Maybe I do!
That night she dreamed she got a Mother’s Day card, but it was sitting inside a human-sized mousetrap. She scurried over to it on little mouse feet. Mouse feet! She looked over her shoulder. What was that long thing protruding from her ass?
Never mind that. Get the card. She leaned her head up close to read the card. Something went snap and she found she was spread out flat, her neck pinned down under some kind of giant metal bar. In the background she could hear someone laughing. It sounded a lot like Bella.
“I think my neck’s broken,” she squeaked.
The voice was nearer. “Too bad.”
“Why am I here?”
“Hey, you wanted a card.”
A giant hand reached out. It picked her up by her tail—her tail!—and carried her to a garbage can the size of a car and dumped her in, trap and all. “Hope you have a great Mother’s Day. Not!”
There she sat at the bottom of the can, on her tail. Her tail! The lid was off and light was shining in and she saw two faces looking down at her. The faces belonged to Bella and Tansy and they had cat ears and whiskers.
“You’ll always be nothing more than an insignificant mouse,” Tansy taunted her, and they both laughed.
Their faces disappeared and next thing she knew someone was dumping a plastic bag of garbage on top of her. It was followed by another, and another. She was suffocating.
She awoke to find her blanket over her head, her hair damp with sweat. What would Freud make of that?
“You know what it means,” Molly said when the women sat at their usual table at Horse and Cow to fine tune the details of their next Christmas party. “That you feel like you’re in a losing battle and you feel like garbage.”
“But what about the mousetrap and the card?” asked Sunny.
“You feel like you’re in a cat-and-mouse game,” Arianna offered.
A losing one. “What am I supposed to do?” Sunny demanded irritably.
“Buy some catnip?” Arianna suggested.
“Cute,” Sunny said with a frown.
“You have to keep trying. That’s all you can do,” Arianna said, turning serious. “But don’t let Bella’s resentment get you down. You’ve always known Tansy’s behind all of this.”
Sunny pushed a French fry around her plate. “I’m so tired of it. I’m stuck in a remake ofGroundhog Day, reliving Christmas every month, only with different trimmings. Trying to fix a fail that can’t be fixed. My mother-in-law is never going to come to one of our parties and my stepdaughter is going to hate me forever. Why keep trying?”
Arianna sighed. “Because you’ll feel rotten if you stop. And I’ll feel rotten if you stop. I need these, Sunny. I really do. Even with the drama Bella brings, our Christmas parties are still special. Sophie looks forward to them and so does Mom. And they’re helping me stay sane.”
“Ava and Paisley have been enjoying them, too,” put in Molly. “It was an inspired idea, and it’s helping me at work. Do you know I had three customers ask me what we did for Christmas in April? And they loved the picture of Santa Bunny and me.”
Sunny had to smile, hearing that.
“You’re inspiring us,” Arianna added.
“Glad I’m inspiring someone.”
“You’re really inspiring my mom. She called theKitsap Sunand told them about the Twelve Months of Christmas,” Arianna said.
Sunny stared at her. “Your mom called the newspaper?”
“Yep. They want to send out a reporter and photographer to cover our Christmas-in-May party. So, no pressure, but we need to make it good,” Arianna said.
Sunny managed a weak smile. “Great.” For the first time since her Christmas fail, she found herself hoping that Tansy would mess up Travis’s weekend to have the kids and take them somewhere far, far away.
CHRISTMAS
