"Thanks," Ariel said as Carol turned toward the door. "For...everything."

"My pleasure," Carol said, and meant it. She smiled as she went down the walk, a new emotion pushing away all the others: happiness, pure happiness.

Eleven.

"Glen's doing our Christmas party," Laura told Joy as they drove to the St.i.tch In Time for their weekly Monday night knitting session. "Want to come?"

"I'd come in a heartbeat, but with Bob in charge of our social calendar, don't hold your breath waiting for us to show up on your doorstep."

Laura gave her a sympathetic look. "Poor Joy."

Joy shrugged, like missing out on all the fun was no big deal. "What can I say? I'm married to Herman the Hermit."

Laura turned sideways and studied her. "You two are so different. How'd you ever get together, anyway?"

"Opposites attract. One of nature's little jokes." Only these days she wasn't laughing.

"Tell me about it," Laura said as Joy stopped the car for a light.

"You two aren't really that opposite, are you?" Joy asked.

Laura rolled her eyes. "One of us is a grown-up and one of us is a big kid. I'd say that's pretty opposite."

"Well, other than the obvious."

"Oh, I guess not. We both like to have a good time. What I don't like is to have to do all the work while he does all the playing. And he is a slob, which makes even more work." She smiled over at Joy. "But I'm betting by the end of the strike he'll be a changed man."

The way things were going with Bob, Joy wasn't making any bets.

The light turned green and they drove into downtown Holly. With its festive decorations, it looked like a scene out of It's a Wonderful Life. How Joy hoped this strike would wind up with her George Bailey appreciating what he had!

They parked the car and walked into the knitting shop to find it abuzz with excited voices.

Debbie waved to them from the cash register and called, "Saw you in the paper. I saved you a copy."

"Thanks," Joy said, trying to sound appreciative. The last thing she wanted was another copy of that picture of Bob and herself and the Bob Humbug tree. She caught a whiff of cinnamon and cloves and hot apple juice. Mulled cider. Good. She needed a stiff drink.

"Hey, there, fellow strikers," Sharon greeted them. She looked like Christmas in her red sweater with its appliqued snowmen. "How're y'all doin'?"

"Life at my house is good," Laura bragged. She dropped her knitting on the table and made a beeline for the pot. "All right, cider!"

"Deb knows how to keep up our morale," Kay said.

"How are things going at your place?" Laura asked her.

"It's going. You should have seen Jack's eyes bug out when he read my name in the paper. Of course, he had a rude remark to make," she added in disgust.

"What did he say?" asked Laura.

"He said we'd probably save a ton of money because I wouldn't be out buying decorations we don't need."

"What a weasel," Sharon said.

Kay's lips thinned. She looked like a general in the war room. "That's a polite way of describing him," she said, and dipped into the little bowl of holiday Hershey's Kisses that Sharon had brought. "What about Pete? What was his reaction?"

Sharon scowled. "Not the right one, I can tell you. He thinks he's doing fine and he's one happy camper. And if he calls me Yulezilla one more time he'll be pushin' up daisies."

Joy wasn't surprised by Pete's nickname for his wife. No matter what the weather, Sharon's car remained shiny and clean, and she, herself, always looked like she'd just had an Oprah makeover. Joy could easily imagine Sharon's house looking like something right out of Southern Living, and at Christmas it would, of course, have to be perfect.

"According to Pete I go overboard every year and drive them all insane," Sharon continued. "Just because I like to have the tree look a certain way and the house decorated nice."

"How do you like the tree to look?" Laura asked.

Sharon's cheeks bloomed pink, but she raised her chin and said, "I always coordinate the ornaments and the wrapping paper, and I like to put the breakable and smaller ornaments up on the top with the larger ones on the bottom, and the tinsel hung, not just thrown."

"Who bothers with tinsel?" Laura said.

Carol smiled and gave a knowing nod. "Boys like to throw." Her eyes turned misty. "My son was a thrower."

An awkward silence settled over the women. Joy knew it had been nearly fifteen years since Carol's son died, but losing a child wasn't something from which a woman ever recovered. She reached over and patted Carol's arm.

"It's okay," Carol said, pulling herself together. Then to Sharon, "They grow up so fast. Having a messy tree can be kind of fun."

Sharon frowned. "I guess. Anyway, Pete claims he and the boys are doing it this year and they're going to show me how to do it right. They'll probably break half my ornaments."

"Hide the ones you really want," Laura advised. "That's what I did."

"So, how's Glen doing?" Sharon asked. "I'll bet reading your interview in the paper went over about as well as a flannel nightgown on a wedding night."

A corner of Laura's lip lifted. "He said it made him look like a jerk. Imagine that."

"Him and every other husband represented here, bless their hearts," said Sharon. "I swear, this is the first time in years I've read an unbiased news story."

"I've got to admit, he's being a sport," Laura said. "So far he's decorated the tree, gotten the Advent calendar, and taken the kids to see Santa. And he's started on the Christmas cards. Oh, and he's already gone through half a bottle of Excedrin," she added, making her fellow strikers snicker.

"How about our fearless leader?" Sharon asked. "How's Bob doing?"

Too well. "So far this isn't working out like I'd imagined," Joy confessed. "Someone could make a movie about us and call it Scrooge Wins." She sighed. "I think I need some chocolate therapy. Somebody pa.s.s me that candy."

Jerri shook her head like a frustrated Dr. Phil as she pa.s.sed the bowl to Joy, and Carol said, "Some things play out better in our heads than in real life."

"Hey, this is playing out just fine for me," Laura said with a snap of her gum.

"And me," Sharon agreed. "My Pete's going to find out it's not so easy to pull off Christmas."

Kay maintained a thoughtful silence.

"Kay?" Joy prodded.

She gave a little shrug. "I'm just wondering how I wound up with such a tightwad."

Joy sensed her friend paddling from the burbling waters of playful retribution toward more dangerous currents. In an attempt to turn Kay back from the looming waterfall, she said, "Most men are budget-conscious."

Kay looked her straight in the face. "This is more than that. If he had to choose between me and his savings account, I think he'd pick savings."

"Oh, don't be silly," Carol chided. "Of course he'd pick you."

"Maybe," Kay said, and rubbed a finger over the modest diamond on her left hand.

Watching her, Joy began to worry that all was not well in the Carter castle. Kay had nine years invested in this marriage, and she'd always seemed relatively happy. Except for the times she complained about her husband's tight fist in all matters financial.

But every man had his faults. A woman couldn't just give up on hers because they didn't see eye to eye on one or two things.

"Don't worry, honey, he'll appreciate you by the time Christmas is over," Sharon predicted. "That's what this strike is for, to open our men's eyes."

"I'll drink to that," Laura cracked, and hoisted her cup of cider in salute.

Joy saw Carol and Jerri exchange a wise woman glance, and she couldn't help feeling petty and trivial.

"I know you think this is silly," she said to Carol later that evening as the women made their way out of the knitting shop.

"I do think it's beneath you," Carol said, "and I don't really understand why you're doing it."

"Menopause-induced insanity," Joy suggested. Carol gave her a look that said, "Be serious," and she shrugged. "I don't know. I guess my marriage isn't as perfect as yours was. Maybe I want to make it into something more before it's too late." She sighed. "You'd think after so many years of marriage a couple would have all their differences worked out."

"Oh, I don't know," Carol said. "You're always two different people."

"Even when you're different, you still have to live together. I thought I could, somehow, push us onto some middle ground where we could both share more of the holiday experience. Bob hates so much of what I love."

"And vice versa?" Carol suggested.

The three little words. .h.i.t Joy like a rock-hard s...o...b..ll. They were on the street now, next to her car. If she'd come alone, she'd have jumped in and driven away fast. She leaned against the door. "So, you're saying I'm selfish."

"No, not at all. I'm just wondering if you've gotten so locked in to what the season should look like that you can't see other possibilities. Maybe your husband represents those possibilities."

Horrible possibilities, if you asked Joy.

"It's just something to consider," Carol said.

Laura had joined them now, and Carol ended the conversation and gave Joy a hug.

"That looked like a serious talk you two were having," Laura observed once they were in the car. "She's still trying to convince you to end the strike, right? Make you feel guilty?"

"I guess I can't blame her. She doesn't want to see anyone create problems in their marriage."

"Yeah, well, it's easy to tell other people what to do when you're not walking in their Jimmy Choos. She has no idea what our marriages are like. It's not a crime to give your husband a wake-up call, and you don't have to feel guilty. Got it?"

Joy nodded. Still, she found herself turning over Carol's words as she turned over the engine. She wasn't the problem, she decided as she and Laura drove away. She'd been paring down her life for years, always containing her personality in smaller and smaller s.p.a.ces, pruning guest lists, leaving functions early or going alone because Bob didn't want to climb out of his sh.e.l.l. She didn't want to pare down any more. There'd be nothing left of her.

Anyway, Bob was the one in the wrong here. She loved him dearly, but she wanted him to realize that spending time with family and friends was important, especially at the holidays, and that they needed to partic.i.p.ate in those gatherings together, as a couple. She wanted him to see what happened when someone simply checked out.

Let the Carols and Jerris of the world shake their heads, but at her house, the strike had to continue, no matter what people thought. And if they thought she was enjoying this they were nuts. Proving a point was sucking all the fun out of her favorite time of year. Picketing was the pits.

"Have you seen the letters to the editor?" Bob asked the next morning, handing Joy the paper. She set aside the recipe clippings she'd been sorting through and took it and began to read.

Dear Editor, Hats off to Joy Robertson for her brave stand. It's about time women shook off the shackles of holiday planning and gave the men something more to do than eating cookies and making a run to the store on Christmas Eve. Count me in.

Erna Johnson "I'm surprised you were able to convince your mom to go in on this," Bob said, sounding half-accusing.

"You're not nearly as surprised as me," Joy said. "I didn't recruit her, believe me."

"She could have at least mentioned that men put up the Christmas lights," Bob said in disgust. "I don't know a single woman who does that. You've opened Pandora's box," he added in a voice of doom.

Joy envisioned all manner of cackling, little gremlins hopping out of a big, beribboned box. She could see them rushing in front doors and hopping down chimneys, all the while screeching, "Joy Robertson sent us. Ha, ha, ha, ha." Don't be ridiculous, she told herself. "I refuse to feel guilty," she said, more for her benefit than Bob's. She peeled off her sweater and turned her attention back to the paper.

The letters-to-the-editor page was crammed. It seemed everyone in Holly had an opinion about the strike.

Dear Editor, I'm positively inspired by this strike. These women are brave and Joy Robertson is a genius.

Susan Steinham Johnson Cute, Suki. Had everyone in her family written to the paper?

Dear Editor, A strike at this time of the year hardly matches Holly's wonderful Christmas spirit, and I'm sorry to see the paper encouraging it with so much publicity.

Sincerely,

Beth Samuelson

Big shock that the owner of The Pantry, a popular kitchen shop in town, would be down on the strike. Every year Beth Samuelson gave cla.s.ses on how to make the perfect gingerbread house, then displayed her students' art work in her store window. She also sold a ton of gingerbread housebuilding materials. No ulterior motive in that letter, huh, Beth?

Dear Editor, My wife has joined the strike and now I'm in charge. How about getting your food editor to put some Cookies for Dummies recipes in the paper this weekend?

Glen Fredericks Poor Glen. Joy almost felt sorry for the guy. Almost.