Sheila Roberts - The Cottage on Juniper Ridge

Tonight she absolutely had to do laundry. But what she really wanted was to flop on the couch and watch It’s a Wonderful Life. None of her friends understood what she saw in that old movie, but she’d been watching it with her family every Christmas since she was a kid. Well, except for the past couple of years. Between having her marriage fall apart and getting a divorce, she’d been too busy for a wonderful life.

Those days were over now. No more fights about money. No more fights about how she mismanaged her time or how impetuous and irresponsible she was. No more fights about...well, you name it.

When they were first married, Serge had loved her spontaneity, her joie de vivre. After a year he developed a vision problem and saw only her flaws. They fought about everything from money to the amount of time she spent with her friends. “I don’t know what we’re doing together.” Serge had finally stormed one night, throwing up his hands.

Neither did she. So Serge had moved out and moved on. She’d run into him at the Last Supper Club six months after the divorce was final, when she was trying to enjoy a night out with the girls. He’d been with a skinny tattoo queen sporting maroon hair and ear gauges. And he’d complained about how impulsive Jen was?

She’d wanted to hit him and his new woman, too. Instead, she’d buried herself in the crowd and danced until her feet and her heart were numb. Good riddance, she’d told herself, but later that night she’d cried herself to sleep.

Now it had been a year since the big D and she was so over him and so moving on.

Now she was in charge of her own destiny, her own life, and that was fine with her.

Except so far this new life wasn’t exactly playing out as she’d envisioned. When a girl hardly had time to wash her bra, she was in trouble. When was she supposed to squeeze in things like dating? And if she didn’t even have time to date, well, what was that going to do to her sex life?

She scowled. Many of her friends were now having babies and she’d love to have one of her own. She sure didn’t see a bassinet on her horizon, though. At thirty-two, were her eggs giving up all hope of ever meeting a sperm?

Well, girls, I don’t know what to tell you. You’ll just have to hang in there because right now I don’t have time to find a new man. There was a depressing thought.

Jen caught her bus on Marion Street. It was crowded as usual with tired workers, students, street people and shoppers carrying bags crammed with merchandise. Standing room only. That made her grumpier.

Oh, heck, everything made her grumpy these days. Maybe it was living in the city, crammed in with so many other people. What would it be like to have a cute little house in a small town or a cottage in a mountain meadow? What would it be like to hark back to a simpler time, a simpler lifestyle?

She thought of the book her sister had given her for her birthday the month before—Simplicity. She’d been trying to read a little of it every night before she went to bed, but she couldn’t seem to get past page one. She’d wake up halfway through the night with the book on her face.

She’d managed to get through the blurb on the back of the book, though, and it sounded impressive. The author insisted that anyone, no matter how busy, could simplify her life. It was a matter of prioritizing and letting your days slow down and fall into a natural rhythm in sync with nature.

What would her life be like if she lived it at a slower pace? What if she took a few minutes to sit by her condo window and watch the snow fall (not that much snow ever fell in Seattle), instead of running around like a gerbil on a wheel, dashing from event to event, working at a feverish pace so she could live the good life? When it came right down to it, was her life that good? She was racing through it so fast, she had no time to savor any of it. It would be nice to learn how to bake bread, grow a garden, knit. Date! Heck, it would be nice to have time to breathe.

The bus lurched to a stop and a fortysomething woman got on, balancing a huge armful of purchases, shopping bags dangling from her fingers. She squeezed in between Jen and an older man in an overcoat that smelled of damp wool. The newcomer smelled like perfume overload and Jen sneezed.

“Bless you,” said an older woman who was occupying a seat behind where Jen stood.

“Thank you,” Jen murmured.

The newcomer grabbed for a hand rail and bumped Jen with one of her bags. That, plus the sudden forward motion of the bus, nearly sent Jen toppling into the lap of the older woman. “Sorry,” she muttered.

Meanwhile, Suzy Shopper was still wrestling with her bags. One got away and landed on Jen’s foot, nearly crushing her toes and making her yelp. What did she have in there, weights?

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” the woman said, picking it up and whacking Jen with another bag in the process. “My daughter’s Christmas present.”

Jen’s eyes were watering. Was her foot broken? She caught her breath and managed a polite smile. “Looks like you got a lot done.” Which was more than she could say. She hadn’t started her shopping yet.

“This is the last of it,” the woman said. “I found these dumbbells on sale at Penney’s.”

“Dumbbells.” Jen nodded. “You had weights in that bag.”

The woman blushed. “Mmm-hmm.”

May the next toes you drop them on be yours.

The bus driver called Jen’s street and she hobbled toward the back exit, trying to make her way through the crowd. “S’cuse me, s’cuse me. Sorry.”

One passenger was too engrossed in what was on her ereader to even know she was on a bus. She stood in the path of the exit like a boulder in a red coat. An inconsiderate boulder.

“Excuse me,” Jen said, trying to slip past. The boulder didn’t budge.

The bus doors heaved open.

Jen tried again. “Excuse me,” she said a little louder. Still nothing. She said it a third time and gave the boulder a nudge. It was just a nudge, really.

The red boulder lost her balance and grabbed for the nearest source of stability—a tall, skinny woman in sweats and a Santa hat bearing a pink bakery box. The tall, skinny woman lost her hold on the box and down it went, spilling cupcakes with green frosting everywhere. She gasped and the woman next to her, who now had green frosting skidding down her sleeve, let out a groan.

A nearby man wearing a dirty peacoat and a scruffy beard picked up a cupcake that had landed on the floor, frosting side first, and began to eat it.

All three women glared at Jen. The skinny one with the Santa hat bent to pick up her ruined goods. “You should watch what you’re doing.”

“Sorry,” Jen said. Willing the bus doors not to close, she fumbled in her purse and pulled out her wallet. “Let me pay you for those.” The minute she opened her wallet and found nothing there she remembered that she’d impulsively put her last three dollars in a Salvation Army bucket the day before. “I guess I don’t have any cash on me.”

The skinny woman scowled at her.

“If you’re gonna get off the bus, get off,” the driver called. “We have other stops to make.”

“I’m really sorry,” Jen said again. “Um, merry Christmas,” she added as she hobbled down the steps onto the curb.

Neither woman wished her a merry Christmas in return. In fact, the skinny one wished her something about as far from it as a girl could get. The doors shut and the bus lumbered off, shooting up a rooster tail of icy water and splashing her.

Bah, humbug.

* * *

It was the first week of December, and at Stacy Thomas’s house the stockings were hung by the chimney with care. They were lucky to find any place to hang because the mantel was already packed with greens and ribbons and candles, as well as brass letters spelling Peace.