"Hi," he said in that creepy, "Hel-lo, beautiful" voice some men use when they think they're being suave.
"Hi."
It was the same word he'd used, but it sounded a lot different coming from me. His "hi" had been two syllables, two notes: hiii-eee. Mine was like the sound a dictionary makes when you drop it on a desk: thud. I gazed at him with the blank, unseeing eyes of a dead-souled retail zombie.
He either didn't get the message or took it as a challenge.
"Looks like you could use some excitement," he said with a smile. He swung a Fendler's bag up onto the counter between us. "I guess I arrived just in the nick of time."
"Uh-huh. Receipt, please."
That's the drill. No receipt, no gift wrap. Fendler's makes you drop at least fifty bucks on merchandise before they'll favor you with twenty two cents worth of "complimentary" wrapping paper. Otherwise it costs four bucks a box.
"It's in the bag," the guy said, still smiling.
I pulled out the slip of paper and gave it a quick glance to make sure Don Juan had spent enough money. That quick glance immediately turned into a pop-eyed stare.
Mr. Smoothie had obviously been waiting for just that reaction.
"My credit card's still smoking," he joked.
The guy had blown three thousand dollars in the store that morning. And everything he'd bought fit into one not-particularly large paper bag.
"It's all for the ball and chain," he said. "I have a lot to make up for." His grin grew wider, and he waggled his bushy eyebrows at me. "I've been a naaaaauuuughty boy this year."
"Yeah, well, I guess so," I mumbled, unsure what kind of response he was looking for. I mean, I know a thing or two about come-ons. I've been fending them off since I put on my first training bra. But this was one of the weirdest ones yet… if it even was a come-on.
His smirky leer answered my question.
"How about you?" he asked. "Have you been naughty this year?"
It was a toss-up for a second there: Should I slap his handsome face or spit in his twinkling eye? But then I remembered that I actually needed this stinking job, and I smiled instead. Not a friendly smile, mind you. A tight, prim, "I'll just ignore that remark" smile.
"It's going to take a few minutes to wrap your gifts," I said.
"Fine. Can I watch?"
I fought back a shiver. I was beginning to wonder if this guy was capable of saying anything that didn't sound like a creepy innuendo. Maybe it was a rare medical condition and he just couldn't help himself, like Tourette's but sexual. Pervmo Syndrome.
"Suit yourself," I said, working hard to keep my voice neutral.
I began emptying out his bag. It didn't take long. There were only four things in it: a pearl necklace, a diamond-studded ring, a wristwatch coated with even more diamonds and a long fur coat that must have wiped out an entire family of minks, including nieces, nephews and cousins twice removed. It made me nervous, having three thousand bucks worth of merchandise spread out on my work table, and normally I would've taken extra special care wrapping it up. But Casanova gave me a good reason to work fast.
"We're neighbors, you know," he said. "I've seen you."
Ew, I thought.
"Oh?" I said.
Cut-cut-fold-tape-fold-tape-tape. I finished the necklace and moved on to the watch. If gift wrapping were an Olympic sport, I'd have been on my way to the gold.
"Yeah. You live on Knob Hill, right? I'm right around the corner on Knopfler Drive."
Well, that was a relief, at least. He was talking about the old neighborhood, the nice one, the one we'd had to leave after That Man ran off with That Woman. Which meant he didn't know where I lived now. That dialed the Yuck Factor from a ten down to a seven.
"Oh, sure," I said, not looking up from the watch. I was cutting and taping so fast I could've lopped off a finger and wrapped it with the guy's gifts before I noticed the first drop of blood. "I thought you looked familiar."
"I can remember seeing you riding your bike, washing cars in the driveway. You even came to my house once or twice when you were out caroling with people from the neighborhood."
"Oh, really?"
"Really," the man said. My back was to him, but somehow I could sense that he was leaning in closer when he spoke next. "You've changed."
Oh, god. Yuck Factor: Eight.
I knew what he was going to say next before the words even left his nasty lips.
"You were a girl then-"
"And I'm a woman now?"
"Oh, yeah."
Nine.
"You know, my wife's out of town until tomorrow afternoon. I'm going to be all alone tonight."
Here it came.
"Maybe you could drop by for some… eggnog… or something."
Ding-ding-ding! Ten!
I don't know how I could work so fast when I was practically choking on bile, but somehow I did it. The creep's presents were wrapped and back in his shopping bag. I turned and shoved the bag at him.
"ThereyougohaveaniceChristmasgoodbye."
He brought a hand up slowly to take the bag, flashing me a lazy, unoffended smile. I saw now exactly what he was: the kind of guy who hits on everything with breasts simply as a way of playing the odds. You know the type. If he's shot down ninety nine times a day, that's O.K. His feelings aren't hurt-because number one hundred makes it all worthwhile.
"Thanks," he said. "Merry Christmas."
Even those innocent words came out icky and lewd, somehow. I almost expected the guy to leave a glistening trail of slime behind him as he oozed away.
And in a way, he did. Not on the store's floor, though. In my head.
I couldn't stop thinking about Viagra Man's offer. Not the way he wanted me to think about it. I wasn't tempted. Bleah.
No, I was mad.
What had he meant when he said he had "a lot to make up for"? Or that he'd been "a naaaauuughty boy" this year? He'd been cheating on his wife? He'd been caught? And now he was going to buy his way back into the poor woman's heart with some expensive baubles… while still chasing tail on the side?
He was a scumbag. A sleaze. A gonad-brained son of a bitch.
And he was going to get away with it. I just knew it.
He deserved more than a lump of coal in his stocking. He deserved a loogie in his eggnog. Or, better yet, a good, hard kick in the jingle bells.
But there was no Santa Claus to leave the coal or hock the loogie or put a boot to the guy's crotch. The universe didn't care about good or bad. Naughty Boy would go unpunished.
Unless… if only…
Wouldn't it be great if someone pulled a Grinch on the guy? You know, stole his Christmas? It would be like the whole Robin Hood thing, only more festive and seasonal. Rob gifts from the rich, give gifts to the poor. Or, if you happen to be poor yourself… well, why not cut out the middle man and just keep the booty? I mean, what's the difference? Poor is poor, right? It would be the next best thing to a victimless crime, because the only "victim" would be a selfish turd who really, really deserved it.
I spent the rest of my shift obsessing about Naughty Boy. In a weird way, it turned out to be the best day I ever had as a Fendler's Gift Presentation Specialist. Paper cuts, pushy customers, the one hundredth repetition of the Tomás wee-wee story, the one thousandth repetition of "Have a Holly Jolly Christmas" from the loudspeakers directly above my head-I didn't notice any of it. I was too busy daydreaming, picturing myself as a sort of Dark Knightress doling out harsh yuletide justice.
And at some point, I realized I wasn't just daydreaming. I was considering. Seriously thinking about tracking the guy down and giving him a good Scrooging.
Now, like I said before, I'm nice. This was, like, an actual robbery I was thinking about. A heist. What would someone like me know about something like that? The last time I'd stolen anything had been when I was five years old and I grabbed a 3 Musketeers bar off the candy rack at the Kroger. My mom saw it when we got outside and made me take it back and give it to the manager. I cried for an hour. I'm not exactly a hardened criminal. I don't even know any hardened criminals.