Christmas In Whimsy Read online

  “Ms. Moore?”

  Lexie blinked back from her thoughts and saw Santa watching her, expectantly. “Oh. Yes? Sorry.”

  Santa held his belly as he laughed. “No apology necessary. I know I get that faraway look when I haven’t had my cookies.” He pointed at her. “But your, ah, cellular phone seems to be buzzing.”

  Sure enough, the thing vibrated in her belt clip like it was trying to escape. “Right. Excuse me, Santa, kids.” She jumped out of her seat and took the call as she stepped away from the group. Behind her, Mrs. Claus asked the children who’d like to tell Santa what they’d like for Christmas. The entire room erupted in a volcano of “Me! Me!” and Lexie had to plug her free ear and scurry into the stairwell to hear her caller.

  Theo slipped into the stairwell with her, just before the fire door clicked shut. The two were alone … except for Spark, Lexie’s assistant, who was currently speaking so fast on the phone that Lexie could barely understand her.

  “Whoa, Spark, hang on,” said Lexie. Theo tried to nuzzle up to her, but Lexie gently brushed him away. She couldn’t make out what Spark was talking about, but she knew her assistant. Something was seriously wrong. “Take a breath, try again. What’s going on?”

  “Sorry,” said Spark. “Okay. The article’s gone, Lex.”

  Lexie reached out to the railing to steady herself. “What article?” she asked, hoping it was not what she thought. She had to mean some other article, a blurb, a quick profile, anything else.

  “The article,” said Spark. “Little thing you’ve been working on? Cover story you’ve referred to several times as your baby that you’re wrapping up today with Santa?”

  “No, no, no,” Lexie moaned. “What do you mean, it’s gone?”

  “I mean you got a virus on your computer and the thing is toast. Your whole hard drive.”

  Both women said to each other simultaneously, “Please tell me you backed this up.”

  Spark squealed, “Me? Last time I tried to touch your work I believe your exact words were, ‘Spark, it’s bad luck for anyone else to even look at my writing before it’s done. If you go near it, I will be cursed and may never write another word. Do you want me to never write another word? Is that what you—’”

  “But I told you this time to back up everything each night, Spark,” Lexie yelled. Her voice echoed in the well, taking on a cold, metallic tone. Theo had backed off, arms crossed, lips pressed together in concern. “I was trusting you to do it this time. You didn’t do it once?”

  “When did you tell me to do that?” Spark asked, her pitch reaching an octave normally unattainable without helium.

  “The day I started writing this. I …” Lexie thought back. She’d brought a flash drive to the office and stuck it in her top drawer with a sticky note attached that said Christmas Article, for Spark. “Oh, no. Spark, are you at my desk?”

  “Yep.”

  “Can you open my top drawer? I need you to look for something for me. You may need to dig around a little.”

  “Sure.” The muffled noises of Spark shifting papers and general junk came through the phone. “I honestly don’t … Hey! There’s a little flash drive here with my name on it. Aw, you did a purple sticky. I love purple stickies.”

  Right around the time Spark said the words “flash drive,” Lexie began quietly knocking her forehead against the wall. Now she remembered. She was going to tell Spark to back everything up when she gave her the flash drive. She just, apparently, hadn’t actually done it, and in the interim the thing had gotten buried by desk detritus.

  Theo grabbed the phone from her. “Yeah, Spark? It’s Theo. Lex’ll call you back in a few, okay? Yeah, I think it’s safe to say you should stay at the office. She’ll be there soon, I’m sure.”

  Theo hung up and put his arms around Lexie. She’d stopped the banging, but her head was still pressed to the wall. The concrete, cooled by December gales blowing around outside, felt good against her skin. Right now this was a perfect little spot. She could revel in both the refreshing season and the warmth of Santa’s Pavilion, for although the fire door muted it all, she could still smell the chocolate chip cookies and hear holiday music and children’s laugher.

  Lexie mumbled in a miserable little voice, “The Santa interview was the final piece of the whole feature.”

  “I know,” he said into her shoulder as he held her.

  “I was going to write it up this afternoon, send it to Belinda for the final edit, and have an evening out with you.”

  “I know.”

  Proposal or not, the last thing Lexie wanted was to have her job hanging over her head during dinner and a carriage ride. The prospect of her job blowing up in her face was not an extra headache she needed on top of the inevitably horrible conversation that came when the answer to “Will you marry me?” was “Let’s talk.”

  “And it’s not like we can push the deadline,” she said. “People think that because we’re a monthly magazine and we go to press on Saturday, somehow that means we’re not as strict about deadlines as a daily.” She turned to face him, and he let go of her. “If I don’t have a cover article for Belinda by seven tonight, you know what’s going to happen? A week from Monday, six big, blank pages’ll hit newsstands. Right about the time a big pink slip is hitting my desk.”

  “You really think Belinda would fire you over this?” Theo asked. “She’s never struck me as the type who would throw you or any of her reporters under the bus.”

  “I don’t think she’d have a choice.” The more Lexie stood there envisioning the worst, the sicker she felt. “I’m so sorry, hon, but I have to fix this,” she said. She kissed him quickly on the lips and flew around him toward the fire door.

  “I know you will,” he said. “Our reservation is at six, so don’t forget to bring a change of clothes with you to the office.”

  She froze.

  “No, Theo, I won’t be—”

  “I’ll meet you at the office at, say, five thirty. That should give us enough—”

  “I won’t be able to—”

  “You’re absolutely right,” said Theo. “I won’t come up to the office. I’ll keep the cab. That’ll give you a little extra time, so if you’re in the lobby no later than five thirty-five—”

  “Theo, hang on,” said Lexie in her investigative journalist’s bark. Granted, she didn’t have a lot of opportunity to use the bark doing light pieces for Upstate, but she’d honed it as a junior reporter years ago in anticipation of the day she’d interview some evil dictator, or at least a scandalous politician or two.

  Theo blinked at her. “Okay,” he said. “Hanging.”

  Lexie closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to see his disappointment. “I’m going to be late tonight. Deadline’s seven o’clock. I’ll be writing right up until then.”

  She gave him a second to digest that. Then she slowly peeled her eyelids open.

  His brow was furrowed and his nostrils a bit flared, the way he looked when a book he was reading had a lousy ending. He jabbed his glasses up on his nose.

  Lexie tried closing her eyes again.

  “You know what I had to go through to pull this night together,” said Theo.

  The fire door, her escape, seemed far away. “Hon, I wish I could be in two places at once, but … You know, seven is a more normal time for a Saturday night swanky dinner anyway.”

  “I couldn’t get seven,” he said. “I could get six.”

  “Well, who eats dinner at six o’clock on a Saturday?”

  “People who managed to get six o’clock despite a two-week waiting list,” said Theo, getting louder. “I had to call in more than one favor to get it, too, same as the carriage ride.”

  “We can’t reschedule this for a couple weeks out? The favors won’t keep?”

  “I get charged a fee for cancelling this late, on dinner and on the carriage.”

  “Fine,” said Lexie as she threw her hands out in ex
asperation. “You get the table and order an appetizer and take an hour or so to eat it.”

  “That’ll throw off the carriage ride. We have to be there at eight.”

  “Then maybe I can just meet you at the park.”

  “I don’t want to get crammed into your to-do list.”

  “And I don’t want what’s supposed to be a nice, relaxing evening scheduled to within an inch of its life.”

  Theo let his hands fall against his jeans, and he paced around the tiny square landing. “You can juggle anything. How come it’s all or nothing, tonight of all nights?”

  Lexie rolled her eyes. “What’s this all about, really? A couple fees on your card? A missed dinner? Are these now things that throw you into a spiral? They never used to be.”

  “Don’t do that,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I’m not some guy you’re interviewing. Don’t spin this and throw it back on me.”

  Lexie’s phone, still in Theo’s hand, buzzed again. He glanced at the screen and then handed it back to her. “I’d like to finish discussing this,” he said pointedly.

  She held the phone, buzzing, buzzing, with Spark’s name beckoning her from the caller ID. Theo’s eyes had turned from frustrated to a sadder, more desperate color.

  “I’m sorry,” said Lexie as she thumbed the screen to pick up. “Spark, hang on a sec?”

  Theo turned away from her, his hands dug deep into his pockets. She came up behind him, yearning to run her fingers through his hair to get him to look at her, embrace her. The way he held her meant the world to her, his arms enveloping her like the safest, homiest cocoon. She loved to nuzzle into his chest. That’s the only way she could smell his cologne, he wore such a faint trace of it. He wore it just for her, only to be inhaled by her, that mix of a little lavender and a little spice. Would he turn around and hold her now, if she reached out to him? She didn’t know the answer to that, and for the first time in her life, she didn’t want to ask the question for fear of what she’d learn.

  She said to him, “Keep the reservation. Maybe you can take Anna to dinner. I’ll meet you guys at Rendezvous and wait at the bar, okay?”

  “Sure, I’ll have a romantic dinner with my sister while my girlfriend drinks martinis alone. That’s not weird.”

  “Theo, it’s the best I’ve got. Text me if you have a better idea, but I have to go.”

  “Fine.” He started down the steps without a second glance at her.

  His footfalls on the metallic steps sent a cold rush over her just as she felt an unwelcome lifting in her chest. It was relief, just a hint of it, that she wouldn’t have to face a proposal tonight. Even if they kept the reservations and were able to salvage the tail end of the evening, the idea of a fluffy proposal and fireworks of kisses if she said yes seemed laughable now. She hated herself for feeling relieved. Guilt took its place almost instantly.

  “Theo,” she said, and he turned around to face her, pausing in his steps. They always said it upon parting: “I love you,” she said with her full heart.

  He shook his head as though she’d tacked on an irrelevant sidebar to the main article. She felt she might as well have said, “I love chamomile tea.”

  It seemed like hours he gazed at her. Spark was on the phone, asking if Lexie was still there. Lexie held Theo’s gaze. Spark would have to wait.

  “I love you too, Lex,” he said finally. He turned and was out of sight. Lexie watched after him a second more. Then she banged back through the fire door to do what needed to get done.

  After giving Spark a few more instructions, Lexie hung up with her. She thanked Santa—she’d gotten enough material, thanks to the extempore chat with “Lucath”—and then she grabbed her blazer, coat, and scarf, pausing only long enough to toss them on. She hustled through the marketplace crowds, down the central winding staircase, and out the front double doors. On her way, she shoved her phone and legal pad into her oversized purse.

  She got socked in the face by the wind and Whimsy’s omnipresent perfume this time of year: chimney smoke. Normally she loved the smell, but just then it left a bitter coating down her throat. The gales decided to play tug-of-war with her scarf, whipping one tail off her shoulders. Lexie managed to grab it just before it got away.

  “Ten minutes ago,” she muttered to herself, “this was going to be a great Christmas. Now I can’t even keep my scarf on.” The Spirit of Whimsy legend popped back up in her mind. “Whimsy, if you’re out there, I could use a little of that holiday magic you’ve got twirling around. Ugh!”

  The scarf had dislodged itself again and this time succeeded in flying away. Lexie whipped around to go after it, shoving strands of hair out of her eyes. Standing behind her, holding her scarf, was a motherly woman. Lexie put her in her fifties. Her skin was the deep color of chestnuts, and she had raven black hair that fell in soft curls over her shoulders.

  “Here you go, miss,” she said with a smile that sparkled, holding the scarf out to Lexie.

  “Oh, thank you so much,” said Lexie. She dropped her purse between her feet and crunched it tightly between them, lest any of her other belongings fly. Then she crunched her feet in even tighter with a burst of frustration. The perfect image she’d pulled together had devolved into a runaway scarf, messy hair, and a purse on the ground still damp from melting snow. Superwomen were not disheveled, and if they ever were, they didn’t show how much it bothered them because nobody wanted to see that.

  With a pop-up smile and a bubbly tone, Lexie stopped just short of saying, “Fiddle-dee-dee,” and instead went with, “This weather is crazy, huh?” She tucked her head down, watching herself knot the scarf under her chin. “I say we change the name of this town to Windsy. What d’ya think?”

  When she got no response, Lexie looked up. The woman was gone. Lexie glanced over the shoppers milling about, surrounded by their bright din of chitchat and the odd ice patch crackling underfoot and paper bags swishing against each other, but she couldn’t see the woman anywhere. All that was left where she’d been standing a breath ago was a little whirlwind of snow, sparkling in the sun.

  Chapter

  Navigating Santa’s Pavilion this close to Christmas could be quite the feat for the uninitiated, but luckily, even in her rejected state, Robin Russell knew the ins and outs of the quirky central space, its cubbies and corners. It was helpful that she also knew exactly who she was looking for: her roommate, Anna Walker. Robin had a little time before her shift started at the Holiday Hutch, and she needed her friend. A few moments ago, Robin spotted Anna across the pavilion talking with Theo. Then Theo’s girlfriend, Lexie—whom Robin had met once or twice and liked very much—marched over to the stairwell and disappeared behind the fire door, with Theo following.

  Robin sidled up to Anna, and said glumly, “You don’t happen to have any pistachio ice cream in your pocket, do you?”

  “Oh, no,” Anna said, throwing her arms around Robin. “You didn’t get the part?”

  Robin’s arms remained listless at her sides. She didn’t even have the will to clear Anna’s frizzy blond bob from her face. “I didn’t get past the first round. What else do I have to do? This part was made for me: African American woman, aged twenty-one to twenty-six, athletic, tall enough to have presence but not taller than the guy who plays her love interest. I wouldn’t have even had to wear a wig: a little wavy, bangs. I have the bangs! No one else there had bangs.”

  “I know, I know,” Anna said in a comforting tone. She patted Robin’s back and then parted from her. “Did they give you a reason?”

  “Apparently I’m great at taking direction,” Robin said, “but this is a short rehearsal period and they need creative people who can bring their own vision to the show. Do you believe the director actually said to me, ‘You ain’t got it, kid’?”

  Anna grimaced. “Did he also have a cigar hanging between his teeth and look like he stepped right out of a black-and-white screwball comedy?”
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  This at least elicited the blink of a smile from Robin. “You haven’t heard the worst part. He finishes off with, ‘But keep your head up. Just because you’re not right for us doesn’t mean—’”

  Anna groaned, and finished with her: “‘You’re not right for someone else.’”

  “Like that’s helpful,” said Robin. She held her arms out wide. “I mean, has that ever helped anyone in the history of anything? Tell me exactly what you need, I’ll do it. I can do it. How do they know I’m not creative? Take a day and work with me, and then tell me if I can’t handle the gig. They’re killing me, Anna. They are slowly and painfully ripping my resolve out one strand at a time until I, like Samson, have lost all my strength.”

  “Well,” said Anna, applauding, “I’d hire you based on that little performance alone.”

  Robin bowed deeply at the waist. “Grazie. Grazie.”

  She giggled with Anna, only because she didn’t want to show just how disheartened she was and bring her friend down too. Robin had been at this professional acting thing now for years, and except for a few parts here or there, mostly at the Whimsy Playhouse, she’d had little luck. When she was in middle school and high school, she’d nabbed nearly every leading role. Even in her fairly competitive theatre courses at Brixby College, a small campus a little farther upstate, she was among the core group cast in everything. Apparently, school was one thing; asking people to pay you for your creative work, she was learning, was an entirely different bowl of oat bran. She was beginning to wonder if she didn’t have what it took to land the types of roles she’d been going after, or if she simply didn’t have what it took, period. The feeling was dreadful. Acting was all Robin had ever wanted to do. She liked working at the Holiday Hutch, but she didn’t want to do that the rest of her life. She ached to fulfill her dream.