Second Chances

'Tis The Damn Season

The waiter scurried from one table to the next as the bar began filling with the after-work crowd.

Haley swirled the ice in her glass. "You wanna do another one?"

Maddy looked out the window watching people lean into the wind-driven snow. "Nah. I think I'm gonna make my move before I fall asleep." 

"Thanks a lot."

"Work has been kicking my butt." She grabbed her coat then slipped her arms into the sleeves.

Haley raised an eyebrow. "So you got two guys who want a ride on the Maddy train."

Maddy shook her head while tying her scarf. "If you count the guy in the subway with the caterpillar eyebrows who stares at me when he's not talking to rats, that's three."

"Would it be such a bad thing if George was only using you for sex?"

"Excuse me?"

"Well, it's obvious he's not after you for your vast fortune."

"I danced with the guy. That hardly qualifies as sex."

"I'm just saying. If things heat up and he gets you into bed, or on the table, or in the shower, or on the stairs--"

"On the stairs?"

Haley shrugged. "I'm just asking. Would that be such a bad thing? I mean, the guy's gorgeous. Why shouldn't you?"

"Dignity."

"Dignity? Whose dignity?"

"Don't rush me."

"If it were me, and I had the choice between a night with George or maintaining my self-respect, are you kidding me?"

"Okay, you're making up wild scenarios. He's probably sleeping with supermodels. I'm just some average small-town girl who fell off a ladder and landed on him one night. As one does."

"Yeah, maybe."

Zipping up her coat, Maddy said, "On the stairs? Seriously? Wouldn't that hurt?"

"It would be fun to find out." Haley grinned.

"See you tomorrow."

........

Forty-five minutes later, Maddy sought shelter inside Chan's, the local Chinese restaurant. A customer at the counter turned up his coat collar, grabbed his take-out bag with gloved hands, and barged out into the cold evening air.

Waiting while the young woman in front of her placed her order, Maddy admired the meager Christmas decorations taped to the wall among Chinese dragons, paper lanterns, and yellowed menus.

"I'll do the General Tso's." The young lady squinted at the menu. "But I want that with noodles instead of rice."

"Okay," said the shopkeeper. "General Tso, no rice. Noodles instead."

"And could I get the chicken plain?"

"Plain chicken?"

"Without that sticky saucy stuff on it. You know?"

"You don't want the sauce?"

She grimaced and shook her head.

"Plain chicken and noodles," he said, writing down the order.

"Right. Nothing on the noodles, either. Just the noodles. And could I get the chicken in a separate cup, not on the noodles?"

Maddy made eye contact with the shopkeeper, rolling her eyes.

The shopkeeper cleared his throat. "So you want plain chicken in a cup and plain noodles. Is this to go?"

"Yeah. And do you have any cheese, like sprinkle cheese?"

"Sprinkle cheese?"

"Like you shake out of a container?"

"No. No cheese."

Maddy let out a long, slow sigh.

"Not even like little packets of sprinkle cheese?"

"No. No cheese."

"It's gonna be like so plain without the cheese."

........

Maddy pushed open the front door of her apartment building then stomped the snow off her boots on the entryway mat. She noticed that someone, perhaps the landlord, maybe a tenant, had hung an artificial wreath on the wall. A sprig of plastic holly lay on the floor beneath the wreath.

She shouldered her bag, drew a deep breath, then started up the staircase, Chinese takeout bag in hand.

At the third-floor landing, her senior neighbor peeked out from her apartment door. Maddy detected the unmistakable aroma of gingerbread leaking into the hallway.

"Baking cookies, Mrs. K?"

The door slammed shut followed by the all-too-familiar sound of multiple locks clicking and rattling. The first ten times Mrs. K slammed the door on her, Maddy took it personally. Now it was a normal part of the daily routine.

As she approached the fifth floor, Maddy tiptoed. Crossing the landing, a floorboard creaked. She stopped, holding her breath. She crept toward the next flight of stairs when the door swung open.

Dressed in a stained hoodie and camo shorts, Gary leered. "Such a lonely girl," he said, scratching his hairy legs. "The door's always open at Gary's place."

"Why don't you go inside and close it?" She scurried up the next flight.

The final three flights of stairs were always the worst. Her heavy winter coat and snow boots made the grueling climb to the eighth floor extra challenging. She forged onward, stumbling forward, resting her shoulder against the wall as she dug in her bag for the apartment keys. The smell of freshly-baked gingerbread followed her up the staircase. She filled her lungs with the fragrance before entering her apartment.

Maddy left a trail of boots, coat, glove, scarf, shoulder bag on the floor on her way to the coffee table where she dropped her keys and take-out bag, then plopped down onto the couch. She rested her hand on her chest, which rose and fell, her face flushed from exertion.

Finally, having caught her breath, she removed the take-out container from the bag, flipped open the lid, and clamped a floret of garlic broccoli with her chopsticks. She craved a drink of water but didn't have the energy to travel ten feet into the kitchen, so she dined at the coffee table beverage-less. Reviewing the events of the day, she skimmed through some old photos on her phone.

Two familiar selfies popped up. Maddy and Nathan on campus during happy college days and another of the two of them, beers in hand, spring breaking at the beach.

The next photo captured Nathan, eyes wide, legs splayed, caught in mid-air over the diving board of a cheap motel's pool.

She couldn't help but grin at a pic of Nathan devouring an enormous ice cream sundae.

She felt her heart sink a little when she stopped on a selfie of Nathan kissing her beneath a sprig of mistletoe he held above their heads.

A chunk of broccoli escaped her chopsticks and tumbled down her sweater onto the floor.