Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76664 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76664 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
All in all, I am a very lucky man.
Very, very lucky.
But this holiday season still feels painfully dreary, no matter how many lights I string on my tree.
My thoughts are turning back to the morbid, back to my father’s hand cold in mine, and last January, the most miserable month of my life thus far, when it happens…
Suddenly, the door at the back of the stage flies open, and a woman catapults into the pub like she’s been shot out of a circus cannon.
In a blur of red curls and flying luggage, she barrels into the nativity scene. Her wheeled bag catches on a wiseman’s cane, sending the poor boy sprawling, and her oversized purse swings wide, taking down a shepherd on her way to center stage. There she trips over her own feet and takes a tumble…
Directly into the manger.
The baby Jesus, a Belinda Moore floral masterpiece, I was just thinking looked silly surrounded by children with leaking noses dressed in sheets, explodes on impact. Petals burst upward like glitter in a snow globe, wire springs leaping in every direction as the woman lands flat on her back in the hay.
Slowly, the floral rain settles atop her, making the poor thing look like she’s been attacked by a wedding bouquet. Her hair—that profusion of red—fans out around her like a Pre-Raphaelite painting. She seems to have broken a shoe, and her skirt has twisted up to reveal ripped tights and the start of an ugly bruise.
For a moment, everything freezes.
The audience stares.
The wise men and shepherds gape.
Even the stuffed cow looks vaguely offended.
Then the child playing Mary starts giggling maniacally while shouting “bloody hell,” Joseph makes a break for the loo, and Belinda—poor, perfectionist Belinda who did the flowers for Edward’s engagement party and still hasn’t forgiven me for being forty minutes late—looks ready to commit justifiable homicide.
Red scrambles to her feet, babbling apologies in an accent that I peg as Manhattan by way of New Jersey. I recently finished staffing my New York office, and that clipped, “no time for niceties” cadence is still fresh in my memory. A scan of her wrinkled clothing reveals an ink stain, brown patches on the pale gray wool, and stray tufts of cotton, possibly from a wise man’s beard.
All in all, she looks like she’s been through a war.
One she lost.
Still, her smile is warm and appropriately apologetic. She doesn’t seem to be completely mad, but you wouldn’t know it from the way Belinda snatches her daughter away, like Red’s carrying a virus she suspects is catching.
After announcing that she won’t be working with Red—ever—she sweeps out of the pub, little Mary in tow. Within moments, the other parents follow suit, fetching their semi-traumatized offspring, bundling them into coats and wellies, and guiding them out into the storm.
Soon, the pub has emptied of respectable society, leaving just me, Reggie, and his busboy, and the old fogeys by the fire who haven’t moved from their spots since 1987.
And, of course, the American disaster standing in the wreckage of baby Jesus, blushing such a bright, fetching pink, I can’t resist teasing, “Well, you certainly know how to clear a room, don’t you, Red?”
Her head snaps toward me, and I get my first proper look at her face. Green eyes flash with indignation, freckles dust her upturned nose, and the stubborn jut of her chin makes it clear that she’s prepared to do battle. She’s beautiful and fierce and still blushing in a way that makes her eyes seem to glow in the dark.
And, God help me, I’m suddenly more excited to be out of my apartment than I’ve been in months.
I’m waiting with baited breath, eager for the dressing down this curvy firebrand is poised to deliver, when Misfortune strikes again. Red opens her mouth, preparing to unleash what I’m sure would have been a scathing retort. But before she can speak, her foot catches on a string of fairy lights.
The universe, it seems, isn’t finished with her just yet…
Down she goes again, arms windmilling, taking out the stuffed cow as she thuds down the stairs. She lands flat on her back with a grunt that might have been concerning if she didn’t immediately stomp her foot into the floor and exhale an outraged huff, proving she’s still in one piece.
Once again, I can’t seem to help myself…
“But your commitment to destruction is admirable.” I cluck my tongue in only slightly mocking sympathy. “And thorough.”
She surges to her feet with surprising grace for someone who’s fallen twice in five minutes. One heel is definitely broken, her skirt is twisted so badly the back zipper is in the front, and there’s straw mixed with the petals in her hair.
Still, she faces me with the dignity of a queen as she breathes, “Thank you, sir. I try to be thorough in all things. And who are you exactly? The pub peanut gallery?” She glances around, her eyes widening theatrically. “Don’t you have a child to fetch home? Or are you drinking alone on a Monday with no one to talk to except down-on-their-luck strangers who have already been humiliated several times tonight?”