Winter Street Read Free Page B

who criticizes Margaret’s fashion choices, the color of her hair, and seems to hold a special vendetta against Margaret’s watch—a Cartier tank watch with a custom lizard band that Kelley gave her after Ava was born. If Queenie229 can’t find anything to particularly dislike about Margaret’s outfit, she will resort to picking on what she calls “that hideous watch.”
    “Please, Roger,” Margaret says. “The silver.”
    Roger ignores her. She takes the green Vanna sheath to the dressing room.
    Darcy intercepts her in the corridor. “Message for you,” she says. “Kelley.”
    “Kelley?” Margaret says. “My former husband?”
    Darcy nods, and Margaret looks at the pink slip.
Please call immediately.
She thinks of Kelley’s son, Bart, who was deployed to Afghanistan last Friday. She thinks of the four soldiers killed that day.
Oh God, no.
    She hands Darcy the green Vanna dress and runs down the hall to her computer, where she brings up the names ofthe four dead in Afghanistan. None of them Bartholomew Quinn. Hugh exhale of relief. It’s something else, then.
    She calls Kelley back, even though she really doesn’t have time.
    He picks up even before the first ring is finished. “Mitzi left me,” he says. “She’s gone.”

KELLEY
    I t’s surprisingly civil, her departure. She steps out of room 10, leaving George behind, and says to Kelley, “I’ll go gather my things.”
    Things?
he thinks. He follows her down the hall, past rooms 8 and 9, down the main staircase—the banister wrapped in a garland of fresh greens accented with burgundy velvet bows—then into the main room, where their twelve-foot tree stands. Their tree is decorated with tasteful white lights and whimsical, handmade ornaments—many of them made by “the Christmas Club,” a group of women who lived in Mitzi’s neighborhood growing up and who fostered Mitzi’s love of this holiday—and twenty other ornaments purchased by Kelley especially for Mitzi and given to her each Christmas morning. Is she going to gather those “things”? Is she goingto take the ornaments off the tree, leaving it exposed and naked? And what about her nutcracker collection, which has to be one of the most impressive nutcracker collections in all the world, standing guard on the mantel? There is the chef nutcracker, with his toque and whisk, the fireman nutcracker, with his black hat and hose, and this year a United States Marine Corps nutcracker, which Bart thoughtfully purchased for his mother before he left. Is she going to gather those “things”?
    What about her crowd of Byers’ Choice carolers—the figurines she arranges and rearranges at least twice each season? At the beginning of the month, the carolers were set up on the sideboard as if attending a holiday concert in the village square—the central figures were playing instruments, and the others were gathered to watch and sing along. But now the carolers are set up as if at a bustling market. There is the cheesemonger, a girl selling gingerbread, a rosy-cheeked boy peddling wreaths. Is Mitzi going to gather those “things”? Mitzi loves those carolers; they remind her of being a child and playing with her dollhouse, a grand Victorian her father built her, with seventeen rooms. Kelley has to admit, even he has grown fond of the carolers over the years. When the box comes out of the attic and the figure of “Happy Scrooge” comes out of the box, Kelley feels a sense of delight—it’s family tradition that Happy Scrooge is Kelley’s favorite, perhaps even a twelve-inch representation of Kelley himself.
    Is Mitzi going to walk away with Happy Scrooge?
    Mitzi pushes through the French doors into the “back house,” where Kelley and Mitzi live with Kevin and Ava and, until this fall, Bart.
    From the walk-in linen closet in the hallway, Mitzi pulls out two suitcases.
    Kelley says, “Wait a minute, you already packed?”
    “Yes,” she says.
    “You and George have been… planning