Page 88 of F*ck Marriage

“It’s going to be all right. Okay?”

“Okay,” she says.

We hang up after that and neither Billie nor I say anything about the call. She dutifully does the dishes while I clean up the living room of the tossed blankets and candy wrappers. After that we go to bed. Tomorrow is Christmas, though neither of us feels like celebrating.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Iwake up to pounding on my front door. It’s cold. I wrap a blanket around my shoulders and stumble to the front door, almost tripping over Billie’s abandoned shoes. I kick them aside and when I open the door, my elderly neighbor, Mrs. Chartuss, is standing there in her robe, a strange hat on her head. Upon closer inspection, I realize it’s not a hat, but fat foam rollers. I’ve never seen her anything but styled and ready in one of her various fur coats.

“Mrs. Chartuss,” I say, pulling the blanket tighter around my shoulders. “Merry Christmas.”

She frowns at me like I’m the one knocking on her door at the crack of dawn on Christmas morning.

“I’m Jewish,” she says curtly.

“Happy Holidays then,” I correct. “What can I do for you?” Behind me I hear the bedroom door open and Billie’s footfalls.

“Power’s out,” she says. “Whole building. I loaned you a flashlight two years ago…”

“Yes, you did,” I say. “Let me grab it for you.” I leave her at the door looking disgruntled while I get the flashlight from the hall closet. No wonder it was so cold. Just for good measure, I flick the light switch in the hall. The light stays stubbornly off. Great. When I hand it to her, she mumbles a comment about it having fresh batteries and shuffles back to her own front door.

“Well,” I say, closing the door behind her and turning to Billie. “Christmas is canceled.”

“It’s always been canceled.” Billie yawns.

“No. Nope. Get dressed. We can’t stay here. We’ll freeze.”

“I’m sure they’ll get it on soon,” she says. “Don’t panic.”

“It’s Christmas and it’s snowing. There’s no way. The owner of this building can barely be reached for emergencies.”

“Okay. So where are we going?” She lifts her hands to rub at her arms, which are scattered with goose bumps like she’s just figuring out it’s cold.

“Somewhere warm,” I tell her.

“Mmm, Florida,” she says dreamily.

Surprisingly, she doesn’t argue; instead, she disappears into the bedroom to get dressed. An hour later, we’re on the road. Billie turns her seat warmer to maximum heat and burrows into the leather like an animal in its nest.

The drive Upstate takes less time than I planned, the highways mercifully empty. We don’t talk much. We listen to Christmas music with an occasional anti-holiday comment from Billie.

“Why are you such a Scrooge anyway?” I say. “From what I recall, you used to love the holidays.”

“You mean when I had a husband and a home and I could cook those stupid meals, and decorate that stupid tree, and pretend I was living in a 1950s sitcom?”

I flinch.

“Point taken,” I say. “But today ... today we celebrate. Consider it your first year back from your Christmas sabbatical.”

“But I don’t want to,” she grumbles.

“Too bad.” I reach over and lower the heat. It’s starting to feel like Florida in here.

“Where are we going anyway?” She sips on the paper cup of coffee she made me stop for before we got on the freeway.

“You’ll see.”

“Why can’t you just tell me?” she gripes.

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