Page 49 of The Holiday Hate-Off
I hurry out, intending to walk Lucy home.
She’ll say no, of course, but I’ll insist on it. She can’t deny a well-meant gesture like that, can she? But I stop halfway across the square, because two other figures have joined her—one tall, one short. Lars and Charlie. The three of them are laughing.
God, she looks so happy.
It freezes me in place, my boots planted in the snow.
I stand there as she links arms with Charlie and the three of them walk off. Watching them puts a twist in my chest like the bitter peel in a cocktail.
I infuriate Lucy, but her friends make her happy and—to quote my grandfather—cara mia, what a sight.
I’ve enjoyed our war, but part of me yearns to see her like this because of me.
I’m probably just lonely, I rationalize. It’s natural to feel lonely sometimes. Especially here in Hideaway, where I always feel a little less like Lorenzo Cafiero, business consultant and badass, and a little more like a ten-year-old boy who watched his mother drive away and knew life was never going to be the same.
It doesn’t help that Christmas is a time of year that’s supposed to be the opposite of lonely. Everywhere I look there are people smiling and laughing, pointing toward the tree, feeling something special, when right now all I’m feeling is down.
I could go off and find my brothers. Call Will or my sister. Hell, I could take that tourist up on her offer…
But I still don’t want to. Not any part of me.
Instead, I walk home, trying to shake off the heaviness, which only gets heavier as I soak in all of the showmanship of Hideaway. The fairy lights hanging everywhere, the heavy wreathes, all the trappings of Christmas feeling almost like a threat.You will be merry, or else…
By the time I get home, I’m lonely enough that I knock on the door down the hall, figuring I’ll ask my neighbor if she’d like to have coffee. Or maybe share some cabbage.
Hell, I’d probably even watchThe Golden Girls.
But she doesn’t answer, possibly because we’ve agreed to anonymity, possibly because she’s not home.
So I let myself into my apartment to write her a note. She might enjoy data entry and tasteless food, but she’s a good pen pal. In some bizarre way, it’s easier to talk to her than it is to share with my brothers. Definitely easier than talking to my grandmother these days.
Back when I was a kid, Nonna Francesca was my guiding light, but she’s not what she once was. She never will be again, a thought that chafes.
My father should be here, taking care of her. But he’s not the man I wish he were, or the kind of man I would like to be.
I pour myself a whiskey and sit down in my favorite chair to write.
To the Dancing Queen,
I’m sorry I didn’t write back sooner. It’s been a strange week.
You can tell whoever made you feel like you don’t belong that your stalker thinks they’re an asshole. They may be a bit confused, but don’t offer an explanation. I’m guessing they don’t deserve one.
You confided in me, so now there’s something I want to tell you. Something no one else knows.
I got fired from my job a few weeks ago. Sort of.
I was good at it, really good, but I stopped liking it a long time ago. Because a big part of what I did was making other businesses more efficient, and a lot of the time, as you might imagine, that involved firing people. It didn’t used to bother me, because I figured they’d land somewhere else, somewherethey fit better. Win-win for everyone, right? Only with this one particular job, they wanted to cut ten percent of the workforce the month before Christmas.
I’ve got to level with you. I don’t care much about the holidays, but two of the employees who were the least productive had big families. One of them was a pregnant woman.
I told my boss I wasn’t comfortable with it, we had words, and I wrote him a long document proposing another way of handling things without eliminating those positions. He didn’t take too kindly to that, as you might imagine. He told me it was his job to make the final decisions based on our reports, and if I wasn’t willing to do MY job, he’d find someone else who would—and I’d be the one who got fired.
Well, I knew he was all the way wrong, and I’ve never been so good at being told what to do.
I did a stupid, hotheaded thing, and I quit.
I’ll bet you can guess what that means. If I’d been fired, I would have gotten severancepay. Benefits. Now, I’ve got nothing, and no one to blame for it but myself. I feel pretty stupid, if you want to know the truth. Those people will still lose their jobs, and I lost mine.
