Slightly Settled. Wendy Markham

going to get there when it starts, and I’m going to have a helluva good time.

      Just watch me.

      “Hold the elevator!” a voice calls.

      I half expect Susan to reach for the Door Close button, but she doesn’t. Nor does she hit Door Open as they begin to slide closed, even though the button is like, two inches from her claw.

      I wedge my shoulder between the doors to hold them for whoever is rushing toward the elevator, heels tapping hurriedly along the floor, accompanied by an odd jingling sound.

      When I see who it is, I almost wish I’d let the doors close.

      “Hi, Mary,” I say, as she steps on board with a huge, panting sigh of relief.

      “Hi, Tracey,” she trills. “Hi, Sue.”

      I get the impression Susan doesn’t appreciate being called Sue.

      Mary Kohl doesn’t seem to get this impression, or any impressions at all. She’s too busy plucking an oversized round jingle bell from the crevice between her oversized round boobs. The bell is suspended around her jowly neck on a red cord and festooned with sprigs of plastic holly.

      If I were sharing this elevator with anybody but wenchy Susan, I might be inclined to turn and share an eye-roll with them. Mary, who is an administrative assistant in our department, is easily the most annoying human being of all time. In fact, if this elevator happens to get stuck between floors, as elevators in this building have been known to do, I’m going to find myself wishing I carried cyanide capsules in my pockets like the astronauts do.

      Mary presses her floor with a chubby forefinger, and the doors slide closed with the finality of clanking steel bars on death row.

      “Did we all sign up for Secret Snowflake?” Mary wants to know.

      She wants to know this in the chirpiest voice ever. Think Baby Bop on helium.

      I sort of smile and shake my head.

      Susan plays deaf and dumb.

      “Uh-oh.” Mary shakes her head sadly, her jingle bell jangling noisily from boob to boob. “Didn’t everyone hear that Secret Snowflake is mandatory this year?”

      I murmur something about it being news to me, although I knew damn well. Who could miss the bright red memo Mary sent out on December first? She signed it with her name spelled Merry, and requested that we all use this spelling for the duration of the season.

      “You’re kidding! Didn’t you get the memo?”

      “I guess not,” I tell Mary, as Helen Keller pointedly ignores both of us.

      “Not only is Secret Snowflake mandatory, but I’m matching up the names on Monday,” Mary informs us. “So you’ll both need to sign up by the end of today. Okay?”

      “Okay,” I agree, because mandatory is mandatory.

      “Great! Sue?”

      “What the fuck is a Secret Snowflake?” Susan barks, just before the elevator bumps to a stop.

      “Oh, it’s really fun. It’s where the whole department picks names and we all—”

      Too late.

      Susan has fled. This wasn’t even her floor. A bike messenger steps on board.

      “Happy holidays!” Mary chirps at him.

      He glares at her, clearly wondering who died and made her Mrs. Claus.

      Unfazed, Mary turns to me and breezily resumes her Secret Snowflake monologue. “Anyhoo, we all pick names and then buy a gift for our Secret Snowflake each day for a whole week. The following week, we have the luncheon and find out who our Snowflake was. It’s just a blast.”

      I smile and nod at Mary, thinking she really needs…what? A life? Some serious counseling? To be smacked upside of the head?

      Um, how about all of the above?

      Okay, maybe I’m just being mean. Maybe the whole New York attitude has gotten to me at last and I’m too jaded. Maybe I could use a little of Mary’s childlike Christmas spirit. Maybe we all could.

      I look at her, taking in the jingle bell, the mistletoe earrings, the sprig of holly tucked into her graying bun.

      The woman is a freak. That’s all there is to it.

      “Going to the party on Saturday, Tracey?” she asks.

      “I wouldn’t miss it,” I say truthfully. “How about you?”

      “Oh, I’ll be there with bells on!”

      Right.

      I find myself picturing her hitched to Santa’s sleigh. On, Dasher, On, Dancer, On, Mary. Er, Merry.

      The thing is, I might be jaded, but I’ll take that any day over terminally cute and festive, and not just at this time of year.

      Mary decorates her cubicle—and her person—seasonally. I heard she actually showed up decked out as a leprechaun last Saint Patrick’s Day, and in a witch costume on Halloween. Mercifully, I wasn’t here for either of those events. I was, however, forced to participate when she organized a Thanksgiving feast last month, where we all had to bring something. I brought canned cranberry sauce. The crummy Key Food store brand kind. Mary brought pies she made from scratch using sugar pumpkins she grew on her fire escape.

      It’s like she’s embraced her inner preschool teacher, corporate decorum be damned. Reportedly, upper management thinks she’s fun and boosts morale. The rest of us think she’s a pain in the ass, but the rest of us don’t count. We just have to make like pilgrims and Secret Snowflakes, and come February, she’ll probably have us all making construction paper hearts and tramping through the woods to cut down cherry trees.

      The elevator stops at my floor.

      “Don’t forget to sign up before you leave tonight,” Mary calls after me as I step out into the empty corridor.

      I suppose I should be looking forward to the whole Secret Snowflake thing. At least somebody will be buying me Christmas presents. Not that a shrink-wrapped drugstore coffee mug filled with hard candies in shiny red wrappers can compete with boyfriend baubles.

      From someone other than Will, that is—he was as stingy with his baubles as he was with his affection.

      As I wave my card key in front of the sensor beside the locked glass doors leading to the floor reception area, I find myself wondering what it would be like to be showered with gifts from somebody who is head over heels in love with me.

      Will I ever find out?

      Wah. I want to find out. I want baubles and happily-ever-after, dammit.

      “Hi, Tracey,” Lydia, the hugely pregnant receptionist, says from her desk, where she’s reading today’s Newsday. “Going to the office party?”

      “Definitely. Are you?”

      She laughs. “If I’m not in labor. Are you bringing a date?”

      “Nope.”

      Is it my imagination, or is that pity in her mascara-fringed eyes?

      Look, I know I’m not supposed to go through life obsessed with finding Mr. Right. I’m not supposed to feel inadequate because I’m single; I’m not supposed to need a man.

      I’m supposed to be an independent woman who can stand on her own; a woman with a promising career and cultural interests and plenty of good friends.

      I’m supposed to be like Murphy Brown, Mary Richards, Elaine Benes. I’m suppose to make it after all—a hat-tossing single woman in the city, confident and savvy and solo. Or does that just happen on television sitcoms? Old, outdated television sitcoms?

      As I make my way down the hall toward accounts payable, I decide there is a certain irony in the fact that I’m