A Lot Like Christmas

by Connie Willis

  “No,” I said. “It’s not safe. Meet me at the post office.”

  He nodded, and went back to his conversation, still with that odd look on his face.

  I ran back down to second for my purse and went to the post office. I had intended to wait on the corner, but it was crowded with people jockeying to drop money into the Salvation Army Santa Claus’s kettle.

  I looked down the sidewalk. Where was Gary? I went up the steps and scanned the street. There was no sign of him.

  “Merry Christmas!” a man said, half tipping a fedora and holding the door for me.

  “Oh, no, I’m—” I began, and saw Tonya coming down the street. “Thank you,” I said, and ducked through the door.

  It was freezing inside, and the line for the postal clerks wound out into the lobby. I got in it. It would take an hour at least to work my way to the front, which meant I could wait for Gary without looking suspicious.

  Except that I was the only one not wearing a hat. Every single person in line had one on, and the clerks behind the counter were wearing mail carriers’ caps. And broad smiles.

  “Packages going overseas should really have been mailed by November fifteenth,” the middle clerk was saying, not at all disgruntledly, to a little Japanese woman in a red cap, “but don’t worry, we’ll figure out a way to get your presents there on time.”

  “The line’s only about forty-five minutes long,” the woman in front of me confided cheerfully. She was wearing a small black hat with a feather and carrying four enormous packages. I wondered if they were full of pods. “Which isn’t bad at all, considering it’s Christmas.”

  I nodded, looking toward the door. Where was he?

  “Why are you here?” the woman said, smiling.

  “What?” I said, whirling back around, my heart pounding. “What are you here to mail?” she said. “I see you don’t have any packages.”

  “S-stamps,” I stammered.

  “You can go ahead of me,” she said. “If all you’re buying is stamps. I’ve got all these packages to send. You don’t want to wait for that.”

  I do want to wait, I thought. “No, that’s all right. I’m buying a lot of stamps,” I said. “I’m buying several sheets. For my Christmas newsletter.”

  She shook her head, balancing the packages. “Don’t be silly. You don’t want to wait while they weigh all these.” She tapped the man in front of her. “This young lady’s only buying stamps,” she said. “Why don’t we let her go ahead of us?”

  “Certainly,” the man, who was wearing a Russian karakul hat, said, and bowed slightly, stepping back.

  “No, really,” I began, but it was too late. The line had parted like the Red Sea.

  “Thank you,” I said, and walked up to the counter. “Merry Christmas.”

  The line closed behind me. They know, I thought. They know I was looking up plant parasites. I glanced desperately toward the door.

  “Holly and ivy?” the clerk said, beaming at me.

  “What?” I said.

  “Your stamps.” He held up two sheets. “Holly and ivy or Madonna and Child?”

  “Holly and ivy,” I said weakly. “Three sheets, please.”

  I paid for the sheets, thanked the mob again, and went back out into the freezing-cold lobby. And now what? Pretend I had a box and fiddle with the combination? Where was he?

  I went over to the bulletin board, trying not to seem suspicious, and looked at the Wanted posters. They had probably all turned themselves in by now and were being model prisoners. And it really was a pity the parasites were going to have to be stopped. If they could be stopped.

  It had been easy in the movies (in the movies, that is, in which they had managed to defeat them, which wasn’t all that many. Over half the movies had ended with the whole world being turned into glowing green eyes). And in the ones where they did defeat them, there had been an awful lot of explosions and hanging precariously from helicopters. I hoped whatever we came up with didn’t involve skydiving.

  Or a virus or ultrasonic sound, because even if I knew a doctor or scientist to ask, I couldn’t confide in them. “We can’t trust anybody,” Gary had said, and he was right. We couldn’t risk it. There was too much at stake. And we couldn’t call the police. “It’s all in your imagination, Miss Johnson,” they would say. “Stay right there. We’re on our way.”

  We would have to do this on our own. And where was Gary?

  I looked at the Wanted posters some more. I was sure the one in the middle looked like one of Sueann’s old boyfriends. He—

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” Gary said breathlessly. His ears were red from the cold, and his hair was ruffled from running. “I had this phone call and—”

  “Come on,” I said, and hustled him out of the post office, down the steps, and past the Santa and his mob of donors.

  “Keep walking,” I said. “You were right about the parasites, but not because they turn people into zombies.”

  I hurriedly told him about the galls and Tonya’s carpal tunnel syndrome. “My sister was infected at Thanksgiving, and now she can hardly walk,” I said. “You were right. We’ve got to stop them.”

  “But you don’t have any proof of this,” he said. “It could be arthritis or something, couldn’t it?”

  I stopped walking. “What?”

  “You don’t have any proof that it’s the aliens that are causing it. It’s cold. People’s arthritis always acts up when it’s cold out. And even if the aliens are causing it, a few aches and pains is a small price to pay for all the benefits. You said yourself—”

  I stared at his hair.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” he said. “I haven’t been taken over. I’ve just been thinking about what you said about your sister’s engagement and—”

  “Who was on the phone?”

  He looked uncomfortable. “The thing is—”

  “It was your ex-wife,” I said. “She’s been taken over, and now she’s nice, and you want to get back together with her. That’s it, isn’t it?”

  “You know how I’ve always felt about Marcie,” he said guiltily. “She says she never stopped loving me.”

  When something sounds too good to be true, it probably is, I thought.

  “She thinks I should move back in and see if we can’t work things out. But that isn’t the only reason,” he said, grabbing my arm. “I’ve been looking at all those clippings—dropouts going back to school, escaped convicts turning themselves in—”

  “People returning overdue library books,” I said.

  “Are we willing to be responsible for ruining all that? I think we should think about this before we do anything.”

  I pulled my arm away from him.

  “I just think we should consider all the factors before we decide what to do. Waiting a few days can’t hurt.”

  “You’re right,” I said, and started walking. “There’s a lot we don’t know about them.”

  “I just think we should do a little more research,” he said, opening the door of our building.

  “You’re right,” I said, and started up the stairs.

  “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?” he said when we got to second.

  I nodded and went back to my desk and put my head in my hands.

  He was willing to let parasites take over the planet so he could get his ex-wife back, but were my motives any better than his? Why had I believed in an alien invasion in the first place, and spent all that time watching science-fiction movies and having huddled conversations? So I could spend time with him.

  He was right. A few aches and pains were worth it to have Sueann married to someone nice and postal workers nondisgruntled and passengers remaining seated till those people with connecting flights had deplaned.

  “Are you okay?” Tonya said, leaning over my desk.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “How’s your arm?”

  “Fine,” she said, rotating the elbow to show me. “It must have been a cramp or something.�
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  I didn’t know these parasites were like mistletoe. They might cause only temporary aches and pains. Gary was right. We needed to do more research. Waiting a few days couldn’t hurt.

  The phone rang. “I’ve been trying to get hold of you,” Mom said. “Dakota’s in the hospital. They don’t know what it is. It’s something wrong with her legs. You need to call Allison.”

  “I will,” I said, and hung up the phone.

  I logged on to my computer, called up the file I’d been working on and scrolled halfway through it so it would look like I was away from my desk for just a minute, took off my high heels and changed into my sneakers, stuck the high heels into my desk drawer, grabbed my purse and coat, and took off.

  The best place to look for information on how to get rid of the parasites was the library, but the card file was online, and you had to use your library card to get access. The next best was a bookstore. Not the independent on Sixteenth. Their clerks were far too helpful. And knowledgeable.

  I went to the Barnes & Noble on Eighth, taking the back way (but no alleys). It was jammed, and there was some kind of book signing going on up front, but nobody paid any attention to me. Even so, I didn’t go straight to the gardening section. I wandered casually through the aisles, looking at T-shirts and mugs and stopping to thumb through a copy of How Irrational Fears Can Ruin Your Life, gradually working my way back to the gardening section.

  They had only two books on parasites: Common Garden Parasites and Diseases and Organic Weed and Pest Control. I grabbed them both, retreated to the literature section, and began to read.

  “Fungicides such as benomyl and ferbam are effective against certain rusts,” Common Garden Parasites said. “Streptomycin is effective against some viruses.”

  But which was this, if either? “Spraying with diazinon or malathion can be effective in most cases. Note: These are dangerous chemicals. Avoid all contact with skin. Do not breathe fumes.”

  That was out. I put down Common Garden Parasites and picked up Organic Weed and Pest Control. At least it didn’t recommend spraying with deadly chemicals, but what it did recommend wasn’t much more useful. Prune affected limbs. Remove and destroy berries. Cover branches with black plastic.

  Too often it said simply: Destroy all infected plants.

  “The main difficulty in the case of parasites is to destroy the parasite without also destroying the host.” That sounded more like it. “It is therefore necessary to find a substance that the host can tolerate that is intolerable to the parasite. Some rusts, for instance, cannot tolerate a vinegar and ginger solution, which can be sprayed on the leaves of the host plant. Red mites, which infest honeybees, are allergic to peppermint. Frosting made with oil of peppermint can be fed to the bees. As it permeates the bees’ systems, the red mites drop off harmlessly. Other parasites respond variously to spearmint, citrus oil, oil of garlic, and powdered aloe vera.”

  But which? And how could I find out? Wear a garlic necklace? Stick an orange under Tonya’s nose? There was no way to find out without their figuring out what I was doing.

  I kept reading. “Some parasites can be destroyed by rendering the environment unfavorable. For moisture-dependent rusts, draining the soil can be beneficial. For temperature-susceptible pests, freezing and/or use of smudge pots can kill the invader. For light-sensitive parasites, exposure to light can kill the parasite.”

  Temperature-sensitive. I thought about the hats. Were they to hide the parasites or to protect them from the cold? No, that couldn’t be it. The temperature in the building had been turned down to freezing for two weeks, and if they needed heat, why hadn’t they landed in Florida?

  I thought about Jackie Peterson’s newsletter. She hadn’t been affected. And neither had Uncle Marty, whose newsletter had come this morning. Or, rather, Uncle Marty’s dog, who ostensibly dictated them. “Woof, woof!” the newsletter had said. “I’m lying here under a Christmas saguaro out on the desert, chewing on a bone and hoping Santa brings me a nice new flea collar.”

  So they hadn’t landed in Arizona or Miami, and none of the newspaper articles Gary had circled had been from Mexico or California. They had all been datelined Minnesota and Michigan and Illinois. Places where it was cold. Cold and cloudy, I thought, thinking of Cousin Celia’s Christmas newsletter. Cold and cloudy.

  I flipped back through the pages, looking for the reference to light-sensitive parasites.

  “It’s right back here,” a voice said.

  I shut the book, jammed it in among Shakespeare’s plays, and snatched up a copy of Hamlet.

  “It’s for my daughter,” the customer, who was, thankfully, hatless, said, appearing at the end of the aisle. “That’s what she said she wanted for Christmas when I called her. I was so surprised. She hardly ever reads.”

  The clerk was right behind her, wearing a mobcap with red and green ribbons. “Everybody’s reading Shakespeare right now,” she said, smiling. “We can hardly keep it on the shelves.”

  I ducked my head and pretended to read the Hamlet. “O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!” Hamlet said. “I set it down that one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.”

  The clerk started along the shelves, looking for the book. “King Lear, King Lear… let’s see.”

  “Here it is,” I said, handing it to her before she reached Common Garden Parasites.

  “Thank you,” she said, smiling. She handed it to the customer. “Have you been to our book signing yet? Darla Sheridan, the fashion designer, is in the store today, signing her new book, In Your Easter Bonnet. Hats are coming back, you know.”

  “Really?” the customer said.

  “She’s giving away a free hat with every copy of the book,” the clerk said.

  “Really?” the customer said. “Where did you say?”

  “I’ll show you,” the clerk said, still smiling, and led the customer away like a lamb to the slaughter.

  As soon as they were gone, I pulled out Organic Gardening and looked up “light-sensitive” in the index. Page 264. “Pruning branches above the infection and cutting away surrounding leaves to expose the source to sunlight or artificial light will usually kill light-sensitive parasites.”

  I closed the book and hid it behind the Shakespeare plays, laying it on its side so it wouldn’t show, and pulled out Common Garden Pests.

  “Hi,” Gary said, and I nearly dropped the book. “What are you doing here?”

  “What are you doing here?” I said, cautiously closing the book.

  He was looking at the title. I stuck it on the shelf between Othello and The Riddle of Shakespeare’s Identity.

  “I realized you were right.” He looked cautiously around. “We’ve got to destroy them.”

  “I thought you said they were symbiotes, that they were beneficial,” I said, watching him warily.

  “You think I’ve been taken over by the aliens, don’t you?” he said. He ran his hand through his hair. “See? No hat, no toupee.”

  But in The Puppet Masters the parasites had been able to attach themselves anywhere along the spine.

  “I thought you said the benefits outweighed a few aches and pains,” I said.

  “I wanted to believe that,” he said ruefully. “I guess what I really wanted to believe was that my ex-wife and I would get back together.”

  “What changed your mind?” I said, trying not to look at the bookshelf.

  “You did,” he said. “I realized somewhere along the way what a dope I’d been, mooning over her when you were right there in front of me. I was standing there, listening to her talk about how great it was going to be to get back together, and all of a sudden I realized that I didn’t want to, that I’d found somebody nicer, prettier, someone I could trust. And that someone was you, Nan.” He smiled at me. “So what have you found out? Something we can use to destroy them?”

  I took a long, deep breath, and looked at him, deciding.

  “Yes,” I said, and pulled out the book. I handed it to
him. “The section on bees. It says in here that introducing allergens into the bloodstream of the host can kill the parasite.”

  “Like in Infiltrators from Space.”

  “Yes.” I told him about the red mites and the honeybees. “Oil of wintergreen, citrus oil, garlic, and powdered aloe vera are all used on various pests. So if we can introduce peppermint into the food of the affected people, it—”

  “Peppermint?” he said blankly.

  “Yes. Remember how Penny said nobody ate any of the candy canes she put out? I think it’s because they’re allergic to peppermint,” I said, watching him.

  “Peppermint,” he said thoughtfully. “They didn’t eat any of the ribbon candy Jan Gundell had on her desk, either. I think you’ve hit it. So how are you going to get them to ingest it? Put it in the water cooler?”

  “No,” I said. “In cookies. Chocolate chip cookies. Everybody loves chocolate.” I pushed the books into place on the shelf and started for the front. “It’s my turn to bring Holiday Goodies tomorrow. I’ll go to the grocery store and get the cookie ingredients—”

  “I’ll go with you,” he said.

  “No,” I said. “I need you to buy the oil of peppermint. They should have it at a drugstore or a health food store. Buy the most concentrated form you can get, and make sure you buy it from somebody who hasn’t been taken over. I’ll meet you back at my apartment, and we’ll make the cookies there.”

  “Great,” he said.

  “We’d better leave separately,” I said. I handed him the Othello. “Here. Go buy this. It’ll give you a bag to carry the oil of peppermint in.”

  He nodded and started for the checkout line. I walked out of Barnes & Noble, went down Eighth to the grocery store, ducked out the side door, and went back to the office. I stopped at my desk for a metal ruler, and ran up to fifth. Jim Bridgeman, in his backward baseball cap, glanced up at me and then back down at his keyboard.

  I went over to the thermostat.

  And this was the moment when everyone surrounded you, pointing and squawking an unearthly screech at you. Or turned and stared at you with their glowing green eyes. I twisted the thermostat dial as far up as it would go, to ninety-five.