On Strike for Christmas Read online

  She shrugged and let him continue.

  “Make costumes for school holiday concert and Christmas pageant.” He looked pained. “Make costumes. That’s chick stuff.”

  “No, that’s Christmas stuff,” she corrected him.

  “Two programs?”

  She nodded.

  He let out a long breath then continued. “Do Christmas cards, wrap presents, get stocking stuffers, buy food for Christmas party.” He scratched his head. “Can some of this be left off?”

  “It’s all the things you love every year, all those things that you say make the season.”

  “I say that, huh?”

  “Yes, you do. And it’s all the things I do every year without any help because someone around here drops the ball a lot.”

  He rolled his eyes and returned to the list. “Get Advent calendar and open with the kids every day.” He set down the paper. “You know, I’m still stuck on the two-program thing. And what are these costumes?”

  “Easy. Amy is an angel for the church Christmas pageant, and a tree for the school holiday concert.”

  “A tree, huh?”

  “Her class is singing ‘O, Christmas Tree.’”

  “Mail packages by December fifteenth. What packages are those?”

  “The presents for your sister and her family,” Laura reminded him.

  “Oh. Do we have those?”

  “Not yet. You haven’t bought them.”

  Glen suddenly looked slightly sick. “You haven’t bought anything yet?”

  “You said you’re doing it this year,” she hedged. She had bought some things, but nothing she couldn’t use next year. Glen needed to have the full holiday experience.

  He eyed the list again. “Buy food for Christmas dinner, clean house, set table.” He looked up at her. “Somewhere in between all this I have to work, you know. “

  “Welcome to my world,” Laura said with a smile.

  “Okay, fine,” he said, sounding like a football player in the locker room, getting pumped up for a game. “I can handle it. And you won’t hear me complaining, either.”

  “Oh, I won’t, huh?”

  “No, you won’t.”

  He made it sound like she was making a big deal out of nothing. Yeah, right. He’d see.

  It was eight-thirty in the morning when Joy’s bedside phone rang. “Tell ’em we’re not interested,” Bob mumbled, and rolled over.

  Joy fumbled the receiver to her ear and said a sleepy hello.

  “This is Rosemary Charles at the Holly Herald. Is this the Joy Robertson who’s starting the Christmas strike?”

  Joy was fully awake now. She looked over at Bob, who was back in dreamland. “Um, yes. How’d you get my name?” Sharon, of course.

  “Your fellow striker, Sharon Benedict, called us. This is a great story, and I think a lot of our readers would like to know how you’re doing this and where they can sign up. I’d like to come over and interview you.”

  Oh, boy. What to do? Joy looked to where Bob lay sleeping. Last night when she was mad it had sounded like a great idea to continue the strike. But now, with the prospect of her discontent becoming news…“Gosh, I don’t know,” she said.

  Bob pulled his pillow over his head. “Hon, can you take it downstairs?”

  Heaven forbid she should rob her husband of his sleep. When, exactly, had Bob become so self-centered? “I guess it would be fine,” she decided, staying right where she was. “Anytime after nine-thirty.”

  “Great! I’d like to bring a photographer, too, and get a picture.”

  “All right.”

  “Joy.” Bob moaned.

  “What’s your address?” asked Rosemary Charles.

  Joy rattled off their street address. She was still talking when Bob shoved aside his pillow, threw off the covers, and stomped off to the bathroom, muttering, “I may as well get up now that I’m awake.”

  An hour, she thought as she hung up. She had an hour to get ready. The house was a mess. She was a mess. She jumped out of bed, grabbed her robe, and hurried down the hall to pick up in the living room. She had her arms full with Bob’s loafers, her purse and knitting bag, and a dirty coffee mug when he came down the hall.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’ve got company coming,” she said, and rushed past him to the kitchen.

  “Company. When?”

  “In an hour.” She set the mug in the sink, then flew by him.

  He followed her as she picked up more debris and headed to the bedroom. “Who the heck’s coming to see you so early?”

  “A reporter from the Holly Herald.”

  “The Herald!”

  “They heard about the strike and they want to do an article on it.” Joy had never seen her name in the paper for anything before. She was going to be famous!

  “The strike? For a strike you need a lot of people. This is just you and me. Well, just you, really.”

  “Oh, yeah? Well, for your information, several other women are doing this, too.” Joy dumped the debris and started to put the bed to rights.

  Bob leaned against the doorjamb and crossed his arms. “Like who?”

  “Like Sharon and Laura and Kay from the knitting group.”

  He threw up his hands. “This is insane.”

  “If it’s so insane, how come it resonates with so many women?”

  “You’ve incited a couple of malcontents from your knitting group to screw up their families’ holidays and you call that resonating? Joy, I can’t believe you’re doing this. How many people’s Christmases do you want to ruin?”

  “How do you know I’m ruining anyone’s Christmas? Where’s your evidence, Mr. Mystery Writer?”

  “I have enough evidence right here in my own home. At least I can make my own work schedule. A lot of men can’t. They won’t have time to fit in all that extra nonsense. Instead of peace and joy and Christmas spirit, this is going to inspire fights and stress. You’re going to make every man in town look like a jerk.”

  “Not every man. Just the ones who are jerks already.”

  The significance of her reply was lost on Bob, who was still musing over the misery to come. “God knows how many marriages could break up over this.”

  “If a marriage can break up over this it’s not very strong,” Joy retorted.

  Bob shook his head in disgust. “Okay, fine. Go ahead, make us look like fools. But don’t expect me to come out and talk to that reporter. I am not available for comment. I have a book deadline.”

  “She doesn’t want to talk to you, anyway.” Joy went to the walk-in closet and started moving clothes around. What should a woman wear for a newspaper interview? Maybe her red blouse and black slacks.

  Bob walked right in with her. “She?” he echoed. “Oh, yeah, let a woman write the piece. That will make it nice and unbiased,” he said in disgust and stomped off. “You’re going to be sorry you started this,” he called over his shoulder.

  Not as sorry as you are, Bob Humbug. Joy grabbed her red blouse and eyed it critically. Did she have time to iron?

  Four

  Bob sat staring at his computer screen. Instead of helping his detective, Hawk Malone, unravel the clues to the mysterious poisoning of Arthur Blackwell, he kept turning his own situation over and over in his mind. How, exactly, had he gotten into this mess? Where had he gone wrong?

  Nowhere. He didn’t deserve this. What he deserved was a medal for accompanying Joy to her big, chaotic family gatherings every year. Year in, year out, he endured teasing about his writing…So, who are you murdering now, Bob? Hey, I’ve got this boss…and the helpful critiques…I think you should have made the car mechanic the murderer. It seemed to me like he had the best motive, but no one would have suspected him. I mean, I didn’t, and isn’t it the person you least suspect who does the murder? And then there was always someone who had a plan. Bob, I’ve got a great idea for a book. You could write it and we could split the money. That was easily shrugged off, and when you were a
writer it pretty much went with the territory. And it was only a small part of a very long afternoon. It was the chaos that nearly short-circuited him every year. Kids running everywhere like so many accidents waiting to happen. No one watched their children at these things. He couldn’t believe nobody had broken their arm or at least some valuable knickknack yet. As out of control as it all was, someone sure should have. And the noise level; every year it rose higher.

  Joy’s family seemed to thrive on that sort of thing. The wilder a party got, the more they liked it. From what he could tell, her house had had a revolving front door when she and her brothers were growing up—people always coming and going, tons of company, big, loud parties. It was a way of life for the Johnsons.

  But it wasn’t for his family. His house had been quiet. He couldn’t remember his parents having much company, and his brother, the chess club king, didn’t exactly throw wild parties. Bob had spent a lot of time in his room with his nose in a book or in front of the TV as a kid, and that had been fine with him. As a teenager, he and his two best friends mostly went hiking or cruised around in their cars, listening to music and trying to pick up girls. No big, wild parties, no chaos.

  Christmas at his house had been pretty quiet, too—the ritual of present opening in the morning, a dinner with just the four of them, and maybe a pair of grandparents or a stray aunt and uncle, followed by a holiday movie like White Christmas on TV afterward. Then everyone scattered to do his own thing.

  So far in his writing career Bob had solved fourteen mysteries. But the workings of his wife’s mind and that of her family’s remained the greatest unsolved mystery of all. Why did they think everyone should be like them? And why, after all these years, did it still bother Joy that he wasn’t? She’d known what he was like when she married him.

  And he’d known what she was like too, came the thought. He’d loved her sense of fun and her enthusiasm for life. But somehow, he’d concluded that when she chose him she chose his lifestyle, too. But she hadn’t. Even though he’d gone along with all her ideas on just how Christmas should be done, it simply hadn’t been enough for her. He wasn’t enough for her.

  He rubbed his aching forehead. Now she was making his shortcomings public. So far he’d enjoyed a fairly good relationship with the press: good reviews, some nice articles, friendly interviews with the local paper. His sales were gaining on the big boys like Tom Clancy and John Grisham, and his publicist billed him as the mild-mannered master of murder and mayhem. How was he going to be billed if news of his wife’s Christmas strike got out? He’d be Bob Humbug, killer of Christmas. Would that boost sales? It sure wouldn’t do much for public relations here where he lived, of that much he was certain.

  The doorbell rang and he gave a start. Oh, no. The nightmare before Christmas was beginning.

  A herd of demented Sugarplum Fairies started dancing in Joy’s stomach as she went to answer the door. Maybe this was a bad idea.

  But then she walked past her poor, handicapped tree and irritation took over, sending the fairies scampering. How many men all over this town, all over America even, needed to learn to become active participants in their families’ lives rather than spectators who showed up on Christmas morning? This wasn’t a strike, it was a cause.

  By the time she got to the front door, her irritation had grown into righteous anger. She practically yanked the door open, making the man and woman on the front step jump.

  The woman looked about Melia’s age, somewhere in her twenties. Her chestnut hair sported the latest cut and her clothes looked Vogue hip. Everything about her said I’m young and I have time to work at looking this good because I’m free—no husband to dump the duties of Christmas on me. The man standing in back of her didn’t look much older. He was dressed in jeans and a jacket, and was holding a camera.

  Behind them, the sky provided a gray backdrop. It looked like the snow flurries the weatherman had predicted would be coming soon.

  “I’m Rosemary Charles,” said the young woman. “This is Rick Daniels, our photographer. Thanks for agreeing to see us.”

  “No problem,” Joy said. She stepped aside and motioned them in.

  They came into the front hall of Joy’s Victorian, and their presence seemed to fill the house. What should she do now? She’d never entertained the media before.

  “Would you like some coffee?” she asked as she hung their coats on the oak coat tree. Everything went better with coffee. Too bad she didn’t have any home-baked cookies to offer them.

  The photographer looked hopeful, but Rosemary Charles shook her head. “No, we’re fine. But thanks.”

  “Well, come on into the living room,” Joy said.

  That might have been a mistake. “Whoa,” said the photographer, gawking at her tree.

  Rosemary Charles stopped short at the sight it. “I see you’ve already got your tree up,” she said diplomatically.

  Joy felt herself blushing. The tree looked worse than any Charlie Brown tree. It was an embarrassment to treehood. “My husband did it.” She sounded like a tattletale. Great way to start an interview.

  Rosemary perched on the edge of Joy’s sofa and whipped out a small tablet. “So, you’re on strike and he’s doing everything?”

  “Something like that,” Joy said.

  “And how did this come about?” Rosemary Charles wanted to know.

  Joy looked at the tree and squirmed. There it stood, the symbol of her and Bob on display for the whole world to see, everything connected but not quite right. “Are you sure I can’t get you something to drink?” She could sure use a drink, preferably one that was spiked.

  “Oh, no. We’re fine,” said Rosemary Charles. She sat watching Joy, pen poised.

  Joy cleared her throat. “Well, my friends and I got talking about how women do most of the work to make the holidays happen.” So far so good, but now she wasn’t sure what to say next.

  Rosemary Charles nodded encouragingly as she wrote.

  Joy eased further into the conversation, like a nervous ice skater entering the rink. “And sometimes the men in our lives don’t really appreciate what we do. They don’t see the importance of it. They just sort of take it all for granted. They take us for granted.” She stopped her sentence, but in her head, she was on a roll. They think it’s a waste of time and they don’t want to be bothered, which translates into not wanting to be bothered with us. They don’t value what we value. They complain or belittle it. They don’t care, and that translates into not caring about us.

  That was it in a nutshell, she realized. Bob didn’t care enough to really make an effort for her. Oh, he came to the annual family holiday gatherings, but just once she’d like him to make an effort and really be there, participate instead of sitting on the outside looking in with an impatient frown.

  “Your husband, he’s Bob Robertson the mystery writer, right?” asked Rosemary Charles.

  Joy nodded. Here was the part Bob had dreaded. For just a moment she couldn’t help wondering if publicly pillorying him was going to make him any fonder of the holiday festivities.

  “And what does he think of this?”

  Now Joy was really stumped. Part of her wanted to blurt, “He’s a Grinch. What do you think he thinks?” But she didn’t. Bob could be a turkey this time of year, but he was her turkey and she didn’t want to roast him too badly. “I guess you’d have to ask him.”

  That response might have been a mistake. Rosemary Charles suddenly looked like a puppy that had been promised an entire bag of doggy treats. “Is he home? Can we talk to him?”

  As if on cue, Bob came sauntering into the living room. How convenient. He had to have been lurking just down the hall, eavesdropping.

  “Mr. Robertson?” The young reporter stood and moved to shake hands with Bob. “I’m a big fan of yours. In fact, I was at your last book signing.”

  Bob hated book signings. All that schmoozing with the public was painful for him, and Joy usually attended the events with him, chatting with
readers and running interference between him and his most ardent fans.

  But he was great one-on-one. He also knew how to put up a friendly facade. He smiled for the reporter. “Did you enjoy the book?”

  “Oh, yes, it was great. Um, do you mind giving us a statement for this article?”

  “No, I guess not.”

  Joy stared at him, shocked. What happened to not talking to the press?

  “What do you think of your wife’s strike?”

  “It could be worse. She could be on strike for higher wages.”

  Bob Humbug does Bob Hope. Ha, ha, ha.

  “What do you think about your wife’s theory that women do it all this time of year and the men do nothing?”

  Had she said that exactly? What had she said? And, more important, what was this article going to say?

  “I can only speak for my own household,” Bob said diplomatically. “My wife does a lot.”

  Well, that was very kind. Joy waited to see if he’d add, “Who needs it?” He didn’t, the big coward.

  “So are you going to pick up the slack while she’s on strike, and do you think you’ll be able to do everything she does?” asked Rosemary Charles, scribbling in her pad.

  “Not everything,” Bob said. “Christmas will probably look a little different this year.”

  Yeah, bleak.

  “But I’m not sure that’s a bad thing,” Bob continued. “I think most men would appreciate seeing the holiday simplified.”

  “So, if all the wives in Holly went on strike, how do you think the men would do?” Rosemary asked.

  “I think they’d do fine.”

  “You’re a real sport, Mr. Robertson,” said Rosemary Charles. “Especially considering the fact that your wife is going to probably be the hero of every woman in town.”

  If Joy was the hero, that left only one person for the villain. Bob’s polite smile did a slow fade.

  “Well, then,” said Rosemary Charles briskly. “How about a picture of you two in front of the tree? Could we do that?”

  This disaster of a tree would be in the paper? Joy looked at the reporter in horror.