The meal that evening was fantastic, and Janet was pleased with how well it turned out. The turkey wasn’t even dry, the stuffing was great, and all of her side dishes were perfect. The four men sat at the table, each one with his chair pushed back, a content smile on his face. “Y’all look so full, I don’t imagine y’all would want some pumpkin pie to top it off with. Such a shame, I’ll just cover ‘em up and stick ‘em in the fridge…”
“No!” they all protested. She smiled. Lovingly she cut a piece for each man, sitting it in front of him before bouncing a dollop of cool whip on top. “I’m glad y’all ate up so much of it. Left overs from Christmas get old awful fast.”
Smiling, Janet watched as they swallowed their food quickly, then shooed them into the living room so she could do dishes and put everything up. “Now don’t y’all worry,” she assured them, “I’ll get this done and y’all can watch the tube.”
“Just think,” Zach laughed, “she has to do this again come Christmas eve or Christmas day. I told y’all she’d spoil you. My sister is a great cook!”
Arching an eyebrow, Janet shook her head. “No I won’t,” she called out, “I got to work on those days. This was your Christmas dinner. But you don’t your presents until I get off work Christmas night.”
“What time is that?” Zach asked.
“Whenever I get done keying in the stuff. Holidays don’t stop the shipping company, and since the secretary has taken off I got extra duty to pull to get in some more hours and make a bigger paycheck.”
Growing quiet, she went to finish the dishes. Janet smiled as she heard the men rough housing and teasing each other, the booming laughter warming her heart. It had been too quiet with Zach gone. She figured it would only be a couple of hours before his friends from around town showed up. Janet also figured they would all be drunk by morning, and hung over all day. Luckily she would be off to take care of them, but after that work started again. She got a week’s vacation after Christmas, though.
“Don’t you break nothin’!” she yelled through the house, shaking her head as she piled the dishes into the sink. It was nice to have them at her house, and it was nice for it to not be so lonely and deathly quiet, but it was obviously going to have it’s consequences. The more she had looked into the eyes of those boys, the more she knew it, and the more her heart twisted into knots.
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