Hot Flash Holidays by Nancy Thayer

wonderful! Polly sank into her bubble bath and closed her eyes, surrendering for just a moment to the heat, the peace, and her dreams. Fragrant bubbles surged over the mounds of her round thighs, belly, and breasts.
    Hugh didn’t seem to mind how much Polly weighed. A jovial, energetic, portly man, Hugh liked to eat, cook, and drink. Polly hadn’t discussed the philosophy of this with him, but she guessed that he alleviated the stresses of his work as an oncologist with as many vigorous sensual pleasures as he could conjure up on any given day.
    She had such a good time with Hugh on their dates! He took her to elegant restaurants, but also to amusement parks where they rode roller coasters and merry-go-rounds and ate cotton candy. They’d spent a day on a small boat plunging around off Boston’s coast on a whale watch—and they’d seen two whales. Polly would never forget how her heart leapt at the sight. On his next vacation, Hugh wanted to take her scuba-diving in the Caribbean, something Polly had never done, and he was trying to persuade her to take riding lessons with him. Polly wasn’t so sure about that. She hadn’t ridden since she was a teenager, and she had visions of swinging her hefty hind end into a saddle and the horse going “Oofh!” and fainting.
    The good thing about Hugh was that she was able to confide such fears to him. When she’d confessed her equestrian vision, Hugh had replied, “Ah, Polly, any horse would be thrilled to bear your gorgeous derrière!” That night, he’d given her a full back massage that ended with kisses all up and down her spine and all over her round rear end. Until then, she hadn’t realized her nerves had valiantly sneaked through the cellulite and were there waiting to receive the sweetness of his warm breath, his soft lips, like a hive when the bee buzzes back with its load of honey.
    Polly smiled and hugged herself.
    But enough daydreaming. She stepped dripping onto the bath mat, grabbed a towel, and began drying off. As she dressed, she could feel her courage fading beneath an onslaught of nerves.
    David’s wife, Amy, and her parents, Katrina and Buck, all lived and worked on the same farm. Their schedules were closely knit together, their conversation related to matters Polly didn’t understand—fertilizer, insects, spinning wheels. The Andersons had lived on their land since the Revolutionary War, which indeed was something to be proud about, but the Andersons were more than proud. They were
smug.
They belonged to their own elite club with its private language and rituals, and Polly was not admitted. Last Christmas, she’d been invited for two hours only on Christmas night, to share eggnog with her son, grandson, and daughter-in-law while they exchanged presents that, Polly suspected, they never used.
    Nothing Polly gave Amy and her family was ever good enough. When Polly mailed her grandson a funny card and present on Valentine’s Day, she never heard whether it had even arrived. Very occasionally she was asked to baby-sit her grandson, but when she did, Amy was always just in the next room. What was
that
about?
    Polly pulled on her wool slacks and the green cashmere sweater she’d knit herself. Cashmere and wool,
natural,
that ought to satisfy Amy. She sat on the edge of her bed to put on her socks and shoes. From the corner of her eye, she noticed the crystal bowl filled with Brach’s Chocolate Mix that she’d brought upstairs, to keep away from Amy’s critical eye.
    For courage, Polly grabbed the bag, delved inside, and pulled out a chocolate-covered Brazil nut. It was especially satisfying to eat nuts, because she could crunch them.
Hard.
    The chocolate, sugar, and fat blasted into her system like a team of miniature superheroes, lifting her spirits high. She nibbled more as she brushed her red—well,
white
and red—hair and put on a bit of lipstick and eye-liner.
    Any moment now, they’d be here. She’d get to hold her grandson, hand him a