Free Hot Flash Holidays by Nancy Thayer Page A

hanging down. Is it to advertise the male’s reproductive equipment? Like a stag’s antlers or a peacock’s tail feathers?”
    “Mother!” Marilyn admonished.
    “Well, dear, it
does
draw the eye,” Ruth calmly pointed out.
    Faraday seemed amused. “It’s called a
sporran,
and it’s exactly as you named it,” he informed Ruth. “It’s a little fur purse. The kilt doesn’t have pockets, so this began as a leather pouch for carrying our necessary items. This sporran is for dress only. It’s made from Greenland sealskin. Everyday sporrans are usually just leather.”
    “And what do you wear under the kilt?” Ruth asked.
    “Mother, stop it,” Marilyn intervened. “Come on, let’s get your coat on.”
    “Why shouldn’t I inquire?” Ruth argued. “You’re never too old to learn.”
    “Allow me.” Faraday helped Ruth into her coat. “Marilyn tells me you taught biology. Obviously you were asking in the spirit of scientific inquiry.”
    “Obviously,” Ruth agreed, pleased.
    “So I’ll tell
you.
” Faraday bent to whisper in Ruth’s ear.
    Ruth giggled.
    Marilyn rolled her eyes but smiled. “I’ll just get the presents.”
    She gathered up the bags full of gifts and followed her mother and Faraday out to his car. Faraday opened the trunk and set the gifts inside, next to his offering of several bottles of Champagne and wine.
    “Now, then,” he said, as he got behind the wheel. “Is everybody comfortable? Marilyn, do you have enough room for your legs?”
    “I’m fine, Faraday.” Why did he irritate her so much today? He was behaving beautifully!
    Faraday started the car and they were off, driving toward Marilyn’s son’s house.
    “I know a joke about what’s under a kilt,” Ruth announced.
    “Mother,” Marilyn said quietly.
    But Faraday encouraged her. “I love kilt jokes! Let’s hear it!”
    “Very well. A Scotsman spends an evening in a bar and has rather too much to drink. When he leaves the pub, he passes out on the street. Two young American women notice.
    “ ‘My,’ one says to the other. ‘I’ve always wondered what’s under a Scottish kilt.’
    “ ‘Let’s look!’ says the other.
    “So they look, and glory be, he’s naked as the day he was born. The girls giggle. Then the first one mischievously takes a blue ribbon from her hair and ties it around the man’s sexual reproductive member. They run off, laughing.
    “A while later, the Scotsman wakes up. Feeling something odd, he lifts his kilt, looks down, and sees the blue ribbon tied around his hoo-ha.
    “ ‘Well, lad,’ he says. ‘I don’t know what you got up to while I was passed out, but I’m glad you won first prize.’ ”
    They all laughed, and the shared laughter made Marilyn relax just a little. This was the first Christmas that Faraday had accompanied Marilyn to her son’s family dinner. She wasn’t quite sure what this implied about their relationship. She wasn’t quite sure what she
wanted
it to imply.
    “Now tell me again who will be there this evening,” her mother asked from the front seat.
    “Well, Teddy and Lila and your great-granddaughter Irene, of course, since it’s at their house. And the three of us. And Eugenie, Lila’s mother.”
    “But not Lila’s father?”
    “No. They separated last year. Lila’s father’s gone off with a younger woman. Lila and Teddy and the baby will spend Christmas Day with Lila’s father. Eugenie got them for Thanksgiving this year, because I got them for Thanksgiving last year. Eugenie wanted them all for herself this Christmas, but now that she and her husband have separated, there aren’t enough bits of time to go around.”
    “You need a computer to figure out how to divide the holidays up fairly,” Ruth said.
    “Or a psychiatrist,” Marilyn said.
    “Still,” Ruth said, “there’s no plague like home for the holidays.”
    Faraday looked in the rearview mirror and winked at Marilyn.
    The evening blurred past in a flurry of kisses,