Carats and Coconuts (2 page)

“
You mean like a person
thinks something is true that the rest of society doesn’t? Kind of
like when you’re a child and believe in St. Nick?”

Oh boy. How do you explain
that your parents don’t just believe in jolly ol’ St. Nick and his
Mrs., they think they
are
ol’ Nick and his Mrs.?

“
Yes, that’s it. And it’s
funny you should mention the St. Nick delusion…”

I looked straight into Roman’s
extra-shot-of-espresso brown eyes, knowing his warmth would always
be there for me, but still hating like hell to have to burden him
with my family’s insanity.

“
Go ahead,” he coaxed me,
totally unaware of what he was about to get himself
into.

He took a seat next to Vinnie the
Swine and me on the vanilla-colored leather sofa in the jet’s
spacious cabin and put his arms around both of us.

“
My parents definitely
believe in Santa Claus,” I began, taking one last and very deep
breath before I unloaded the whole truth. “They
believe…because…they also believe they
are
Mr. and Mrs. Claus.”

Trying to purge my fears along with
the extra carbon dioxide from my last air intake, I exhaled
slowly.

“
But there’s a catch to this
kind of illness, right?” Roman asked.

I tilted my head, not sure I’d heard
him correctly, but knowing if I had correctly processed what he’d
said, he’d totally thrown me for a huge loop.

“
What do you mean a
catch?”

“
Well, I’ve been doing some
reading…”

“
On St. Nick Schizoid
behaviors?” I asked, unable to believe this was happening. “You
knew about my parents this whole time?!”

“
No offense to your
intelligence there, my princess, but I am
a
prince
which means I have access to just about anything I need or
want to know.”

I don’t know if I should be pissed or
relieved. I was pissed ‘cause he’d obviously done a background
check on me and my crazy-ass family. But I was also relieved ‘cause
he still chose to make me his fake princess.

“
As I was saying, there’s a
catch to this type of illness. If everybody believes the delusion
or acts like they do, then the person doesn’t actually have the
illness, right?”

Great. Now my prince and primary thug
guard was also a pseudo-psychiatrist.

“
All of the websites I’ve
visited have said the most effective help for a person suffering
from delusional disorder is psychotherapy, not drugs.”

“
Yeah, I know. But you don’t
know how many times I’ve wished they made a little blue pill for
this,” I said, for comic value only.

That wasn’t even close to my true
feelings about my parent’s illness.

I was just trying to do like I always
do and sweep my fears and insane-upbringing under the rug with
inappropriate wisecracks.

I would never want my parents to be
all doped up. They were the most loveably insane people I knew. In
fact, everyone who knew them loved them.

“
Seriously, you’re right,
Roman. There is a ton of research out there advising loved ones not
to attempt to argue away a delusion,” I said, knowing how
tenaciously my parents held to their North Pole fantasy in the face
of reality.

“
I know about the research.
And it’s fascinating at that,” Roman said, taking from his pants
pocket a small folded-up piece of paper.

“
Did you know there’s an
actual empathy model teaching us how to respond therapeutically to
their delusions?” He asked.

My prince looked so proud of himself,
I didn’t have the heart to talk him down from his comfy, on the
couch, pay by the hour approach to meeting my parent’s mental
issues.

“
I’m not sure those kinds of
therapy work for my parents, but you’re more than welcome to give
‘em a whirl.”

“
I think I might. Oh, and
one more thing,” he said, tilting-up my chin so that my mouth was
dangerously close to his, “don’t you worry. I have a feeling I’m
going to really enjoy getting to know your family.”

Our pilot came over the cabin’s
speaker system and advised us to buckle-up and prepare for
landing.

“
We’ll see,” I said, handing
Vinnie to Roman.

“
I hope Vinnie likes
reindeer,” Roman said, while shoving him into his
carrier.

What’s not to love, I thought to
myself, knowing this was gonna be a holiday none of us would ever
forget…including Vinnie.

S
tanding beside Roman in the doorway of our private jet, I
watched as the royal-crested, red-and-gold-carpeted stairway
unfolded onto the tarmac. Vinnie watched too, cradled in Roman’s
arms and wearing his own little wool coat.

I breathed in the fresh, ice-cold,
lake air.

Nothing beats the crisp chill of
winter around Lake Michigan.

Truth be told…I always looked forward
to coming home for the holidays. During the Christmas season, it
truly is rather magical here.

But for years now, I hadn’t dared to
bring anyone new into my nutty family mix. I just didn’t have the
energy to explain my zany childhood.

This time, though, I didn’t really
have a choice, did I?

Now that my PI Gig had landed me
permanently in Thug Guard and Pretend Princess Land, I couldn’t
very well hide this part of my life from Roman.

He deserved to know everything about
his fake wife. So here we go…

Snow swirled through the air, brushing
against our cheeks, which must be bright cherry red by
now.

Stepping out into the lakeshore’s
winter fury, it wouldn’t take us long to get
frostbitten.

Large, white, crystaline flakes
tumbled from the sky onto Roman’s dark hair then toppled over onto
the shoulders of his gorgeous Alpaca wool mohair
overcoat.

When I heard the jingling of Dad’s
sleigh bells getting closer and closer, the snow globe magic of the
moment was lost.

Here we go, I thought.

Ho-freakin’-ho.

When Santa’s sleigh glided to a stop
in front of us, Roman handed off Vinnie to me and dashed down the
jet’s stairway to wrap my St. Nick Dad in a tight hug. He followed
this up with very Italian kiss-kiss sweeps across both my dad’s
ruby red cheeks.

“
God, I love Europeans,” my
dad said, giving Roman a nice jolly-ho Italian kiss-kiss in return.
“I’ll have to have Mrs. C break into our stash of limoncello. I
always grab a couple cases during my Christmas Eve
fly-ins.”

While Dad temporarily abandoned his
limoncello dreams to scold Vixen for nipping at his ass, Roman
looked to me for help.

“
You’d best be checkin’ your
empathy model a bunch more than twice, my luv,” I whispered in his
ear.

As if he’d forgotten he had that
saving grace, he whipped the list of recommended responses out of
his coat pocket while I kept dad busy fussing over me being home
for the holidays.

Okay. Who was I kidding? Dad was
making a bigger fuss over Vinnie than me, or at least just as
much.

“
Gosh I’ve missed you, Zoey
Bean,” my dad said, hugging me so tight to his huge white beard, I
was concerned either Vinnie or I could very well
suffocate.

“
I’ve missed you too,
Dad.”

And I had missed him.

For all my parents’ craziness, I still
love ‘em so very much.

They, for sure, have a unique take on
the world, but a take full of nothing but love for all mankind and
all the world’s creatures too. That’s something I didn’t see much
of in my fashion world.

Despite the thugs in my new Princess
Diaries lifestyle, being a Duchess did indeed allow me to spread
the love my parents raised me on. I was enjoying the philanthropic
duties of my new title. With every little bit of goodness I paid
forward, I always thought of my mom and dad.

“
You say you do Christmas
Eve fly-ins,” Roman said, evidently checking-off one of the
approaches on his empathy model.

“
That I do. And oh, they’re
such marvelous fun. You should join me this year, my son. I’d love
the company.”

Roman again looked to me, and I again
motioned for him to just carry on with his behavior model
methodology. The sooner he learned that thing was a huge farce, the
better off we all would be.

“
I can’t see that and the
tests don’t show any worms in your head,” Roman said.

I damn near choked on the warm cocoa
my dad always kept in a thermos in our sleigh.

“
What?” My dad asked. “I’m
sorry, son, I can’t hear ya very well with all these damn bells
jingling.”

By this time I was laughing so hard I
couldn’t breathe, which delightfully made my prince’s cheeks turn
an even brighter shade of crimson.

Roman’s empathy model was based on
subjects with a delusional disorder who thought worms were eating
their brain. Not a particularly helpful model for dealing with the
St. Nick Schizoid variety of this disorder.

“
Roman said he’d love to see
that. As in, he’d love to ride with you this Christmas Eve,” I
said, deciding I’d answer for my prince just this once, before I
peed my pants and choked to death on hot cocoa at the same
time.

“
I imagine I might feel
overjoyed to share the adventure with you, Sir,” Roman said,
beginning to recover, but still relying way too much on his
behavioral model’s suggested wording.

“
No need to be so formal,
son,” my dad said, patting Roman on the back with one hand while he
took hold of the sleigh’s reins with the other. “Call me Santa. Or
Nick. Or Dad. Why yes, of course…just call me Dad.”

With that invitation, he lightly
snapped the reins against Donner and Comet’s rumps.

Oh boy, I thought. That wasn’t gonna
sit well with these super-spoiled and ornery reindeer.

Donner turned around and looked at my
dad as if to say ‘you must be nuts, old man, we don’t answer to
that trick anymore’.

“
These guys can be a bit
stubborn,” my dad said, his round, cherry-red cheeks glowing just
about as bright as Rudolph’s nose.

And yes, The Witherspoons’ lead
reindeer, aptly named Rudolph, also sports a glowing red
nose.

You see, my father doesn’t just think
he’s St. Nick, he’s also a toymaker and inventor, plus he has a few
rather spectacular side gigs as well.

So yep, you guessed it. He designed
and made a glowing red nose for our Rudolph. And it’s not just your
basic, glowing red reindeer nose.

Dad also outfitted our Rudolph’s nose
with some sort of specialized GPS device. Our Rudy had grown old
and developed Alzheimer’s. So my dad added this rather
sophisticated GPS system to help Rudy make it around the globe on
Christmas Eve. Otherwise, Dad and his sleigh-pulling entourage
sometimes got lost between Bali and Belfast.

After five minutes of no onward and
upward progress, Dad got off of his captain’s bench to have a
little heart-to-heart with Donner and Comet, who were always the
cause of our reindeer stand-offs.

My guess was that it probably had
something to do with Vinnie. I doubt they appreciated that my
pot-bellied pig was now riding high and mighty in their sleigh’s
co-captain’s spot.

Whatever Dad said to Donner must have
really pissed him off ‘cause the next thing I knew, the jerk had
bucked his head, snatched the empathy model right out of Roman’s
fingers, and was chomping on it as if it were an organic carrot,
his favorite snack.

“
I hope that paper wasn’t
too important,” Dad said, holding his belly full of jelly as he
laughed for a jolly bit.

Dad then got back into the sleigh with
us, took the reins, and without the slightest grunt or stomp,
Rudolph and Company led us home.

On our ride, we weren’t just
accompanied by sleigh bells, we were also being serenaded by
Vinnie’s wild ouffs. He was making all kinds of racket while
shaking his head back-and-forth, full of melodrama. Obviously, he
wasn’t all that impressed with the family reindeers’ bad
attitudes.

And no, we weren’t flying today. Dad
and his reindeer had started saving that just for Christmas Eve. It
was their way of “being green” by helping to save the ozone
layer.

How did that work?

Well…let’s just say those reindeer eat
a ton of cabbage to gear-up for their Christmas Eve flight. So
their, ahem, emissions tend to be quite high.

I settled back into the comfy confines
of our sleigh with Roman and placed a beautiful blanket my mom had
made over our laps.

I love sleigh rides.

We began to follow the lakefront and
would continue to follow it all the way to my parent’s house. With
the snow falling at a good clip, it was nothing less than a magical
journey.