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were you, I’d heed it and take the necessary action.”
    Jennifer shoved her hands into her coat pockets and began rocking impatiently on her heels.
    Mrs. Stanton regarded her critically. “Are you leaving the party so soon, Ms. Taylor? Why it can’t be later than 7:30.”
    Jennifer watched as her car stopped in the middle of the road, beside Richard’s SUV. The attendants were having an unhurried conversation. She wanted to scream. “Yes, I’m afraid I have some work to do,” Jennifer said, ignoring her.
    “You can’t have stayed long at the party, not that I blame you. But what will people think? It doesn’t make a good impression, to leave so soon. Being new to this town and in business for yourself, you should want to make a good impression, Ms. Taylor, and I’m afraid this action runs contrary to that. I admit that J. D. Hartman can be a crashing bore and a big blowhard, but that doesn’t excuse you for your bad manners.”
    Finally Jennifer’s car arrived. “Thank you, Mrs. Stanton; I’ll keep it in mind.”
    “You’d better do more than just keep it in mind! Once you make enemies in Willowbury, you’d better just lock your door and leave town!”
    Jennifer slipped the attendant a dollar, and slithered behind the wheel of her car, closing the door in Mrs. Stanton’s starched and insulted face.
    As she drove away and glanced at the rearview mirror, Jennifer caught sight of Mrs. Stanton staring at the fleeing car, her hands stuck on her bulging hips.
    Back on the main highway, heavy flecks of snow crashed into her windshield, fell thickly across the shaft of her headlights and covered the road. Jennifer didn’t slow down. She kept the car plunging through the night. She shuddered, happy to have escaped the party and all those silly people, with their silly little Christmas outfits, frivolous Christmas jewelry and bogus Christmas spirit. Christmas spirit! What spirit? When you analyzed it in the full light of truth and didn’t “cook the books,” so to speak, you could easily see that their spirit was nothing more than self-aggrandizement.
    The mayor and his wife were just playing politics. Richard Steady was there because it was good business and he might sell another policy while he sipped eggnog or danced or lingered under the mistletoe with some nasty widow like Mrs. Stanton. Speaking of Mrs. Stanton, her reason for coming to the party was obvious. Everyone there would bow down to her, even though she’d insult most of them one way or the other. She was certainly disliked, or even despised, by everyone in town, but who was going to turn their back on power and wealth?
    The band was there because they were being paid to be there, as were the caterers and waiters and waitresses. She didn’t remember seeing any of them with happy faces.
    As for the rest of the people, they got their chance to inflate their egos, rub shoulders with the influential and popular, and get free food and drinks in the process. More power to them.
    As she approached Harvey’s Pond, Jennifer felt a sinking feeling in her chest. She didn’t want to go back to her lonely apartment, afraid that old Christmas memories would begin to close in on her from every corner.
    She suddenly remembered that she had her ice skates with her! Jennifer had only been skating for a couple of weeks now. She’d never learned how to skate in Tennessee, but Willowbury had so many beautiful ponds, and ice-skating was such a large part of the culture, that Angela had finally talked her into it. Jennifer used to roller blade in Tennessee, so she didn’t think she needed lessons. Instead, she was trying to teach herself whenever she found the time. She was in desperate need of a distraction.
    When Jennifer spotted the dark and narrow virgin snow-covered road, she took the turn a little too fast and the back wheels of the car skidded sharply to the left. She quickly recovered, spinning the wheel left gently and applying the brakes. After taking a