On Strike for Christmas

by Sheila Roberts

  “I promised my kids.” Glen knew he sounded desperate. But this guy was older. He probably had kids, maybe even grandkids. He’d understand.

  “It looks like you’ll have to go somewhere else,” the guy said.

  “Hey, they don’t have any more in the back somewhere, do they? Can somebody find out for me?”

  “Fella. You think they ain’t gonna put out all the calendars they got? They’re out. Those things go fast. Usually people buy them before the first, you know.”

  “So I hear,” Glen said grumpily. Third down and ten.

  Now Amy was beginning to look worried. “Are we going to get an Advent calendar, Daddy?”

  “You bet we are,” he said. “Just not at this store. In fact, we probably won’t shop at this store ever again,” he added, for the benefit of the uncooperative security guard.

  “Suit yourself,” the guy said as he turned and walked away. “It’s not like they need the business.”

  Glen glared at his retreating back. Okay, shake it off. Maybe he could still find that woman. Catch her in the parking lot. She’d part with the calendar if the price was right.

  He caught sight of her just leaving the checkout. “Come on, guys,” he said, hauling Tyler out of the cart.

  Amy was now squatting in front of a display of wild-colored nail polish. “Look Daddy. Nail polish. Can we get some?”

  “Not now,” Glen said, taking her arm. “We’ve got to get our calendar. And it’s getting away.”

  He tried to make a dash, Tyler in one arm and Amy holding his hand, but quickly realized that his daughter wasn’t going to be able to keep up. He tucked her under his arm like a football and ran for all he was worth, dodging shoppers like a quarterback escaping a blitz.

  But it did no good. By the time they hit the parking lot, there was no sign of the woman in the crowd of cars and shoppers. It was dark and beginning to sleet. Glen felt ready to punch something, but the kids were with him, so he settled for a growl and a few choice words muttered under his breath.

  “When are we going to get our calendar?” Amy asked.

  Never, because this was Christmas purgatory. “Soon,” Glen lied. Now it was fourth down and ten at the fifty-yard line and he didn’t know whether to attempt a field goal, punt, or kill himself.

  Two hours later he finally found the coveted calendar at their neighborhood drugstore. It was way past Tyler’s bedtime, and even Amy was getting whiny. Glen couldn’t say he blamed her. He felt damned whiny himself. But at least he’d scored an Advent calendar. Touchdown, at long last.

  They got back home and hung their prize with much ceremony. Glen felt warm all over, looking at his daughter’s glowing face. This was one small thing on a big list, but it had made the kids happy, and that made him feel like a real superhero. He smiled as he watched Amy reach up and open the first window. He’d been missing out on a real Hallmark high leaving Laura to do this kind of thing without him.

  “There it is,” he said proudly. “December first.”

  “Where’s the candy?” Amy asked.

  “Candy?”

  “It’s s’posed to have candy in it.” Her lower lip started trembling and the Hallmark high began to melt into a bad trip.

  “Oh. Well, this one has this cool picture,” Glen said, pointing.

  Amy began to sniff—little sobby sniffs that heralded a tear storm.

  Oh, no, not that. Glen knelt in front of her. “I tell you what. I’ll get you some special candies tomorrow and every day you can open the calendar and have one.”

  She was still looking at him with sad eyes, but she sniffed again and nodded.

  “Now, go find Mommy and tell her you’re ready for bed.” He’d done his part for the night. Laura could put ’em to bed.

  “But I want a candy,” Amy protested.

  Obviously, they had a lack of communication here. “Daddy still has to get the candy,” Glen explained.

  “I want candy,” Tyler whined, and Amy began to sniff again.

  “Okay, tell you what. Tomorrow you can both have two candies. How’s that? Two honkin’ big candies,” he added, stretching his arms wide for effect.

  That seemed to be okay. “All right,” said Amy with a smile.

  “Okay. Give me five.”

  Both kids giggled and slapped his open palm.

  “Now, how about a kiss?”

  Amy obliged and he hugged her. He hugged Tyler next and sent him off after his sister. Then he let out a sigh and went in search of more Excedrin. Lord. How did his wife go through this every year?

  Bob woke up on Friday morning with the uncomfortable feeling that something unpleasant was hanging over his head. The bonbons.

  He moaned and rolled over in bed, pulling the covers tightly around him. What had he been thinking when he let Joy dare him into making candy?

  He’d been thinking of his daughter, of course. She’d have been hurt if he’d said he didn’t want to do this.

  And then there was Joy. If he’d refused to be a sport he would have found himself labeled as the world’s biggest villain. Would have? Who was he kidding? It seemed like he was always doing something to tick his wife off these days. It had to be those hormonally induced mood swings, because sometimes she seemed to be mad at him for simply breathing. How long did menopause last, anyway? Well, it wouldn’t be over by tonight, so he might as well get up and get to the store to find the ingredients.

  Joy was already gone. She’d said something the day before about errands and meeting someone for lunch, which had been fine with him. He never minded when she left him to go do things. He always figured that the more she went out with her friends, the less she’d want to import a crowd into their house.

  For years they’d argued and negotiated the size of her guest list every time she felt the need for a party. It always wound up fewer people than she wanted and more than he liked. Lots more. Just once he’d like to have the number of guests in his house that he felt comfortable with.

  The happy realization dawned on him that since Joy was on strike this Christmas he didn’t have to have any party. The thought cheered him, and he was smiling when he entered the kitchen in search of morning coffee.

  Next to the coffeemaker sat the bonbon recipe and a short note. “Happy shopping. See you later.”

  Shopping for ingredients to make something he could just go to the store and buy—what a waste of time! Bob downed a bowl of Joy’s homemade granola, then showered and made his trek to the store.

  Shopping basket in hand, he studied the ingredients listed on the recipe and realized his wife knew a foreign language, one he had never had to learn. What on earth was “pwd. sug”? “Choc chips” was easy to figure, so he got those. He couldn’t find the brand specified on the recipe, but chocolate chips were chocolate chips so he just grabbed a couple of bags and dropped them into the basket. “Marg.” Marg? He stood a moment, scowling at the list. “Swt. condensed milk.” The only milk Bob knew about came in cartons or jugs. And that was the kind of thing he was used to getting sent to the store for: milk, eggs, lettuce. When it came to baking, Joy’s specialty, she preferred to handle those necessities herself. But now here he was being Joy, handling it all, and all without having the necessary information downloaded into his brain. It could take him hours to figure out the shorthand on this recipe card. He needed to find a translator.

  He heard the sound of an approaching grocery cart and looked up hopefully. Another man, probably no help there. His fellow shopper came down the aisle and Bob turned to study the raisins, keeping his shopping basket in front of him so the other guy couldn’t see into it. Somehow, chocolate chips didn’t seem like a manly sort of thing to be carrying around, and Bob felt a little like he’d been caught browsing in the feminine protection aisle.

  “S’cuze me,” said the other guy as he leaned past Bob and took a box of raisins off the shelf.

  Bob felt his face heating. He nodded and turned, hiding his chocolate chips.

  The m
an wheeled off down the aisle, and Bob looked again at the Greek on the recipe card, willing his brain to understand it.

  And then deliverance rounded the corner, a middle-aged woman pushing a half-full shopping cart. Bob flagged her down.

  “My wife sent me to the store to get some items for her candy recipe, but I’m not sure what some of the things on her list mean,” Bob confessed, feeling like an idiot. It was awkward to have to ask a stranger for help, like stopping and asking for directions in the days before GPS. He had to remind himself he’d feel like a bigger idiot if he failed in his quest for candy makings.

  “Could you help me?” He held out the recipe card.

  “Sure,” she said, smiling sympathetically at him. “What exactly don’t you understand?”

  He pointed to the undecipherable shorthand. “I’m not sure what this ‘pwd. sug.’ is.”

  “Oh, that’s powdered sugar. Let’s see, you need three boxes.” She pulled three blue and white boxes off the shelf and dropped them into his basket.

  “And ‘swt. condensed milk’?” he asked.

  “Sweetened condensed milk. Over here.” He trailed her down the aisle and watched while she scooped a little can off the shelf. “And do you have the paraffin wax at home?” she asked.

  He had no idea. And why that was even included in this list of ingredients was way beyond him. They were making candy, not candles. What on earth did they need wax for?

  His translator found that, too, and added it to his basket. “Now you just need your flavorings and you’re about done.”

  “What about this ‘marg.’?”

  “That’s probably margarine.”

  “Oh.” Bob nodded.

  “And the extracts you want are right down there,” she added, pointing to the end of the aisle.

  “Great,” he said. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said, then wheeled away down the aisle, leaving Bob feeling like he’d just been rescued by the female counterpart to the Lone Ranger. Who was that masked woman?

  His elation was short-lived. He reached the extract shelf and was almost overwhelmed by the variety of flavorings available. Joy’s recipe didn’t specify what kind to get. It just said flavorings. After several minutes of careful study, he decided to take a bottle of each. Okay, that should do it.

  Back home he proudly set all his purchases on the counter. Poor Joy. Her plan to shame and manipulate him into becoming a good little boy for the holidays was completely backfiring. He outsmarted her at every turn. Elementary, my dear Watson.

  He chuckled and sauntered down the hall to his office, back to his computer, where words made sense.

  He was long done with lunch and had just finished proofing his pages for the day when she finally came home.

  He could hear her moving around in the kitchen and went out to find her putting away groceries. She’d gone to the store?

  Bob felt slightly had. Why couldn’t she have gone ahead and gotten the bonbon makings when she was going to be at the store anyway?

  She smiled at him over her shoulder. “I see you got the ingredients for the candy.”

  “I did, but if I’d known you were going to the store I’d have had you pick them up and saved myself a trip.”

  “Oh, but if I’d done that I would have been crossing the picket line. By the way, you’ll have to go back. You forgot one.”

  “No, I didn’t.” Bob went over to the counter to examine his purchases.

  “You didn’t get the margarine.”

  The marg. He’d gotten sidetracked with the extracts and forgotten. “Don’t we have any? You always stock up on extra groceries.”

  “Sorry, we’re out.”

  She’d probably hidden it. “Fine,” he said shortly. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “I’m sure you will.”

  And he did. He sneaked off to his office and called Melia and asked her to bring the marg. When he hung up, he was grinning like the Grinch. Ha! Score a point for Bob Humbug.

  “So, you ready?” Melia asked him later that evening as they stood in the kitchen.

  Ready to shoot down an entire evening? His daughter was oozing anticipation. This was obviously important to her. “Absolutely,” Bob lied.

  “Okay. Here, put this on.” She held out an old apron of Joy’s to him. It had pink rosebuds on it. She actually expected him to wear this?

  “Then wash your hands,” she instructed, “and I’ll start heating the milk.”

  It looked like she really did expect him to wear the apron. Bob took it and tied it on. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about following the recipe instructions. His daughter seemed to have that well in hand.

  “Oh,” she said.

  It wasn’t the kind of “oh” that meant something good. “What?” Bob asked.

  “These aren’t the brand of chocolate chips we usually use.”

  “I couldn’t find those,” he said. Please don’t send me back to the store.

  She gnawed on her lip as she considered what to do, a habit she’d gotten from her mother.

  With her hazel eyes and brown hair, she looked a lot like Joy had when they were first married. She even had Joy’s dimples when she smiled. When they were first married it seemed Joy was always smiling, always laughing. Somewhere along the way she’d stopped laughing as much. Come to think of it, so had he.

  “Oh, well. I think we can make this work,” Melia decided. “We should be okay if we add a little more wax.”

  “To the chocolate?” All the years he’d been enjoying those candies he’d been eating wax? That was just too gross.

  “It helps them set up,” Melia explained.

  What was it doing to his arteries? He vowed to eat no bonbons this year, or ever again, for that matter. None, nada, zip.

  He watched as his daughter deftly mixed the candy filling and added extract, sampling little pinches until she had it just right. He looked over his shoulder a couple of times, worried that Joy would come into the kitchen and make him do the mixing. It looked like a delicate process, not one he wanted to try.

  After a few minutes Melia set a bowl containing a mountain of candy filling in front of him. “Okay, Daddy. You’re going to roll this into little balls,” she instructed.

  That should be fun. Bob broke off a hunk of filling and started rolling.

  “Only not that big.” His daughter took the ball away from him and broke off half. “This size.”

  He looked at the little ball in his hand, then at the giant mound of filling in his bowl. At this rate he’d be doing this all night. He thought of Sisyphus, the poor mythical king forced to spend eternity rolling a boulder uphill that always rolled back down on him. “This is going to take forever,” he complained.

  “It takes about three hours to do these.”

  He was going to stand around in the kitchen and roll little balls for three hours. He’d lose his mind.

  Melia grinned at him. “Don’t worry. It’ll be fun.”

  For whom?

  Eight

  Joy sat in the living room pretending to read her December issue of Bon Appétit, smiling as she listened to Bob and Melia out in the kitchen singing old Sting songs together. Good. Things were going well. Maybe it would whet his appetite for more holiday experiences.

  Suddenly she heard her husband yelp and went to the kitchen to investigate. She found Bob shaking his hand like he’d scalded it while Melia fished a candy out of the double boiler.

  “He dropped the filling into the hot chocolate and spattered himself,” Melia explained.

  “This is dangerous work,” Bob said.

  “Only if you dive-bomb the melted chocolate,” Melia told him. “You don’t want to drop it from so high up. It splatters.”

  Bob had his hand under the faucet now, and was running cold water on his wrist. “Somebody should have warned me.”

  “Well, other than burning yourself, Emeril, are you having fun?” Joy asked.

  “Oh, yes,” he s
aid diplomatically.

  “He’s doing a really good job,” Melia said. She looked adoringly at her father, like it had been all his idea to make the candy with her.

  Did Bob have any idea what a favor Joy had done him? Knowing Bob, probably not. “Well, you can be proud of yourself,” she said encouragingly. “And when you deliver those to the neighbors you can brag that you made them all by yourself. With a little help from your daughter.”

  Bob didn’t say anything, but from the mulish slant of his jaw, she could tell the neighbors probably wouldn’t be getting any bonbons this year.

  “Okay, Daddy,” Melia said. “Get right back on the horse. Let’s see if you can do a better job of dunking the filling this time.”

  Bob didn’t look thrilled about getting back on the horse, but he took his position again in front of the tray of rounded balls on the counter next to the stove.

  “Now just lower it in at the side of the pan,” Melia instructed.

  Joy couldn’t help smiling. He looked so cute standing there by the stove wearing her old apron, his head bent next to their daughter’s. Joy dashed to the den and grabbed the digital camera, then sneaked back. “Say cheese.”

  She caught Bob looking over his shoulder, half-shocked, half-fearful, and Melia grinning impishly.

  “Must you do that?” he complained.

  “For posterity,” she said. “To prove that once upon a time literary great Bob Robertson actually did something in the kitchen besides make coffee. Maybe you can use it to promote the next book.”

  “The apron will be a nice touch,” he grumbled.

  “You do look pretty in pink,” Joy teased. She took a pinch of candy filling and a pinch of Bob’s cute, skinny behind, then left the kitchen, her daughter’s mock scold of “Mother!” ushering her out.

  An hour later Melia took off and Bob collapsed on the couch next to Joy. “That was exhausting.”

  “But well worth the effort,” Joy said and popped a mint bonbon in her mouth.

  She offered the container to Bob and he grimaced, saying, “I’m never eating another one of those as long as I live. All these years you’ve been feeding me wax.”