Nissa sat alone at one of ten tables. It seemed amazingly quiet here, especially in comparison to the rest of the restaurant. She had already ordered something to drink; he smelled Frank’s winter specialty hot chocolate, made with a touch of mint.
As he sat down, Ryan said, “If I’d realized what a zoo this place would be tonight, I would have picked somewhere else.”
“I like it,” Nissa said. “You don’t see a lot of places like this in my neighborhood.”
She was right; Manhattan wasn’t known for its kid-friendly restaurants except in touristy Times Square.
Ryan smiled as one of the waitresses came over. She too was a student, but not from his classes. He just recognized her from campus.
He ordered some coffee and took the offered menu. So did Nissa. But neither of them looked at it. Instead, they stared at each other.
He wondered if she regretted all those kisses this afternoon, then decided he had to stop worrying about her. She had confessed that she had come to see him, which surprised him. He had felt as if he’d been at his very worst every time she’d seen him.
“How did class go?” she asked, apparently not realize he had taught two since he last saw her.
“Better than I expected, which isn’t saying much. My PowerPoint presentation would have been a real disaster if it weren’t for you.”
She shrugged. “Nothing to it.”
“It was to me,” he said. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” They stared at each other for a moment and he could feel the attraction thrumming between them.
“It’s cliché,” he said, “but I really don’t know much about you. You said you weren’t a native New Yorker…?”
It was a better conversational gambit than the ones he’d tried this afternoon. And better than asking her how she got her start with Claus & Company, which he had looked up on the internet one late night while he was staring at her card. Like most corporate websites, the Claus & Company site had told him next to nothing about the company, but unlike the others, he couldn’t drill down into the site to learn stuff the company didn’t want him to know.
“I thought you could tell from my accent,” she said. “It was pretty bad when I moved here.”
“From where?” he asked.
She looked down, which surprised him. She also started to answer and stopped herself, which surprised him more. It was almost as if she had edited her response.
“I was born in Hawaii,” she said, “but I was raised in a place no one’s ever heard of.”
“Try me,” he said.
She frowned just a little, as if she were measuring her response. Then she said something that sounded like the combination of a cough, a sneeze, and someone clearing their throat.
“Excuse me?” he said.
She repeated the noise—which was apparently a name, or a word or something. “At least,” she added, “that’s what we call it.”
And then she looked down again, as if she were embarrassed to admit she came from that place.
“What do we call it?” he asked.
She bit her lower lip. Then she closed her eyes. Finally she put a hand over her mouth, as if she were holding back words.
The entire situation had suddenly become weird.
“Nissa?” he asked.
“The North Pole,” she said after a moment. “You call it the North Pole.”
17
SHE COULDN’T LOOK at him as she said it, but she couldn’t lie to him either. The lies simply wouldn’t come out of her mouth. Twisting the truth only worked part way.
Her magic was clashing with his somehow, and it was creating an honesty that she wasn’t used to, particularly since she was in advertising, promotion, and marketing.
Or maybe, she was just so attracted to him her entire being rebelled when she tried to lie.
“Nice try,” he said. “Now, tell me where you’re really from.”
She raised her head. She was miserable. She actually wanted to spend more time with him and she now knew that was impossible.
“I’m from the North Pole,” she said.
“Yeah, right,” he said with a laugh. “Next thing you know, you’ll tell me you’re an elf.”
“Half,” she said.
He grinned, then the grin slowly faded. “Half?”
“On my mother’s side.” Her voice was flat. “My father’s mostly native Hawaiian.”
Ryan opened his mouth, then closed it. “How does that happen?” he blurted.
“Vacation,” she said, because the only other options were to explain to him how the birds and bees worked or the way that elves and humans really were sexually compatible, despite what the literature said.
“Vacation?” he asked, mimicking her tone.
She nodded, her throat constricting. She managed to say, “People take them, you know. Even elves. Usually in January.”
“Oh,” he said, clearly confused by this conversation. “So you’re on vacation?”
“I should be,” she said, feeling miserable. “Because this was a mistake.”
She pushed away from the table, rattling her hot chocolate mug. She shouldn’t have been honest—not that she had a choice—and she shouldn’t have pursued him—and there she had had a choice—and she should have just talked to him about Claus & Company and branding.
She took a ten from her wallet and put it on the table, even though that was more than her hot chocolate cost by a long ways.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and walked away.
18
SHE WAS LEAVING. Ryan stood up, not sure exactly what had happened, and hurried after her. He joined her in the main room, caught her by the arm, and said, “What just happened?”
“Nothing,” she said, shaking her head. “You wouldn’t believe it, no matter what I said.”
“Make me believe,” he said.
She stopped in the middle of all the misbehaving children, and looked at them as if they held the secret to life.
“That’s the thing,” she said. “I can’t make anyone believe anything. It’s against the rules.”
And she shook him off.
This time, he couldn’t catch up with her. By the time he reached the front door, she had vanished. He didn’t even see a car pulling out of the parking lot.
He stood in the cold for a long moment, staring into the darkness.
The parking lot was empty; the road was empty. Even the cross streets were empty. It was as if she had never existed.
He had no idea what had happened. He hadn’t said anything wrong, that he knew of. He’d asked her about her life, and she’d told him about…the North Pole?
Was she crazy?
Was he?
Because part of him did believe her. She had pointed ears. He’d seen them. Her business card never tattered, despite how he held it. She always talked about branding Santa, as if she were in control of that.
Santa couldn’t be real. Because Ryan’s Uncle Dave had played Santa at every Christmas party since Ryan could remember. His Uncle Dave, who was a bit too fat, whose ears were round and whose cheeks were rosy—not from cold, but from broken capillaries, just like his nose was too red. Uncle Dave, whom everyone struggled to keep sober until his time with the kids was over.
“Professor Palmer?” Henry peered out the door. “You gonna order?”
What did Ryan say about this? That his date had run off? That she was half-elf? That she was crazy?
That he thought maybe he was in love with her anyway? That the tips of those ears turned him on like nothing else ever had in his entire life?
“Yeah,” Ryan said after a moment. “Yeah, I guess I will order. Just give me a minute, okay?”
“Okay,” Henry said, and closed the door.
Ryan stood outside a moment longer, his arms wrapped around himself, shivering, watching his breath fog in and out.
Christmas. The North Pole, Claus & Company, Santa in the 21st century. Elves.
He sho
uld have been appalled—and he was—but for the wrong reason.
He should have stopped her.
Instead, he had let her walk away.
19
DUMB. THAT’S WHAT she was. Dumb. She’d dated guys in the Greater World before, and she’d lied to them the whole time. If she accidentally used magic, she said it was luck or just something weird or, worse, she’d tell them they hadn’t seen what they had just seen.
She had pretty much kept to herself, though, because the strain of keeping the lies straight was always a tad too hard. And she didn’t want to date any of the men—human, elven, or a mixture—at the Pole because long-distance relationships didn’t work.
And, to be honest, everyone in the Pole (and some of the Claus & Company people outside of it) had a pretty insular view of the world. All the worlds—the Greater World and the magical world.
She had actually used magic to get to her car. She’d propelled herself there, rather like flying but not quite, because she couldn’t quite manage that. More like running super fast—something every child learned and something she hadn’t done in years. Then she had cloaked the car in an invisibility spell.
She hadn’t driven away. She just sat inside the car, watching Ryan as he stood in the door to the restaurant, looking at the parking lot, then scanning the roads. Was he hoping to see her? Maybe. Maybe he thought it was all a joke.
Maybe he thought she’d apologize, or maybe he’d lie to her and say that he did believe, when clearly he didn’t. Santa was a fictional character to him, an advertising creation, an example in Ryan’s long book on the importance of the individual in public health.
She shouldn’t have come here. She shouldn’t have tried to talk to him. She should have stayed in Manhattan and let that one day in December remain one of her most special memories. One she could watch over and over again in digital download, just to see his handsome face.
Which continued to scan the parking lot as if he knew she were there.
Finally, one of the wait staff peered out the door, talked to him for a moment, and then went inside. Ryan nodded, gave the parking lot one last look, and followed the young man through the door.
It was over.
Maybe the Old Boys were right: maybe she had mishandled all of this because of her attraction to Ryan. Not that the Old Boys knew about the attraction; they hadn’t, and they hadn’t accused her of it.
But they had thought her judgment was clouded, and they might have been right.
Santa was her responsibility. Updating the Greater World New York office was her new task.
She was supposed to think about the future of Claus & Company, not about her relationship with a professor named Ryan Palmer.
Who kissed like no one she had ever met.
Who attracted her like no one she had ever known.
Who would be impossible to forget.
20
TWENTY-FOUR HOURS LATER, Ryan still didn’t understand what had happened, and that bothered him. Because he was a logical man who could generally figure out most things, given enough time.
He’d gone to his office at four A.M. when he couldn’t sleep, and except for leaving once to teach a two-hour lab, he had spent the entire time on his computer, reading about the historical Santa Claus.
If, indeed, anyone could call Santa historical.
But, he supposed, people could label Santa historical. Because the creation of the beloved children’s character could be traced. There was a trail, which began with the myths and legends of all the Northern European countries. They all had different names for him, like Father Christmas and St. Nicholas. But there were parts in all of those creations in the modern American Santa Claus.
That Santa seemed to appear first in the American Civil War. By the beginning of the 20th century, Santa was used to sell things, including—one could argue—Christmas itself. Selling things made sense, because advertising really picked up at the turn of the last century—in newspapers, magazines, and other things.
Ryan had actually done research into the rise of mass media and its impact on public health. Public health advocates hadn’t used mass media properly except in cases of severe contagion or a short-term threat to a community.
Before the debacle of the last book and the stupid book tour, he’d actually been thinking his next book would be about ways to use media to change images of health. Those thoughts had led to the Santa chapter. He had considered it a toe into the realm of media and health.
He hadn’t expected to get burned.
He wasn’t sure he would ever write another book. Wendy had told him that he was a celebrity now, and his work would get scrutinized. She had also told him that she would represent him through the university, and he would be able to get on any show he wanted. The president of the university seconded that, wanting the press for the school.
Ryan didn’t want to do any of it. Just thinking about Santa brought it all back.
But he forced himself, because if he didn’t, he might not ever see Nissa again. He wanted to see her. Even if she was crazy.
Health. He had to focus on health, including his. The very idea of losing Nissa had taken him out of his comfort zone, and he found that crazy all by itself.
Because he had never had her. He had met her twice and been somewhat obsessed with her. He had used the memory of her to get himself through a difficult experience, and that had forced him to focus on her.
That was all.
He rubbed his hand over his eyes. They ached from lack of sleep and because of the research he’d done, with the lights down and squinting at his computer.
He wouldn’t have done the research if he were merely focused on her. He’d found other women stunningly beautiful or intellectually intriguing. He’d thought about them a lot, but when he was with them, he never felt like he had just been with the one person he’d spent his whole life waiting for.
And if he tried to apply his logical brain to that thought, his logical brain sent all kinds of warning signals to the rest of him. Because he had never ever believed in soul mates or in true love or in love at first sight. He believed in long-term friendships and relationships that grew and became something else.
Even though he’d never really experienced those either.
He stood up, stretched, and heard his back crack. He’d clearly been sitting here too long, researching and not processing the information.
He had been trying to figure out more than just Santa. He’d been trying to figure out what was going on in his own head. Or, to be more accurate, in his own heart.
And maybe internet research was the wrong approach.
What if he had misunderstood her? Was she an “elf” as in an employee of this company called Claus & Company which (somewhat secretly) controlled Santa’s brand?
She hadn’t said anything about magic. Maybe she had been making a joke about being half-elven—or elfish? Jeez, he didn’t even know what a group of elves were called. (And why would he? He was a scientist, not an elf expert.)
Nissa hadn’t said that she knew a man who could fly all over the world in one night, deliver toys to only the best children (ignoring all the poor ones), and somehow still remain a hero.
She didn’t seem delusional. The studios in New York didn’t treat her that way.
The studios in New York didn’t think so. In fact, the producers on Becker’s show had called her a go-to guest. So someone had vetted her, right?
She had seemed sane. She was sane. Although her reaction after telling him she was from the North Pole had been weird. Had she seen the perplexed look on his face? Had he made some kind of judgmental expression, something that a sensitive woman who had just put herself on the line would run from?
Why had she run from him? She had called their dinner—or her trip to the university—a mistake. A mistake.
Clearly he had done something wrong.
He shoved his hands in the back pockets of his jeans and walked to the windows. The safety lam
ps, installed every 15 feet, sent a warm, yellow glow along the paths, making the campus look like something out of an early 20th century idyll. A few students walked by, their shapes indistinct because of the frozen moisture in the air.
He had been the problem, not her. He had gone up to her and asked her to help him believe. Maybe they had spoken at cross-purposes. He had asked her what happened, and she had responded: You wouldn’t believe it, no matter what I said.
Believe what? He had assumed she was talking about Santa, when she might have been talking about his expression or the fact that she hated the food in the restaurant or maybe that she had never dated. He hadn’t asked for clarification.
Instead, stupidly, he had assumed that she had been talking about Santa Claus. Santa Claus. Whose name hadn’t even come up in the conversation.
In fact, he believed that the conversation had been about Santa so much that he had spent the last ten hours researching the “historical” man, not thinking about Nissa.
Thinking about Santa.
Ryan leaned his head against the window’s cool glass. He had asked Nissa to “make him believe.” And even that question had been wrong.
Because he clearly believed. He believed so deep down that he thought there was a possibility that she worked for Santa—or that she thought she worked for Santa. And then Ryan had blamed her for being crazy or delusional, when that very assumption was just crazy or delusional.
Whatever had given him the idea that she was a “real” elf? Or a “real” half-elf. Her pointed ears? A lot of perfectly normal humans had pointed ears. And hers weren’t even that pointed. They just had a nifty little tip to them that, even as he thought of it, still turned him on.
He groaned.
He had been the idiot, not her. He had made some kind of face, he had maybe not understood a joke, he had taken everything too seriously, just like he always had, and she had fled from him.
Santa Series: Three Stories of Magical Holiday Romance Page 16
