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The alternative ending of “The Dirty Martini Club” By Jude Randazzo

I wrote the first and second draft of The Dirty Martini Club with a different ending, but in the final days before submitting the manuscript for publication, I changed it. So, it is in fact an alternative ending.

Spoiler alert. If you haven’t read the last chapter, don’t read this post!

To summarize, in the final scene, the whole story is re-told and re-lived by the two main
characters, Eddie and Tess. The scene is set with a lot of nostalgic sentiment at Tess’
grandparents’ home on Christmas morning. It’s a set-up to make everything right, make
everything wrap up in a Hallmark Channel movie ending. Readers would shed a tear and say a collective “Awwww”. Tess hears Eddie out, believes, him, and although doesn’t entirely forgive him, goes “mushy” hugs and him and they go inside the house and drink eggnog.

I wrote it that way and felt that I had betrayed the vision and image I have of Tess. She’s a
strong, smart, intuitive, proud, resilient, and resourceful woman. She’s a world-class golfer, an enormously successful businessperson, and not a wilting wimp who lives and dies with Eddie’s moves. In that light, in that moment, her strength prevails, and she says “No. No. No. Maybe sometime in the future, but I need time to settle all of this in my mind.”

Eddie drives away looking figuratively and literally in the rear-view mirror at Tess. It’s not an “Awwww”, you hear but more like a “Good for you girl. You go girl,” to phrase it in the popular vernacular.