Secret Santa

by Fern Michaels

  “Merry Christmas, Aunt Velvet. May I have the pleasure of this dance?”

  Velvet looked from his warm eyes to his navy blue, western-cut suit, and the yellow rose that was pinned on his lapel.

  “And I’d like to claim the next, Miss Velvet. If you’d do me the honor.”

  Velvet turned toward the sound of Father Winston’s voice who smiled as he finished pinning a yellow bloom to the lapel of his black jacket. Velvet looked over the shoulder of the priest and spotted Bob Baker, Harold Pickens, Graydon Beebe, all smiling at her, all dressed in their holiday best, all sporting yellow rose boutonnieres on their lapels.

  In fact, she realized as her eyes scanned the perimeter of the hall, moving from right to left around the sea of familiar faces that, except for scowling Jack Benny Benton who sat glaring at her from a table in the corner, every man in the room, from young Buck Swanson, dressed in the ill-fitting suit he’d borrowed from his father, to ancient George Plank, seated in his wheelchair, was wearing a yellow rose and a smile, and gazing at her with undisguised admiration.

  Velvet’s eyes filled. But before she could give way to tears, the fiddle player lifted his instrument to his shoulder and the band swung into a countrified version of “Jingle Bell Rock.” Dutch grabbed her by the hand.

  “Come on, Aunt Velvet! Let’s cut a rug!”

  Chapter Twelve

  Before Velvet could lodge any protest, Dutch pulled her into the middle of the floor and began dancing—at least Velvet supposed that’s what he was doing; she’d never seen anything quite like it. Dutch clapped his hands, stomped his feet, and gyrated his hips in time to the music, then held his hands, palms up, and wiggled his fingers in a come-hither gesture, indicating that Velvet should do the same.

  Velvet hadn’t danced with a man since she was a very little girl, when her father had let her stand on the tops of his shoes and guided her through a jerking and stiff-legged waltz at a cousin’s wedding. And she’d certainly never, not even in her imagination, tried to dance to “rock and roll” music. She was sure she’d look like a perfect fool dancing to such wild music. Dutch certainly did but he didn’t seem to care. Neither did any of the other couples on the floor, most of whom were jumping and twisting in ways that made Velvet think they’d been goosed with a cattle prod. Did they know how silly they looked?

  On the other hand, she reasoned, they couldn’t look any sillier than she did, standing stupidly still in the middle of a dance floor.

  Velvet tapped her left foot, then her right, rocking cautiously from side to side along with the music. Dutch grinned and bobbed his head approvingly. “That’s it, Aunt Velvet! You’ve got it!” Velvet, feeling a little less self-conscious, grinned back at him and waggled her hips a bit. She was, she realized, actually enjoying herself.

  But enjoyment turned to alarm when Dutch grabbed her right hand, let out a whoop, spun her around in a circle, then under his arm before bringing her back in toward his torso, then unwound his grip on her like a yo-yo on a string before reeling her back in, grabbing her about the waist, and making her bob up and down in tandem with him for a couple of seconds before repeating the entire series of movements. Velvet’s initial response to Dutch’s exuberant gamboling was one of shock and panic. Her mind raced as she tried to anticipate his next move. But before long, once she realized that she didn’t have to figure out what Dutch was going to do next, only to follow his lead, panic turned to pleasure, then to heart pounding giddiness as she spun and twirled and clapped and stomped, her grin growing wider with every passing measure of music until, almost before she knew it, the song was over and everyone was clapping and hooting their approval of the band.

  “My goodness!” Velvet exclaimed, practically shouting to make herself heard above the applause. “That was fun! Thank you, Dutch. I’m so dizzy, I feel like I’ve taken fifty trips on a Ferris wheel. I’d better sit down a minute and catch my breath.”

  Dutch laughed. “Oh, I don’t think you’ll have a chance of that, Miss Velvet. Not tonight.”

  Dutch was right. Even before he finished speaking, Velvet found herself encircled by a ring of men with yellow roses on their lapels, congratulating her on jitterbugging skills and asking for the honor of the next dance. Father Winston responded on her behalf, informing the assembled gentlemen that he had already reserved a spot as Miss Velvet’s next partner and suggesting they draw numbers to work out the order for the rest of the evening.

  The next dance, much to Velvet’s relief, was a waltz. Not that she had done much waltzing, not besides that one time with her father, but she’d watched The King and I on television often enough so she understood the general principal. It was a struggle, at first, not to count the steps—one, two, three, and—or look at her feet but she soon discovered that, as with the jitterbug, all she really needed to do was relax and follow her partner’s lead. Father Winston was a good dancer and Velvet told him so.

  “Thank you. So are you, Miss Velvet. Very graceful. And, may I say, quite lovely.”

  “Oh, well . . . thank you.”

  She had been about to tell him that he didn’t have to say things they both knew weren’t so, but she didn’t think it would be very nice to accuse a clergyman of telling an untruth, even if he meant it kindly.

  And the truth was, at that moment, in the soft glow of candlelight, floating on a cloud of music and rustling red satin that swished and swirled about her feet as she glided and turned in three-quarter time, she felt graceful. And lovely. And, she supposed, there was nothing so very wrong in that. Even if it was an illusion, as fragile as a fairy tale, an artifice brought about by a fairy godmother, her sister, a spell that would, like a glass slipper or pumpkin coach, disappear before morning.

  Which meant there was all the more reason to enjoy it for as long as it lasted. And Velvet did.

  She danced every dance, feeling not an ounce of regret for the temporary nature of her transformation, so busy enjoying the music and the dancing and the company of her partners, that she didn’t feel Marlena’s laser sharp glare upon her, or notice the argument that erupted between her and her husband, Noodie. When he too, pinned a yellow rose to his lapel and joined the line of men waiting to dance with Miss Velvet, Marlena stormed off, leaving the ball early with Jack Benny slouching along in her wake.

  The only moment of melancholy Miss Velvet felt during the entire evening came when she looked at the Santa throne that sat empty next to the Christmas tree, the chair that should have been occupied by Mr. Delacorte, whom she had already ceased to think of by his Christian name. She was sorry that she would not be able to dance with him and sorrier still that now, after having learned of how his name had been connected with this cruel prank and how she’d behaved like an addled schoolgirl, imagining that a man she barely knew had harbored a secret affection for her, she would likely never see him again, not as admirer or even as a potential friend. Jack Benny had tried to make fools of them both. It was one thing for him to have done this to Velvet but quite another to have involved Mr. Delacorte. He was too fine a man to be made fun of.

  For a moment, Velvet considered the possibility of going to see him and apologize, or perhaps even just sending him a note, but quickly dismissed the idea. She didn’t want him to think she was chasing after him. No, the best thing, the most dignified thing, would be to leave things as they were. Any attempt to contact Mr. Delacorte would only serve to make a bad situation worse.

  And, aside from that, it really wasn’t a bad situation, not entirely. Velvet thought back to that wish she’d made just before Thanksgiving, really more of a passing thought than a wish, that just once, she’d have liked to know what it felt like to have a grand romance, to be admired and pursued by a man. It occurred to Velvet that her wish had come true, after a fashion. No, she had not had a grand romance but she knew now what it might have been like if she had. She was glad. She’d never had such a splendid evening.

  And when, near the end of the night, the band struck up the strains of
the tune so dear to the heart of every true Texan and everyone lined up on the floor to dance the Cotton-Eyed Joe, Velvet had another revelation.

  Velvet told Silky that she’d never been to dances when she was younger but that wasn’t quite true. She’d never been asked to a dance in her schoolgirl days but she’d attended a few, spending her evening miserably manning the punch bowl or hiding out in the ladies’ room, embarrassed to be a wallflower. And, of course, when she’d gotten older she’d been to weddings and a few parties where there was dancing but had never actually danced, preferring instead to hide behind the refreshment table or sit safely among the other spinsters, matrons, and dowagers, keeping a dignified but disinterested eye on the festivities. But her disinterest was feigned. She paid much closer attention than anyone would have suspected and, after so many years of watching line dancing, Velvet had memorized every single step of the Cotton-Eyed Joe, even though she’d never put this knowledge into practice. Until now.

  Without waiting for her next partner, young Buck Swanson, to issue the invitation, Velvet scrambled to the center of the ballroom and lined up with the others, grinning when she saw that Silky had scurried to take the spot to her left and Dutch to her right.

  As the fiddler sawed his bow back and forth across the strings and the singer declared that had it not been for the Cotton-Eyed Joe, he’d have been married a long time ago, Velvet took steps forward and backward and turned and repeated the sequence, executing the dance without error or hesitation, moving in perfect unison with everyone else, as though she and her neighbors were of one mind, one heart, one heritage.

  And that was the moment it came to her, the revelation, the gift, the realization that turned out to be of more value to Miss Velvet than all the yellow roses in Texas.

  For years and years that added up to a lifetime, she’d been sitting on the sidelines, hiding behind her intelligence, her dowdy clothes and orthopedic shoes, her spinster status, hiding behind anything she could find, because she’d been afraid of being rejected, or getting hurt, or looking foolish. How much she had missed in all that hiding! And how silly she had been because, of course, in spite of everything, she had been rejected, been hurt, looked foolish. Everyone had! These were the unavoidable consequences of being human and drawing breath.

  But the loneliness she’d known, the sense of not quite belonging, at least not entirely, to her community . . . this was a self-imposed sentence. She had done it to herself. Just as anyone, single or partnered, could jump in and dance the Cotton-Eyed Joe, anyone could participate in the life of the community—fully participate. The only one standing in Velvet’s way was Velvet.

  Until tonight, she hadn’t believed that anyone outside of her family felt she mattered much. She’d been wrong. Just look at the way her family, friends, and neighbors had taken her part, refusing to see her humiliated, standing up for her even in the face of Marlena Benton’s wrath! Would they have done so much for someone they considered a woman of no consequence? No.

  Velvet Tudmore had lived her entire life in Too Much, Texas but that Christmas, for the first time, she felt like she was home, where she belonged. It was a night she would never forget and a feeling that would never desert her, not ever again.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Miss Velvet forgot to set her alarm clock when she went to bed.

  She slept through the hours of seven and eight, and even through Mr. Bowie’s insistent purring and head butting, not stirring until a firm knock on her bedroom door announced the presence of her sister, who brought her breakfast on a tray.

  “Merry Christmas, Cinderella,” Silky said as she came through the door. “Or maybe that should be Sleeping Beauty.”

  Velvet opened one eye, closed it again, and mumbled, “Either way the ball is definitely over. Probably a good thing. My feet are killing me. What time is it?”

  “Nine-fifteen.”

  “Really?” Velvet blinked a few times, yawned, and slowly pushed herself into a semi-sitting position, wedging a pillow behind her back and reclining against the headboard. “I’ve never slept this late in my life; not unless I’ve been sick.”

  “I know,” Silky said, settling the breakfast tray on Velvet’s lap. “That’s why I figured I’d better get in here and make sure you were still breathing. I also figured you’d need some sustenance. Bet you burned a pile of calories with all that dancing.”

  “Oh, Silky,” she said as she looked down at the breakfast tray. “Thank you. I don’t deserve you. I truly don’t.”

  Silky waved her hand dismissively. “Don’t go starting that again. You thanked me enough last night. I’m just happy you had a nice time. And you really did, didn’t you?” she said, her statement more comment than question.

  “I did,” Velvet confirmed, feeding a morsel of crisp bacon to Mr. Bowie, who was purring loudly and rubbing against her arm.

  “Of course, the evening didn’t quite turn out the way I’d envisioned it,” Velvet admitted, “but, except for the part where Bob Baker kept stomping on my feet, I did enjoy myself. Who knew that these shiftless Too Much men would turn out to be so smooth on the dance floor? I’m almost starting to understand what the women around here see in them.”

  Silky arched her eyebrows in disbelief and Velvet laughed.

  “Almost!” she reiterated, raising a cautionary finger.

  Silky settled herself on the edge of the bed. “Well, I think they had as much fun as you did. Wasn’t it something? Did you see the way George Plank maneuvered that wheelchair around the dance floor?” Silky let out a low whistle. “Even with gout, he’s still got some moves. And an eye for the ladies.”

  “Yes. He certainly does,” Velvet said. “Do you know that he pinched me?”

  “No! He did not!”

  Velvet gave an exaggerated nod. “He most certainly did. Right in the middle of the Hokey Pokey, when we were turning ourselves around, he reached up and pinched me! Right on the behind!”

  “No!” Silky exclaimed again, and started to laugh. “I can’t believe it. Why that old codger!”

  “I tell you what!” Velvet hooted. “Good thing he’s stuck in that chair. If he could have reached up any higher, who knows what he might have pinched?

  “Anyway . . .” she continued, when their laughter subsided. “It was sweet of you to talk all those men into putting on flowers and dancing with me.”

  “Don’t be silly. I didn’t talk anybody into anything. They were more than willing, every one of them. Mr. Delacorte included. He wanted to put a rose on his Santa suit but then Marlena stuck her nose into it and said he’d better not, and then Mr. Delacorte got his back up and walked out on the job.”

  “Is that what they were arguing about when I came in?” Velvet asked. “I wondered.”

  It was kind of Mr. Delacorte, especially being so new in town, to have stepped up for her that way. And she never minded seeing anyone thwart the machinations of Marlena Benton but, of course, this didn’t signify anything. Mr. Delacorte was just trying to do the gentlemanly thing.

  “Well, it was nice of him. And them. Nice of everyone.”

  “Nice, nothing,” Silky protested. “Those men all but lined up around the block to get a rose and a dance with you . . .”

  “. . . Once you explained what a low-down, dirty trick Jack Benny tried to play on me. Silky,” she said flatly, giving her sister a knowing look. “Let’s not go around pretending that a new dress and a bottle of hair dye suddenly transformed me from the spinster historian to the Queen of the May. But it was nice of them to do it, and nice of you to arrange it all. Really. You didn’t just save my evening, you saved my dignity.”

  Velvet squeezed Silky’s hand and Silky squeezed it back, silently acknowledging and accepting her sister’s gratitude.

  “And then,” Velvet said in a lighter and brighter voice, “as if all that weren’t enough, you bring me breakfast in bed!” She picked up her fork. “Look at all this! You thought of everything—bacon, eggs, biscuits and gravy, cof
fee, juice. All my favorites.”

  She lifted the napkin from the tray, found a yellow rose hidden beneath, and pressed her hand against her lips, too touched for words.

  “Oh, Silky . . . I really don’t deserve you. You are so thoughtful.”

  “Don’t look at me,” Silky said, raising her hands in denial as she got to her feet. “I just cooked the breakfast. That’s why I came in here. The poor man has been sitting in our living room for one solid hour, hoping you’d finally wake up.”

  Velvet sat straight up. “What poor man?”

  Silky strolled toward the door, taking her time. “The one who brought the rose, of course. The secret admirer. Who else could it be?”

  Velvet pushed the breakfast tray to one side and scrambled out from under the quilt. Mr. Bowie, seeing his chance, moved immediately to the abandoned tray and started gobbling Velvet’s scrambled eggs.

  “What! He’s been waiting for a whole hour? Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  “Because I’m telling you now,” Silky said simply. “It’s good to let men wait a little. Keeps ’em humble. And coming back for more. But you better get dressed now. I’ll go keep him company until you’re ready.”

  Velvet flung open the doors of her closet and searched through the rack of dresses, pushing the hangers frantically from right to left on the rod, then suddenly stopping cold. She turned to her sister with a slightly panicked expression.

  “Wait! And is it . . . you know . . . him?”

  “Yes, it is,” Silky said as she opened the door. “And, by the way, the cornflower is nice but he likes you best in the green.”

  Silky sat on the sofa and watched Mr. Delacorte pace. She was beginning to wish she’d gone in to wake her sister sooner. The poor man was getting more anxious by the second. If Velvet didn’t come out soon, he might wear a hole in her carpet.

  “Are you sure you won’t sit down, Mr. Delacorte?”

  “No, no,” he said, halting his pacing, but only briefly. “I’m fine. Thank you. Are you sure she’s all right?”