by Rachel Kane
“I ordered a hundred more cans of it. I’m not sure I will have room in the cabinet for them all. I might have to empty one of the—”
“Val, it’s three in the morning.”)
See? I’m doing really well. I’m making the adjustment just fine.
I do miss my office, though. I miss the board room, and conferences, and making decisions. I miss the certainty and calm of Harrison Holdings.
We still own a stake in it, of course. The money keeps coming in, but it’s not the same as running it all yourself. Three in the morning in your own house isn’t like three in the morning in the cool, silent halls of a business, the only one there, studying reports and making plans. Even if you do have more spaghetti to look forward to.
Meanwhile, here, now: The Corinth Mall is a sensory riot. It’s not just the multiplicity of Christmas songs echoing off every surface. Everything is brightly lit, trying to catch your attention, everything is on SALE, some things are 40% OFF while others are BUY ONE GET ONE FREE, or simply BOGO. Maybe that latter sign is for people who are short on time, who can’t stop long enough to read an entire message?
I, on the other hand, had all the time in the world. Good thing, too. I couldn’t figure out where to go. The mall was huge, three stories of mercantile mayhem. The stores weren’t organized into a recognizable order. They seemed random. You could buy shoes, then walk a few feet to buy a diamond ring, or a large cookie, or ladies’ underwear, and then there was another shoe store. What surprised me was, I found this chaos thrilling: What is the underlying logic of this layout? It was like a puzzle, a maze.
The question to guide me was, what to buy, and for whom?
Mother was wearing a lot of scarves these days after her radiation therapy. Generally she wrapped them around her head, but also around her throat, until she looked like a whirlwind of fabric. Maybe I would buy her a scarf. Perhaps one for Theo, too. I wasn’t sure about the others.
Theo’s boyfriend, Mother’s boyfriend, all these boyfriends nowadays. What did you get for a boyfriend?
I don’t know. I’ve never had a boyfriend. A girlfriend either, for that matter. See my prior comments. It’s not the sort of thing I do. I don’t get what the fuss is about.
What does one even need a boyfriend for?
Relationships are so mysterious; I don’t like all the knowing looks and elbow-nudges Theo and his fiance give one another, the way they seem to be a little club all their own, an exclusive membership that keeps the rest of the world out.
Don’t get the wrong idea, it’s not that I lack knowledge of the basics of relationships. It’s not a matter of ignorance. I’m very well-read, as you may have picked up. I know the biological underpinnings, the physiology of arousal. But as far as I can tell, it’s all something that happens to other people. Nobody has ever shown that kind of interest in me.
At least, not that I’m aware of.
(”How would you know?” Another late-night conversation, picking up the phone and calling Theo. “Would you recognize it if someone was attracted to you, Val? No? Then how can you say it hasn’t ever happened? Why won’t you just admit that you’re lonely, and that’s why you keep talking about this?”)
I don’t know why my thoughts keep turning down that path. One minute I’m thinking about scarves, the next about sex. Probably a side-effect of my resignation. Too much time on my hands. People said it would take a while to feel normal about leaving the business. They used phrases like getting your feet under you, or getting your bearings.
Back to work: Scarves. Where do you buy a scarf? Not in this shoe store. Not in this store that built custom-made teddy bears for children. (What is the markup on those…if you used 5% less filling than in a factory-made bear, how much more would you earn on… Oh. Wandering again.)
The largest crowd is gathered around a great throne in the center of the mall, a host of loud children and their parents. For a moment it gives me the oddest sense that I’m watching a religious ritual, as though people are bringing their babies up to be blessed by a saint.
I mean, I know what I’m seeing. Don’t get the wrong idea. It’s just Santa Claus.
Unlike the chaotic hordes flowing into and out of the stores around me, this crowd is surprisingly well-organized, ushered into place by people in green and red elf outfits. So much fuzzy felt; so many small bells hanging from hats and sleeves. I don’t know how they stand it. I can’t bear fuzzy things touching my skin, can you?
The helpful elves guided parents with strollers, showed them where to stand, gently urged them forward. I couldn’t help but to watch it; this was the kind of thing I liked. Forethought, organization, planning. I got excited imagining myself organizing such a display—although I bet we could probably downsize the elves by 10-20% and still have enough to direct traffic efficiently.
More importantly, the elves weren’t in a store, they were in the main part of the mall. Which meant they were mall employees. Which meant they might be able to help me, a mall customer.
“Excuse me,” I said, brushing past a few of the parents. “Pardon,” to a woman with squalling twins. “If I could just pass by,” brushing shoulders with a man holding a young boy’s hand.
In every organization, you can tell the natural leaders just by looking. There’s a confidence in their bearing. Something keen in the eyes, as they monitor the situation. You learn to look for these people in your own company.
I’d spotted the leader of the elves. Not Santa. No, Santa is too busy for traffic, offering candy canes to children in exchange for their Christmas lists. The elf I wanted was the one near the front of the line.
“Hey buddy, you don’t even have a kid!” objected one of the parents behind me.
“Hello,” I tried to say to the elf, although by this time, I was being elbowed by parents.
“I’ve been waiting here half an hour, you can’t cut in line!” said one of the mothers. I tried to reassure her that I was just here to ask a question, not to have my picture taken with Saint Nick, then suddenly I was right next to the elf I was looking for, and said louder this time:
“Hello!”
The elf turned to me.
A confession: I’m not good with faces. Theo was always the one in charge of dealing with people. He had a gift for it, and I did not.
My gift was with the numbers, with an instinctive sense of where to find money, like a dowser in the desert finds water.
So I couldn’t understand why, when I got a good look at this elf, I felt something like surprise. It puzzled me, his face. I wanted to look at it some more, but the reason for that was beyond me. Was it a pretty face?
“Can I help you?” asked the elf, a young man shorter than me, with blond hair tucked into his green and red pointy hat. His eyes were blue, and though I’m not good with colors (again, a skill that was granted to Theo instead of me), they were interesting eyes, because of the way his gaze moved around and past me, taking me in, evaluating me, evaluating the next set of people after me. This was a man who knew how to organize things. He had a natural energy about him, a sort of bounce.
“…” I said.
I tried again, and this time the words came out. “Scarves. I’m looking for the store that sells scarves. Could you assist? Particularly I’m looking for silk, possibly a vibrant, modern print suitable for my mother, possibly Hermès, and I’d need to see a range—”
The elf shook his head. “I’m sorry, this is just the line for pictures with Santa. Do you have a kid with you, or—”
“No, no, I’ve never had children. My brother often talks about adopting, but for myself, I’ve always thought—”
“Sir…I’m not sure I’m the right person for you to talk to, but we have a few hundred parents to get up here on stage with Santa, so I’m going to need to ask you to leave the line, please?”
I blinked.
Oh hell. All at once, I realized I’d made a mistake.
My logic was sound; mall employees should be able to direct yo
u to stores in the mall, as part of the customer service experience. Good revenues depended on matching customers with products, and this young man clearly--
No. I was missing something. Something basic, something fundamental: I don’t know how malls work.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “aren’t you a mall employee? I may have—”
Once they realized I didn’t have any children, the parents behind me rose up in protest. For one dizzying moment I was off my feet, as they bodily removed me from the line.
“Please don’t touch me,” I tried to say, “I don’t like being touched—”
I was outside the crowd. They had closed in, keeping me out of the line.
The elf looked back at me, like he was about to say something, but then he vanished as the crowd encircled him. Like the parents were protecting the elf from me.
Home is new. Home is an apartment in a tower in downtown Corinth, where everything is still clean and perfect, most of the furniture still untouched. (”You have to let me pick out the furniture,” Theo told me when I left the company and moved down here to be closer to family. “Please. You have the taste of a medieval monk. Your sofas literally hurt people.”)
At least getting to the apartment feels the same: My driver opening the car door and nodding goodbye, the doorman of the building nodding hello. At the end of the lobby, the elevator man will ask me about my day and press the buttons for me.
Something is different today.
Something is wrong. It’s the way the doorman is looking at me, worried, concerned.
The same look that Theo always has, when he talks to me.
“Sir, a word before you go up?”
“Of course,” I said. I found myself mimicking the doorman’s concerned expression, because people respond well when you make the same face they’re making. It makes them see you as empathetic, on their side; they’re more likely to help you reach your goals then. Just a Management 101 trick for you.
“While we make every effort to help with deliveries, and we’re happy to do it, the men did ask if you’d let us know next time you have a large delivery…?”
I blinked, confused where he was going with this. Did my spaghetti come?”
The doorman’s eyebrows rose. “That was…spaghetti?”
“In cans. You see, it’s very efficient. Simple to store, simple to prepare. I ordered 100 cans.”
“A hundred…cans.”
It was exactly like talking to Theo, with that same sense that there was a criticism underlying the doorman’s tone, but one that I couldn’t quite make out.
“But I understand,” I said, “it must have been a heavy box, and I apologize for not telling you in advance.”
I started to reach for my wallet to give him a sizable tip for his trouble, but he was standing there looking as stunned as if a can had just hit him on the head.
“I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” the doorman said. “That was more than a hundred cans.”
“More than…”
It’s then that I realized the lobby looked different today.
It was covered in boxes.
Boxes behind the desk, boxes near the elevator, boxes stacked by the fire stairs.
All of them cheerfully labeled with the logo for Pasta Time EZ Spaghetti.
I approached one of the boxes, an unnameable fear rising in my throat. I reached out and touched its edge.
In red print, at the bottom of the box, it said: One Case, 24 Cans.
A look over my shoulder at the doorman. “Not a hundred cans?”
“A hundred cases,” suggests the doorman, waving at the boxes.
“I…I must have hit the wrong button on the order form. A hundred cases?”
I had no business being out in the world, did I? Life made so much more sense when a cook made my food, that basic division of labor. I sank onto one of the boxes, chin in my hands, looking at the results of my error. The doorman sat next to me. For a while we stared at them, the clean white cardboard like a snowdrift in the lobby.
“I’ll give you a thousand dollars to help bring them up to my apartment,” I said.
The doorman just sighed.
2
Charlie
“So…are you going to The Lantern tonight? A lot of us are going, and I thought…”
It wouldn’t be right to say Charlie had dreaded the question coming up. Charlie doesn’t dread anything; the universe is a kind place, it tends towards goodness and mercy, and there’s no fear in his soul. It’s just that he knew the question was coming, and knew there wasn’t time to think about his response.
He glanced up from the triplets who were taking candy canes from him. The little golden bells on his hat jingled as he turned to Wendy.
“Are we going in our elf costumes?”
She laughs and looks away and looks back, bashful but wanting to see his reaction to her bashfulness.
Wendy’s kind of a problem.
Wendy is friendly, outgoing, with a big laugh that fills the room. She likes big dogs, scary movies…and, apparently, Charlie. He’s not positive about that last one, but he’s getting that feeling.
Charlie doesn’t dread anything, but he’s had to have The Talk a lot of times over the years, and it’s not fun. Some girls don’t take I’m gay for an answer. They think of it as a challenge. Is that why your hair is so pretty, they’ll ask. If you’re gay then it doesn’t matter if I kiss you, right, it’ll just be meaningless and fun.
It’s not a talk he likes to have. He’d rather keep things happy, positive, peaceful.
Charlie loves peace. His idea of a perfect evening is to climb on top of his school bus, lie on the roof and stare up at the stars, listening to himself breathe, listening to the whole world breathe, just taking in the goodness of things.
“I was thinking of calling it an early night.”
The baby next in line is wearing a fuzzy suit with cat ears poking up, and he smiles and reaches out to touch the fuzzy ears. The baby giggles, and Charlie shows the mom where to step up onto the stage to meet Santa.
“Early night? You’re old before your time, Charlie! C’mon, we’re all going, it’ll be fun!”
He starts to say something—to agree, to refuse, he isn’t sure, he’s going to let the moment decide for him—when he realizes he’s being hailed by a guy in a slick suit. Parents are looking pissed off. The guy doesn’t appear to have a kid with him. Is he part of mall management? Something about the cut of the suit makes him think otherwise.
“Hello?” the guy asks, and Charlie is polite and says, “Can I help you?” even though clearly the guy doesn’t belong in line. He’s not here to see Santa.
“Scarves. I’m looking for the store that sells scarves…”
“So will you come?”
Time passes quickly, when you’re a Christmas elf. The work isn’t hard, although you do get the occasional crazy question like today, and you can slip into the zone, just enjoying the bustle.
At the end of it, Charlie’s feet hurt a little, and he really wants to stretch out, and get out of his elven clothes.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll go. Give me a chance to get changed.”
Wendy gives him that look again.
Why won’t you understand I’m gay? You can’t ask people that, and really he doesn’t want to ask her that. There’s no sense in making people feel bad for their confusion, or for wanting something they can’t have. Lots of people want things they can’t have.
Just because Charlie has tried to free himself of all those wants, doesn’t mean other people aren’t allowed to have them. He just has to figure out the positive, helpful way to explain things to her.
Or maybe he’s got it all wrong, and she just wants to be friends. That’d be good too. He’s always ready to have more friends.
“What a day,” says Santa, rubbing his head. His hat has left a red mark on his forehead.
“Did you throw away your gloves?” Charlie glanced at the bathroom trashcan and saw
a white cloth finger poking out.
“You kidding me? Gloves are my biggest expense in this gig. You try holding a couple hundred flu-ridden rugrats a day, and see if you don’t want to toss your gloves by the end of it. I’ll be lucky not to die of the damn plague.”
Charlie laughs and pats Santa on the back. He knows the poor guy is just tired. He’ll be back to twinkling eyes and jolly laughs by tomorrow morning.
He’s unbuttoning his elf-shirt when the bathroom door swings open. A glance at the mirror, and he sees Mr. Rumson, a scowl creasing his face, like someone tried to fold a pencil eraser in two.
“Charlie, I need to speak to you. Are you letting parents take pictures of Santa on their cell phones?”
The thing about Charlie is, he tries to cultivate a fearless soul. Not a daredevil soul, he doesn’t believe in unnecessary risks, but he does believe people get too hemmed in by their anxieties.
The tone in Mr. Rumson’s voice tells Charlie to take a deep breath, because otherwise he might start worrying he’s about to lose his winter job.
“A few people couldn’t afford the photo package, and they’d already stood in line all morning.” A simple explanation.
Rumson tut-tuts. “If they can’t afford the bargain package at $25, then why are they shopping in the mall in the first place, rather than at the dollar store? We’re trying to cultivate a certain clientele at Corinth Mall, Charlie. Gino, you know this too—”
“Don’t pull me into it,” says Santa, sloughing off his red jacket and scratching his belly. “I’m too busy holding babies to worry about cameras.”
Charlie is neatly folding his shirt so it will fit in its box unwrinkled. “Sorry Mr. Rumson. What should we do, turn them away?”
The same way that he understands Wendy’s bashful looks, he understands the way Mr. Rumson takes a second, now that Charlie has his shirt off, to look him over. Mr. Rumson is the kind of man who will never, in his entire life, admit what he wants. He’s a tangle of frustrated desire, and it comes out in his superior tone, in his arrogance.
