Page 3 of A Cozy Holiday
He tries to grab me again, but I run around him and swing open the bedroom terrace door. When the late-November cold hits my face, I feel free.
Parker scrambles to pick up his fallen clothes from the bedroom floor as I heave the full trash bag up and over the iron railing of the balcony. I peer over, watching it land on top of his Mustang with a satisfying thud. The car alarm blares. The people on the street don’t even look up, too lost in their own drama.
“You’re crazy!” he screams.
“Oh, I’m crazy now?” I flash my teeth. “Is this feeling enough for you, Parker? Am I freezing the joy out of your life right now?”
“Joy, we can figure things out. I can teach you how to cry.”
“Teach me!Just like you teach fucking finance bros how to get dates in New York on your stupid podcast?”
“You said you liked my podcast.”
“I lied!” I slam the balcony door shut, then head for the living room.
“But what about Cabo?” he whines like a dog behind me. “Let’s go and figure out where we went wrong.”
“The only thing I did wrong was book nonrefundable tickets!” I march to the front door, and I pick up his stupid prized basketball—a game-winning ball from his last season at the Nets. He kisses it every time he leaves.
“Joy!” he shrieks. “What are you doing?”
“Ho, ho, ho.” I chuck the ball into the hallway. It thuds against Mrs. Lewis’s door, and Parker scrambles after it, his bare ass jiggling.
I slam the door and lock it. Then latch the deadbolt.
“This is my place!” Parker bangs on the door. “Where the hell am I supposed to go?”
“Mount Crumpit, for all I fucking care.”
He curses under his breath before muttering something to Mrs. Lewis, our busybody seventy-year-old neighbor.
“I’m coming back tomorrow, Joy,” he hisses through the door.
Energy courses through my veins. I should feel triumphant, but instead I’m wondering why I sold my place six months ago to move in with Parker like a total dumbass.
“Miriam, he cheated on me,”I complain into my phone.
“And you’re still athisapartment?” Miriam asks for the third time.
More accurately, I’m slumped over on Parker’s couch with my nan’s blanket. “I have nowhere else to go.”
“You could go to my place in New Jersey.”
“New Jersey, Miriam, really?”
“I know you hate me now, but I promise you, give it a month and you’ll be begging not to come back to the clinic. Just go to Cabo alone.”
“I hate the sun.”
“Okay, then go to the snow.”
“Where am I supposed to find a place?”
“Joy, honey. I love you. But you need to put yourself first for once. Unless you want to end up like me with four failed marriages and an encyclopedic knowledge of anal glands.”
“But you’re the best vet in the city.”
“And the loneliest,” she replies. “And before you get any ideas, I told every clinic in Manhattan not to hire you. Don’t even bother calling around.”
