“The thing is, dear,” said Bet, all consoling sweetness. “I went to fetch Robert Miller, who was…” she paused and looked around, then lowered her voice to a hissed whisper in case there were any children in earshot. “... supposed to be our Santa. But he forgot the fair was today. And he spent the afternoon at Christmas drinks with work. And… well, he’s in no fit state to be Santa, that’s for sure.”
“No,” I replied, shaking my head resolutely. “No no no no no. No way.”
“You have to do it,” Allie chimed in. “The suit’s so big it would drown Sam, and Drew is working the Pin the Tail on the Turkey booth. There’s nobody else.”
“I am not doing it!” I replied, folding my arms as though that were the end of the matter.
And then, finally realizing that I genuinely, absolutely had no intention of doing it, Allie pulled out the big guns. She batted her eyelids at me. Her big, green eyes looked up at me, pleadingly, and—oh my God, there was even the hint of a tear forming in one of them.
“Please, Greyson? It would mean so much to the kids… to Lottie and Emma…”
God. Dammit.
And that’s how I ended up here, pulling on a pair of black boots with a trim of fake snow at the top, and adjusting the big fake belly that came with the costume underneath my thick red coat.
“How’s it going?” calls Allie from outside. “The kids will be here soon.”
I pull open the curtain and glare down at her.
She has the good grace not to laugh, but she can only pull it off by sucking her twitching lips in between her teeth.
“You look great,” she says. She leans up, the bell on the end of her little elf hat jingling as she does, and kisses me on the cheek. “Thank you.”
“You’d better make it worth my while,” I gruff.
She tries to give me a saucy wink, but it looks comical with her outfit and the red circles painted on her cheeks. It brings a smile to my face, at least.
“Now, listen,” she says, looking suddenly very serious. “These kids believe you are Santa. They truly, really, with every bit of their heart believe it. So you have to go along with them. Some of them will ask for crazy things and some of them might ask for sad things, and you might have to get a little bit creative with what you tell them because all we’re giving out today are candy canes, toy cars, and dolls, but just… stay in the fantasy with them.”
Seeing how seriously she takes it makes me realize, putting aside my own embarrassment for the first time, the gravity of the responsibility that’s been landed in my lap. I nod solemnly back to her.
“Don’t worry, Allie,” I say, sounding at least twice as confident as I feel. “I’ve got this.”
“Great!” she says, her face brightening into a grin. “Your chair is over there,” she says. “I’ll get the first kid.”
She half turns away, then turns back. “Oh, and don’t worry if any of them pee on you. We have spare pants.”
“Wha—”
Before I can express my horror at the prospect of being peed on by an excited child, she’s disappeared through the grotto curtain. I take my seat, unsure of what to expect next.
Less than half a minute later, the curtain pulls back again and Allie re-enters the grotto, leading a chubby boy of about five by the hand.
“This is Elijah,” she says, and the boy skips across the room, beaming, and plants himself happily in my lap.
Most of the kids ask for the same sorts of things. Remote toy cars, talking dolls, video games, that kind of thing. Occasionally there’ll be a more exotic request—one kid asks for a real, live T-Rex. I manage to handle most of them with aplomb, even if I do say so myself. The T-Rex kid is very understanding of the fact that dinosaurs need a lot of sleep and won’t fit on human beds.
“That was great,” Allie says, smiling at me. “You’re a natural.”
Her praise makes my chest puff out, and I pull the next kid up onto my lap with way more enthusiasm.
“Ho, ho, ho!” I say. “Merry Christmas! What’s your name, little girl?”
“Isabella,” she says. She’s wearing a pink princess dress and her hair is up in neat twin braids. She has a headband full of purple stars with a unicorn horn sticking up from the middle of it.
“And what do you want for Christmas, Isabella?” I ask this perfectly sweet little girl.
“A crowbar,” she says.
I nearly choke with laughter. I cover it with a cough, and when I glance up her mother is standing behind her, waving her hands back and forth across each other and mouthing “NO!” at me.
“Well,” I say carefully. “The thing is, the elves need all the crowbars to open the boxes and boxes full of toys that come in for boys and girls all over the world. If we start giving them away, we won’t be able to sort the toys and get them all packed up, will we?”
Isabella looks up at me thoughtfully. Before she opens her mouth, I can tell she’s skeptical.
“But if all the boxes are already open by Christmas night,” she says, “won’t you be able to send me one then, because you won’t need them anymore?”
Smart kid.
“But what will we do next year?” I ask.
She purses her lips. “Well. They sell them in Lowe’s,” she says. “You could get another one by next year.”
Behind her, her mother claps a hand to her own forehead.
I’m having a hard time keeping a straight face. Thank God for the beard. I nod very seriously and rack my brains for a response that will save Isabella’s poor, haggard-looking mother from having to gift her daughter a crowbar come Christmas morning.
“Well it’s not that simple, Isabella,” I say. “You see, the crowbars I have at my workshop are magical ones. Irreplaceable. If I start giving them away, we’ll be short. The elves might not get everyone’s presents ready in time for me to deliver them.”
Isabella is satisfied with this. She shrugs like it’s no big deal.
“Okay. Well, then I’d like a unicorn lamp for my bedroom,” she says.
Isabella’s mother presses the palms of her hands together and mouths “thank you,” to me.
“That was a close one,” I say to Allie, as Isabella skips out of the grotto, holding her mother’s hand.
“You’re doing great,” says Allie. “Emma’s up next, then Lottie.”
“Oh!” I say, a big smile stretching across my face. I’m delighted that Allie’s girls are coming in. A ripple of excitement rolls through me, and I rearrange my beard and hat in preparation.
“Ho, ho, ho!” I say, as Emma sprints over and wriggles herself up onto my lap. “Merry Christmas, Emma.”
She grins up at me.
“What do you want for Christmas?”
“Uhhh,” she says, tapping her chin and looking deeply thoughtful. “Pony toy,” she says. “And a hot dog.”
I glance up at Allie who rolls her eyes, smiling, and gives me a shrug.
“I think I can deliver on the pony toy,” I say. “But your aunt Sadie is in charge of Christmas dinner.”
Emma is satisfied with our negotiations and goes skipping off out of the Grotto. Bet is just outside the exit, handing out gifts as the children leave.
“Hello, Santa,” says Lottie, as I turn back towards the entrance.
“Oh!” I cry, “—ho-ho!” Not a bad recovery, if I say so myself. I hadn’t expected her to be there so quickly.
“Hello, Lottie,” I say, my voice deep.
She looks very serious as she gets into my lap and settles her hands on her own knees.
I look up to Allie, questioningly, and she shrugs.
“Have you been good this year?” I ask.
“Yes, I think so,” she says, pensively. “I’ve been mean to my little sister a couple of times, but I never meant it and I always said sorry.”
“Mmm,” I nod. “Yes, I remember. I think you’ve done a good job, overall.”
“Thank you, Santa,” she says, matter-of-factly accepting the compliment.<
br />
“And what do you want for Christmas?” I ask.
“Well,” she says. “I don’t really want any toys. I have lots of those. And Emma—that’s my sister—breaks lots of my stuff anyway. And I don’t want food because Mommy always gives me food and I think you should probably deliver all the food to the people who don’t have any.”
I nod. The wisdom of children.
“So then what do you want?” I ask.
She glances at Allie, then shifts on my lap and leans up to whisper quietly in my ear.
“I want Mommy to keep smiling the way she has been lately,” she says, and I am suddenly, ferociously uncomfortable.
It’s like I’ve been teetering near this line I was never supposed to cross, and now I’ve tripped and fallen over it. And the prospect of hurting good, innocent people, again, is looming like the ghost of Christmas past. The grotto walls feel like they’re closing in on me as Lottie jumps down from my lap and walks toward the exit.
“Oh, and Santa,” says Lottie. “I would also like for Mommy’s friend Greyson to come to my school play.”
She heads out through the curtain, and I sit there with my chest feeling tight and my heart feeling heavy, trying to snap myself out of it.
“What did she ask for?” asks Allie, looking at me with concern.
“Oh,” I say, forcing a fake brightness into my voice. “It’s a secret,” I tell her, pushing a smile up behind the mask.
Allie looks at me, a little puzzled, but before she can press the matter Sadie’s three-year-old, Finn, comes marching in. With some difficulty, I manage to push the discomfort out of my mind. There’s still a lot of kids to go, and they didn’t come here to see a morose Santa in the middle of an existential crisis.
It takes a couple of hours to get through all the children. By the time I’ve “ho’d” my last “ho” and changed out of my Santa costume, I’m feeling (and looking) more like myself.
“I heard Santa was a hit!” says Sam, coming over to meet us as Allie and I emerge from the back of the grotto. He’s carrying a clipboard and wearing a broad smile.
“Yes he was!” says Allie, grabbing around my arm. “He was brilliant.”
She looks up to me with a doting grin, and I suddenly feel like a superhero. It still amazes me, how her smallest glance can make me feel.
“Greyson! Greyson!” Lottie is calling. She’s running across the field with a stick of cotton candy in her hand.
“Hey, Lottie,” I say, smiling as she stops beside us. “Are you enjoying the fair?”
“Yeah, it’s great!” she says. “Santa said he’d make you come to my school play!”
I glance at Allie, who’s looking up at me hopefully, and once again I feel the crushing weight of expectations I’m sure I can’t meet. But I can’t say no.
“Well then,” I say, reaching down to flick a bit of cotton candy from her nose. “I guess I’ll be going to your school play!”
Lottie positively beams up at me and gives a little cheer. “River!” she calls, turning around to run back over to her cousin. “River! Santa made it come true!”
“It’s on Thursday afternoon next week,” says Allie. “Emma’s pre-school is doing a little play the same day, just before Lottie’s. But it’s okay if you can’t make it, I’ll just tell her something came up.”
“No,” I say. “No, I’ll be there. For both of them.”
Chapter 19
Allie
There’s something off about Greyson today. It’s the morning of the girls’ school plays, and since the bathroom fitters have finished up and left, I’ve come to help tidy up the mess of sawdust and plastic wrap they left behind.
I’ve barely seen him since the fair, despite inviting him over a couple of times for dinner. I can’t help but wonder if he, like me, is starting to realize that Christmas is fast approaching. In two weeks it’ll be upon us, and he’ll be done with Sunrise Valley House. And then what?
“Everything all right?” I ask him, entering the kitchen to take a break and make a coffee.
He’s been sitting at the breakfast bar all morning, clacking away on his keyboard.
“Hmm?” he says, looking up. “Oh. Yeah. Great.”
He gives me a tight smile and looks back to his screen, and I frown and turn around to fill the coffee machine.
“Coffee?” I ask.
“Thanks,” he replies, shortly.
I brew the coffee in silence, becoming more and more irritated until I give myself a talking to and remind myself that he’s actually a very busy guy. He’s probably finishing up some work so he can come along to the girls’ school plays later.
“Here you go,” I say, placing a steaming mug down in front of him. He looks at it with a confused expression, like he doesn’t remember asking for it. But then his face clears, and he looks up to me and smiles, more like the Greyson I’ve come to know and less like the one that arrived in Sunrise Valley a month ago.
God. Has it only been a month? It feels like I’ve known him forever. It feels like he's a part of my life now, despite the fact that we haven’t talked about our relationship or the fact that he’s supposed to be leaving in a couple of weeks. Every time I think about it, I push the thought out of my mind. I’m guessing he does the same.
And considering all that, I’ve begun to think that I may have bent my cardinal rule to the breaking point: I’ve let him get too close to the girls. Lottie’s little face lit up when he said he was coming to the play, and while I’m glad she likes him, I know I’ve messed up. Because we haven’t had the talk about what will happen between us when it’s time for him to go, and because Lottie and Emma have already known enough loss in their short little lives.
“Are you okay?” Greyson asks. I must have been letting all that worry play out on my face because he looks concerned.
“Hmm?” I say, buying some time. “Oh. Yeah. Just trying to remember if I packed the girls’ costumes into their bags this morning.”
“Ah,” says Greyson. “I bet they’re excited.”
“They were bouncing,” I say. I smile, but I know it doesn’t have the usual sparkle. It feels like we’ve both jumped at this chance to talk about the kids because it’s simple and pleasant. And because it avoids everything painful and complicated that we should be talking about instead.
“So what are they going to be?” he asks, picking up his coffee and giving me his full attention.
“Well,” I say, “Emma is a cloud.”
“A cloud?”
“Yeah. It’s preschool. They just dress up and sing some cute Christmas songs. It’ll be over in about a half-hour. Three-year-olds don’t have very good attention spans.”
“Fair point,” he grins.
“And Lottie is the star.”
“The star?” he asks.
I smile proudly, puffing like a preening mother goose. “Yup!” I say. “The star, guiding the wise men. She has a solo. She’s super excited.”
“Wow,” says Greyson. “That’s pretty impressive. She’s a special kid.”
I nod at that, feeling a swell of pride.
“Yeah,” I say. “She really is. She—”
I cut off when Greyson’s phone starts ringing and he immediately picks it up from the table.
“Sorry,” he says, lifting it up and setting his coffee down. “I really have to take this.”
He pushes up from his stool and heads out of the room.
“Ben,” I hear him say as he heads through the door, pressing his phone to his ear. “Hit me.”
I stand in the kitchen alone and let out a sigh, sipping my coffee again.
Is this what it’s like when he’s working, I wonder? Is he always so distracted and put-upon and worried-looking? And does it even matter, if he’s leaving in a couple of weeks and I’m staying here?
I wish I had been able to tuck my heart away in a little box and care for it the way I should have, but the truth is that I pulled it out and handed it to him that day we kissed in
the mud. And now I fear he may be about to skip town without giving it back.
I pour both our coffees down the sink and head back upstairs, put my headphones on, and set my playlist on loud to try and drown out my own thoughts.
I don’t come back downstairs until it’s time to leave. Greyson is sitting on the same seat in the kitchen, tapping away on his laptop, as though not a moment has passed. I feel another irrational spike of irritation rising in my gut.
“Ready?” I ask.
He looks at me with a blank expression, then looks at his screen to see the time.
“Shit,” he says with an irritated sigh. He shakes his head like a wet dog would, as though he’s trying to clear his thoughts, then grabs his phone and stands up. “Yeah,” he says. “Let’s go.”
I’ve half a mind to tell him it doesn’t matter. That he can skip it if he has so much work to do. But it does matter. He promised Lottie.
He promised.
“I’m going to take off. Meet me on Main Street,” I say, smiling at him quickly, and I head out of the door before my irritation can creep onto my face.
Chapter 20
Greyson
As soon as I get into the car outside the mansion, I notice that Ben has forwarded yet another message from Lincoln Fucking Peterson. Not his actual middle name, but it should be.
He’s threatening all sorts of legal action if he doesn’t have an in-person meeting with me immediately, like today. Except I’m hundreds of miles away, with no desire to see him. And judging by the way Allie’s tires chewed up the gravel a minute ago when she left, she’s pissed at me, too.
I drop my phone down onto the passenger seat and rub my temples, taking a deep breath and sighing it out. Then I put the rental into drive and head out onto the road.
In fairness to Peterson—not that he deserves any fairness—this mess is my fault. I’ve been ignoring his increasingly irate emails and messages since I arrived in Sunrise Valley. At first, it was because I know him, and he can usually be talked down by someone else before I actually have to get involved. And then it was because I didn’t want to talk to the jackass and end up having to leave Allie and the girls just to sort out whatever trivial shit he’s taking issue with.
My Smalltown C.E.O. Scrooge: A Festive Romantic Comedy Page 14
