"And they'll also think I consider you a great cook because I suggested hiring a caterer."

"That's why that was in there?" How stupid did he think she was?

He shrugged. "Just trying to be nice."

"You're not trying to be nice. You're not taking any of this seriously. I was really trying to prove a point and you're making a joke out of all of it." Joy's voice was turning wobbly on her now and she could feel tears rising to the surface. They came so easily these days. She dumped the socks in the laundry basket, then headed for the laundry room.

"Come on, hon, don't cry. Maybe I'm trying to prove a point, too," Bob called after her.

Oh, how like him to try and turn the tables! She whirled around. "What? That you can be a complete beast when you want to be? Well, you're doing a really good job of it."

He was being deliberately mulish, refusing to see the point of why she was doing this, refusing to care about her feelings or their future together. No, worse than that, he was mocking her.

Forget the laundry, she decided. She grabbed her purse and car keys and cell phone and marched for the front door.

Bob fell in step behind her. "Come on, now. Don't go away mad."

"Too late for that," she shot back and yanked open the front door.

"Where are you going, to your mother's?"

"No. You're turning me into a chocoholic and right now I need a good stiff mocha if I'm going to make it through the morning."

Glen woke up only slightly hung over. Laura's side of the bed was empty. No surprise there. It was always empty the day after a party. She hated to let the house stay dirty and usually had all the party remains picked up and the dishes washed by the time he surfaced.

Not today, though. Glen made his way through a living room littered with gla.s.ses and beer cans and napkins and plates with bits of cookie on them. The coffee table was covered with chip crumbs. The kitchen was no better. Bottles and cans sat everywhere, and the dishes from dinner were still in the sink.

Laura was already dressed and sitting at the kitchen table, reading the paper. She smiled at him. "It's about time you got up. I was just about to come in and wake you."

He leaned over and kissed her and caught a whiff of leftover perfume. "Yeah? I can go back to bed," he offered, and took a nip of her ear.

She wiggled away. "You snooze, you lose. Anyway, I'm leaving in a few minutes to meet Joy."

"You guys planning to picket somebody?"

"We might picket you if you don't watch it," she teased.

"Ha, ha." Glen looked over to the family room where the kids sat huddled in blankets, watching Sat.u.r.day morning cartoons. "I don't suppose you're taking the kids."

She gave him a condescending wife look. "What do you think?"

He scratched the back of his neck. "I think I'm stuck."

"Maybe they'll help you clean. Also, you need to bake more cookies. And no cheating this time," she added, shaking a playful finger at him.

"Cheating!" He tried to look innocent.

"You heard me. Oh, and you should probably start on Amy's costumes. Don't forget, her school program is this week."

This holiday thing was like being in the ring with Evander Hollyfield. You barely survived one hit when another one came at you from out of nowhere. "Where's the Excedrin?" Glen moaned, and plopped down at the table.

Laura poured him a cup of coffee. "Here. This will make you feel better." She looked at her watch. "Oops, gotta go. I'm sure you'll have the house looking great by the time I come back." She gave him a peck on the cheek, then was gone, leaving only a hint of perfume behind for comfort.

"Thanks," he muttered, and pulled the paper across the table.

The Living section had another blurb on the strike. Glen looked at it and frowned. He hoped Laura hadn't made some secret arrangement to bring that reporter and her photographer over to chronicle this after-party mess. If they showed up, he wouldn't answer the door.

That problem solved, he began to read the story. It looked like Bob Robertson had a good handle on this strike thing. Glen checked out Bob's cookie recipe. Now, there was a recipe he could handle. They'd go to the store and get some graham crackers and frosting after he got the house cleaned up. But what about the costumes? Bob's words came back to him. Hire scabs.

Glen called his mother. "Mom, I need help."

Fifteen.

Laura and Joy sat sipping mochas at a table in the Winter Wonderland Cafe that had been set up alongside the small, downtown outdoor skating rink the Rotary Club had created for the Hollydays celebration. Laura studied Joy as she watched sweater-clad skaters gliding by in rhythm to the canned holiday music and let out a long, frosty breath.

"This feels good," Joy said. "I needed to cool off."

"Somehow, I get the feeling you're not talking about hot flashes."

Joy frowned. "No, Bob flashes. Nothing's going the way I thought it would. I really wanted to make a point, you know. And instead of taking me seriously, what does he do? He appoints himself the leader of the opposition. I've already gone through two bags of Hershey's Chocolate Mint Kisses. At this rate, by January first I'll be the New Year Blimp." She sighed and looked out at the skaters. "They make it look so easy, don't they?" A woman practicing some fancy move at the center of the rink miscalculated and went down. Joy winced. "Youch."

"Don't give up," Laura said. "This was a good idea."

"Well, I'm glad it seems to be working for you, anyway," Joy said. "And thanks for meeting me."

"Any time. Just remember what Sharon says: You have to stay strong."

"Sharon is not married to a criminal mastermind. It doesn't matter how strong I stay. Bob will just outsmart me at every turn." Her cell phone rang and she pulled it out of her purse. "Great, it's Mr. Mastermind himself." To Bob she said, "I'm still on a chocolate bender. Don't expect me home for a while."

Laura couldn't help smiling. If Bob was calling Joy on her cell, she had obviously managed to make him feel guilty. And that meant she was having more success than she realized.

Joy's eyes widened. "You're what?"

"He's what?" Laura pumped.

"You won't believe it," Joy told her. "I don't even believe it. Does this have anything to do with our discussion this morning?" she asked Bob. Her eyes began to twinkle. "You were already planning it, huh? No, no objections. I think that's great. So, why are doing this?" she added suspiciously. Then she made a face, filling Laura to the bursting point with curiosity over what was being said on the other end of the conversation. "Well, I'll just sit at your feet and learn then. See you in a little bit."

"Okay, what's going on?" Laura demanded as Joy snapped her phone shut.

"Bob has decided to throw a party tonight," Joy said with a triumphant smirk.

"You're kidding."

"He said he's been planning it for a while and wanted to surprise me."

Laura nodded sagely. "A long while. Like since this morning."

"Probably. Anyway, he's going to demonstrate how to plan a simple but great party."

"What does that mean?"

Joy shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine."

"At least you'll have a great dress to wear to it." Laura pointed to the shopping bag at Joy's feet.

"I hope it doesn't turn out to be a waste of a perfectly good dress," Joy said, and reached for her mug of hot chocolate.

"You never know. He might pull it off. Glen did."

"There's just one difference between your husband and mine," Joy said. "Glen likes parties."

"Yeah," Laura said, "and the messier the better. I'm hoping last night cured him."

"Could we transplant his brain into Bob? Please?"

Laura gave her an encouraging smile. "Poor Joy. But don't give up. Tonight might turn out to be fun. You seem to have a good time wherever you go. And who knows? Maybe it will even turn Bob into a party animal."

Joy gave her half a smile. "The only thing that would do that is hypnosis. But you're right. I'm sure it will be fun. Maybe. At least it will be better than nothing."

"Party on," Laura said, and saluted Joy with her mug.

Poor Joy, Laura thought later as she walked to her car. It must be hard to live with a husband who was such a party p.o.o.per. Maybe she should be a little more grateful for the fact that Glen was a social guy. And pretty darned mellow, too. He'd really risen to the impromptu party challenge, even if he did cheat on the cookies. In fact, so far he'd been a pretty good sport about having to do everything. And he wasn't trying to sabotage her at every turn like Bob was doing with Joy. Yes, she could have done worse.

All the way home she hummed with the radio, thinking of the little surprises she'd gotten to put under the tree just in case Glen screwed up and needed bailing out at the last minute. And she knew he'd love the little extra something she'd picked up at Femme Fatale.

But when she entered the living room, her smile flew South for the winter. The room was just as she'd left it. Oh, she was going to kill him!

She walked into the kitchen and got hit with the smell of burned toast. Glen had managed to take care of the dirty dishes from the night before, but new dishes had stepped in to take their place. The kitchen table was scattered with broken pieces of graham crackers and drops of dried frosting and frosting-coated knives. There was even frosting on the floor. In the middle of the table sat a plate of graham cracker sandwiches filled to overflowing with frosting. Glen had obviously read Bob's piece in the paper. So, when did the scabs arrive to clean this disaster?

Laura picked up a piece of paper covered in Glen's scrawl. "Don't worry, babe. I'll clean up the mess when I get back. We're at Mom's having a costume fitting."

So, he'd suckered his mom into helping him. That was fine with Laura. She didn't care as long as the job got done. And, speaking of jobs, Glen had better get home pretty soon and clean this place up. No way was she cooking dinner in a disaster kitchen.

She wandered into the family room. And that was when she saw the Santa pictures lying on the coffee table. She picked one up and stared at it. There were the kids in pajamas with the price tags sticking out. They wore deer antlers on their heads, crooked, of course, and Tyler was crying and red faced. Santa didn't look too happy, himself. He looked like a man who had just caught a whiff of dead skunk. Cute. Really cute. So, this was the "Night Before Christmas" theme Glen had said he went with? More like the Nightmare Before Christmas. Just who were they supposed to send these to?

She dropped the picture back on the coffee table in disgust. How hard was it to get a red dress and a red bow tie and put the kids on Santa's lap, for heaven's sake?

And what had he been doing all day that he managed to avoid cleaning the house? He could have cleaned before he went to his mother's. He was probably secretly hoping the mess would drive Laura so nuts that she'd give in and do it. Yeah, right. In his dreams.

Her earlier mellow mood vanished. No way was she going to stay here and look at this pigpen. She put away her surprises-Glen wouldn't be seeing anything from Femme Fatale tonight, not in the mood she was in now-then set the Christmas PEZ candy dispensers she'd brought home for the kids on the kitchen counter. They'd find them eventually in all the mess. She got her purse and headed for the front door.

She got there just as Glen and the kids were coming in. Tyler immediately reached for her and Glen handed him over and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Hey, babe."

"Mommy!" Amy cried. "I'm going to be an angel."

"You already are, doll baby," Laura told her, and bent to give her a kiss.

Glen held up a pizza box. "Got dinner."

"And a pig sty to eat it in. What did you do all day?"

He looked affronted. "Hey, I've never asked you that."

"You've never had to. The house never looked like this."

"Well, I'll have you know I've been busy. We got cookies made and then we went to Mom's. And don't worry. I'm gonna clean the kitchen."

"You've got that right. Meanwhile, maybe I'll go someplace where I don't have to look at this or think about those awful Santa pictures."

Glen's earnest expression melted into uh-oh wariness. "Oh. You saw those. Well, I can explain."

Laura held up a hand. "Please don't. I am getting out of here and going to a movie." She reached for the door.

"Awe, come on, babe," he protested.

"I want to come," said Amy.

"Sweetie, you've been out all day," Laura told her. But so had she, and she hadn't spent any time with the kids. "All right," she decided. "We'll all go to a movie. We'll go watch Frosty the Snowman up in Mommy's bed. How does that sound?"

"Yay!" cried Amy, and ran up the stairs.

"Yay!" Tyler echoed, and followed her.

Laura plucked the pizza box out of Glen's hands and started up after them.

"Hey, what about me?" he called after her.

"There are graham cracker cookies in the kitchen," she said, and kept walking. "You can nosh on those while you're cleaning up. If you're lucky, we'll save you a piece of pizza."

Bob was in the process of microwaving frozen chimichangas when Joy got home, "I made dinner."

It was a nice gesture. He was good at thoughtful gestures like that. Funny, how she was so good at forgetting the things he did right.

"Thanks," she said, guilt making her words stiff as meringue.

He studied her hopefully. "You still mad at me?"

They were having a party tonight. He was making some effort. And her hormones had settled down. "No."

He grinned. "Good."