Carats and Coconuts (8 page)

Now…there he lay, practically
comatose, in a pile of steaming parts and wild springs, surrounded
by pissed off elves.

Father Time’s own time might just be
up…

T
he
following evening, as I entered my parent’s large dining room with
Roman at my side, I still couldn’t believe all that had transpired
in the last twenty-four hours.

One quick peek at Father Time – who,
thanks to an emergency room trip and a heavy talkin’ to from Grams,
was now seated at our holiday table - and there was no denying what
had occurred.

We’d busted him for phone hacking, and
witnessed his disastrous attempt at outdoing my dad’s invention
with one of his own. The way I figured it, Father Time, thanks to
his high-tech eavesdropping, thought that the only way to beat my
dad’s reindeer diet formula was by creating reindeer that didn’t
need a diet period.

Too bad for him, Dad’s
invention appeared to be rather ingenious, while his never got off
the ground. Although I guess, to be accurate, Father Time’s
technodunce deer did get off the ground, but obviously had major
issues staying
on
the roof-tops.

What Father Time did reminded me way
too much of what the Murtledoch Empire had done to Roman and his
brother. The Murtledoch’s then ran full-page “We are sorry” ads in
all the London newspapers. But what if the London pundits
responding to the Murtledoch’s ads were right? What if Father Time,
like the Murtledochs, wasn’t really sorry, but just sorry his
apology didn’t fool anyone?

I still wasn’t sure if the jackass
regretted what he’d done, or was just sorry he got
caught.

One thing was for sure, though, and it
did comfort me. With Grams vowing to set Father Time on the
straight and narrow, he’d better be sorry. If he wasn’t now, he
soon would be.

I took my seat at the table next to
Grams. Roman sweetly scooted my chair into place before taking his
seat to my left.

“
Are you sure you can handle
him, Grams?” I asked her, pointing to Father Time.

“
I’m the only one old enough
to even attempt it,” Grams said. And that little sarcastic smile of
hers was pretty damn convincing. “But what about all the elves the
bastard paid off to help him?”

I cleared my throat, hoping Roman
hadn’t heard that.

My mom and I had our own plan on how
to deal with those scoundrels.

No one else knew, as we did, why
Father Time had such an easy time manipulating them to his
side.

It wasn’t just Father T’s bullshit we
had to deal with. There was much more.

And whether or not all the evidence
still existed or not, there was indeed a band of very bad elves
that made Father Time and his cohorts look like novices.

Mom and I just hoped we could get
through the holidays before the bastards upped the ante once
again.

“
This looks terrific,” Roman
said, rubbing his hands together, either in anticipation of the
huge feast on the table before us or in an effort to keep
warm.

I don’t think the poor guy had
actually been cozy warm since he arrived in our Winter Wonderland.
By now, his Mediterranean genes had to be in a complete deep
freeze.

“
It does look delicious,” I
said, hardly able to wait till Dad carved the turkey and Mom and
Wanda Lu started passing all the sides.

We had it all. Turkey, mashed potatoes
and gravy, yams and marshmallows, green bean casserole, cranberry
molds, homemade rolls, pumpkin pie and more.

And ‘had it all’ didn’t just mean the
food.

As I passed the rolls, I couldn’t help
but survey our family and friends as they joined us at our night
before Christmas Eve table.

For Witherspoon Whoville, this was
always kind of the last supper, so-to-speak, before everyone dived
into prep for tomorrow night’s big ride.

Beginning tomorrow morning, it would
be nothing but Santa is Coming and Reindeer Rule in our
house.

“
I can’t wait for y’all to
open up your gifts,” my mom said, pushing back her plate, which I
noticed she’d barely pecked at.

I didn’t like the looks of that one
bit. When she was nervous, she didn’t eat. I knew this elf
situation was really taking a toll on her, but I didn’t realize
just how much till that moment.

“
How ‘bout we don’t wait?
I’m dying to see too,” Aunt Tulip said.

My Dad laughed his turkey-stuffed and
forever jolly ho-ho-ho.

“
What do you think, Mrs.
C?”

I loved how my dad’s eyes still
twinkled whenever he looked at my mom.

That’s one of the reasons I knew I
cared much more for Roman than I’d let on so far. His dark espresso
eyes had that same twinkle in them when he looked at me. I could
feel my connection to him being drawn straight from my
soul.

It’s that unspoken understanding two
people share that makes for one helluva life partnership. In my
world, Mr. and Mrs. Claus were proof of that.

“
I think it’s the perfect
time for gifts,” Mom said, taking her napkin and wiping a stray
piece of turkey from dad’s beard.

I watched with a warm heart as each
person around our table picked up the gorgeous packages my mom had
wrapped just for them.

Her packages were always so beautiful.
Sometimes I didn’t want to open them.

But if you knew you had a Mrs. Claus
original ornament waiting for you inside those little boxes, you
couldn’t resist.

Each member of our family took turns
holding up their ornaments to the oohs and ahhhs of
everyone.

For Aunt Tulip, my mom had created a
mouth-blown and hand-painted glass spear of asparagus.

“
OMG! I’m going to have to
start an Aphrodisiac Produce themed-tree! This is wonderful, Suzie.
Really quite extraordinary,” Aunt Tulip said, getting up from her
chair to wrap her gypsy-bejeweled sleeves around my mother’s
crushed velvet and red suede capelet I’d made for her.

“
I’m glad you like
it.”

As each ornament was revealed, the
crowd went wild.

For Grams, there was a lunch box with
the name of her diner in my mom’s beautiful print. For Kat, it was
a neon-colored cowboy with the name of her saloon on his hat. Lily
received a miniature hand-sewn satin bra on a hanger, with the name
of her family’s water bra company - Fluid Fulfillment - hanging on
a tiny price tag my mom had added. Roxy, of course, got a cowboy
boot and stiletto hooked together as if they were about to dance
across the pine needles. Jules got one bedazzled and sparkling
cupcake. For Audrey, there were baby blue-colored baby booties with
the names of her twin sons. And not to be left out, each man at the
table got a reindeer to serve as a keepsake from their first
Christmas in Witherspoon Whoville. Roman’s reindeer even had a tiny
crown resting in its rack.

“
You’ve outdone yourself
this year,” my dad said, leaning across his end of the table to
place a kiss on mom’s sweet, pink-blushed cheek.

“
This is a special year. Our
family has grown, and I wanted to celebrate that.”

She lifted up her wine glass and
toasted us all.

Following a round of good cheers, the
doorbell chimed.

Who could that be?

I looked at my mom. It didn’t take but
a second or two at most to see fear and panic take over her
expression of season-of-giving sweetness.

W
anda Lu returned to the dining room with a medium-sized box.
It was wrapped to-the-nines, although still not as terrifically
wrapped as one of my mom’s gifts.

I studied the lime green metallic
paper, covered in what looked to be diamond-encrusted white stars
that reflected every bit of light from my parent’s
chandelier.

My mother took the box, and I swear I
saw her hands shaking as she looked at the tag hanging over one
side of the mystery package.

“
It’s for you, Zoey,” she
said, so softly that her voice was almost a whisper.

My hand had been resting on Roman’s
knee, and at the mention of my name as the recipient, I felt his
body jerk.

Roman was smart. He’d more than likely
caught onto my mom’s change in mood.

“
Were you expecting this
package?” He asked, in a tone that usually indicated the activation
of his Dark Knight protective mode.

“
I was not,” I said, looking
at my mom, who I knew was begging me with her eyes to be careful
with this box.

“
In that case, R, I’d like
you to check it out first,” Roman said.

“
I’m way ahead of you, My
Prince,” R said, already having taken the package from my mother’s
hands.

“
I’m not sure what this is
about, but I don’t like it one bit,” my dad spoke-up.

“
Suzie? Zoey? I know
something’s up with you two. I’ve known for quite awhile, but I
figured you’d say something when you wanted to. However, I’m
thinking now would be a good time,” Dad said, setting his napkin on
the table and scooting back his chair.

His large ruby and yellow gold ring
caught the light. Noting the familiar cut of the large gem and its
unique setting, my stomach flipped circles, and the knots that had
been there for months tightened.

I looked at my mom, who seemed to not
know quite where to begin.

“
I agree with your dad,
Zoey,” Roman said, raising his eyebrows and looking at me with a
stare that left no other options but to spill it.

In the mean time, R took a small
handheld device out of his pocket. The guy always had the exact
right gadget at the exact right moment. He then waved the wand-like
thing-a-ma-jigger over the sides of the package.

No warning bells and beeps sounded, so
he passed the box to me.

My hands shook as I looked to Roman
and R, who both nodded for me to open the box.

I lifted the lid slowly, holding my
breath the entire time then carefully moved aside the reams of
tissue paper.

As my fingers ran across the shredded
bark-like shell of the object inside the packaging, I
gasped.

Could it be?

OMG! It was.

A coconut.

I pulled the coconut out of the box
and looked at my mother, whose face was now as pale white as my
father’s beard.

I knew what to do.

By carefully pulling the cracked seam
of the coconut, I opened the shell.

I didn’t even have to look up to judge
my family’s reaction. Their collective gasp filled our otherwise
silent dining room.

“
What is our Witherspoon
Blue Moon Diamond doing in that coconut? And who just gave it back
to us? Better yet…how did said person or people get it to begin
with?”

My dad asked the questions very
quietly, which meant he was on the verge of erupting at Mt.
Vesuvius levels.

“
I can explain,” I said, and
I thought I could, at least in part.

“
That would be prudent,”
Roman said, his Dark Knight look now one hundred percent in
place.

“
My father isn’t just Santa
Claus and an inventor. He’s made his fortune in the gem world. He’s
one of the top gemologists in the world. Well…topped
only…perhaps…by my mother, who’s the world’s top curator and a damn
fine lapidarist of the rarest jewels.”

Roman and R exchanged looks. Then
Roman nodded to R, who suddenly took leave of our table and spoke
into his watch for their security team to listen up.

“
A few months ago,” my
mother took over from there, “Zoey had a problem with one of our
security team members. Basically, the asshole was stalking
her.”

As he wrapped his hands around his
dinner fork, Roman’s knuckles turned white. His jaw did that dead
serious twitch thing, and he then cracked his neck, which I often
noted he did before he was more than willing to snap in two someone
else’s neck.

“
One of the elves was after
our precious Zoey? And you didn’t tell me?” My dad looked at my
mom, the hurt clearly overtaking his anger.

“
You haven’t been feeling
well lately, and we didn’t want to worry you, Nick,” Mom said,
squeezing his hand for what I’m sure was reassurance.

“
It doesn’t matter how I’m
feeling. You two are my world.”

“
And mine now too, Sir,”
Roman cut–in. “You have nothing to worry about. R and I will take
care of this.”

To me, he added, “Tell me everything I
need to know, Zoey. Now.”

And just like that, we went from
Christmas Eve-eve to nothin’ but carats and coconuts.

T
wenty-four hours later, while Roman and I stood in my parent’s
backyard waiting for my dad and his team to begin their big ride, I
huddled into the protective warmth of Roman’s side.