Shirley crooned happily.
    Alice rolled her eyes. “How can you be so perpetually hopeful?”
    “It’s a choice, I guess,” Shirley told her.
    Marilyn leaned forward to skewer Shirley with a look. “Um, you might also add that you have a lover who’s good in bed, and no demented relatives.”
    Polly chuckled. “Remember ‘Old Maid,’ that card game we played when we were kids?”
    “Oh, yes.” Faye grinned. “There were all kinds of crazy characters who came in pairs. Like Greasy Grimes and Betty Bumps. But there was just one Old Maid. The point was to be the one at the end of the game who didn’t hold the Old Maid.”
    “Now the goal is not to
be
the Old Maid,” Alice joked.
    Polly brushed cookie crumbs off her bosom. “I’m thinking ‘Old Maid’ was a rehearsal for real life. For example, my daughter-in-law is ‘Princess Insanely Possessive Prig Pot.’ ”
    Alice laughed. “Tell us how you really feel, Polly!”
    Marilyn giggled. “Yeah, and Faraday’s the ‘Limp Lothario.’ ”
    “Sure, they’re flawed.” Shirley spoke up before the others came up with an unflattering nickname for Justin. “But we still love them. We still want them to have a wonderful Christmas.”
    “We can’t make other people happy,” Alice pointed out sensibly.
    “No,” Polly agreed, “we can’t. But we can do everything we can to set the stage for happiness.”
    Faye said, “You’re right, Polly. That’s what I’m going to do this Christmas, for my daughter and my granddaughter and my son-in-law.”
    “That’s what we’ll all do for those we love,” Shirley said.
    “I’ll drink to that.” Alice raised her mug.
    “I’ll drink to that, too,” Polly said, “but first, can I have more Reddi wip?”
    2
    ON THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS, ALL THROUGH the house, Faye wandered in her robe. It was two A.M. She was completely incapable of sleep. This afternoon, her daughter Laura, her son-in-law Lars, and her adorable baby granddaughter were arriving for the holidays. Faye was so excited she was nearly demented.
    Megan was three years old now, and Faye was going to give the little girl a Christmas she’d remember always! In her exuberance, Faye had put up not one, but three Christmas trees.
    The largest one was in front of the living room window. She loved the way the tree looked from outside, framed perfectly by the window, the lights shining with the radiance of home. She’d decorated it with all the ornaments she and Jack had used when Laura was a child.
    The second tree was in the kitchen. Inspired by Polly’s gingerbread ornaments for the tree at The Haven, Faye had rummaged around at the back of her utensil drawer and found her box of Christmas cookie cutters. All day, Faye had baked and decorated in a kind of domestic trance. She’d filled five bags of frosting with different colors and let her much-ignored artistic side go wild as she squeezed smiling faces and silly designs on sugar Santas and