Joan and Aunt Cathy came for dinner, even though Aunt Cathy was still dieting, and Joan’s stomach was so ravaged by constant coffee consumption she rarely ate more than a few scraps of food. But Bren didn’t care. She was having her Thanksgiving and Christmas, all rolled up into one beautiful holiday.
She’d left up the tree. She’d even tucked a few gifts for the kids beneath it. She’d played Christmas songs and had Gary light a fire in the fireplace, and they’d all gazed appreciatively at Gary’s first painting—a winterscape—which was absolutely atrocious, but he was so proud.
And they’d eaten their turkey and chicken and duck, their mashed potatoes and gravy, their green beans and sausage stuffing, their apple and marshmallow salad and custard pie and white chocolate chip cookies, sharing stories about their lives over the past year. Bren had passed around her telephone notepad and the kids had translated all of the words for her. They’d even gotten a good laugh over her misspellings and doodles.
“Cozy Chang, Mom? Really?”
“Oh, hush. It was hard to hear over those cell phones. And your father’s band music.” Air quotes around music.
“Hey now, Snow on the Roof was a good band. We were just getting started.”
“That’s what I was afraid of!”
“Oh my God. Singhas, Kevin. She wrote down about the Singhas.”
Laughter. “Don’t even say the word Singha around me again for a while. I’m still nauseous. That was a wild night.”
“You seemed to have a lot of those, son.”
Embarrassed blushing. “What can I say, Dad? Rome was a blur. It’s all good now. Pavy is happy, I’m happy, and we’re both happier apart.”
“And you’ll meet again in Spain? Weren’t you telling me Pavy thought it was romantic there? Here, who wanted the potatoes?”
“Who knows where we’ll meet again? Or if we’ll meet again. It’s no big deal.”
“Maybe you’ll meet at the beach, Kev. Spelled b-e-e-c-h-e, right, Mom?” More laughter, more passing around of the notepad.
Bren didn’t mind. She wasn’t embarrassed. That time of her life seemed so long ago. And it had seemed so permanent then, yet here it was—a piece of the past.
Finally, the last of the meal had been eaten, and everyone sat miserably in their chairs, their pants unbuttoned, their eyes closing. The doorbell rang and Bren sprang out of her chair.
“Oh, good! Dessert is here!”
She ignored the groans and protests at her back as she made her way to the front door.
Bing Crosby was just starting up “The Little Drummer Boy”—naturally—when she opened it. There, on the other side, was Virginia Mash, holding up a covered dish. The taxicab’s taillights shone red on her gray hair.
“I don’t know what took you so long. It’s not a mansion, you know. I’m an old woman. I don’t have all the time in the world. I might meet my Maker in the time it takes you to answer your damn door. Here.”
She held up the dish and Bren took it. Bren held out a hand to help Virginia Mash up the short step into the house, but Virginia smacked it away, refusing help the same way she’d refused to let Gary come pick her up.
“Let me at least take your coat,” Bren said, but Virginia had already taken it off and hung it over a hook in the entryway.
“Let’s just get this over with,” she said.
“You’re going to love them,” Bren said. “I promise you.”
She proudly led Virginia to the kitchen, where Gary was just pulling up another chair. Bren put the dish on the counter and busied herself uncovering it, listening to them all welcome Virginia Mash to their Christmas.
The truth was, she’d made a wonderful dinner. And she could have made a fantastic dessert. In fact, she could have made this dessert. Virginia had shown her how. But instead she’d chosen to make something else. Something that she couldn’t quite label. Something that wasn’t quite friendship, or maybe it was, and wasn’t quite pity, but could have been. Something that ran the line between stubborn and stupid, patience and perseverance. Something that was getting easier every day. And more worthwhile.
She held up the dish. “Chocolate flourless cake, anyone?”
And then set about dishing up the slices.
A CONVERSATION WITH JENNIFER SCOTT
Q. In the first chapter of The Hundred Gifts, the protagonist, Bren Epperson, is persuaded to teach a cooking class when she’s told, “This isn’t a job. It’s a friendship.” And in your acknowledgments, you thank Roberta for convincing you that you weren’t joining a workout; you were joining a friendship. Can you tell us a little bit about why and how friendship can help us enter new arenas and overcome challenges?
A. I’m pretty introverted, so it’s not in my nature to join big groups or seek out a lot of friendships. I tend to stick to my tried-and-true few. It took Roberta many months of asking before I agreed to join her workout group, but she kept after me until I gave in. Little did I know I would be joining something that would, over time, result in many friendships—a tight-knit group of ladies who encourage and support one another while also laughing and struggling together. I wanted Bren to have something similar—a group of ladies from many different backgrounds, with many different personalities, and watch them pull together to have fun and help out one another, but also to help out someone else who needed it. Bren needed that to bolster her courage, which was sorely lacking. I think friendships—especially unexpected ones between people who are not exactly alike—can give you bravery you might not have had already, or maybe sometimes empathy that you may not have had already, or silliness, or gumption, or imagination, or endurance. It’s true that there’s strength in numbers, and sometimes that strength is inner strength. You just need that someone out there who believes in you so that you can find it.
Q. Bren makes quite a lot of dishes for her cooking class: pies, appetizers, barbecue, turducken. Do you, like Bren, enjoy cooking? Do you have a favorite dish you like to cook for your family? What kind of research did you need to do to write these scenes?
A. I am head chef in the Brown house, and over the past twenty-plus years, I have cooked more meals than I could possibly count. I’ve had a lot of practice, and consider myself to be a pretty good cook. But I excel at stick-to-your-ribs meals like chicken and dumplings or meat loaf or pasta. I’m nowhere near as “chefy” as Bren, and I wouldn’t have the first clue how to make a turducken. But I am totally a closet foodie and would for sure eat one!
Bren’s holiday meal, though, is definitely a nod to our own family tradition. My mom has a brisket recipe to die for, and we have the foods Bren mentions—brisket, barbecue meatballs, corn casserole, chips and dips, and even Kraft Macaroni & Cheese—on our Christmas Day menu. It’s been that way for nearly as long as I can remember, and we would have it no other way. While other people are looking forward to their turkey and stuffing, we are eagerly awaiting our tailgate party!
Q. There’s a lovely range of characters in this story—from Bren, to the crotchety Virginia Mash, to the women in the cooking class, to Bren’s hysterical aunt Cathy. Many authors, when talking about their characters, will say they’re amalgams of people they’ve known and their own personalities. Do you think that’s true? Were certain characters in the book inspired by people you know? Do any spring entirely from your imagination?
A. I would like to say most of them spring entirely from my imagination, because it would be great to have such a colorful imagination, but the truth is they are probably all amalgams of people I’ve known and can’t even really pinpoint. Bren is the only exception in that she’s a pretty good representation of me. We’re the same age, and we’ve struggled with the same mid-forties problems—struggling to say good-bye to grown children leaving the nest, years of bad food choices and their ensuing weight consequences, a lot of self-doubt, and some amount of restlessness in what to do now that we’re older. We e
ven shared a “suspicious spot” on our shoulders during the writing of this (just a mole). Bren’s voice came easily to me.
By the same token, Aunt Cathy is sort of the anti-Bren. She doesn’t take life so seriously, has more confidence than is good for her, and is not at all measured in how she approaches the world. I don’t know any Aunt Cathys, but I sure would like to!
Q. What do you hope readers take away from this book? A year after they’ve read it, what do you want them to remember from it?
A. Always, first and foremost, enjoyment. I love books that are filled with characters who feel like fun friends whom I miss when I’m not with them. So I hope to create characters that my readers enjoy spending time with. But also, as with everything I write, I hope my readers take away a message of connection from this book. It’s not always easy to reach out, and it’s not always easy to be understanding—especially with someone who is trying their level best to not be understandable! We can never truly know what motivates someone to act the way they do; all we can do is try to have empathy. I will always believe that true connection is the hardest and most important lesson we are to learn in this life, and if I inspire just one person to reach out to another, I will feel good about what I’ve done.
Q. You have now written two books, The Hundred Gifts and The Sister Season, set during the holidays. Do the holidays have a particular draw for you? Does the setting somehow heighten challenges the characters face?
A. Christmas is definitely my favorite holiday, and I love the entire holiday season. I even love the manic shopping sprees and the loud commercials and “The Little Drummer Boy” (even if Bren doesn’t particularly enjoy any of those things). But there is some amount of pressure there, too, to make everything perfect and magical and wonderful and to engineer it so that your friends and family, and even you yourself, never have any bad feelings throughout the entire season. And we see the media representation of the holidays, and it makes it look as if everyone else is pulling off this perfection. But the truth is nobody’s pulling it off, because it’s not possible, and the holidays bring out bad feelings—regretful memories, feelings of not being good enough, not being rich enough, not being happy enough—in so many of us. I think it’s a season that lends itself well to the exploration of challenges, especially of the family variety.
Q: You write middle grade, young adult and adult fiction. The versatility is so impressive! Can you talk a little bit about some of your other projects and what’s coming next?
I have just released my second middle grade novel, How Lunchbox Jones Saved Me from Robots, Traitors, and Missy the Cruel, and am now working on the first in a new middle grade series. All of my middle grade books are more lighthearted and silly, while also dealing with unlikely connections!
I am getting ready to release Shade Me, the first book in my new YA suspense series, and am currently working on book two in that series. It’s an exciting new adventure for me, about a girl with synesthesia who finds herself immersed in an assault investigation she doesn’t want to be part of.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
When The Hundred Gifts begins, the protagonist, Bren Epperson, is an empty nester, eating her emotions as she ponders the quiet holiday season she’s about to endure without her children. Who is she by the end of the book and what has contributed to her changes? Think specifically about the roles Bren plays in her life, including those of wife, daughter, mother, teacher, and friend. What contributes most to her changes through the book?
In chapter two, we meet Virginia Mash, a solitary older woman living above the Kitchen Classroom. What is Virginia’s role in the beginning of the book and how does that change by the end? As you did with Bren, consider Virginia’s roles as a wife, mother, and friend.
Bren and her husband, Gary, view and deal with the absence of their children in very different ways. Do you think this is typical in a marriage? Were you surprised by Gary’s admission that he was looking forward to having time for other pursuits—and time for Bren and him alone? Have you seen this in your own marriage or in those of your friends and family? How do they work to come back together?
In the beginning of the novel, Virginia Mash has few attachments in her life, but she does have a dog, Chuy. Talk about the role of pets in Virginia’s life and in your own. What does Chuy represent to Virginia? What voids does he fill? What does he bring to her? And are there ways in which he hinders her?
Food becomes a source of conflict in this novel as a group of women gather together for cooking classes. But it might be most noticeable for Bren and Tammy Lynn. Discuss the different ways these two women approach food. What are they like at the beginning of the book? At the end? How do Tammy Lynn’s daughter, Janelle, and the new class member, Steff, play into this conflict? Is there a character you most identify with regarding her attitude toward food? Why?
As the cooking class begins, a variety of characters come together, including Bren’s aunt Cathy and her mother, and Tammy Lynn, Teresa, Lulu, and Rebecca. Did you have a favorite character? Who was it and why was he or she your favorite?
As the title suggests, giving gifts is a central theme in this book. The women are dedicated to making homemade gifts for Virginia Mash. Do you think homemade gifts are more meaningful than store-bought gifts? Would you, as Bren’s nephews do, prefer a gift certificate or cash? What is the line between being pragmatic and being heartfelt in the art of gift giving?
Bren’s final gift to Virginia Mash is a twelve-course meal she delivers on Christmas Day. However, when she tries to deliver it, Virginia Mash tells her, “This is harassment.” Bren counters, “This is lunch.” Virginia Mash then responds, “This is illegal,” to which Bren exclaims, “No, you mean old thing, this is friendship.” How is it friendship? When a potential recipient rebukes an offer, how does one know when to back off and when to keep pushing? How assertive should one be in pursuing friendship?
Many people would say The Hundred Gifts has a happy ending—and they might be tempted to criticize the story for that feature. Yet the happy ending is a valued element in many types of books, from Jane Austen novels to contemporary romances. What do you think of happy endings in novels? Are they unrealistic and simplistic? Do they inspire hope and give us strength to face new challenges? Are they some mixture of the two? Do you prefer stories with happy endings?
Is there someone in your own life who might benefit from one hundred gifts? Or perhaps just one? Who is that person and what would that significant gift be?
IF YOU HAVEN’T YET READ JENNIFER SCOTT’S OTHER HOLIDAY-SET NOVEL, READ ON FOR A SNEAK PEEK.
THE SISTER SEASON
AVAILABLE NOW FROM NAL ACCENT
PROLOGUE
December 21
Blow, blow, thou winter wind.
Thou art not so unkind
As man’s ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
—William Shakespeare,
As You Like It (Act II, Scene 7) (1600)
The tree needed tinsel.
Elise stood back and admired the great Colorado blue spruce that dominated the den, absently rubbing the raised scratches on her arms. She’d always been allergic to the damn things, but she felt too heartwarmed by their scent and the sleepy bluish tint of their limbs to care. The way Elise saw it, the spruce, cut from the ground by one of the sweet Boy Scouts who set up their tent on Highway 3, was the only way to go. A farmhouse with a fake Christmas tree was practically a crime in her book.
When Elise was a little girl, her daddy had always dragged the sticky things into the den, despite the protests of her depressingly pragmatic mother, who insisted that the house would burn down the minute he clipped the first twinkling light onto the first heavy branch. Elise recalled what seemed like a million Christmases, lying under the tree, itching and staring up int
o the faces of ornaments, winking in and out of motion, deep reds and supple golds, her kneesocks pulled up tight to her knees, her ponytail pushing painfully against the wooden floor while she tried to remember all the words to “Silent Night” (were the shepherds lowing, or was it the sheep? No, maybe cows. And what was lowing, anyway?).
God, how she missed her daddy. The firm, scratchy feel of his calloused fingers brushing up against the back of her neck so gently, the same way they stroked a horse’s neck. She missed the way he would smilingly chide her mother, Now, Bernie, this here tree is moist as a duckling’s backside. The way he’d spread his broad fingers over his chest while sucking in a lung-filling breath. That’s a smell God intended, he’d say, and though Elise never quite knew what he meant by that, she felt certain she understood the feeling that must have been coursing through him while he said it.
So, itching or no itching, there would be a real spruce in her house.
And tinsel. The tree needed tinsel.
She quickly stuffed the flaps shut on the large box behind her, the one with XMAS DEKRASHIONS scrawled across the top in ancient Magic Marker. Which of the girls had done that? Claire, perhaps? Her spelling had always been atrocious. As she closed the box, a waft of stale cardboard puffed up her silver bangs. It was the scent of Christmas, a smell God intended, and she nearly buckled under the weight of memories.
Claire, dancing around the room on a stick pony all those years ago, whinnying and giggling, with no idea that Robert had tidily stashed a real pony out in the stable for her—Tilly, the damnedest horse to break, but Claire had done it as only Claire could, patiently, doggedly. Maya, baking cookies while wearing Grandma Ruby’s ratty old apron, chatting nonstop about what she would be like someday when she became a mom, when she had a husband. And Julia—stately Julia, who practically came out of the womb coiffed and proper—sitting next to the fire, her knees tucked up into her nightgown, staring into the flames as if she could see the meaning of Christmas in them. Julia, handing Robert crudely wrapped aftershave, her fingers steadily gripping the paper, but her upper lip trembling. God, how Robert’s approval had always meant so much to that girl.
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