“Well, great,” Margaret says. “Bart Quinn just got shipped over.”
“Yes, you told me,” Darcy says. “He isn’t… on the list, is he?”
Margaret scans the list. “No, thank God.” Not today, she thinks.
“Can you imagine the parents who are getting the news… on Christmas Eve?” Darcy says.
Margaret thinks about those parents, and something unusual happens. She tears up. She hasn’t cried over the news since she famously broke down on the air when the first tower collapsed on September 11. Initially, she received all kinds of criticism for losing her composure. But Margaret thinks-actually, she knows-that it was her coverage on September 11 that caught the attention of the big boss, Lee Kramer, and launched her into the evening anchor spot.
Margaret wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand, and Darcy silently retreats.
Margaret’s cell phone rings.
Drake, she thinks, canceling.
But it’s Ava.
“Darling!” Margaret says.
“Mommy,” Ava says.
“Darling, what is it?” Margaret checks her computer: it’s quarter to five. She’s due in Wardrobe in fifteen minutes. Red tonight, for sure, which will make her wish she had a bag over her head; the Nasty Blogger, Queenie229, will have a field day. What would be happening in Ava’s world at quarter to five on Christmas Eve?
“I want to come to Hawaii with you,” Ava says in a small voice. It is a voice from the past, her little-girl voice, and instinctively Margaret fills with guilt. I want to come with you, Mommy. This was Ava, every afternoon when Margaret was getting ready to head to the studio. I want you. I can’t stop wanting you. Ava would cry, and Margaret would have to peel Ava off her, and hand her over to Lotus, the housekeeper-nanny. Oh, the guilt! Ava would be home from school for only five minutes before Margaret had to go to work. In the days when she was at NY1, she saw the kids for an average of two hours during the week, and then she tried to make it all up to them on the weekends-but some weekends she was called in to work, too. It doesn’t really matter that Margaret is now sitting on the golden throne of broadcast journalism; she missed so much of her kids’ lives growing up, it tears her apart.
She missed so much.
“Hawaii?” Margaret says. “Oh, honey.”
“Did you not mean it when you invited me?” Ava says. “I really, really want to get out of here.”
“I’m going to Hawaii with my friend Drake,” Margaret says. “When I asked you, I was serious that I wanted you to come, but I was also kidding because we didn’t arrange it. I would love to take you to Hawaii, sweetheart. We’ll plan it for next year, I promise. Would you like to come with me next year?”
“Next year?” Ava says.
“I never thought you would want to leave the island during the holidays,” Margaret says. “It’s such a big deal for you-the inn, the party; I never thought you would seriously consider coming with me, honey. Otherwise I would have asked you in September, when I booked it.”
“So there’s no way I can go?” Ava asks. “Who’s Drake?”
“You met Drake,” Margaret says. “Once, on Nantucket. He stayed overnight with me at the White Elephant? He’s the pediatric brain surgeon…?” Margaret’s voice falters. She doesn’t want Ava to think that she would rather be with some on-again, off-again boyfriend than her own daughter. But to cancel with Drake at this point would be cruel. “What’s really bothering you, sweetheart? Is it Daddy?”
“Yes, it’s Daddy!” Ava says. “He nearly burned the house down, setting Mitzi’s roller disco outfit on fire!”
Oh my, Margaret thinks.
“He’s smoking cigarettes and drinking whiskey and posting toxic things about Mitzi on Facebook. Meanwhile, the party is in two hours and Daddy hasn’t lifted a finger and Kevin is missing and Patrick isn’t coming home, so who gets stuck holding the bag? Me!”
“Oh, sweetie,” Margaret says. She’s a woman with a comprehensive vocabulary, but that is all she can come up with to say. She is thinking of herself and Kelley at a certain bar in the Village, drinking beer and doing shots, smoking cigarettes, Margaret in jeans and a black turtleneck, Kelley in a fisherman’s sweater; after they played Traffic on the jukebox and paid the bill, they had enough money to split a grilled cheese sandwich at the Greek diner. More tears: what is wrong with her? She remembers that Margaret and that Kelley, that couple, so fondly, like they are dear friends she hasn’t seen in a long time. They were the happiest people she knew. They didn’t need big careers or their own brownstone or piles of money.
“Poor Daddy,” Margaret says. Mitzi has gone and broken Kelley’s heart-although Margaret knows that she broke it first and she broke it best.
“And that’s not even my real problem,” Ava says.
“What is your real problem?” Margaret asks. “Tell me.”
“It’s a long story,” Ava says. “And you must have to go soon?”
It’s five minutes to five. Darcy has suddenly reappeared, indicating that it’s nearly time for Wardrobe and Makeup.
“Please tell me, darling,” Margaret says.
“Nathaniel is in Greenwich, Connecticut, with his family,” Ava says. “His beautiful ex-girlfriend who just got divorced is also there. I’m scared and I’m jealous and I’m lonely. I got on the phone with him and told him I was going to Hawaii with you. I want him to think I’m fabulous, I want to be elusive, I want him to propose, but I’m a straight fail across the board.”
“Ava,” Margaret says, in her serious Mom voice, “you are not a fail.”
“Yes,” Ava says, “I am.”
“I love you, Ava.”
“I love you, too, Mommy. Have fun in Hawaii.” With that, Ava hangs up. Margaret holds the phone for a second. Then, not knowing what else to do, she heads down the hall-toward Wardrobe and the red dress.
AVA
Scott Skyler arrives at six o’clock, and Ava hands him the Santa suit.
“You’re about half the size of George,” Ava says. “I really don’t think this is going to fit you.”
“I’ll make it work,” Scott says. “Don’t worry.”
“You’re a lifesaver and a saint,” Ava says. “I don’t know why you always come to the rescue.”
“Don’t you?” Scott says, and he gives Ava a searing I want you look. He has given Ava this look three or four times before, the first time several years earlier, while sitting at the bar at Lola 41. Ava had been out with her girlfriend Shelby, the school librarian, but Shelby left to pick up her teenage sons, and so Ava was sitting alone when Scott wandered in. He told her he had just been promoted from fifth-grade teacher to assistant principal. This came as such surprising news (elementary schools are petri dishes of gossip; Ava couldn’t believe she hadn’t heard any rumor of the promotion) that Ava threw her arms around Scott’s neck and kissed his cheek.
“I’m so proud of you!” she said. She was three drinks into the night and as such was overly animated. She was also struck by the novelty of seeing Scott Skyler at Lola. Lola was a dark, sexy place that served sushi and ruby red grapefruit martinis; it was a place where Ava normally ran into the divorced parents of her students, not Scott Skyler.
“Thanks,” Scott said. He was a tall guy with superhero shoulders, and that night he’d seemed even taller. He eschewed his usual Budweiser and ordered something called a Poison Dragonfly-and by the time he was at the end of his drink, he was narrowing his eyes in desire at Ava, telling her he was in love with her. He’d been in love with her since the first time he saw her play the piano at school assembly. And even before that! he said. Because he’d attended the Christmas Eve party at the Winter Street Inn with his older sister years earlier, and he’d seen Ava ladling out the Cider of a Thousand Cloves and thought she was the most beautiful creature alive.