December 6
Most people Rosalind knew liked Sundays, but then the majority of those people had families and friends whom they enjoyed spending time with. Having no immediate family or close friends, she found Sundays depressing.
Donned in a pair of comfortable jeans and an oversized NYU sweatshirt, she balanced her checkbook, paid her bills, read her email and then curled up on her couch with a bag of Wise potato chips, a can of Coke and her television remote.
"More than a hundred stations to choose from and there's nothing worth watching on any of them," she groaned as she made her way up through the channels. "It seems like fifty of them are showing football games!"
Never a big fan of football, she liked the game even less now since Brett was a big New England Patriots fan. He once admitted to Rosalind that the only person he loved more than her was quarterback Tom Brady.
She put down the remote control after finally settling on a movie on LMN in which a desperate wife murders her abusive husband.
That's what's wrong with relationships, Rosalind thought. You meet a prince, and he turns out to be a monster.
During one of the movie's many commercial breaks, her eyes traveled to the advent calendar on the mantel. She still didn't know what to make of the whole situation. A secret admirer. Was it nothing more than an elaborate practical joke or should she take the man seriously?
He had promised in his note that he would make his identity known on or before December twenty-fifth. But how? Would he telephone her? Would he boldly walk up to the door and ring the bell? Or maybe, the thought suddenly came to her, the advent calendar itself contained the answer.
Rosalind took the calendar down and opened drawer number six. Inside were a miniature plastic champagne bottle and two tiny glasses that belonged inside a doll's house.
At least he's running true to form: candy, flowers, poetry and now champagne. Who are you, Cary Grant?
Hoping to discover his identity, she tried to open number twenty-five, but it wouldn't budge. It was as though the drawer were glued in place. She tried another, twenty-four, and then another, eighteen, but had no better luck with either of them.
"I should have known this was all a joke," she said with disappointment when she discovered that not a single one of the remaining nineteen drawers would open.
