Jingle Bell Hell (Bad Luck Club)

by Denise Grover Swank

  Something significant is about to happen—or maybe it’s already happening.

  It doesn’t take me long to find it. If I believed in any of Dottie’s talk of energy and fate and crystals, I’d have to conclude I was drawn to it, magnet to metal, but I don’t. Or at least I never have before.

  It’s an abstract painting, the colors neutral, except for one slash of color—red and orange and yellow—that seems to be whirling across it.

  It makes my heart lift, unfurls a sense of wonder within me, and makes my feet itch to dance.

  I glance at the plaque beside it and do a double take. The Fortune-Teller Series #3, Adalia Buchanan.

  Adalia Buchanan is Maisie’s sister-in-law. I’ve met her a couple of times, including at Thanksgiving this year, but we haven’t exchanged more than a handful of words. She’s an artist, so it’s not surprising that I should find her work here, although I didn’t realize she painted. She’s known for her sculptures—huge hulking works of metal and trash made to look like other things. Did she really paint this?

  “Mary!” The voice behind me startles me enough that I jump slightly.

  A woman with bouncing blond curls, overalls, and a bright red headband materializes behind me. I feel a throb of self-consciousness. Adalia will tell Molly and Maisie about my visit to the studio, but then again, what’s the harm in that? They want me to be happy, and it’s not as if I can buy a large painting without them seeing it at some point.

  “I’m thinking of getting myself a Christmas present,” I say, standing a little taller. “I didn’t realize you do paintings too.”

  “Not usually,” she says. “But my big guys were too much for me when I was pregnant.”

  I get a flash of Jace’s huge body, the bulk and weight of all that muscle, and wonder for what has to be the thousandth or hundred-thousandth time what it would be like to feel him against me. Inside of me.

  My blush gives me away, again, and she laughs merrily and says, “Yes, I absolutely know how that sounded.” Her gaze lifts to the painting, and her smile stretches wider. “One of my favorites. You know, going to see a fortune-teller changed my life.” She lifts her hands as if to swat at my skepticism. “No joke. I used to think it was BS, but if it weren’t for that fortune-teller, Finn and I never would have gotten married.” She makes a face. “Or at least it would have taken significantly longer for me to figure out he’s not a stuck-up prick.”

  She gives me a weighing look, as if I’m another potential stuck-up prick, and she hasn’t yet made up her mind about me. “What do you see when you look at it?”

  The answer slips from my lips. “A dancer.”

  Adalia seems to brighten, although she’s the type of person who’s so bubbly she’s always kind of bright.

  “Is it supposed to be?” I ask.

  “Not to get all mystical on you,” she says, “but it’s supposed to be whatever you want it to be.” She gives me one of those weighing looks again. “And it’s yours. Merry Christmas.”

  Horror washes through me. “No, I couldn’t possibly. I came here to buy something. I would never expect you to give me something for free just because you’re Maisie’s sister-in-law. I value your work, and—”

  “I can tell you do,” she says quietly. “And that’s why it needs to go home with you. Just call me Santa.” For good measure, she grins and adds, “Ho, ho, ho.”

  A baby’s cry filters into the air, and Adalia’s eyes widen. “I have to leave now. Like, immediately—Lorelai is not patient—but if that painting is not gone when I come back, there will be serious consequences. I don’t know what they’ll be yet, but they’ll be dire.”

  “But—”

  “Take it, Mary.” She’s already backing away, smiling at me. “I made three paintings in the fortune-teller series. This is the last. I’ve given each of them to the home they’re supposed to go to. I can tell this one needs to go to you. And if you tell anyone I said that, I’ll tell Dottie you want one of her deep cleansing tonics. Trust me. You do not.”

  Then she’s gone, and I’m left with a dilemma. Take it, or leave it.

  My eyes narrow on that colorful streak whirling and twisting across the canvas. I take it.

  On the way back to the office, I stop at the glass store and buy two ornaments. One for my tiny tree and one for the crappy tree at home. I have to have faith that Aidan will want to decorate it one day.

  With or without Jace.

  When Hilde stops by on her way out, she sees the spun glass bulb hanging from the tiny tree and smiles. It looks kind of ridiculous, given it’s the only one and also much too large for the small tree, but she says, “It’s a start.”

  And, weirdly enough, it feels like I’ve finally made one. A start on me, that is.

  I find myself looking forward to my drinks with Nicole. Will she be proud of me? Because I feel strangely proud of myself.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Mary

  “Is the vibrator still in the drawer, covered in a Woody towel?” Nicole asks, raising her eyebrows.

  I told her everything—about Jace and the horrible home tour that ended not so horribly, about the things I’d ordered for my room and the painting (although not the fact that Adalia gave it to me; Adalia seems like the kind of person who might make good on her threats)—and this is what she’s focusing on?

  “Well, yes, I guess so,” I say, knowing a moment of panic. What if Glenn’s parents saw it? They only came inside for a few minutes earlier, when they arrived to pick up Aidan, but Ruth did wander around, opening drawers and offering to buy this or that. I instantly dismiss the idea because Ruth is not the kind of woman who would find a pink vibrator hidden beneath a Woody towel without making an exclamation of surprised horror. Besides, she did remark on the other new addition to the house: the painting in my bedroom, which I hung with Aidan’s help after school.

  He loves it—he told me the burst of color looks like me, which put tears in my eyes—but Ruth just smiled and shrugged. “I don’t get this newfangled modern art,” she said. “Nothing looking like something, and something looking like nothing. Aidan could have painted it just as well, but if it makes you happy…”

  “I would have painted a dinosaur,” Aidan interjected.

  Before they left, Ruth pulled me aside to tell me that she really thinks she’s getting somewhere with Glenn—as if this were some sort of long-running business negotiation, not a father abandoning his son. Once, that might have reassured me, but today her comment filled me with white-hot anger.

  “You can stop trying,” I told her. “As you can see, we’re doing just fine without him.”

  And I pledged to myself that there would be no more email entreaties, no more texted pictures. Glenn doesn’t deserve Aidan, and I’m not going to offer him up again and again, just to be rejected. I’ve realized something. We don’t have to accept drips and drabs of attention from Glenn simply because Aidan’s blood-related to him. There are plenty of people in his court. In our court.

  Nicole waves a hand in front of my face, almost spilling my white wine. “Get out of whatever mind storm you’re in. I asked you a question.”

  “Hey! My wine.”

  She rolls her eyes as I pull the glass back. “If I spilled it, it would be no less than you deserve for ordering wine at a Mexican restaurant.” She waves at her half-full margarita. “This is where it’s at.”

  Feeling more than a little belligerent myself, I protest, “I thought you wanted me to be more assertive and go for what I want.” At her shrug, I add, “I wanted white wine.”

  She sighs. “No one said you had to have good taste. So you didn’t use it?”

  I glance around, scandalized that she’s talking about this—and so loudly—in a somewhat crowded restaurant. It’s called Dos Sombreros, but one of the sombreros that’s usually tacked to the wall has been replaced with a Santa hat and a string of fat bulbs wrapped around it, several of which are burnt out. No one’s paying us any attention, which is a
relief, but it strikes me that nearly every single person has a colorful and/or frozen drink in front of them. Everyone but me, and I feel a surprising pang. Did I order the wine because I wanted it, or because Glenn once told me that red wine stains my teeth and I have a fear of spilling anything that won’t wash out on my clothes? Maybe it’s time for a little experimentation.

  I push the wine aside and try to catch a waiter’s eye. Nicole sees what I’m doing and loudly calls out, “We need a little help over here.”

  As the waiter hurries over, I shrink in my seat.

  “Yes?” he says breathlessly, glancing at Nicole. She points to me, and his gaze moves across the table.

  “Um. Can I try one margarita, please? Strawberry. I’m sorry if we disturbed you.”

  “No problem at all, ma’am,” he says, sneaking a nervous glance back at Nicole, who snorts. “Right away.”

  He hasn’t even properly retreated from the table before she says, “That’s something else we’ll need to work on. You don’t need to apologize for existing, Mary.”

  I see nothing wrong with being polite to our server—in fact, she could certainly do with some etiquette lessons—yet she’s right in a larger sense. I do apologize for existing, don’t I?

  “How many times do you apologize in a given day?” she asks, giving me a scientist-peering-through-a-microscope look.

  Too many to count.

  “A few.”

  “I was going to challenge you to kiss your kid’s buddy, but I think I’ve changed my mind. For now. The next time you feel compelled to apologize, I want you to think about it for a solid thirty seconds before you let the words leave your mouth. And don’t assume I don’t realize you didn’t finish your first two challenges.”

  “What?” I object. “I did! I bought”—another look around—“it,” I add in a whisper, “and I swore too.”

  She laughs so hard she almost loses a mouthful of her drink. “You swore in a text message, which doesn’t even begin to count, and you might have bought a vibrator, but it’s not meant to stay in your kitchen drawer. You can’t tell me you didn’t want to use it last night. My sources tell me your convict is very boneable.”

  Until now, I was pretty sure Tina was her super-secret source, given she had a front-row seat to my sit-down with Jace, but Tina doesn’t know Jace is a convict. Or if she does know, she didn’t hear it from me.

  I say as much, and Nicole just smiles, playing with her nose ring. “Oh, sweet Mary. I know lots of things.”

  It’s fully possible Molly spilled the beans to Tina, but I don’t doubt Nicole. She does know a lot of things. She’s a force to be reckoned with, and I kind of want to be like that too. Not like her, because she still sort of terrifies me, but I’d like to be as confident and capable in my personal life as I’ve always been in my professional life.

  “Maybe,” I admit. “But I had other things on my mind. Just like I told you,” I add with a little pique. Because she clearly didn’t listen.

  “Yes, and the underwear were a sensible purchase in our getting Mary laid plan, but—”

  “Wait, you have a getting Mary laid plan?”

  Her eyebrows quirk up. “Obviously. Didn’t you pick up on that?”

  I don’t actually have any objection beyond that it’s embarrassing and I’m sick to heck—hell—of being embarrassed, so I just shrug, then smile up at the waiter as he sets a frozen red drink in front of me.

  “Don’t apologize to him,” Nicole says under her breath, and as soon as he walks off, it’s my turn to roll my eyes at her.

  She lights up. “I’ll bet it’s the first time you’ve ever done that.”

  “No,” I retort, because obviously it’s not, but it has been a while. “And there’s nothing wrong with being nice to people. Maybe you could use lessons from me.”

  “Maybe,” she says with a sly smile, “but I’m a shitty learner. Ask my high school algebra teacher. Try the drink.”

  “Okay, pushy,” I say and take a tentative sip. It’s delicious, like a smoothie with a slight bite at the end. A little moan escapes me, and Nicole shakes her head a little.

  “I think you might be the most sexually repressed person I’ve ever met.”

  “And I think you’re trying to get me drunk for the thirteenth and a half time.”

  Both of us laugh, and I realize that I’m having fun. This pink-haired, terrifyingly assertive woman is maybe becoming my friend. It feels good to have a friend who’s not a mom friend—don’t get me wrong, every mom could use mom friends, but in my previous life in Charlotte, I only had mom friends. They distanced themselves once it became clear that Aidan’s differences from their children were going to stick, even more so after Glenn left. I felt as if I were a kid with cooties.

  “It would do you some good,” Nicole says, clinking my glass with hers.

  “You might be right,” I agree. “It was a long, stressful week.” My mind pings back to my disastrous outing with Jace at Tea of Fortune. “So, I guess you’ve talked with Tina. Did she tell you that she was interested in joining?” I gesture between the two of us, because it seems a little ludicrous to call it a club.

  She leers at me. “You make it sound like a threesome.”

  I smile back, because I can tell she’s trying to rile me. “Something tells me it wouldn’t be the first you’ve had.”

  I earn a surprised laugh from her, and it feels good shocking—okay, more like slightly surprising—Nicole for a change instead of the other way around.

  “You’d be right,” she says, “but I prefer the kind with two men.”

  Now, she’s definitely trying to rile me.

  I feel my cheeks warm, so I take a sip of margarita. I’m already about halfway through it, which means I’m likely going to have to take an Uber. One glass of wine, I’d have been able to drive by the end of our meeting. But a partial glass of wine and a margarita?

  Nope. Can’t chance it.

  Luckily, Nicole’s moved on. “Yes, Tina wants to join our threesome. I’m meeting with her on Sunday to discuss her situation. Make sure she’s not a bad luck poseur before we all meet up.”

  “Do people really do that?” I ask, kind of shocked. “Why?” Why would someone want to feel lost and lonely and inadequate?

  She shrugs. “Fear of missing out? This club is much more fun than the one I was in. Everyone in it was super boring.”

  “But Molly’s boyfriend was in it, and all those other people you guys are friends with.”

  “I didn’t say I don’t like them,” she says with a small smile. “I like you, and you’re boring.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  She lifts her brows, reminding me that I still haven’t totally fulfilled my swear challenge, and I clear my throat.

  “Fuck you,” I say, but it’s in a whisper.

  She points upward. Louder.

  “Fuck you!” I say.

  Which is when I hear my sister Maisie’s voice behind me. “Mary?”

  She sounds legitimately astounded, and I really can’t blame her. I’m sitting in front of a strawberry drink, swearing, while Nicole looks on like a proud teacher. I feel an almost choking sensation of having let my sister down. That’s something I never want to do again. I might not have been the big sister she and Molly needed when our parents died, or even before—but I need them. And here I am swearing like a sailor and drinking hard liquor, only an hour after Aidan was picked up, and…

  “This is Nicole,” I say in a burst of words. “She’s my…we’re in a…”

  Maisie’s face splits into a blinding smile. “Molly told me you were joining a Bad Luck—”

  “We like to call it our threesome,” Nicole interjects with a straight face, and my cheeks blaze like they’re on fire.

  “Whatever you like to call it,” Maisie says, unconcerned. It’s obvious they’ve met before, what with our overlapping circles, and I’m grateful she’s already been introduced to Nicole’s unique…charms. “I’m glad. You’ve alwa
ys put too much pressure on yourself, Mary. Assumed responsibility for everyone else’s happiness and well-being. I just want you to be happy.”

  Her response baffles me, and then it takes root in my heart and blossoms into a flower. Or maybe the kind of Christmas tree that actually gets decorated. Maisie glances across the restaurant toward Jack, who’s seated at a booth, looking our way. He smiles and waves, and I return the gesture. If Mabel’s not here, that means Molly or maybe Dottie is babysitting for her. They’re at this restaurant on a date.

  I have a slight what are the odds? moment, but a lot of strange things have been happening to me lately, so much so that I have to wonder if life has always been strangely beautiful, and I’ve just been blinded to everything other than what I expected to see.

  “I don’t want to disturb you,” I say. “You both need a night out.”

  “So do you,” she says meaningfully. “I’m glad to see you here. Adalia told me that you went by her studio earlier and bought a painting. I can’t wait to see it. We’re still on for girls’ night tomorrow, right?”

  We’re meeting for drinks at a bar, something I can’t really do when Aidan’s around. Or at least I don’t feel like I can do it. Molly keeps reminding me that the whole point of moving to a place where you have several built-in babysitters is to use said babysitters.

  “Yes, we’re still on,” I manage.

  Then Maisie squeezes my shoulder and heads back to Jack.

  “Did everyone think something was wrong with me?” I wonder aloud.

  “Oh, most definitely,” Nicole says, handing my drink to me. “But we’re going to work on that.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jace

  “So you start your new job next week,” Roger says as we eat our dinner of spaghetti and meatballs. I actually cooked tonight, which isn’t that hard when you use sauce from a jar and add frozen meatballs.