Sheila Roberts - Merry Ex-Mas

“I was going to give your room to Grandma Nordby.” Cass would jump into boiling oil before she’d turn her mother out in favor of Mason and Bimbette.

“Then give them Willie’s room and put him on the sleeper sofa. Or put them on the sleeper sofa.”

That was what Cass wanted, to come out and find her ex and his second wife curled up together in her living room.

“We could find a place for them for just one night, couldn’t we?” Dani begged. “Two at the most.”

There had to be some other way they could work this out. Cass stalled for time. “Let me think about it, okay?”

Dani made a face like she’d just eaten baking soda. “I know what that means.”

So did Cass, and she felt like the world’s meanest mother.

A woman with two little girls had come to the door, and the girls were peering inside.

“Go unlock the door,” Cass said wearily.

“Sure. Fine,” Dani said in a tone of voice that showed how un-fine everything was.

“It would be nice if you could greet our customers with a smile instead of a frown,” Cass called after her.

“I’m smiling,” Dani called back. Smiling on the outside, seething on the inside.

They’ll find someplace to stay, Cass told herself. Now, if she could only believe that.

5

It was Sunday evening, time for Cass’s weekly chick flick night. The friends had decided to watch Christmas movies during the month of December and Cass’s pal Samantha Sterling had picked the one for tonight—The Family Man.

“I love that movie,” she’d said. “Love how the hero changed from a Scrooge to a great husband and dad.”

“I never knew you were so sentimental,” Cass had teased.

“I’m not,” Samantha had retorted, “but I know what’s important.”

Cass would give her that. Samantha Sterling had fought hard to save her family’s chocolate company. In the process she’d resuscitated the town of Icicle Falls, which had been in an economic slump, by sponsoring a chocolate festival. Spurred on by that success, the town leaders had caught festival fever. October had seen Oktoberfest, December’s tree-lighting event had been expanded from one weekend to every weekend and there was talk of a wine festival in the early summer.

Samantha and her sister Cecily were the first to arrive, rosy-cheeked and smiling, stomping snow off their boots. Blue-eyed, blond-haired Cecily was the beauty of the family, but with her red hair and freckles, Samantha wasn’t exactly a troll. She’d married Blake Preston, the bank’s manager, in August and still sported a newlywed glow. That would wear off eventually.

Listen to you, Cass scolded herself. Queen of the cynics.

“We brought vitamin C,” Samantha said, handing over a holiday box of Sweet Dreams Chocolates.

Chocolate, the other Vitamin C, and a girl’s best friend. “This takes care of me. I don’t know what the rest of you are having,” Cass joked. “Did you bring the movie?”

Cecily held up the DVD with Nicolas Cage on the cover. “We’re set.”

Ella was the next to arrive. She wasn’t as beautiful as her glamorous mother, Lily Swan, but she was cute and she knew how to dress. Tonight she looked ready for a magazine shoot in skinny jeans paired with a crisp white shirt, a black leather vest and a long, metallic red scarf, and bearing a bowl of parmesan popcorn, her specialty. Ella even did popcorn with flair.

Cass decided that flair was something you either soaked up in the gene pool or you didn’t. She could create works of art in her bakery, but when it came to personal style she couldn’t seem to get beyond unimpressionist. Oh, well. What did she care? She didn’t have anyone she needed to impress.

Not even your ex-in-laws?

No, she told herself firmly. Living well was the best revenge and she was living quite well, thank you. She didn’t need to look like a cover model to prove it.

She pushed aside the thought of Babette, who would, of course, show up for the wedding with her hair perfectly highlighted and her skinny little bod draped in something flattering. Maybe Cass would pass on the chocolate and popcorn tonight.

Charley was the last to arrive. She came bearing wine and looked frazzled enough to consume the entire bottle single-handed.

“Okay, what’s wrong?” Cass asked once the women were settled in the living room with their drinks and goodies.

“Richard’s back.” Charley took one of Cass’s gingerbread boys and bit off his head.

Cass nearly dropped her wineglass. “What?”

Charley nodded. More of the gingerbread boy disappeared.

“Why is he back?” Cass asked. “What does he want?”

“Me,” Charley said.

“You? He left you for another woman! Tell him to take a hike off the mountain,” Samantha advised.

Cass couldn’t have said it better herself. “I’ll second that.”

“So he’s left Ariel?” Cecily asked.

“He says it was all a mistake.”

Men always said that when they got caught with their pants down. Cass frowned. “Not as big a mistake as taking him back would be.”

“You’re not going to, are you?” asked Samantha.

“Absolutely not,” Charley shook her head vigorously.

“Good for you,” Cass said. Charley had the kind of never-ending legs that made men drool and gorgeous long hair and plenty of personality. She didn’t have to settle for letting a loser back in her life.

“Did you tell him that?” Samantha asked.

“Of course I did.”

“Then why is he still here?” Samantha persisted.

Charley was on her second gingerbread boy now. “He says he’s not giving up.”

“Oh, brother,” Ella said, rolling her eyes.

“Why is it men only want you when you don’t want them?” Charley grumbled.

“Because they’re bums,” Cass said.

“Not all of them,” Samantha murmured.

“Blake is the exception to the rule,” Cass told her.

“There are other exceptions out there,” Cecily added.

“Like Luke Goodman?” her sister teased.

“Like Luke,” Cecily agreed, her voice neutral.

Ella sighed. “So why do we always like the bad boys?”

Charley sighed, too. “Because we’re masochists?”

“There’s something about bad boys,” Cecily said, then seeing her sister’s frown, got busy inspecting a lock of hair for split ends.

“Yeah, something bad,” her sister said firmly. “Men like Richard and Todd Black are nothing but heartbreak on two legs.”

“I wasn’t talking about Todd,” Cecily said, her cheeks pink.

“I was,” Samantha said.

Cecily grabbed a handful of popcorn. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m ready to watch the movie.”

With Samantha in bossy older sister mode that was understandable. Cass started the movie.

As the plot unfolded, chronicling the life of the fictional Jack Campbell, she couldn’t help thinking of her own choices, of Mason. What if they’d been given a glimpse of a better future, one where they stayed united and lived as best friends instead of combatants? What would her life look like now?

What did it matter? She and Mason had made their choices and no hip angel was going to drop into their lives to give them a second chance. The best glimpse she could get was one of her daughter’s wedding going smoothly, of herself managing to be civil. If she could pull that off, it would be a miracle.

* * *

What a wonderful movie. And what a wonderful way to start the holidays. Ella was teary-eyed by the end of it. She always cried at movies. She cried over movies with sad endings because she felt so bad for the poor people. A movie with a happy ending, especially a romantic movie, brought her to tears because, well, it was all so overwhelmingly hopeful. Somewhere out there in the real world a man could be coming to his senses, realizing that he didn’t need to go off in search of El Dorado, that there was gold right in his own backyard. Maybe like the Jack Campbell character, Charley’s husband had figured that out.