"Where have you been? I've been worried sick!"
"I couldn't find that damn book. I was looking all over for it," I said, slipping past her into the oversized closet we jokingly call my "bedroom." My copy of Hannibal was buried under a pile of old Entertainment Weeklys my mom had snagged from Dr. Roth's office, and I yanked it free and brought it back out to the hallway. "Oh, man-it was here all the time!"
Yeah, I was getting better at lying and manipulating. Practice makes perfect, I guess.
I didn't hear from Arlo that night or the next day or ever. Maybe he still feels guilty. Maybe he has nothing to say. Or maybe-and I think this is the most likely explanation-he can't remember my last name or the store where I worked. The guy has a memory like a sponge… by which I mean it's soggy and full of holes.
That meant I didn't hear from Diesel and the Reptile either, which was a nice Christmas present. They didn't have any reason to be mad at me, anyway. As far they knew, I'd told the truth. The aging horndog who'd bought the fur coat and the jewelry turned out to be a well-armed gun nut. That's just the kind of bad luck you probably get used to when you're an incompetent petty criminal.
It didn't bother me that Diesel and the Reptile got away that night. We'd all had a dose of what one of my more granola college friends used to call "karmic retribution." We'd had evil, selfish thoughts, and because of that we were shot at, chased by an enraged attack dog and (in one case) de-pantsed in front of a large group of horrified strangers. Lumps of coal in our stockings would've been overkill after a night like that. The universe had already spanked us and sent us to bed without dinner.
So maybe there really is such a thing as justice. Maybe there really is a Santa Claus. I don't know.
There was a loose end, though. One of the bad guys did get away unpunished. And as much as I tried to push it out of my mind, it still cheesed me off. So the next day, I did something about it. Nothing big. Nothing illegal. I'd learned my lesson. I just drove back to the old neighborhood and dropped off a Christmas card.
Nice, right?
Well, not really. Not if you know what I wrote inside.
Hey, big guy!
Thanks for inviting me over to make a cold winter's night extra HOT!!! I sure hope "Mrs. Claus" doesn't find out what how b-a-d you've been! Give me a jingle when you're ready to meet me under the mistletoe again!
XOXOXO,
Your little ho ho ho
I sealed the card in a white envelope and kissed the front with a mouth smeared with my sluttiest lipstick. Then I left it in Naughty Boy's mailbox. It was Christmas Eve, around 9 p.m., and the radio weather guys had already gone into their annual routine about a blip on the radar heading toward us from the North Pole.
I didn't know what would happen with the card. Maybe Naughty Boy would get busted and maybe he'd end another year thinking he could get away with anything. It all came down to this: Who would bring in the mail the day after Christmas, him or his wife?
There was no way for me to know. But I'd done my part.
The rest was up to Santa.
HIDDEN GIFTS
Karen had just spoken blasphemy, plain and simple. Heresy. Sacrilege.
Not that her little brother knew what blasphemy, heresy or sacrilege were. But he did know poo-poo when he heard it. And to Ronnie, this was big poo-poo. The biggest.
"That's not true!" he screamed, popping off his pillow and scrambling over the wadded-up macramé blanket that separated his half of the couch from hers. "You're lying!"
Karen didn't even look away from the television.
"Oh, don't be such a baby. Everybody knows it."
And she said it again. The blasphemy. The poo-poo. The innocence-scorching truth.
"Santa isn't real."
"No no no no nooooooooo!"
Ronnie balled up his fists and pounded at Karen with them. But Ronnie was only six, and small for his age. He may as well have tried beating his sister senseless with a pair of earmuffs.
"Stop it. I can't hear."
Karen swiped out a long, thin arm that swept her brother off the couch. She didn't do it maliciously. It was a casual gesture, like opening a curtain. There were things she wanted to see. Things she wanted to feel.
Cousin Rick hadn't been in the apartment when she and Ronnie got home from school. And when their scrawny, thirtyish "cousin" (they refused to call him "Uncle Rick," like Mom wanted) wasn't around to hog the TV and flick lit cigarettes at their heads and hunch over the phone having hissy-whispered conversations with his creepy friends, Karen tried to make the most of it.
Today, "the most" meant soaking up Christmas cheer.
It was December 23, 1979, and the afternoon reruns were Christmas episodes. Andy Griffith, the Beverly Hillbillies, even the Addams Family-they'd all been wrapping presents and drinking eggnog and learning Very Special holiday lessons. It was totally phony and forced, but even bogus Christmas cheer with a laugh track and soap-flake snow was better than no Christmas cheer at all.
Karen and Ronnie didn't even have a tree that year. They'd started to put one up with Mom, pulling out the big fake fir Dad used to call "the holly-jolly green giant." But Cousin Rick put a stop to that.
"Jeez, what are you doin'? A guy can barely turn around in this sardine can, and you're gonna plop that big S.O.B. in the middle of the room? No way. You want a Christmas tree, decorate the bushes in the parking lot. Now shut up, would you? I gotta keep my cool. The Big Call could come any minute, and those guys ain't messin' around."
The kids turned to their mother.
Cousin Rick had been waiting for "The Big Call" for a week, and something was always getting on his nerves. When he wasn't out "hustling"-his word for whatever it was he did all day-he paced the apartment like a barnyard rooster, twitchy, herky-jerky, his round, anxious eyes darting from the TV to the phone. He'd already turned off the Christmas carols (he couldn't hear B.J. and the Bear) and nixed the stringing of lights (the bright colors reminded him of "a bad trip," whatever that meant). Now he wouldn't let them put up a tree?
Surely, Mom would stand up to him this time. Surely, she'd choose their Christmas over her boyfriend's weird little tics. Surely.
Without a word, Mom packed up the tree and stuffed it back in the closet. The next day, Karen saw it poking out of a dumpster around the other side of the building.
Which is how Christmas came to be something out there. At school, in stores, on billboards. In the past.
Or on TV.
It was the Bradys' turn now. Little Cindy was asking a department store Santa to cure her mother's laryngitis so she could sing a solo at their church Christmas service. That's what had brought up the whole Santa Claus thing in the first place.
"Stupid kid," Karen had snorted. And then she'd said it, blasphemed. And Ronnie had flipped out.
"There is a Santa Claus!" he howled from the floor.
His voice quavered, as if he might cry, but Karen knew it wasn't the tumble off the couch that had hurt him. Their apartment may have been tiny, but the musty, mustard-colored shag covering the floor was as thick and soft as a dirty old sponge.
No, she'd hurt him, and she wasn't even sure why. His faith in Santa had been irritating her, rubbing on her nerves like sandpaper, for weeks. She was a big kid-almost ten-and she knew she should let Ronnie have his little kid dreams. Yet another part of her longed to shake him awake.
She kept her eyes on the Bradys.