Mistletoe Madness

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Abigail spent the first day in tears. The second day she wallowed in self-pity and frustration. The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth day she toiled away, desperately searching for freelance gigs online. And on the seventh day, December 1st, Abigail started packing up her apartment.

Getting fired had come as a shock. Getting fired immediately after Thanksgiving ended a year that had started off tentatively bad and looked like it was ending bang on horrible.

She began the year with a break up from her on-again, off-again, never committing boyfriend. If you could really call him that. Then she'd been demoted to part-time in her position as a contract graphic designer for a mid-level, sometimes sleazy marketing firm. In the middle of the summer her unofficial roommate had moved out to get married to an attractive and successful engineer she'd met online. Leaving Abigail to shoulder rent and utility payments by herself on her part-time salary.

In an attempt to do something positive, Abigail had planned a two week trip home to see her parents and brother for the Christmas season. Graphic design work was notoriously slow around that time of year. Companies were usually focusing on getting through the holidays before they started big, new projects at the beginning of the year. But when she brought up her upcoming time off during a Skype meeting the weekend after Thanksgiving break, her supervisor, Jennifer, surprised her with an out of the blue announcement.

"Actually, Abby, I have some unfortunate news."

Abigail hated to be called 'Abby', but nobody at this virtual job had ever gotten that memo.

"Oh, what's the news?" Abigail asked, innocent for a few more moments that her life was about to be completely dismantled.

"I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but we don't need your services anymore," Jennifer's two dimensional face said, watching with a mixture of authority and sympathy from Abigail's computer screen.

A few beats went by as Abigail's brain processed the information. Then her mouth dropped open and her already long and thin nose pinched together at the top with what could only be described as an expression of anguish. Blotches of red climbed from her pale neck to her pale cheeks. She looked like one of the angry birds from that game, the red one, except with an out of control, curly mop of dark hair that bordered on frizzy. Her mouth opened and closed several times as she tried to think of a response, giving her the appearance of a dying, blotchy, outraged fish.

Abigail knew without doubt that's what she looked like, because she could see her face in the small square at the bottom right of her computer screen. Courtesy of Skype.

"I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news," Jennifer said, alarmed at Abigail's reaction. "The company is moving in a different direction and we just can't justify the expense of another graphic designer."

In retrospect, Abigail wished she'd had the wherewithal to click her computer camera to the off position. That would at least have prevented Jennifer from seeing her cry.

"Abby?" Jennifer's natural style and grace was having a hard time not reacting to Abigail's crumpled, tragic image, which was full screen on her end, Abigail remembered later with much embarrassment. "Are you all right?"

"No," Abigail managed. "I'm not!"

That's when she dropped her face into her hands and wept, rather uncontrollably. She tried to stop crying so she could leave with at least a shred of dignity, or at least give Jennifer a piece of her mind with some scathing exit commentary.

Neither of those things happened, however. Abigail just kept bawling into her hands, her face getting redder and her nose filling with snot until she reached out blindly and found the mouse on her desk. Abigail glanced up briefly to make sure she clicked on the End Call button. She saw Jennifer's shocked and uncomfortable face for one horrible moment before it disappeared from her computer monitor forever.

She was out. Fired. Done.

The humiliation turned to fear turned to shock turned to anger, then back to humiliation, and the whole process started again. She'd never been fired before. It was not something she knew how to deal with or something she was prepared to handle. Emotionally or financially.

Her meager savings had burned up covering full rent since her roommate left. She'd been considering asking her parents for a small loan to help out until she could either pick up more work or find a new roommate. That wasn't the main reason she was going home for the holiday, but it had been on her mind. She couldn't ask them to cover her expenses completely, though. That was too much. She was a grown woman, after all. Fully capable of paying her own way in life, usually.

Then there was the unfortunate timing of her lease ending on December 5th. There was no way her dusty old landlord was going to renew a lease with her if she didn't have a job. He wasn't that kind of landlord. The nice kind. He'd never liked her much, anyway, but he was fastidious about doing a full review of all tenant's financial circumstances before signing any paperwork. Even tenants who had lived there for six years.

For several days following her Skype dismissal Abigail experienced bouts of anger. She would rail at the empty room around her the way she wished she would have railed at Jennifer when she let her go, or Tom when they broke up. She found that it didn't matter how recent the wrong, she was angry at anyone and everyone who she harbored any resentment towards. Nobody was immune from becoming the unknowing victim of her verbal outrage.

"Moving in a new direction? Could that new direction possibly be overseas where you can hire a graphic designer for $5 an hour instead of $30? Would that be the direction this company is moving, Jennifer?" Abigail practically shouted at her kitchen cupboards as she was looking for potato chips or cookies or any kind of junk food she could use to assuage her disappointment.

Then, when she ran out of groceries, "Can't take time off work to go out, Tom? Really? I saw you out two nights ago on i********:. Who was that red head you were with, Tom? Would it really be that difficult to call or text and invite me to go with you? And on that note, when was the last time you called or texted me first? When, Tom?" Abigail whispered intensely to herself as she walked through the grocery store buying Ramen soup and eggs to get by for the next few days on next to no cash.

Being a contract worker meant she billed on Saturday for all of the work she'd done that week and was paid the following Wednesday. With Thanksgiving being a slow week, Abigail barely had enough money in her last paycheck to pay for gas to drive to her parent's house, let alone groceries.

In retrospect, it really had been a horrible job. No benefits, no vacation or sick time, high expectations for less and less billable hours. She wasn't even sure she liked doing graphic design anymore. Dealing with clients was always stressful and often infuriating.

"Honey, why don't you just come home for Christmas then stay with us for a while?" Her Mom had asked when Abigail called with the news.

"I don't want to impose," she answered miserably.

"What, impose?" Her Mother scoffed at the idea, "Zeke only moved out three years ago. Do you think him living here all that time was an imposition?"

Yes, that's exactly what Abigail thought, but she didn't dare say it to her mother.

"What's going on?" She heard her father's distant voice over the phone. He was asking her mother to explain their conversation. When she called her parent's house, she never only spoke to one of them.

"It's Abigail, she's coming home to live with us for a while," her mother explained to her father, her voice a little dimmer because she had loosely covered the mouthpiece with her hand.

"Leaving the big city?" Her father asked, surprised.

"She lost her job," her mother's voice had become a hissing whisper, yet Abigail could still make out every word.

"Oh, that's a shame," her Dad answered. "Tell her to come on home. Zeke's apartment is empty."

Zeke was short for Ezekiel, her older brother by just one year. Zeke had dropped out of college midway and ended up living back at home until he figured out what he wanted to do when he grew up, which was apparently own a used book store. Three years ago he bought a run down old building in the run down old part of their home town and opened a used book store and coffee shop called The Thinking Bean. Then he moved into the tiny upstairs apartment above this fine establishment and left his basement apartment their parents had remodeled for him empty.

"Did you hear that, honey?" Her Mom asked. "Come home. Zeke's apartment is empty."

"Yes, I heard," Abigail answered. Despite her best efforts, she could tell she was going to cry.

Leaving most of her furniture behind wasn't too difficult. Much of it had been thrift store purchases or left behind by her roommate who'd moved on to a posher existence when the married her engineer. She packed only her most precious possessions, which included many, many books, into her modest hatchback. Once she included her dishes, her clothes, her bedding, a couple plants she'd managed to keep alive over the years, her computer, and the few pieces of artwork that she actually liked, her car was loaded top to bottom. She couldn't even see out her rear view mirror.

As torn up as she'd been about losing her job and not being able to find a new one fast enough to stay in her apartment, she had to admit she felt a little relieved when she pulled out of her assigned parking space and dropped the keys into the landlord's mailbox. She couldn't comfortably afford this place by herself, even at a full time salary. And she'd learned a few things. She knew now that she wasn't really cut out for roommates. She was a loner. She also knew that she needed to find a better job, a company job maybe, someplace that would value her creativity and pay her accordingly.

Abigail pulled onto the highway and headed southwest. It would take her 17 hours to drive to Pitkin Point, home of her family and all of her teenage angst. A place she swore she would never return to live unless she could build the biggest house in town and ride around in a limousine all day. This wasn't quite the homecoming she'd fantasized about. Without enough money to even spend on a hotel to break up the drive, she was planning on stopping occasionally in busy parking lots and napping in her car if she got tired. Asking her parents for help with money right now seemed like too much. They were already going to put her up.

She had that much to be thankful for and she refused to worry right now over the dissatisfaction and unpopularity of her youth. So she wasn't coming home as some rich man's wife or a famous artist or movie star. She was lucky to have a welcoming place to go in order to regroup and get her life in order. There was no way it was going to take longer than a few months before she was gone again. She could handle that.

Realizing that she'd forgotten her phone in the bottom of her purse, which was nestled safe and completely out of reach behind her seat, she turned on the radio. Christmas music. She'd all but forgotten about Christmas after everything she'd just went through. A new wave of irritation rippled through her at the cold and inconsiderate way she'd been let go right before Christmas. Was she really surprised? That place had never treated her with much respect, they used her and threw her away on a whim, without ever truly offering her anything substantial.

Suddenly, Tom's face flashed through her mind. Abigail had to chuckle at a realization that came to her just as she was passing the highway sign telling her it was 46 miles to Springfield. The parallels between her ex-boyfriend, Tom, and the horrible job she'd just lost were eerie. Each of them kept her around just enough to restrict her ability to look for something better, in boyfriends and in jobs. She remained in a continual holding pattern around both of them, waiting, watching, and never allowed to either land and be safe on the ground or fly away to greener pastures.

"Good riddance," Abigail said out loud.

She decided right there and then that this would mark a new moment in her life, one free of settling for anything less than what she truly wanted and deserved. In work or in love. Happy with her decision, she turned up the radio. 'Jingle Bell Rock' was playing and Abigail sang along, only 16 hours and 40 minutes left until she was home for Christmas.