The Bureau of Holiday Affairs

by Andi Marquette

  “What do you mean?”

  “No less than uncommitted and enjoyable sex behind my husband’s back.” Cynthia finished with her blouse. “Surely you’re not developing a conscience now.” She gave Robin one of her sultry looks.

  “That makes it sound like I don’t have one.”

  Cynthia regarded her, expression decidedly cooler. “There are two types of people in this world, darling. Those who are doormats and those who are not. If you don’t want to be a doormat, you ensure you get what you want. The ends justify the means.” She adjusted her hair. “Call me next week. He’s out of town again starting Tuesday.”

  Robin nodded and watched Cynthia leave the bedroom. She heard the door of her apartment open then close, and she lay back in bed and stared at the ceiling. Her phone rang from the bedside table, and she picked it up. Frank. About time.

  “That was a dick move,” she said when she answered.

  “Hi, sis. Good to hear from you. How have you been?” he shot back.

  “Don’t act innocent.”

  He was silent for a few moments. “About what? What’s going on?”

  “That practical joke you pulled on me a couple days ago. Why the hell did you think it was okay to tell her those things about my past?”

  “Whoa. Hold on there, speedy. What joke, what things, and who?”

  Robin knew the nuances of Frank’s voice. He was clearly confused. “Elizabeth Tolson.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “So you didn’t send her to my office?”

  “No.”

  “So this wasn’t something you did?”

  “No. The last time I did a Christmas joke on you was at least four years ago. And if I remember correctly, you did not appreciate it.”

  “A singing telegram dressed as a nutcracker sent to my place of employment doesn’t go over too well.”

  “Maybe your whole company needs to lighten up. So what did this Tolson say?”

  “Never mind. One of my other friends probably put her up to it.”

  “Put her up to what, exactly?”

  “Just some be-good-for-Christmas crap.”

  “Well, even though I didn’t send whoever it was, that’s good advice for pretty much everybody. Speaking of which, what are you doing for Christmas?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why don’t you come visit?”

  Robin frowned. He sounded genuine.

  “C’mon. Remember when we were kids? How much fun we’d have on Christmas Day?”

  “You must’ve been at a different house. All I remember was Dad not being there and Mom trying to pretend everything was all right.” And usually, her dad was off with some other woman, though he claimed he just had to work on the holidays.

  “Look, I know that hit you hard. But we did still have some fun. You have to let go of Dad being a dick. Because hanging on to old crap can make you—well, you start becoming the crap. So come and visit this year.”

  She clenched her teeth. Every year he always asked her to come and hang out with him and his wife and every year she always turned him down. Wasn’t that the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over expecting different results? “I’ll think about it,” she said, another part of the annual ritual.

  “At some point,” he said, “you need to remember who you were. Catch you later.” He hung up, and Robin tossed the phone to the other side of her bed. Remember who she was? What the hell did that even mean? Irritated, she got out of bed and padded to the shower, trying to figure out who might have sent Elizabeth Tolson to her office. The fact that she couldn’t think of anyone else close enough to her to want to bother with a joke like that added to her irritation, but also fed a strange sense of loneliness.

  Twenty minutes later, dressed in sweatpants and sweatshirt, she poured herself a Scotch over ice and made sure she locked the deadbolt on her front door, too. She turned her television on but didn’t watch it. Instead, she stood staring out over the city through the sliding doors onto her balcony, which still bore the remains of the last snowstorm. In the distance, she could just see the outline of one of the myriad bridges over the Hudson. People practically killed for views like this in the city, even in a rather plain apartment like this one, with its off-white walls and beige carpeting. It might’ve been a hotel room, for all the personalization she’d done in here.

  No real surprise, since she spent most of her time at work or traveling for work. She sipped her drink, but the usual velvet caress on her tongue of this brand of Scotch was missing. It tasted flat and a little rough, like her mood since Elizabeth Tolson’s visit.

  “Bureau of Holiday Affairs,” she muttered against the lip of her glass. She had looked it up online, but the only thing that came close was, ironically, a 1949 Christmas movie titled “Holiday Affair.” Christmas was for sentimental idiots who couldn’t get ahead in life because they weren’t willing to make hard choices. You had to keep moving, like a shark. Otherwise, you’d sink.

  Her door buzzer sounded, and it startled her. What the hell time was it? Cynthia always called before she came over. Besides, she’d just been here and Cynthia never forgot anything. Robin picked her phone up from the coffee table. Almost eleven. Probably some drunk idiot hitting the wrong button downstairs. She took another sip and the buzzer sounded again.

  She stared at it, positioned next to the front door of her apartment. This was an ultra-secure building, so she wasn’t worried about people actually getting to this floor. Another buzz. She set her drink and phone on the coffee table, crossed the room, and pressed the button.

  “Yes?”

  “Hey,” said a woman’s voice. “Pizza.”

  “You’ve got the wrong address. I didn’t order anything.”

  “You sure? I’ve got a large pepperoni pie here for Robin Anne Preston, born June 15, 1978. Extra cheese.”

  Robin’s stomach clenched. “Who is this?” she said, but it didn’t sound as forceful as she wanted.

  “Pizza. Courtesy of the Bureau.”

  “Okay, you can stop now. This isn’t funny anymore.” Not that it ever was. “Get the hell away from my apartment building.”

  Silence. Robin exhaled in relief, shaky in the wake of her adrenaline surge.

  “You want a big slice or a little one?”

  Robin whirled as a surge of panic shot through her veins. A woman stood in the doorway of her kitchen, holding a pizza box.

  “How the hell did you get in?” Robin clutched her phone like it was a weapon.

  “Trade secret. So do you want a piece?”

  Robin stared as the woman shrugged and set the box on the counter that separated the kitchen from the dining area. She wore blue surfer shorts, battered black flip-flops, and a pale-yellow T-shirt. A pair of sunglasses hung from the collar. Her hair—a cute jumble of spikes—was bleached blond.

  “I’m Decker,” she said. “And I’ll be your tour guide this evening. Okay if I call you Preston? I’m not big on formality.” She grinned, a flash of white beneath her tan, and opened the pizza box. She took out a slice.

  “Tour guide?”

  Decker took a bite and pointed at the letters across her chest, silk-screened in red in a seventies-style font. Xmas Past. They hadn’t registered with Robin until Decker pointed at them. I’m dreaming, Robin thought. That’s what this was. A weird dream, probably caused by stress.

  “Seriously?” Robin asked.

  “Mmm hmm,” Decker said around the pizza.

  “This is beyond ridiculous.”

  Decker shrugged.

  “So you’re going to take me on a trip into my past, and I’m supposed to get all emotional and change my ways.”

  “That’s the general idea, yeah.”

  “That’s completely stupid.”

  “That’s what they all say.” Decke
r took another bite. “You sure you don’t want some of this? It’s pretty good.”

  “No, I don’t want any damn pizza. And I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  “They all say that, too.”

  Robin glared at her. “I could have you arrested for trespassing.”

  Decker finished chewing and swallowed. “You could try. Your phone’s on the coffee table.”

  Robin moved and picked it up. “Fine. I’m calling the cops.”

  Decker shrugged again and took another bite.

  Robin’s phone was dead. Ice filled her chest. “What the hell is happening to me?” Was this it? Was she finally going crazy?

  Decker finished the slice and brushed her hands on her shorts. “Think of it as an intervention.”

  “I don’t need one.”

  Decker’s expression might’ve been pity. “Let’s go,” she said, and she went to the front door and waited, her hand on the knob.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  “Yep. You are.”

  “So you’re kidnapping me?” Robin stayed by the coffee table, still gripping her phone.

  Decker released the door knob and faced her. “Look. I’ve got a bag of tricks you would not believe, and full authority from the Bureau to enact this intervention. So put on your big-girl pants and take your medicine.” She reached for the knob again.

  “It’s locked,” Robin said, chastised, and wondered why she’d said that, as if she was searching for some sense of normalcy in the surreal. Even more, she wondered why she moved closer to the door.

  Decker turned the knob and pulled it open, the locks clearly not an issue for her. She motioned at the hallway beyond, in which a mist gathered.

  Mist. In the hallway to her elevator in a multistory apartment building. “I don’t have shoes on,” Robin said, as the mist swirled right up to her doorway but didn’t enter. Oh, God. Was she going to crazytown?

  “You won’t need ’em.” Decker stepped into the mist, and it curled and twisted around her limbs before it swallowed her.

  “Hello?” Robin called, heart hammering. She approached the doorway and stared at the mist as she began to shiver. “Decker?”

  “Come on,” Decker responded from somewhere in the hallway. “Really. It’s okay.”

  Without knowing why, without fully understanding the compulsion, Robin stepped into the mist. As a cool dampness engulfed her, she held her breath. She couldn’t see anything beyond a few inches, and then she was falling, but softly. More like floating. Eventually, she felt floorboards beneath her feet, and the mist receded within seconds, revealing Decker, who was right next to her.

  “Where are we?” Robin asked. It came out as a whisper.

  “Go ahead and have a look around.”

  Robin took a tentative step, not sure her feet would carry her. They did. She heard a door slam and a kid yell, “Mom.”

  A dark-haired boy barreled down the hallway past her, followed by a slightly taller, equally dark-haired girl, all gangly arms and legs, apparent even in the jeans and jacket she wore.

  “Oh, God,” Robin whispered, recognizing herself at age eleven.

  “When’s dinner?” Frank shouted.

  “Right now,” came a woman’s voice from the kitchen. A voice that shot right through Robin’s chest. “Go get washed up.”

  “Mom,” Robin said as her younger self followed Frank into the downstairs bathroom, and she heard the two of them laughing and splashing at the sink. They emerged, and Robin shrank back against the wall.

  “They can’t see or hear us,” Decker said. “Go on.”

  Robin walked down the hall to the kitchen, remembering everything about this house she grew up in, a comfortable bungalow in one of Seattle’s poorer neighborhoods. She knew the smell—a mixture of damp and meatloaf. It always smelled like meatloaf, though Robin’s mom didn’t make it too much. She remembered the dark wood of the banister as she passed the stairs to her right, and the time Frank fell from the landing and bit through his lower lip. To her left was the entranceway and the heavy front door that always made her feel safe when her mom locked it at night.

  Her mom always decorated the house for Christmas, and Robin’s chest tightened at the sight of the lights on the banister. The tree, she knew, would be in the living room behind her in the corner opposite the TV. Christmas music drifted in from the kitchen. Her mom kept a portable cassette deck in there, and loved playing it this time of year, even when her dad didn’t show.

  “Sweet potatoes,” Frank said from the kitchen, his little boy delight spilling into the hall with the light.

  “It wouldn’t be Christmas without them,” Robin’s mom said just as Robin reached the doorway. Her mom put an extra spoonful of sweet potatoes on Frank’s plate.

  “Mom,” she said again as tears gathered in her eyes. Mom. Wearing faded jeans and a baggy black sweatshirt, the clothes she always put on when she got off work. She’d seemed so vibrant when they were kids, always smiling and laughing, in spite of their dad’s absences. As a kid, Robin hadn’t noticed the exhaustion that marred her mother’s face and slumped her shoulders.

  “We should save some for Dad,” Frank said as he dug in. Robin’s younger self shot him a look, then transferred her gaze to her mother, worried.

  “Sure, honey. If you want. He probably won’t be home ’til late, though.”

  Robin recognized the lie for what it was. Her younger self did, too.

  “Where was your dad?” Decker asked from just behind her.

  “Probably screwing some woman. He did that a lot.” An old pain slid between her ribs, its tip brushing her heart.

  “It’s okay, Frankie,” Robin’s younger self said. “We can play Monopoly and watch TV. It’ll be a fun Christmas Eve.”

  Robin’s mom looked at her younger self, relief in her eyes. “That’s right. We’ll all play.”

  “Did he miss a lot of Christmases?” Decker asked.

  “Yeah. Hell, he missed a lot.”

  “And you looked out for your brother.”

  “Mostly.” Robin watched the scene at the table, thinking that she sort of remembered this particular Christmas. Her mom was laughing at something Frankie said and her younger self smiled and got up and retrieved a pitcher of apple juice from the refrigerator, plastered with all her drawings. Frankie loved all kinds of juice then. Her younger self refilled his glass and checked her mom’s.

  “Thanks, honey,” her mom said. She squeezed younger Robin’s hand as she sat back down to dinner, and Robin swore she felt it, a warmth that traveled up her arm.

  Mist gathered on the kitchen floor, twisting up the legs of the table.

  “No, wait. Please?” Robin grabbed Decker’s arm. “My mom. I just want to see her for a little longer.” The mist thickened until Robin couldn’t see into the kitchen. “Please. Mom,” she called, a sob catching in her throat. And then the mist enveloped her, and she closed her eyes, falling, her arms wrapped around herself as if trying to hold onto her memories.

  “You can open your eyes,” Decker said.

  Robin heard music in the background. She looked around. “Oh, my God,” she said. “No way.” She stood in the middle of her living room from her college days in Oregon. If this was a dream, the details were amazing, from the beat-up rugs that covered the scratched wooden floor to the peeling pale green paint above the TV that sat across from a sofa. Her roommate had put a tiny fake tree on the entertainment center. Cal had decorated it with little red and silver balls and lovingly hung tinsel all over it. Robin had laughed, but she admitted that when he did it that the tree reminded her of her mom, who had loved Christmas, and who had believed in it even when she was on her last one.

  “Pretty nice for a college crib.” Decker inspected the sofa. “Did you dumpster dive this?” she asked. “Good shape.”

 
; Robin shot her a glare and didn’t respond.

  “Who lived here who listened to The Clash?” Decker was reading the labels on the CD cases strewn across the floor. “And Joy Division. Nice.”

  “Me, thank you very much.”

  Decker raised her eyebrows, grudging approval in her expression. “There might be hope for you yet, Preston. Are these yours, too?” She pointed at the pen and ink framed sketches above the sofa. “Hard to do nudes. These are really good.”

  “Yes, they’re mine. In another life.” She stepped carefully over a couple of jewel cases past the mini stereo sitting on the worn shelves she and her roommate had rescued from an abandoned warehouse. She heard what sounded like crying in what had been her bedroom, just off the living room.

  The door was barely open. She reached to push it open, but her hand went right through the wood.

  “Jesus freaking Christ.” She pulled her hand back and checked it. Still intact.

  “You’re here but you’re not,” Decker said, making her jump again.

  “What the hell does that even mean?”

  “Hard to explain. Just walk in.” Decker motioned at the door.

  “How?”

  Decker shook her head in exasperation and walked right through the door, like a ghost might. Robin stared after her. This was so messed up. She held her breath and walked toward the door, flinching for what she just knew was going to be a smack in her face. Instead, she ended up in the bedroom next to Decker, who stood watching the forlorn figure who sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the floor.

  Robin knew what day this was. She remembered it, and didn’t want or need a reminder. “Dick move, Decker,” she said through her teeth. The day the love of her life dumped her. Right around Christmas.

  Decker shrugged. “Did you ever wonder why Jill broke it off?”

  “I didn’t have to. She told me.” Robin fought an urge to sit on the bed with her younger self.

  “Oh, yeah. The old ‘I love you but I’m not in love with you’ spiel. And you believed it?”

  “What was I supposed to do? Tell her to change how she felt? Demand that she be in love with me?” She clenched her fists. “This is stupid. What the hell does reliving this bullshit have to do with anything?” She whirled on Decker, anger rising in her throat.