by Holly Rayner
Aaron and I spent over an hour on the ice, which is a lot for a first-timer. He was going to be sore in the morning, but I wasn’t going to be the one to tell him that. He had actually started to have fun and I had a feeling it was just what he needed. I sang along with the Christmas music and he had even begun humming along with me. I had a feeling that was a big step for him. The longer we skated, the more crowded the rink became. Skaters of all ages slid around at different levels of skill and speed. Each time a wobbly looking one or a super-speedy teen got close to Aaron, I’d grip tightly to his arm. He laughed at one point and told me that I missed my calling; I should have been a caregiver. At first, he was letting his ankles buckle, but the longer we skated, the steadier he became. I could tell by the feel of the muscles in his arms when he finally started to relax and enjoy himself. When we came off the ice at last, his cheeks were flushed red from the cold and he was smiling from ear to ear. He’d been a really good sport about it all once he got going. I was proud of him.
“I’m starving, how about you?” I asked him as we took our skates off.
“Definitely,” he said. “That ice-skating takes a lot out of a person. I know a great little restaurant not far from here.”
“Uh-uh! My day, remember?”
“Oh, sorry. Well then, where will we be having lunch?”
I slipped on my boots and stood up. “We’re going to the Christmas market. We can get some food from the vendors there.” Aaron made a face. I doubted that he’d ever bought anything from a street vendor.
He finally got the skate he was struggling with off and then he said, “Are you sure? You’re never sure what they put in things.”
“Oh please, people eat vendor food all the time and live through it. You’ll be amazed at how good it is.”
He didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t argue any further. He slipped on his boots and stood up. Grabbing on to me he said, “Ouch, I may not be able to get out of bed tomorrow.”
I laughed, “Yes, I thought of that too. But now that the initiation is over, you can skate more and your body will get used to it.”
“Hmm, I’ll have to give that some thought,” he said it like he was going to give it no thought at all. That’s okay; I wasn’t looking to turn him into a professional ice-skater. I was just really hoping to help him learn how to have a little fun. “I have a meeting on Monday afternoon with some really important people coming all the way over from China. Hopefully I’ll be there and not writhing in pain and agony in bed.”
“I’m sure by Monday you’ll be as good as new,” I told him.
We turned in our skates and walked over to the area of the park where the fair was happening. There were more than 125 boutique-style shops in the park. The aisles were made from festively decorated trees and the shops carried everything that a person might need to complete their Christmas shopping and a lot of it was handmade, which I loved. Personally, I’d so much rather receive something hand-made than something designed and built in a factory. The sights and smells of Christmas were overwhelming. It all made me happy. I looked over at Aaron and realized it was having the opposite effect on him. His glow from the ice-skating seemed to be fading.
I saw a hot dog vendor and looked at Aaron.
“Hot dogs?” he said, grumpily.
“Are you too good for a hot dog?”
“Absolutely not,” he said. “But, I did see a sign for steak sandwiches. Doesn’t that sound better?”
“Oh, I see what you’re doing. I said I’d buy and suddenly you want the steak. You’re not a cheap date, are you?”
He threw his head back and laughed. That was encouraging. “I admit it, you have me. I have hot dogs every day. I was trying to get my hands on a steak on your dime.”
“Well, as long as you’re willing to be honest about it,” I told him.
“I’d even be willing to pay for half,” he said. “Please don’t make me eat a hot dog.” It was my turn to laugh. He sounded like an insolent child.
“Okay, steak sandwich it is. I’m paying for all of it though,” I said. He opened his mouth and I said, “I won’t accept any arguments.” He opened his mouth again and I said, “Huh uh I don’t want to hear it.”
“But…”
He stopped walking and I said, “I’m buying, Aaron. That’s final.”
“That’s fine,” he said, pointing up. I looked up and saw the sign for the steak sandwich vendor. I’d walked right past it.
“I was just going to turn around,” I told him. He laughed, but to his credit he didn’t make fun of me. We ordered two sandwiches and two coffees. When they were ready, we carried them to one of the park benches and sat down to eat.
Aaron took a bite from his and said, “Oh my God.”
“What? What’s wrong?”
“This is the best steak sandwich I’ve ever tasted,” he said. “I’ve had them in more than one country and in more than one gourmet restaurant too.”
I smiled and said, “Told you so. You’ll be an addict before long.”
We finished our lunch and I had to agree with his assessment. The sandwich was delicious. He collected our trash and deposited it in a nearby can. Then turning to me he said, “What now, boss?”
“Shopping,” I told him. He raised an eyebrow but he didn’t argue or complain. I led him to a little jewelry stand we’d passed. The lady working the stand told me that her pieces were all hand-made by her and her husband. It was all lovely, sturdy jewelry made out of delicate silver and shaped or hand etched with unique designs.
“Are you looking for something in particular?” Aaron asked me.
“Nope, that’s the beauty of shopping in a place like this. Whatever is here wouldn’t be something you would have been looking for, because it’s all handmade and original.”
“So, how do you know what you want?”
“I look for things that match my people,” I told him. “For instance, see this necklace? It looks just like my friend, Heidi. She would love it.” I looked at the price tag and sat it back down. “Unfortunately, Heidi’s friend Robyn is on a budget, maybe next year.”
We left that booth and went to the next one. It was all decorations for Christmas. “So here, you’re not looking for anything in particular either?” Aaron asked me.
“Well here, I kind of am,” I told him. “I collect Santa Claus ornaments for my tree. I buy one or two every year, but I have so many now I have to really look for unique ones.”
“Hmm, Santa Claus, huh?”
“You’re not a believer?” I asked.
He gave me a half smile and said, “Not since I was about eight.”
“That’s too bad,” I told him. “What do you like to put on your tree?”
He shrugged. Then he said, “I haven’t had a Christmas tree in my own home ever.”
I thought that was so sad. “Why? You really dislike Christmas that much?”
“I really do,” he said. I wondered what had happened to him. It had to be something traumatic to make him hate Christmas so badly that he left town because of it every year. I didn’t want to ask him. I thought that he’d share it if he felt comfortable doing so.
“What about your family? Do they celebrate Christmas?” I asked.
As I watched his face change, I knew that question too had gone one step too far. His eyes seemed to cloud up; the light that had briefly come into them again while we were having lunch was gone.
“No,” he said. “They don’t.”
I let it go at that and changed the subject back to my own tree. Picking up an old-fashioned looking Santa ornament I said, “What do you think of this one?”
He barely glanced at it before saying, “It’s fine.” I’d lost him again. I went ahead and bought the ornament and we moved on. Between that booth and the next one was another alley that stretched out lengthwise and was similar to a midway at the fair.
“Let’s play a game,” I said.
He pulled his brows together in the middle and said, “A g
ame?”
“Yes, you can win me a stuffed animal,” I said. “I’ll pay for the game of course.”
He didn’t look thrilled, but he followed me. I sought out a game I remembered from last year where the prizes were all in the form of some sort of Santa Claus. Aaron would have to shoot a gun filled with water into a clown’s mouth and make his balloon burst before the others. He looked at the three boys less than fourteen year’s old sitting on the benches and then back at me.
“You want me to compete against three adolescents for a Santa Claus doll?”
“Sure, why not?” I said.
“I can buy you one if you want it that badly.”
“No, I don’t want a bought one,” I told him. “It will mean more that you won it for me.”
He shook his head and smiled, “What is your obsession with Santa Claus?” he asked me.
“I’m not obsessed,” I told him.
“Okay, not obsessed but you seem pretty fond of him. What’s the deal?”
“Tell you what, you sit down here and win me one of these fine Santa’s and I’ll tell you why I love him so much.”
He raised an eyebrow and then with a sigh, he took one of the seats. He looked so cute sitting there in his designer jeans in between the boys with their faded and scuffed ones. I laid the two dollars down in front of him and the man running the game picked it up. The bell rang and Aaron took out his gun. His competitors had done this before; they already had theirs in hand. They all started shooting before Aaron got his ready to go. It took him several precious moments to line his water stream up with the clown’s mouth.
I heard him curse and then say, “Yes! There we go,” when he hit it. He seemed to be getting into it as I cheered him on. I hoped he wasn’t looking to the sides of him and seeing how much more quickly the other balloons were filling up. He was having fun and that was all that mattered. We heard a loud pop and when we looked down where it came from we saw a jubilant red-haired boy with a Santa in front of him already.
The man running the game said, “Winner!” The boy picked up his small Santa and handed it to the man who traded it for a larger one.
“Oh well, you gave it your best shot,” I told Aaron. He didn’t answer me. He didn’t look like he was satisfied with only taking a shot. Instead of getting up to go, he reached into his pocket and took out his wallet. After he lay another two dollars down in front of him, he picked up his gun and aimed it. He was a fast learner. I wasn’t surprised. I couldn’t help but smile at the determined look on his face. I wish I had a picture of it to show him.
“Okay now, you’ve got this one,” I told him. The other two boys had gotten up and wandered away leaving only Aaron and the red-haired boy down at the end.
“The heck he does!” the cocky little boy said, holding his gun in one hand and looking like he was ready for a shoot-out.
His attitude seemed to give Aaron an even more determined look. He set his shoulders and clamped down on the trigger of his water gun. When the bell rang, he came out shooting. His balloon was filling fast, but so was the boy’s. “Come on Aaron! You’ve can do it!” I cheered him. Unfortunately, his balloon had different ideas. The little red-haired boy got a bigger Santa Claus that time and before the man turned back around, Aaron had lay down another two dollars. I put my hand on his shoulder and said,
“It’s okay; you don’t have to keep trying.” He glanced over at the little boy whose freckled face was drawn up into a huge smile.
“The heck I don’t,” he said, mimicking what the boy had said earlier. I laughed. I could suddenly see that competitive spirit that led him to becoming a billionaire. He wasn’t willing to give up when he knew he had a chance. Kind of like the way I felt about him.
He played three more times before his balloon finally popped. When it did, you would have thought he’d won the lottery. He jumped up off his stool and wrapped me up in a tight hug. He swung me around and I squealed and giggled. The little boy was looking at us like we were crazy as he clutched onto his giant Santa Claus. The man running the game lay a tiny little key-chain sized stuffed Santa down in front of Aaron. He looked as proud of it as if it had been a lottery check.
He held it up for me to see and smiled broadly. “Congratulations,” I told him.
“You’re making fun of me,” he said. “But that kid was tough. I’m thinking of offering him a job. He would make a great HR supervisor.”
I laughed, “I’m not making fun of you. I think it’s adorable.” I held out my hand to take the Santa and he pulled it back. With a pout I said, “I thought you were winning it for me.”
“I was, but I believe that you owe me something first,” he said.
“What?”
“An explanation about the Santa fetish?”
Giggling, I said, “It’s definitely not a fetish. That makes it sound so sordid.”
“Okay, it’s not an obsession or a fetish, but if you want this big guy, you’re going to have to give me a story.” I laughed again, this time because he was calling the tiny little thing in his hand a “big guy.” What was it with men and size?
“Okay, here’s the story,” I said, as we resumed walking through the market. “When I was eight years old, some kids at school told me that there was no such thing as Santa Claus. I was devastated. I cried all the way home. When I got home, I told my mother what they’d said. I asked her point-blank if she and my daddy had lied to me. I wanted to know once and for all if he existed.”
“So what did she say?” he asked.
“She didn’t really say anything. When I think back on it now, I’m sure that she didn’t know what to say. When you first tell your kids about Santa, it’s a fun fantasy. But when they confront you about his existence later on in life, I’m sure it feels like a lie. My mother never lied to me. She suggested that we bake cookies and talk about it when my father got home from work. I also know now that she knew he would know just how to handle it. So we baked chocolate chip cookies; my mother’s were the best… warm and gooey.”
“Santa Claus?” he said, trying to re-direct me back to the subject at hand. I did have a tendency to get off track, especially with so much stimulus going on around me.
“I’m getting there,” I told him. “Be patient.” We were passing the booth to buy tickets for the carriage rides and I stopped and said, “Ooh! Let’s go for a carriage ride.”
“What about the story?” he said. I could tell right then that patience wasn’t one of his virtues. I guess when you’re Aaron Winters; you rarely had to wait for what you wanted.
“I’ll finish the story in the carriage. Come on, it doesn’t feel like Christmas without at least one carriage ride through the park.” Aaron was eyeing the horse and the cart suspiciously. He seemed to be checking the wheels on the cart to make sure they looked like they’d hold up. “It’s safe, I promise. Have you never been for a carriage ride?”
“I’ve never seen the point,” he said. “I have several cars and…”
I laughed, “There is no point. It’s just fun. Don’t you ever do anything spontaneously just for fun?”
He looked like he was thinking about that and then he said, “Rarely.”
~
CHAPTER EIGHT
~
ROBYN
