Elin Hilderbrand - Winter Street

“Jen is…?” Kelley asks, hoping Patrick will say she’s still in Boston; that way, reconciliation by morning and a chance for Kelley to see his grandsons are both still possible.

“In San Francisco,” Patrick says. “She took the kids to her mother’s.”

Kelley is crushed. “Oh.”

“She’s really disappointed in me,” Patrick says. “And afraid of what’s going to happen. Our financial future.”

Kelley wonders if Patrick did something really stupid and got some girl pregnant.

“Patrick,” Kelley says, “what happened?”

Patrick takes a deep breath, and it all spills out: He tells first about the perks he’s been taking from clients over the years, and then about his Colgate reunion and the conversation with Bucky Larimer, and Bucky’s reassurance that the drug would be approved by the FDA and would change the face of childhood leukemia and possibly of all cancers, and then about Bucky’s request that in exchange for this information Patrick invest money for Bucky himself, his identity obfuscated by a trust. Patrick goes on, telling about how he was feeling giddy about a bright medical future for mankind, but also greedy greedy greedy, so he poured $25.6 million of his clients’ portfolios into Panagea. The good news is that the drug will be FDA approved; the bad news is that Patrick’s investments with Panagea were red-flagged by the SEC. The SEC had been scrutinizing him because of the perks. They have a watch list for people they suspect are weak of character.

“Doesn’t everyone in the business take perks?” Kelley asks. “Isn’t that the way the industry works?” The same was certainly true in Kelley’s day, and, honestly, it was probably worse back then-in the era of the pin-striped suit and the power tie, the age of Wall Street, Ivan Boesky, and Michael Milken.

“Apparently my perks were ‘excessive,’ ” Patrick says. “The SEC had me on this watch list, and my compliance department knew it, but they didn’t tell me. I was basically stung by my own guys! Nobody really likes Compliance; I mean, we all work toward the same bottom line, but we don’t invite them into the football pool or anything. They were waiting around for me to do something they could really nail me on.” Patrick wipes his nose with the back of his hand. Kelley wishes he carried a handkerchief, like George. Instead, he hands Patrick a damp cocktail napkin. “And they were right, I did.” He starts crying again, but more quietly; he is whimpering. Kelley puts a hand around Patrick’s ankle and thinks there is nothing he can say, and nothing he can do except hold on.

She is drunk. Drunk, drunk, drunk, teetering in her high heels, which she kicks off sky-high in her bedroom. She falls onto her bed. Should she check her phone?

She has the spins. She sits up. That last shot of Jameson did her in. Goddamned Kevin and Patrick. They suck. All boys suck. She gets to her feet. She needs ice water and something to eat-one of the snowflake rolls she was planning on serving tomorrow, or some crackers. She careens down the hallway, through the back entrance to the kitchen.

She nearly screams. Santa Claus is sitting at the counter, picking at the remains of the ham. At first, Ava feels a sense of childish wonder-Santa! In the kitchen, on Christmas Eve, just as she always imagined! But then she realizes that it’s Scott. He has a jar of mustard out, and he’s smearing the pieces of ham before he eats them.

He sees her but seems unsurprised and unashamed to be in the Quinns’ kitchen after everyone else has gone to bed.

“Hey,” he says.

“Are there any little biscuits left?” she asks. “Or tiny slices of pumpernickel?”

“Long gone,” he says.

“I need ice water,” Ava says. “And maybe some crackers. I’m pretty drunk.”

Scott fetches Ava a glass of ice water and finds an entire box of Carr’s rosemary crackers, Ava’s favorite. She takes a second to appreciate a man who will do the small things for her. She smiles at him, or at least she thinks she’s smiling at him; she can’t feel her face.

Scott misreads her smile for something else. He leans down and kisses Ava, and she finds herself kissing him back. She wonders if she’s standing under mistletoe-as a rule, when she sees mistletoe at the inn or in the faculty lounge at school, she takes it down immediately-but she soon forgets about mistletoe, because kissing Scott is unexpectedly… awesome. There’s a charge. She is turned on. Is this real, or is it the Jameson? She had been so jealous when she saw Isabelle slip her arm around Scott’s shoulders. She’s happy it’s her kissing Scott right now. They keep going, kissing and kissing, lips and tongues, and teeth-he bites her gently, and electricity runs up her spine. He pulls her in closer; she is now locked against him. She thinks, This is Scott Skyler, the assistant principal . Can they have sexual chemistry, despite the fact that she doesn’t have romantic feelings for him? Is this even possible? Then Ava thinks of Nathaniel, and she imagines how she would feel if he were kissing Kirsten Cabot the way she is now kissing Scott Skyler.

She pulls away.

“Damn,” Scott says. He takes a deep breath. He looks down at himself. “North Pole.”

Ava backs up.

“You felt something, right? Something good? Please tell me you felt something good.”

She can’t speak. She did feel something good, but how cruel to lead Scott on when her emotional state doesn’t match her physical state. She picks up the water and the box of crackers. If Shelby were here right now, she would call Ava an asshat.

“Good night,” she says. Her lips are buzzing with the tang of mustard. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” Scott says weakly.

Ava scurries for the door, thinking she has to get to her bedroom, she has to go to sleep, before anything else happens. But in the doorway, she turns around.

“Scott?” she says.

“Yes?” he says, hopefully.

“Will you come to dinner tomorrow night? Five o’clock? Please? I’m making a standing rib roast and Yorkshire pudding.”

He nods but doesn’t look happy. “I’ll be here,” he says.

“Good,” she says, and she means it. She needs people other than her family at the table tomorrow. As she heads back to her room, however, she realizes she never made it to the store to pick up the standing rib roast she ordered. Will the store be open on Christmas? If not, they will all have to eat hot dogs from Cumberland Farms. Beef hot dogs! Ava thinks.

Once in her room, Ava checks her phone. There is nothing from NO-no missed call, no texts. Ava blinks and feels her heart plummet like a skinny Santa through a chimney. Nothing, not one word. Ava checks her texts and her call log, just to be sure.

Nothing.

She can’t help herself. She calls Nathaniel’s number and thinks, Pick up, pick up! Maybe he, like Ava, got drunk on too much of Mrs. Cabot’s eggnog and passed out while dialing Ava’s number.

She is treated to Nathaniel’s voice mail just after the first ring. Which means his phone is off. He shut off his phone without calling or texting her. Or saying Merry Christmas.

Ava climbs underneath her comforter. She is still in her black dress, but she is too tired, and too heartbroken, to take it off.

In the middle of the night, Ava feels arms wrap around her. At first, she worries that Scott has lingered around and crawled into bed with her. Then she thinks, It’s not Scott, it’s Nathaniel! He came back!

But it is neither Scott nor Nathaniel.

It is someone else.

Because she is “Margaret Quinn,” the following things happen: She climbs into the car and tells Raoul to take her to Teterboro instead of Newark. Raoul has been driving for Margaret for fifteen years and has never once gotten flustered.