The Housewife Assassin's Killer Christmas Tips (10 page)

My fifth stop at a toy store comes up empty for everyone’s toy of the season: the elusive Furby. I wish the store owners would put a big sign outside their windows warning all the frantic parents who walk in that their quest is for naught. Ha, fat chance! In desperation, they grab at a second or third choice, and brace themselves for the disappointed looks on their children’s faces.

Not me. I’ll never stop until I get my man, that fuzzy little troublemaker.

The toy store is in a strip mall next to a salvage shop and a locksmith. Sitting in the salvage store window is a beautiful tiny heart-shaped jewel box.

It gives me an idea.

When I enter the store, a tiny bell tinkles over the door. The sales clerk barely looks up from the magazine she’s reading, the latest
Vanity Fair
. I give her a wave. “Would you mind if I had a look at this jewel box in the window?”

“Help yourself,” she murmurs back. Apparently, the lifestyles of the rich and famous are too enthralling, and the box’s five-dollar price tag too puny to merit her attention.

As I’d hoped, the box is opened by a tiny gold key. I turn it, and the lid pops open. A tinny rendition of “When I Fall in Love” fills the story.

“I’ll take it,” I say.

She doesn’t even look up as I lay a five-dollar bill on the counter and leave with my newfound treasure.

The Grove Shopping Mall, adjacent to the Los Angeles Farmer’s Market, has bronze angels, a dancing fountain, roving carolers in 19th Century costumes, a historic trolley, and a life-size gingerbread house where Santa lives with two short elves and seven happy reindeer.

“Look, Trisha! There’s Santa…again.”

She gives a disinterested shrug. “I think he’s following us, Mommy. It’s spooky. Let’s get out of here.”

“Oh, honey, you don’t mean that. He’s just trying to make sure every child has something special under the tree.”

“Well, if you were his wife, wouldn’t you tell him to start with his own kids?”

She’s got me there.

But I’m just as stubborn, and I’m not giving up. “I know you didn’t have a chance to tell him what you want. Why don’t we jump in line?”

She gives a weary sigh, but indulges me anyway. That gives me all the hope I need. She really wants to believe! I know she does!

The line snakes halfway down the track for the most realistic-looking Santa money can buy. In a town which is short on authenticity, he is a sight to behold. He truly looks seventy, and is short but stout. His smile is constant, as is the laugh emanating deep from within his broad chest and round belly. His blood red velvet suit is flocked in white fur specked with gold glitter. His black patent-leather belt indents his girth just enough to make the illusion complete.

I notice Trisha scrutinizing Santa’s every move: the seriousness in which he listens to each child’s toy list, his heartfelt answers, and his warm hugs. By the time we’re just two children away from Trisha’s turn, the doubt in her eyes has been replaced by hope.

Finally, the little girl in front of us takes her turn. She climbs onto Santa’s lap and starts reciting a wish list that would fill several sleighs. At first he was nodding or chuckling, or pretending to write down what she says, but then he slips into in a stupor. As she rambles on and on, he just stares at her, as if in shock.

Eventually she notices his glazed stare, too. “Santa!” the little girl shouts in his ear. Then she pinches his cheek, much harder than he pinched hers when she sat down “Hey, there, old man! Are you listening?”

Apparently not. His head tilts forward onto his chest, as if he’s fallen asleep.

He has, sort of.

Permanently.

The girl gives a blood-curdling scream. “He’s dead!
Santa is dead!
”

When she hops out of his lap, he falls face first onto the Astroturf in front of his throne.

The faces of everyone standing in line are flooded with shock and awe. The kids are crying and screaming. Moms are hugging their children to their chests as they stagger away, mortified.

One of the elves is giving Santa mouth-to-mouth while the other yanks a cell phone out of his pocket. I presume he’s calling 911, or at least the mall’s security detail. Soon we hear the whine of a siren over the shrieks of the children.

I try to nudge Trisha away, but she won’t budge. She’s too fascinated by this turn of events.

Finally, she looks up at me and says, “Well, Mommy, I guess that settles it. No more Santa. Can we get a Jamba Juice please?”

Frankly, I need something a bit stiffer, but I don’t think Jamba serves chilled vodka martinis with a twist.

Santa’s demise has made the six o’clock news.

Let me rephrase that. The death of Santa is being covered twenty four seven, by every news outlet in the world.

NBC’s Brian Williams tries to keep a solemn face while reporting the news out of Los Angeles. PBS
NewsHour
’s way of dealing with it is to have three historians pontificate on the legend and lore of Kris Kringle. CNN is in a panic. I see it on Wolf Blitzer’s face. All the money it’s spent on its brand new 3-D digitized Santa Tracker will have to be reconfigured into something that can be used for simulating hurricanes or supersizing political polls.

Conveniently forgetting that Santa was never in the Bible, Fox News boldly declares the jolly old elf was successfully killed off by “Liberal Hollywood run amok.”

Mary and Jeff are having a field day with all the hoopla, finding it simply uproarious that Santa expired virtually at our feet. “Well, there goes any leverage parents have for making their kids behave before Christmas,” Mary laughs.

“I never really believed in him,” Jeff insists through a mouthful of mac and cheese.

I’m waving at him to keep it down. Trisha is in the great room watching the end of her
Brave
video, but she’ll be running in here for dinner any moment now.

Hearing him, Mary almost chokes on her food. “You’re such a little liar! You cried when I told you Santa didn’t exist!”

“Mary! It was
you
who told him? But—but you told me it was Cheever!”

Mary’s eyes open large when she realizes I’ve learned one more of her little secrets.

Jeff is laughing so hard, he rolls on the floor.

“Okay, let’s go. It’s bedtime for both of you!”

They freeze then shout in unison, “But it’s only seven-thirty!”

“I don’t care if it’s five o’clock. Go upstairs. No television, computers, cell phones or video games. Do homework or read a book. Now, move it!”

They glare at each other and shove each other all the way up the stairs.

“So, Mary and Jeff don’t believe in Santa?”

I turn to find Trisha staring at me.

“Oh!... You mean, Mary and Jeff? They were just teasing.”

She jerks away as I try to stroke her head. “No they weren’t! They’re just like Janie! They don’t believe!”

She runs around me and up the stairs. I hear her bedroom door slam shut behind her.

I’ve finally got a few minutes to myself.

But for once, I don’t want to be alone.

I wish Jack were here. At times, he knows how to handle these kids a lot better than I do.

What I really mean to say is he knows how to handle
me
.

There’s nothing sadder than an unadorned Christmas tree. I’d wanted Jack to be here to decorate it with us, but now that he’s working evenings and now that my children aren’t talking to me, I guess that’s not going to happen.

I have no reason to be downstairs, so I head back up to my bedroom.

The scent of Jack is still between our sheets, but that doesn’t keep me from crying.

“Mommy!
Mommy!
Wake up!
Now!
” Trisha’s frantic whisper echoes in my ear.

I pry an eye open before she shakes my arm off. “Okay, Trisha, I’m up. What is it?”

“Santa is downstairs!”

“Um… what again?”

“Santa is here, Mommy! With our presents!”

Okay, now she has my attention.

It must be a burglar. If so, I need Trisha to stay out of the way. “Honey, if that’s Santa, then he mustn’t see you or he’ll consider you naughty.”

“But he’s already seen me. He told me I was bee-you-tee-ful. And tall for my age.” Her dimples light up her face at the very thought that she now knows Santa personally.

“He did?”
Oh my God! He could have taken my little girl!

Don’t panic. Try not to panic...

“Why don’t you go back to bed?” I say this casually, as if it’s no biggy that a strange fat man is standing in my living room.

Trisha’s faces crumples at the thought. “But, Mommy, we didn’t leave out his milk and cookies! We haven’t even decorated the tree!”

“I’ll take care of it, right now. Just hop back into bed, okay?”

She nods slowly and trots off. But after every fourth step, she looks back to see if I’m still behind her.

You bet I am.

Me and my trusty Glock.

I wait until her door is closed before inching my way down the stairs. Seven slow, silent steps later, I’m standing behind the man himself: red suit, white whiskers, black boots, and that ubiquitous cotton-tailed hat.

But he’s tall and muscular, and still thin enough to feel my gun on his spine.

He raises his hands slowly. “Well, ho ho ho to you, too.”

Even before he turns around or shifts the beard out from under his nose, I’ve recognized his voice.

Carl.

You can knock me over with a feather.

That would be a waste of his time. Instead, he slaps the gun out of my hand and twists my arm against my back, forcing me into an uncompromising position.

Breast to chest and mouth to mouth.

The harder I fight, the tighter his mouth presses against mine.

Until I bite down on his lower lip.

He yelps then pushes me away, fast and hard. “Damn it, Donna! What did you do that for?”

“Seeing you doesn’t exactly put me in the holiday spirit. How did you get by Lassie and Rin Tin Tin? And what the hell are you doing here, anyway?”

“Dog biscuits. Come on already, they’re a couple of big pussies.” He shrugs. “What do you think I’m doing? I’m dropping off gifts for my kids.”

I look around. There are three new packages under our unadorned tree, with large floppy red ribbons. iPad Minis for both Mary and Jeff, and a Voodoo Purple Furby for Trisha.

Forget sugarplums. The thoughts that dance through my head are about the hours I’ll save by not standing in lines, or shoving aside other moms for the last coveted Furby, let alone being outbid for one on eBay.

But no. I’m not letting Carl’s gifts be his Trojan horse into my heart.

I shake my head. “You can’t do this, Carl! Have you forgotten you’re wanted as an international terrorist who’s aiming to blow up a plane on US soil in a few days?”

“Honey, get real. You know how those things go. We threaten, your government buckles to our demands, yada yada. So, a MANPAD or two slipped out of their forty million dollar safety net. Boo hoo hoo. I’ll cry for them.
Not.
We’re only asking a few hundred million to fudgetabout it. They’ll pay up before Christmas, and all’s well that ends well. You know, peace on Earth, good will toward men, not to mention the airline industry.”