Holiday for HIre(23)

Of any season, really; after a tough day in May she had been occasionally known to throw it on and pretend snow was on the way .

With the fire blazing, her hot chocolate topped off with bourbon and her grandmother’s Christmas shawl wrapped around her, Jane cozied up on the couch and got lost in the story. Even though she could practically quote the whole thing from heart, she viewed it this time with fresh eyes, dedicating herself fully to the world on the screen so she wouldn’t have to think anymore about Ian and the pain in her chest .

As she often did when she was alone, Jane provided her own commentary while she watched. She used to focus the conversation toward Fluffy. But since the passing of her dear cat, she hadn’t broken the habit .

“What’s with the way they talked in movies back then?” she asked the empty room, early on the show. Did people really talk like that? She’d remembered a documentary once where they explained that actors of that generation took on a mid-Atlantic accent. It had seemed silly to her. Why couldn’t people just talk the way they talked? Jimmy Stewart, the star of the movie, she noticed, didn’t assume any affectation. He spoke in his natural, rural-Pennsylvanian dialect, sounding the same both onscreen and in interviews she’d seen of him .

She liked it. Liked his unencumbered manner of speaking. “It makes him seem warmer. More personable. Kind of like Ian’s Southie accent,” she added, guiltily .

That was different, though. Wasn’t it ?

His dialect had mattered. Because it informed people where he’d grown up, but maybe she’d been too hard on him about it. She actually liked the sound of his voice. The distinctive low vowels. The obvious dental stops. It was charming, actually. Very him . She could have let that go more than she had in her training sessions .

At least he didn’t speak crassly or with vulgarity, and certainly successful people came from the South side too .

And maybe that hadn’t been as big of a deal as she’d made it either, the successful bit. No one seemed to care that Blake Donovan was marrying a nobody. So would it really have been an issue if Jane Osborne had brought a nobody as her date ?

Not that Ian was a nobody. He was definitely a somebody, a man she admired very much. He’d given up his own college dreams to come home and care for his family. Wasn’t that commendable ?

“Just like George,” she remarked, seeing the parallel between Ian and the character on the screen. That was a good thing about George, sacrificing his own career for his brother’s happiness. It was a good thing about Ian too .

Perhaps she should have told him .

“It’s neither here nor there at this point,” she muttered, taking a full swallow of her cocoa. But even as she dismissed it, the thought pinched at her, making her uncomfortable no matter how she positioned herself. Like she had shingles, but on the inside .

Maybe she could send him a card? Something really nice. Or would that be rubbing it in? Perhaps just a simple Hallmark would be the thing. A quick apology, and she’d be feeling right as rain again. It could even include his final check, just as a gesture of good faith, even if he wasn’t going to attend the wedding .

Only, the plan didn’t give her the immediate sense of relief she’d thought it would .

As she always did, she blubbered when the movie reached the end. It had such a timeless theme that hit her deep in the chest. But this time it seemed even more poignant than usual. She thought about the meaning, thought about how George learned that his life couldn’t be measured by his standing in society, but by the people he’d loved .

Wasn’t that so perfectly beautiful ?

Wait.

Oh, no .

She sat forward on the couch. “Oh, no, oh, no. Oh. No .”

She was such a hypocrite. Such a big fat whimpering hypocrite .

She’d embraced and loved this movie for as long as she could remember, and yet she had never thought about applying the message to her own life. There’d been no need. She’d been happy as she was, with her lifestyle and her class. She’d never had to examine whether she’d be happy with herself if those were missing. Her abundant trust fund ensured she’d never have to .

But now, because of Ian, she found herself at a crossroads. Either she believed that social status really didn’t matter, or she thought that It’s a Wonderful Life and its message was just a pile of reindeer doo-doo. The latter provided its own enigma, because no one with refined taste would ever equate the Capra classic to a bunch of crap .

Money and stature weren’t important. She knew that, deep in her heart. She also knew that her life didn’t reflect this fact .

Yep, she was a big fat hypocrite .

“Well, then,” she said. Because what else does a person say when she’s made to face her greatest flaw? Now she had to decide whether she wanted to do anything about it .

She looked around her beautifully decorated home, then looked down at herself in PJs drinking alone on the eve of Christmas Eve. She was pathetic and miserable, and maybe that wouldn’t change much even if she shifted her priorities, but there was also a chance it would. As Ian had pointed out, Parker Winthrop had already said that this year’s party had been the best Jane had ever had. She must have meant it, too, because she repeated it on Facebook the next day. Jane had originally assumed it was sarcastic, but now . . .

She might win even more people’s favor if she tried less to obtain it .