Candy Cane Murder (Hannah Swensen #9.5)(49)

hand, would never dream of letting me call them by their first names. I was practically in college before I even knew their real names weren’t “Mommy” and “Daddy.”) “We’re going skiing!” Kandi gushed. “In Aspen.”

“Do you even know how to ski?”

“Well, no,” she admitted, “but it doesn’t matter. I can fake it.”

“Kandi, I don’t think you can fake skiing.”

“We’ll take lessons. It’ll be fun!”

She grinned at me over her margarita, and suddenly I was flooded with envy.

Kandi would have fun. I could just picture her sipping hot toddies by a roaring fire, flirting with a cute ski instructor, while I was sipping Metamucil at the Tampa Vistas clubhouse, listening to my father and Uncle Ed fight over who won at shuffleboard.

By now our basket of chips was empty (final score: Jaine, 17; Kandi, 11?2), and I was happy to see our waiter approaching with our main courses. I’d debated between the low-cal chicken tostada and a simple grilled mahi mahi. It was an interesting debate. But in the end I went with two deep-fried chimichangas smothered with sour cream.

Kandi, as always, ordered the chicken tostada. Which is why she’s an enviable size six—on a fat day.

I speared a hunk of guacamole from the top of my chimichanga. Yum!

“So where are you off to for Christmas?” Kandi asked, ignoring her tostada, although how anyone can ignore their dinner—even something as boring as a tostada—is beyond me. “Florida again?”

I nodded wearily.

“What are you going to do with Prozac? You’re not taking her with you, are you?”

Once again, I nodded.

“You’ve got to be crazy. Didn’t the airline threaten some kind of lawsuit last year?”

THE DANGERS OF CANDY CANES

173

“Yes, but they never went through with it.”

There’s no doubt about it. Flying with Prozac is as close as you can get to hell without actually dying. Last year, she yowled nonstop for thirty minutes until the flight attendant broke down and brought her a first class meal.

She invariably manages to escape from her carrier and makes a beeline down the aisle for the one person on board violently allergic to cats. Last Christmas, Prozac’s victim was not only allergic, but terrified of cats, and ran headlong into an oncoming beverage cart, knocking a carafe of very bad coffee into the lap of a nearby passenger. Hence the threatened lawsuit.

“I still don’t see why you can’t leave her home and have someone come in and feed her,” Kandi said.

“Last time I tried that, I came back to find kitty pee on every pillow in my apartment. I was lucky I still had an apartment.”

“Can’t you leave her in a kennel?”

“I’m still paying off the medical bills from the last place she stayed. How she managed to bite her way through that kennel attendant’s work gloves, I’ll never know. But the poor guy had to be rushed to the emergency room for stiches. Anyhow, I can never go back there again. I’d be violating the restraining order.”

Kandi shook her head in disbelief.

“Someday I’m gonna see that cat on America’s Most Wanted.”

We plowed through our meals (well, I plowed; Kandi plucked), and as Kandi chattered about her nifty new ski togs and the chalet she and her parents had rented, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for myself. For once I’d like to spend Christmas with my parents, just the three of us. A nice quiet Christmas, sleeping in the guest room, free from invidious comparisons to my bikini-clad cousin Joanie.

Oh, well. I couldn’t let myself wallow in self pity. So I did 174

Laura Levine

what I always do when I’m feeling sorry for myself: I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and ordered dessert.

I woke up the next morning still in a funk about my trip to Florida.

As I lay in bed, I thought of Kandi enjoying an elegant candlelit dinner with her parents while I sat watching Uncle Ed pick Christmas turkey from his teeth with a matchstick.

But there was nothing I could do about it. Like it or not, I was stuck at Tampa Vistas for the holidays. Hauling myself out of bed, I shoved all thoughts of Florida to that dusty corner of my mind reserved for unpaid bills and tax estimates.

After a nutritious breakfast of Paco’s leftovers, I hunkered down on the living room sofa with the morning paper.

A headline in the Calendar section caught my eye.

GIRLFRIENDS CHANGE LIVES

I read the article with interest. It was about a volunteer organization called L.A. Girlfriends, founded by a nun named Sister Mary Agnes, where women volunteered to become mentors to motherless girls. It was a touching story, filled with heartwarming tales of women like me who’d managed to make a difference in the life of a young girl.

And suddenly I felt ashamed. Big time. I bet Sister Mary Agnes wasn’t sitting around feeling sorry for herself. No, Sister Mary Agnes was out there, doing good in the world. It was high time I forgot my petty discontents, and did something noble with my life.

“I’m so ashamed of myself,” I said to Prozac, who was curled up next to me on the sofa.

You should be. You haven’t scratched my back for a whole six minutes.

“But that’s all going to change. I’m going to forget about my trivial cares, and do something worthwhile.”