The Interview

From the moment he walked in, Jessup knew the guy was going to be a problem. Most of the applicants at least tried to look respectable, and not like one of the head cases from D Block. The kid wore black jeans paired with a pink t-shirt with an Abrams tank on the front. A man just didn't do that kind of thing if he wanted to be taken seriously. The red rooster-tail hair style and mascara didn't help much either.

Still, the kid did make it past the first two cuts in HR, so he must have had something to offer. Jessup shook hands with him, despite the kid's black nail polish, and invited him to sit. Brigham, sitting to Jessup's left didn't shake, just spit tobacco juice into a coffee cup as he looked at the kid.

“Mister Tarot,” Jessup said, “why don't you start by telling us a little bit about yourself.”

“Yeah, well for starts, just call me Tarot, okay? That's my name, like it says on the resume.”

“I never did trust a man with only one name,” Brigham said, scratching his beard, "it's not Christian.”

“Well I ain't no Christian, Gramps,” Tarot said, “you got a problem with that? This some kind of Christian-only job?”

Jessup put a hand on Brigham's arm, gently pushing the retiree down into his seat. “Hold on there, son, we're an equal opportunity employer here. Hell, Brigham here hasn't darkened the door of a church in over thirty years, ain't that right?”

Brigham spat into his cup.

Tarot smiled and crossed his legs. “Yeah, no problem. Sorry. But this job is right up my alley, so I'm just nervous, that's all. I mean, I may be overqualified, you know?”

“You a former governor of Texas?” Brigham said.

“No.”

“Then you ain't overqualified.”

“Let's start with your experience,” Jessup said.

“Well,” Tarot said, “if you look at the resume, you'll see that I design my own guillotines, from the finger choppers up to the one we used on tour to chop off seven heads at one go.” He reached over and tapped at the bottom of the resume sitting in front of Jessup. “There's the link where you can go see my stuff on YouTube.”

“On tour?” Jessup said.

“Yeah, I'm in a band. Or was, I mean. We used manikins for the guillotine stuff, so if it worked on them, it should work on the real thing.”

“We don't need no Frenchie executioners,” Brigham said, “we need a hangman.”

Tarot shrugged. “I figured out how to get seven hundred pounds of razor steel to go through five cattle carcasses without splintering the bones. Compared to that, how hard can rope be?”

Brigham spat. “Hoo-eee! Rope ain't hard! How many times I heard that one, eh Jessup?”

“Tarot,” Jessup said, “Brigham here was the state's hangman for over twenty years. Before him, the state got sued seventeen times for botched hangings. What's your record, Brigham?”

“One hunnerd and five executions, not a one contested. You wanna know why, son?”

“You gonna tell me anyway?” Tarot said.

“Because it's an art. They make machines for lethal injection, and electrocution. Between the Army and the video games there's enough shooters around for thousands of firing squads. But hanging? It's a lost art.”

He sent another string of brown spit into the cup.

“Nope, ain't no one around that know's how to work rope, fewer yet that know how to make a painless noose and set the sandbag so's the neck snaps but the head stays on.”

Tarot's scowl disappeared. “That's so metal! Can you teach me how to do it?”

“Hells no! I'm a hangman, not a professor! Besides, I'm retired. I don't have time to start from scratch with blockheads like you.”

Tarot didn't say anything for a few seconds, then stood up and looked at Jessup.

“Fuck this man. I ain't getting the job, am I?”

“I expect not.” Jessup said.   

*

The next applicant didn't seem remarkable to Jessup: a man in a charcoal grey suit, glasses, and a John Denver haircut. Brigham seemed to do a double take, and his eyes narrowed. The applicant's resume consisted of a single line.

1992- Present: Simmons Rope and Chain Company, Senior Manager, Quality Control.  Developed testing methods for natural and synthetic fiber ropes and cording. Expert in nooses, snares, and knots.

The man looked all around the room, though wouldn't meet Jessup's eyes. He settled on staring at Jessup's shoes.

“Mister Thomas,” Jessup said, “why don't you tell Brigham and me why you're the best person for this job.”

“I'm intimately familiar with how rope behaves and how to avoid even the most uncommon problems with the medium.”

“Hoo-ee! The medium?”  Brigham said. 

“Indeed, sir,” Thomas said, shifting his gaze to Brigham's shoes, “for example, the effect of humidity on the coefficients of friction in natural fibers. I would expect that being an expert yourself, you use hemp rope in this climate because manila fiber tends to bind and twist on itself in the winter months. We wouldn't want to unduly chafe the – er, participant.” He let out a dry, staccato laugh.

“Hemp?” Brigham said, jerking his head, “Did you say hemp? What kind of fool do you think I am? Hemp is too springy. I've always sworn by manila.”

Thomas looked up at Brigham, a corner of his mouth downturned before he quickly looked back at the floor.

“I- I assure you, hemp outperforms manila in every way.”

“Hippy marketing claptrap.” Brigham leaned closer to Jessup.  “Next thing you know, he'll want to hang 'em from sus-tainable bamboo scaffolding or some such other crap.”

“I co-authored a paper on the tensile and binding properties of hemp fibers that was accepted by the American Rope and Cable Manufacturers' Association,” Thomas said, straightening in his chair, “I thought it might be padding my resume a bit much to include it, but I can direct you to their website so you can read it yourself.”

“The ARCA is an industry lobby, more interested in tax cuts than their product. They'd worship a poodle in a mini-skirt if they thought it would save them a couple bucks.”

“That doesn't have anything to do with hemp,” Thomas said. He squirmed in his seat, and his face took on a pink cast.

Brigham leaned forward. “Hemp's not even on the same level as nylon.”

 Thomas leapt from the chair, shaking a finger at Brigham. Whatever he meant to say was lost as he choked on his own spittle. Tomas pitched forward coughing, his face turning red. Jessup stood and walked around to Mister Thomas. He laid a hand on the man's shoulder, and helped him straighten as the coughing ended.

“Perhaps we should take a break,” Jessup said. Mister Thomas rose and slowly made his way to the door. He murmured a thanks to Jessup, who held the door open for him. Jessup closed the door behind him and cocked an eyebrow at Brigham, already absorbed in digging out a new wad of tobacco from a foil-lined pouch.

“You've always insisted on hemp ropes,” Jessup said.

“Yup.”

“So?”

“Sexual deviant,” Brigham said. “Autoerotic asphyxiation. Can't get off unless he or someone else is getting choked.”

“You sure?” Jessup said, “Even if he were into that autoerotic thing, so what?”

Brigham looked at Jessup, the bulge sliding from his lower lip to his cheek as he moved the tobacco around.

“Guy like that will screw up a hangin' on  purpose. He seems smart enough to maybe only mess with one in ten, or one in twenty. Hell, he may only do it once in his career, but he'll do it. And once is too many.”

“Aren't you always saying you're not a doctor?”

“I'm not. I'm a hangman, and it's my job to know these things. Besides, he didn't have a beard either. Can't trust a hangman without a proper beard.” He reached for his mug. “Send in the next one.”

*

The next few interviews were little better. The kindest words Brigham has for the applicants were 'dumber than a box of rocks,' 'sharp as a ping-pong ball,' and 'a flat-head in a Phillips world.'

“There's just one interview left,” Jessup said.

“Good. I wanna get home and watch Bass Masters.”

“Could you try not to tick the applicant off this time?”

“If their delicate sensibilities are offended by an old fart's brain droppings, then they're not cut out for the execution business."

The door opened, and Jessup knew he was doomed to at least another month behind the table with Brigham. A woman walked in, tall, middle-aged, with a lined face and blunt nose giving a solid no-nonsense quality to her that Jessup usually associated with farm wives and restaurant owners. She reached out and gave Jessup's hand a firm shake.

"Miriam Boxleitner, pleased to meet you."  

She stuck out her hand to Brigham, who chose to spit into his cup instead. She gave a slight shrug and collapsed in the chair, as if she had been on her feet all day.

 "Well," Jessup said, leafing through his folder of papers, "I don't seem to have your resume on hand, do you have a copy?"

"I don't have one. Who needs a resume to be a hangman?" she said.

"Then how do we know you're qualified, missy?" Brigham said.

She screwed up her face in thought. "Well, when I was younger, I took up taxidermy."

"We don't mount prisoners to the walls, last time I checked," Brigham said.

She looked at him and smiled. "No, I expect you don't. However, my mentor had me practice on small animals before he'd let me work on other people's jobs. So I went around to the local farms and offered to take care of any strays they had."

"The job's for a hangman, not a dog catcher," Brigham said.

She nodded. "To make sure I didn't ruin the pelts, I hung 'em rather than shooting them. I got pretty good at it. My record was thirteen cats at one time."

"How'd you manage that?" Jessup said.

"Easy, you get a stepladder and string a few of 'em up on each rung."

Jessup looked at Brigham, who was working his wad of chew from cheek to cheek.

"You ever do anything bigger than a cat?"

"A few cows, two deer and an alligator."

Brigham's wad of chew stopped moving.

"An alligator? Neck's too thick for hanging." he said.

Miriam spread her hands. "You have to run a slip noose around the end of the snout to get the extra leverage needed for snapping the neck at the main noose."

Brigham spat into his cup. "What else you got?"

"My maiden name was Johnstone, I grew up in Kansas."

Brigham's eyebrows shot up.

"What is it?" Jessup asked.

"Nicodemus Johnstone was the most famous headsman and hangman in the Kansas Territories. Some say criminals feared him more than Wyatt Earp." He turned to Miriam. "I thought your family was out of the business."

"Grandpa and my dad never took up the craft, but we still have great-granddad's papers. I figured someone in the family should keep in practice."

"Hemp or Manila?"

Miriam shrugged. "I'll take hemp if I can get it, but I'm used to making due with what the state provides."

"What do you do now?" Brigham asked.

"I work at the DMV."

Brigham stared at her for over a minute. She calmly looked back at him.

"I don't trust hangmen without beards," he said.

"I expect you'll get over it," she said.

Brigham nodded. "I expect so." He turned to Jessup. “She's not perfect, but she ain't an idiot.”

It was as close as an endorsement Jessup had heard from the old codger over the past two months of interviews.

“Do you have any moral objections to killing a man?” Jessup asked.

“What's the pay grade?” she asked.

“The job's coded as a G-27.”

“Overtime?”

“Yeah,” Jessup said.

“No objections, and I can start on Monday.”

“Hallelujah,” Brigham said, “You're hired. Call me at the bait shop if you need any pointers.”

The image is from the user Chris 73 and is freely available at //commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hangmans_Noose.jpg under the creative commons cc-by-sa 3.0 license.

A Perfect Christmas

by Colleen Sutherland

(This is my last depressing Christmas story of the year.  Next year I intend to put all of them into a book.  Those who have been following along will by now realize though each story stands alone, they are interconnected as well. They are meant for those who really don't like the holiday and they are legion. CS.) 

       Joe was snoring out big beer breaths. It had been another one of those nights with the boys, but why did it have to be Christmas Eve? The kids were sleeping so Janine still had a chance to give them that perfect, memorable Christmas.

       Janine had big plans for Christmas 2012. She had lists of things to do, checklists to be checked and consulted. Her plans seldom worked out but this day would be different. There were places the family had to be, relatives to visit, church services to attend, and above all the riotous opening of presents under the tree. 

 
      So Janine planned, beginning with Black Friday.  She had her lists ready and was waiting at the front of the mall at 3:00 a.m. She must have broken her wrist when the door open and the crowd charged but she never broke her stride. She threw her purse over her shoulder and grabbed little Freddy by the other hand. She found Joe's gift in the electronics department, a doll for Eloise on a special display rack. She even nabbed a Shooter Scooter from under the Santa throne at the mall while Freddy was on Santa's lap. Maybe that old guy wanted that gift for somebody he thought special, but store employees shouldn't hoard the good stuff anyhow. The doctor said the cast would be off by New Year's.

       She never slowed down. The minute the kids left for school, Janine took off for the stores. Joe claimed she spent too much on Christmas. They only lived on what he made as a deliveryman for local stores whenever their own crew was too rushed. He was an independent contractor with his own van. Christmas was his busiest time but the rest of the year he worked as a mover. Somehow they got by. Janine told him how much she had saved on each item she bought but hid the credit card statements.

       Janine figured that on Christmas morning with the family still sleeping, she could put the presents under the tree and fix that one set of lights that refused to go on. She started by setting her alarm clock. She never set the alarm. Either the cat wanted to be fed or Joe wanted his breakfast so she never got to sleep late even on Mother's Day. She wasn't even sure if that clock worked. But she had to get up early to prepare for that perfect Christmas so she set it. It was almost midnight when she joined Joe in bed.

      On restless nights, Janine heard every noise in the neighborhood: cars going down the street, some animal in the trash can, the cat moving around the house and of course, Joe snoring. She never slept all that well. On this sacred night, she listened to a party across the street that was going on far too long with some rock instruments and singing. She couldn't make out what the singing was about. She tiptoed downstairs, stood next to the Neighborhood Watch sign at the front window and peered out, but the snow was falling and she couldn't make anything out. She listened to the racket for a while and finally called the police and asked them to check on it. There might be drugs involved. You never knew. It was a dangerous world out there.

       She crept back to bed to give it another try, but gave up on sleep an hour before she usually got up. She would be tired the next day but it would be worth it to give her children that perfect moment under the tree. She slipped out of the bed and went down the stairs barefoot, being careful so she wouldn't wake Joe. He was mean when he had a hangover. Let him sleep late.

       It wasn't until she had the first cup of coffee that Janine remembered she never turned off that damned alarm clock. She tiptoed back up the stairs into the bedroom and clicked off the alarm, stubbing her toe on the cat sleeping next to the dresser. He was old, deaf and going blind so he didn't notice things the way he used to but that woke him up.

       He followed Janine downstairs demanding in his loud wail to be fed and not cat food either. He knew there was a platter of leftover turkey in the fridge and turkey is turkey, cat food is cat food. He yowled. Rex was a half-Siamese mongrel foisted on her by a relative. He didn't speak normal cat, just howls in Siamese. He must have driven his non-Siamese mother nuts.

       “I am a slave to everyone in this family, including that cat,” Janine said to the empty kitchen.  No matter, Rex got his way. She didn't want him to wake the kids.

       She messed with the lights on the tree for a while, trying to find the bad bulb. She finally gave up, figuring that it would be morning sunlight when the kids got up anyhow. The needles were already falling, so in a day or two the thing would come down. “Damned fire hazard,” she said.

       Janine got a step stool to haul the presents out of the tallest kitchen cupboard. A good place to hide things she thought, but she noticed the wrapping had been slightly torn and there was more tape on them than there should be. Darned kids. Or maybe it was Joe. He was always trying to figure out how much she was spending.

       “I'll think about that tomorrow,” she told Rex. “Christmas is important.” There even was a present for him, a little catnip mouse.

       She arranged the presents under the tree. That's when she realized she forgot batteries. All those battery ads on television about being prepared and she forgot. She carefully re-opened the packages and made a list of what would be needed and went to the kitchen to look for the batteries. There weren't any. She realized Joe had swiped her stash for some damned project. She would have to go to the convenience store three miles away and hope they still had batteries.

       She was flagging. “I need a shower to wake myself up.” She brought her second cup of coffee into the bathroom and climbed into the tub. The soothing hot water ran over her body though she was very careful not to get the cast wet. It felt so, so good. With a second wind, she toweled off as she drank her coffee. 

       She congratulated herself on having the forethought the night before to layout all her clothes in the downstairs bathroom so she wouldn't have to wake Joe up by trying to dress in the dark upstairs. 

       No bra. No panties. Damn. She climbed down the narrow steps to the basement laundry and pulled a dirty bra and panties out of a basket. She waved them around for a bit, smelled them again, then Febreezed them.

       Back in the bathroom she dressed, top to bottom until she realized her shoes and boots were still upstairs. She tiptoed back to the bedroom. Joe was still snoring. There wasn't a sound from the kids. Good. She came back down.

       The cat, who seemed to be suffering from Alzheimer’s, decided Janine had just woken up and yowled for more turkey. She ignored him. She grabbed her purse and keys and went out to start the car. That's when she discovered that Joe's big delivery van was in the driveway behind her car. It would have to be moved. The music down the street was still going on. “Hallelujahs” seemed to be the prominent motif. It was Christmas or she would have gone down there and cursed them out royally. Instead, she went back into the house. The cat went into his full scale my-God-I-am-dying routine.

     “You'll wake everyone up,” she screamed as quietly as she could. She gave in and fed him more turkey.

Joe's keys were not where they were supposed to be on the keyholder in the kitchen. She stole back up the stairs and searched his jackets until she found a set and while she was at it, checked his wallet. He wouldn't notice if a few bills were missing. He rolled over and groaned. She held her breath until he was well and truly asleep again.

       It was getting late. The sun would soon be up. She wanted to hurry but when she came down that demented cat was at it again. He hadn't remembered the two previous meals. She didn't take time to argue, he got more turkey.

       She tore out to the dark driveway, unlocked the van and climbed in, bumping into the rear view mirror and throwing it out of whack. Never mind. That perfect Christmas was only an hour or so away and she didn't want to miss it.

       She backed the van out of the driveway and crashed into a patrol car cruising down the street. Both of the horns started blaring. That's when she remember that she had called the police about suspicious happenings, possibly drugs.

       Officer Craig crawled over the police car's computer gear, pushed open the passenger door and crawled out as he called into the station for backup. Joe came tearing outside in his jockey shorts. So did the True Christians from down the street who had been having some kind of all night party to greet Jesus. So did the kids in their pajamas. So did that damned cat who escaped and ran onto the street. It was at that moment that the asecond patrol tore around the corner. The squeal of the squad car's brakes was equaled only by the cat's final Siamese yelp before it was cut short.

       The kids were screaming, Joe was yelling at her and Officer Craig gave her a ticket.

       It wasn't the perfect Christmas Janine had imagined, but it certainly was memorable.

       I'll try again next year, she thought. At least the cat had three last meals. 

The Envy of the Neighborhood

Photo my Dmitry G via Wikimedia Commons

There is something almost sexual about washing a Prius. I wish I could tell you why, but every time I wash it, I feel this afterglow and the urge to roll over and take a nap. Maybe I wash it more than I should, but my reduced carbon footprint should cover a little extra water, right? So it was of course during Tuesday's washing that the salesman came to call.

He drove a late seventies Mercury, once red, now faded to a salmon color. The overall shape of the car was as if a kindergartner had designed it: a rectangle with tiny circles for wheels. Whatever the hubcaps had looked like was lost to time, only brown lug nuts showed now. The front was a wall of headlights and grille, the rest of the body bulky and slow-looking.

The salesman was no better. Somewhere in his forties, paunchy, and moving with all the energy and grace of a sick water buffalo. He hefted a small suitcase that looked like alligator skin; tufts of white poked out from holes and thin spots. His brown corduroy jacket with dark elbow patches floated over green pants as if the man were an inverted Christmas tree. He wore a homberg hat, and actual homberg, as if he were Winston Churchill or an olde tyme banker. And his shoes, his shoes! The only thing new on him, construction boots. This shambling figure approached the driveway, and I had nowhere to run.

“Hello,” he said, “do you like Christmas?”

“No.”

His head jerked back like I had just taken a swing at him. “You don't? Why's that?”

“Christmas is just cover for mass consumerism. It soothes the guilt of running up credit card debt, all so junior can have the latest gee-jaw to keep him quiet while mom and dad watch their sitcoms on TV.”

“Oh. So you think Christmas has lost its meaning?”

“If you mean that the holiday invented by a pope to undermine the Druids, sure.”

His face brightened.

“Yes sir,” he said, “many people feel as you do. Today's Christmas is nothing like what it ought to be, nothing like what they remember growing up. Would you like to know the reason?”

Because people suppress memories of whiskey-scented beatings? Because kids never have to shell out their own money for gifts? Claymation? Norman Rockwell? What was this guy's angle?

“I'm sure you're going to tell me,” I said.

Bibles. I bet he's selling bibles.

He cast a glance over his shoulder and leaned forward. “Christmas lights.”

I blinked; he nodded.

“Why even in your own neighborhood,” he said, “LEDs up one side and down the other.”

“LEDs,” I said.

“You call that light they give off a glow? It's as cold as Jack Frost's mother-in-law.” He laughed.

I didn't.

“You save a lot in electricity with the LEDs,” I said.

He peered around me at the Prius.

“That's why you got that thing?”

There was something unwholesome about his look. I took a step forward and blocked his view.

“It's environmentally responsible,” I said.

“Bah, that's just marketing talk. The best thing for the earth is to drive a classic like mine, not use more of the Earth's stuff to make a slightly less dirty car. No, re-use has gotten the short thrift in our society sir. Which brings me here to today.

“I thought it was Christmas and the evils of LED lights.”

“And that's just where it starts! There are the inflatable displays, just plug in a cord, and poof – instant nativity scene. Just hope that baby Jesus doesn't spring a leak. The pre-lit trees and deer, the dangly flashing icicle lights, motorized penguins on ice skates, they all pitifully try to make up for their lack of originality and warmth with gaudiness and so-called convenience.”

I kind of liked the penguins. “So what's your solution?”

He smiled and opened his case. Inside jewel-toned lightbulbs in faded cardboard boxes sat beside foil reflectors stacked like cupcake paper. Cloth-wrapped wires ended in chunky two-pronged plugs. A light-up angel sat next to a plug-in Santa whose beard had yellowed.

“You're selling used Christmas lights?” I said.

“Antiques. Dina-Lites with the Noma safety plugs. The old Mazda series, and the Osram Party lights.”

He plucked out a bulb the size of my pinky, the red knurled glass twinkling in the sun.

“Incandescents!” he said, “These are the secret to Christmas. The beautiful glow that comes only from zig-zagy tungsten filaments. Just warm enough to melt any covering snow and shine to the world.”

“I don't think so.”

“How about this?” He held up what looked like a popcorn ball made of blue glass.

“The snowball light. Where are these in the stores today?”

I shrugged.

“Or these,” he held up a green and red onion-shaped bulb with a tube of green fluid emerging from the top. “Bubble lights!”

“I thought they still sold those.”

“Pale imitations. They are club soda, this is Champagne.”

“I don't know, I like kitsch as much as the next guy, but I'm not going to decorate my house with power-guzzling fire hazards.”

“That's the beauty, sir. A little goes a long way. The amount of electricity you'd use is a paltry measure. And I assure you, not one of my products has ever caught fire.”

They did seem to have a certain retro factor that might play well. Maybe I could use some during a Mad Men-themed dinner party.

“Do you sell anything to control them remotely? My buddy has an Android app that can make his lights blink in time to any song you want.”

“No,” he said, confused.

“Pity.” Kip was always showing me what his phone could do that mine couldn't. I had hoped to shut him up.

“Surely you can see past all that novelty and show that, like a fine wine, newer is not always better?”

I did like wine.

“What would you recommend for a small display?”

He smiled and brought out a stylized star outlined in gold foil. It reminded me of Las Vegas.

“From the 1950s, I give you the Lawson model 400.”

“Seems kind of plain.”

“The foil will reflect the light of the blue, red and green lights here in the center, see?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And it will sparkle and shimmer in the slightest breeze. It's lost techniques like this that will make you the envy of the neighborhood.”

He said it with a knowing smile, and it hit me in the stomach. A piece of 1950s crap would make the envy of the neighborhood? My Prius was the envy of the neighborhood. My shiny, modern, Earth-saving vehicle was not going to be upstaged by a light with some tin foil around the edges.

“I don't know about the star,” I said. “I see you have Santa and candy canes and angels. How about a Jesus light?”

“I don't have one of those, sir.”

“It just seems like since we're supposed to be celebrating his birthday and all, there should be a light-up Jesus.”

“I'm sorry, they don't make those. They've never made those.”

“Well, that's what I want.”

“I could perhaps locate a nativity scene in the warehouse,” he said. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a notebook and pencil.

“No, not a nativity scene, a string of Jesus bulbs to light my front porch. If you can't provide that, good day, sir.”

The salesman's smile slipped and for a moment, I could see his fatigue. I couldn't feel sorry for him, it was his own fault for selling second-hand junk so worthless people wouldn't even buy it for Christmas. He carefully latched his case and lifted his hat.

“Merry Christmas, sir.”

He slammed the jalopy's door as he got in, loud enough to set off the alarm of the car parked across the street. I turned back to my Prius.

“Now baby, where were we?”

The Loser

By Bettyann Moore

As the train pulled into the station, Porpoise McAllister knew he was in trouble. He could see them: Melissa (Look, But Don’t Touch) Stufelter and her parents, George and Stephanie, standing outside the depot. George looked stern; Stephanie like she was only vaguely conscious of where she was. Melissa resembled a toadstool with her wide-brimmed hat and her long, cylindrical body clothed in fungus brown, her arms stiffly at her sides. Porpoise imagined her dropping hermaphroditic spores here and there with each movement she made.

He ran his thick fingers through his tangled mass of red hair, leaving traces of a Snickers Bar lunch to mingle with the natural oils. As the train edged nearer to the platform, Porpoise’s mind wandered to the last time he had been with Melissa (Wash Your Hand First) Stufelter. It was just before going off on this trip to Grandmother McAllister’s Transcendental Meditation Workshop and Goose Farm, a combination which had proved near-fatal to Porpoise whose level of concentration – much heightened by Grandma’s protein-packed meals – had caused him to wander unknowingly into a gaggle of geese. The fowl had not achieved Nirvana as Grandmother had hoped and had proceeded to attack the corpulent flesh beneath Porpoise’s short meditation robe, nearly rendering him incapable of the things Melissa (You’ll Have to Marry Me First) Stufelter found hard not to like.

The night before he left, Porpoise realized, Melissa hadn’t fought at all. It had even been her idea to end their date at her father’s place of business instead of their usual spot under the third rose bush in her mother’s haphazard garden. At first he was pleased by this change of scene since it would afford his body time to heal from the thorn wounds that Melissa took such great pleasure in bestowing upon his naked flesh whenever he came too close to entering the seventh heaven he’d often reached alone, but had never entered with another.

As soon as they stepped into her father’s shadowy office, though, Porpoise wished fervently that George were something other than a mortician.

It wasn’t the thought of all those bodies surrounding them, nor was it Melissa’s wild-eyed look that made him nervous, Porpoise reasoned now. No, it was the thought of all those newly-departed, all-seeing souls that caused his skin and muscle to shrivel noticeably. And wasn’t it true that Old Man Peterson’s remains were waiting for burial in the next room? If the rumors were true, Peterson had been the most prodigious lover in town, had, in fact, succumbed to death at the age of 88 only after making three very young women very happy – at the same time. How could Porpoise compete with that? Surely Peterson was hovering over them, giggling at Porpoise’s ineptitude, giving pointers Porpoise wished he could hear and even ogling Melissa’s body – or worse, laughing at it!

With Melissa’s words echoing in his mind about this being a “test” of some gruesome sort, and half a dozen spirits dangling above them, Porpoise fumbled and fought for finesse, then froze when he realized that his Super Flavor Big Bubble Gum had gotten stuck in her hair. She had seemed disappointed, not in the sticky mass they had to finally cut a large chunk of her hair to remove, but that his attempt at ardor had been in vain. She told him, as he stuck the hairy glob in a wrapper as a souvenir of that night, that he would be sorry in a way he could never imagine when he returned from Grandma’s.

“Sorry for what?” he wondered as the train screeched to a jerky halt and he saw Melissa lean over to her father and say something to him that made him scowl and her mother look more lost than ever. “Sorry for my attempts at lovemaking, or sorry for my failure?” Surely she and her parents were there for a reason. Would she accuse him of molesting her? Or maybe, he thought with an odd mix of excitement and dread, they were there to welcome him into the family.

He strode down the narrow aisle toward the door, anticipating her open-armed greeting, then stumbled as he stepped on a passenger’s attaché case, causing a sibilant hiss to escape with the air. Yes, he decided, Melissa (Come Here, Big Boy) Stufelter was there with her parents to welcome him into their fold. And what better way to conquer his hungers than within the matrimonial bed? He pictured George and Stephanie with ears cocked for the sounds of a grandchild, grateful that his grandmother’s impertinent geese had missed their mark, though somewhat narrowly.

As he fantasized, the man with the crushed attaché shot him a look and stood up. Porpoise had the fleeting notion that here was a man – rail thin and clad in black – who would probably have no trouble whatsoever making love beneath cackling, over-sexed spirits. The man pushed past Porpoise, through the open door, and straight into Melissa’s waiting arms. George stood off to one side, the scowl transformed into an eager smile. Stephanie, forgotten, tagged behind as they made their way from the platform.

Porpoise’s gaze shifted to his mother, whom he hadn’t noticed before, waiting patiently for her boy to greet her. He executed the last step down, unaware of the pile of dog shit beneath his shoe, thinking Melissa (Not Worth The Trouble) Stufelter had made her point, and shuffled off toward his mother’s car.

Black Friday

by Colleen Sutherland

(Note:  I've returned to my series of depressing Christmas stories intended for those readers who really hate the holidays.  By next year, I hope to have enough for a collection.) 

“What can you do well?”

The caseworker at the Schmallen County Human Resources office wasn't all that much interested in Jackson's answer but she had a form to fill out. She had been talking to unemployed old guys for years. He had been looking for work at her office for two years. They both played the game. He had seen her before but doubted she remembered him.

“I was good at stuffing Twinkies,” Jackson said.

“You're kidding, right?”

“No. That's what I did for thirty years. Just stuffed Twinkies.”

“Not much future there. They closed the last plant this week down in Tennessee.”

“I know.”

“Maybe you should look into training for something else.”

“I've already taken two re-training courses. The feds won't let me sign up for another. Even with new skills I never get past the first interview.”

The caseworker stared at him. “Maybe if you presented yourself better.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Dress better for one thing.”

“I have one good suit that I save for interviews. I'm sure not going to wear it out when I come down here every week.”

“OK, but how about getting a haircut and shaving off that beard.”

It was a luxuriant growth, his beard. It was deep brown, full and curly, a thing of beauty. He trimmed and combed it daily. “They can't refuse to hire me because of a beard. It's unconstitutional.”

“No, they can't give that as a reason, but they'll sure as shooting hire someone clean shaven instead of you and say he's more qualified. And face it, you're not all that qualified for much of anything. So, tell me, do you anything else well?”

“I grow a great beard. That's about it.”

“If it was white, you could work as a Santa and get seasonal work. Too bad.” She finished the form, handed it to him and crossed his name off her list. “Next!”


Jackson thought about that Santa business that night. When he tried to sell his house after the recession hit, the realtor told him she would have better luck if he got rid of the stuff that his mother left behind when she croaked. All the old sofas, the lamps, and above all the piano she played when he was growing up. When the furniture was gone, the memories were gone, and the house never sold anyhow. The realtor had used the furniture as an excuse. She was a lousy realtor, that was all. The bank took the house away from him. He thought about that piano at Christmas.

Same thing with the beard. The caseworker used it as an excuse. If he shaved his beard all that would remain would be his weak chin and the scars from a couple of knife fights when he was a kid. It wouldn't help.

If the beard was only white, she said, but he could fix that. With his next welfare check he bought a bleaching kit at the dollar store. He locked himself into the john at the Shell station. People pounded on the door from time to time, but he kept going until his beard and hair were white. He did look like Santa. He even had a beer/Twinkie belly to go with it.



The next day, he put on his good suit and began to make the rounds of the malls. He carried a bottle of mouthwash with him and gargled before each stop to make sure there was no residual beer smell. The malls already had their Santas, it seemed. It wasn't until he came to the Save-a-Bunch that he found his job.

“Yeah, our regular Santa croaked from a heart attack. His kids called an hour ago. All the other Santas are booked. So tell me, do you like kids?”

“Love 'em,” Jackson lied. There were probably more than one little Jackson bastard around but he never stayed around to find out. But he could stand poop and slobber if it meant a paycheck.

“Great, you start tomorrow a week from tomorrow during the Black Friday sales.”

“That's a Thursday. And it's Thanksgiving.” Jackson planned on going to more than one church for free meals that day.

“Yeah, well we're starting early this year, just like the rest of 'em. Some of 'em are open all day Thanksgiving but we let our employees have dinner first.”

“Good of you. What time do you want me there?”

“Before we open the doors, say 4:00 pm. That'll give you time to get settled on the throne before we open at 6:00.”

“Any instructions?”

“Just ask the kiddies what they want for Christmas, and here, push these toys.” The manager handed him a fat brochure. “Memorize what's in our catalog, especially the high end stuff. Smile for the camera. Then the elf gives 'em a candy cane and their photo and they go on their way.”

Jackson had seen Santas in movies so figured it would be easy enough. “Just smile and let 'em go. Got it.”

“One more thing, no drinking, no smoking, and above all, no swearing.”

“Where do I get my Santa suit?”

“You don't have one? All the Santas have their own suits.”

“Mine's in the cleaners.”

“Well, rent one then. Your responsibility, not ours.”



Jackson cadged some money from the collection pot when he went for the free dinner at the Salvation Army. Then he slipped his hand into a woman's purse on the bus and managed to get another batch of bills without her noticing.

He rented the suit for a week, figuring after that he could buy his own.

“Bring it back clean,” the guy said. “No deposit though, we trust our Santas.”



He perused the Save-a-Bunch catalog at the homeless shelter. “Can you believe this crap?” he asked his bunk mate.

“Some high end products there,” the guy said. He used to be in retail sales. “Hey, if you can get some of this stuff, we could put it on e-bay. I've got a Hotmail account down at the library. Good scam.”

“Circle the good stuff and I'll see what I can do.”



Jackson was supposed to be at a seasonal employee meeting but he figured that was mostly going to be about stocking and working the cash registers so he called in and told the manager he had another booking for a Santa gig. “Got to strike while the iron is hot, man!” he told him. The manager said fine but to stop in for his employee ID. It slipped Jackson's mind but then he figured the Santa suit was ID enough.

That afternoon Jackson was full of the Assembly of God Thanksgiving dinner and feeling mellow. He even arrived early but that's when he found out about Black Friday and crazed women. When he got off the bus, there was a line that stretched all along the mall front and circled behind it. There were even four tents pitched at the front of the line. Armed security guards were directing traffic.

Jackson headed for the front door but two women emerged from their tent and screamed at him. “Get to the back of the line, you moron!”

“I'm Santa Claus,” Jackson said. “I'm going to work.”

“Old trick,” said a security guard. “There's already two Santas in line.”

“Ask the manager, he'll tell you,” Jackson insisted.

“Like the manager ever works on Black Friday,” the guard said. “He's too smart for that. Besides, where's your employee badge?”

Jackson circled around the mall, passing the other two Santas. Their beards were fake, but they weren't bad. He tried knocking at the back door,” but no one answered. If they had, they wouldn't have known him anyhow.

Jackson went back to the front and waited the two hours before the door opened. Then when the lines started to move, he rushed in, using every blocking move he learned in high school football.

The women he pushed aside cursed him, pulling at his Santa suit. He felt the back rip, then they tore at his pants which began to slip down, revealing his dirty jockey shorts. He pulled them up his pants and began to run toward the sign that read “Santa's Castle”. Unfortunately that took him past a roped off electronics cart manned by a wild eyed employee, just a kid who had never been exposed to women shoppers. He handed out the cameras as fast as he could but a woman in her late 60s crawled on hands and knees past a crowd of thirty shoppers and under the rope barrier to snag a box from the cart. As she crawled out she pulled a Wii game off the bottom rack of a cart belonging to a young woman. The younger shopper got her camera, turned around and accidentally nudged the man standing behind her. She began to apologize but he shoved his cart very hard right back at her and into her very pregnant belly.

The next woman in line already had a full cart but the other shoppers were screaming at store security that she had not been in line at all. She had followed Jackson in and was stealing from other carts.

“Fuck you,” the woman shouted back. “I'm not going anywhere.”

The shoppers attacked her. It was a melee of security guards, irate shoppers, and Jackson who somehow got shoved into the middle of the mess. Someone pushed him and he landed flat on the electronics cart. He crawled over it, sticking a camera in his pocket and a Wii game under his arm, and kept crawling until he made the castle.

“Where the hell have you been?” The three elves snarled at him and pulled him to his feet.

“He's all ripped up.”

“His shorts are showing.”

“Shove him on the fucking throne.”

“Don't swear” Jackson said. “It's not allowed.”

The elves hustled Jackson onto his carved wooden chair and tucked his costume around him. As far as he could tell the three elves had been selected for shortness and pert breasts. None of them were smiling.

Dazed, he looked around him at the gingerbread castle. There were five kids waiting for him.

“Hurry,” a mother shouted. “We need the photo then we can get back to shopping.”

Jackson shoved his loot under the throne. “Send the little darlings on” he said, straightening his cap.

“And what do you want for Christmas?” Jackson said in as deep a bass as he could manage as the first approached his royal presence.

“I want my damn photo taken for my Grandma so she'll think I'm still fucking cute and send me something fucking decent this year.” The kid was at least ten. He climbed on Jackson's lap and grinned at the camera. Jackson stared, too, stunned. This was not what he had in mind.

The elves took the photo, pulled the kid off Jackson's lap, handed him a candy cane and yelled “Next kid!”

The next kid pulled his beard...hard...and rattled off a long list of thirty or forty toys before he was dragged away.

“Don't take all day. Hurry them along,” whispered an elf. “First time you've done this?”

Over the next hour, Jackson was punched, kicked, screamed at and drooled on. It was around the thirty fifth kid that Jackson cracked.

Then a little darling swore at him, bit him and kneed him in his privates. Jackson shook the little punk, put him over his knee and gave him a good paddling. The mother rushed in to rescue her precious son, the elves screamed for security and Jackson was dragged away, looking frantically under the throne, but somewhere along the way, one of the mothers had absconded with the Wii game and camera.

“I'm going, I'm going,” Jackson said. The security guards waved him to the back door and went back to the melee at the front of the store. He grabbed two baby dolls, a laptop computer and a teddy bear on his way out but a shopper and her daughter saw him.

“Mommy, mommy, Santa Claus stole things.”

Jackson gave them a finger as he ran for the door.


He would gotten away except for those ripped pants that fell down and tripped him up. The police were there already because of the fights at the front of the store and hauled him away in a police car filled with fractious shoppers who were shrieking at the cops, Jackson and each other.

The kid's Mommy filmed the whole thing on her cell phone. Jackson wound up in the county jail for the holidays, but the food was good and he was interviewed for the evening news because the video went viral. He was a hero to the rest of the inmates, the Santa in the slammer. He enjoyed the notoriety.


The judge caught it all on Facebook on Christmas Day as he helped his grandchildren with their new computer. He threw the book at Jackson. For shop lifting, ruining a Santa Clause costume and exposing himself, Jackson got six months in prison and two hundred hours of community service.

Worse, the judge ordered him to shave off his beard.



(Wade Peterson and I will be signing our collection of short stories at Sissy's in Seymour, Wisconsin on Dec. 15 at 3:00 - 5:00 pm) 

One Day in November

Philip looked around the doctor's office, noting the seams for the flowered wallpaper were centered on the sharps disposal container, and wondering if one had to take a class or get some kind of certification to decorate such a space. It was a strange mix of modern and country, a chrome and glass container holding sterile depressors next to a calendar showing a picture of a cross-stitched rooster pillow.

“It's like those dreadful trips to your mother's house, except with the possibility of a colonoscopy,” he said to June, sitting next to him.

She hadn't put the car keys away in the parking lot. She held them when they checked in, when they sat in the waiting room, all the way through the nurse's questions about diet and sleeping habits. She held them even now,  running a thumb back and forth along the key's bumps.

“Pardon?” she said.

“This whole country-kitsch thing. I mean, is this supposed to put people at ease or something?”

“I don't know, Phil.” She stroked the key like a rosary. “What would you have done?”

“Hmm, now that is an interesting question. Something with a coffee machine, I should think. I mean everyone loves coffee. Hell, even McDonald's is a coffee place now. Are you going to argue with Ronald McDonald?”

“Coffee's not good for you, Phil, you know that.” She looked up at him, staring with dark circled eyes.

Phil looked away with a little laugh. “Well, perhaps you're right.”

A knock at the door, and the doctor walked in. She was flipping through a sheaf of papers. Her face seemed to be set into a permanent frown, but Phil heard her laughing in the hallway not five minutes before. He wondered if it was some kind of modification to the Hippocratic oath – heal the sick, do no harm, and no levity in front of the civilians.

“Mrs. Nanee, how are we doing?”

June shrugged. The doctor tossed her papers onto the counter and sat down on a small stool. She took in a breath to speak, but Philip interrupted.

“Do they do casual Fridays around here?” he said.

“I'm sorry?” the doctor said.

“Casual Fridays,” he said, “Because you're the first doctor I've seen with jeans on. I've never seen that before, except at the vet's office of course. Hey,” he said, patting June's leg, “maybe that's it. You probably just have heartworm.”

June dropped the keys and covered her face with both hands.

The doctor's mouth hung open for a moment before she regained her composure. “I think that it's important that in this situation, you show some more support for your wife.” The frown lines deepened and her nostrils flared.

The doctor was actually kind of pretty, he realized. A bit hard around the edges perhaps, but that just made her all the more attractive. Here was a woman who was a fighter. Here was a woman who wouldn't crumble. She would look him in the eye, not stare past his shoulder like there was something sad happening right behind him. She'd find something worth a smile. Philip felt the heat rise to his face under the doctor's stare.

“Sorry,” he said. “I guess we're beyond the chemotherapy, then?”

Mistaken Identity — Part 2

 “There’s something you should know,” Robert said on the phone that night.

“Yes?” Uh-oh, here it comes, Margo thought.

“Well, technically,” he began, “I’m married.” Before Margo could respond, he rushed on. “It’s been over for a long time. We just haven’t finalized it on paper …”

“I see,” Margo said, feeling a bit mean. “What does that have to do with me?”

There was a lot of hemming and hawing on Robert’s end. Good, Margo thought.

“It’s just that I thought … and maybe I’m out of line here,” he stammered, “but I thought you and I ...” He left it there. 

Margo sighed, feeling sorry for him.

“So, you’re married, but you’re separated and just haven’t gotten around to ...”

“No,” he interrupted, “not exactly separated ...”

“Not exactly?”

“I pretty much live in the top floor of the house and ...”

“You live together?!”

“More like coexist,” Robert said, then rushed on. “Ingrid and I can’t afford to live apart right now. She’s saving to go back to Norway and we’re working out the details of splitting property. We really have very little to do with each other. We eat dinner together, that’s all. Ingrid’s a wonderful cook.”

How nice for you,Margo thought, her stomach sinking.

“I just wanted you to know how things stand,” Robert said. “I wanted to be honest with you. Honesty is very important to me.”

Margo rallied. “I certainly appreciate that, Robert, so thank you,” she said. She had to get off the phone. “Oh, wow, look at that, it’s already after 9 here and I really should be getting home ...”

“You’re upset, I understand ...”

“No, no, not at all … it’s just late,” she lied.

“We’ll chat tomorrow then? During lunch maybe?”

“Sure, sure … well, let’s see how the day plays out. I really should get going, I have a long ride home. Good night, Robert.”

Margo didn’t stay on the line long enough to hear his reply. She put her head on the desk and closed her eyes. When she opened them she could see the horse sculpture out of the corner of her eye.

“Stupid horse,” she said. “Stupid me.”

*

Tired, out of sorts, Margo drove slowly in the snow to work the next day.

“Hold all my calls until further notice,” Margo barked at a surprised Carl when she got to the office. He raised his eyebrows as she stalked down the hall to her office, slamming the door behind her.

With the concentration and focus her ex-husband used to complain about (“Sometimes you don’t even know I’m alive!”), Margo worked, barely looking up from her computer the full day. She could hear the staff whispering on the other side of the door, but they didn’t disturb her. Lunch came and went. By 4 o’clock, she’d done all she could do. She’d laid out the next year’s editorial calendar, assigned stories to various freelancers, checked and rechecked every page of the upcoming issue; and it had been the perfect day to make normally unpleasant calls to suppliers. Exhausted, she rose and stretched and finally opened the door, taking a stack of correspondence to Carl to mail.

“Where is everyone?” she said, putting the pile on his desk. The place was eerily quiet.

“I sent them home before it got too bad out there,” Carl said, sniffing slightly.

“Out there …?” Margo looked outside. Everything was white and snowflakes the size of silver dollars smacked against the window. “Holy … I had no idea it was this bad,” she cried.

“There’s at least two feet already,” Carl said as he pulled on his coat, “and they’re expecting another two feet before midnight. Good thing tomorrow’s Saturday. I don’t have far to go, but maybe you should think about staying here tonight.”

Margo knew he was right, but she didn’t relish the idea. What would she do with herself?

“There’s some leftover pizza in the break room if you get hungry” Carl said, pausing at the door. “And Lindsay brought veggies and dip.”

“Okay, thanks, Carl,” Margo said. “Now get while the getting’s still good!”

Margo wished she had a beer or two to go with the pizza, but she warmed up some anyway and took it to her desk. The wind howled outside, making the empty office a little creepy. Margo shuddered and turned on her radio. Then, against her best judgment, she opened her chat program. A flurry of increasingly concerned messages from Robert cascaded in.

She read the first message to the last, feeling more and more guilty as she read. He really was very sweet. And he was upfront about being married. It wasn’t like they were romantically involved, not really. He was there, she was here. He was fun to talk to … quirky maybe, but he did make her laugh. As she pondered, another, new message pinged in.

Bo: I don’t know if you’ve read any of my messages, but I miss talking to you …

Margo wiped pizza grease off her hands and pulled the keyboard toward her.

Margo: I’m here. We can talk.

Bo: !!!! It’s so late and you’re still there??? I’m glad you are.

Margo: Snowed in. Have to spend the night. It’s kind of creepy.

Bo: Poor dear! Do you have food? Blankets?

Bo: Yep, all set there. Was just going to make up the pull-out bed.

Bo: Good, good. Look, I have to go for a bit, but do you think we could talk or chat later? We have all night …

Margo hesitated. It was pretty lonely there.

Margo: Sure, we can do that.

Bo: GREAT! So, I have a question …

Margo: Am I going to like this? :)

Bo: It’s ok, really! I was just wondering if you have a digital camera.

Margo: A … yeah, we have one here. Why?

Bo: I like to picture you and where you are, you know that.

Margo: Yeah …

Bo: So, maybe you could take a picture of your office and send it so it’s here when I come back?

And odd request, but what’s the harm, Margo thought.

Margo: Okay, I can do that.

Bo: Wonderful! And what are you wearing?

Margo knew better than to read anything into that question.

Margo: Right now, black slacks and a blue sweater. When you come back, though, it’ll be sweatpants and sweatshirt!

Bo: Good, good, relax. Have to go. Send that picture!

Margo: Will do. Bye.

Margo wondered if he and Ingrid were going to eat dinner. “Whatever,” she said aloud. She rummaged through her desk drawers and found the camera, actually looking forward to their chat. She’d have to take two shots, one of the desk side of the room, and the other of the sitting area where she’d be sleeping that night. After straightening things up a bit she took the pictures, loaded them into her computer, re-sized them and emailed them to Robert.

While she waited, she busied herself by making up the bed, going down the hall to brush her teeth and change into sweat clothes, checking out a few favorite Web sites and trying not to obsess about the weather outside. She waited. And waited. And waited.

I thought he said he’d be gone for ‘a bit’, Margo thought. She was getting tired and the made-up bed looked inviting. She surveyed the room, rather pleased with the environment she’d created – the comfortable couch and chair, the artwork on the walls, the kilim rug, her ancient, solid wood desk …

“Crap, oh, crap!” she cried. She quickly pulled up the pictures she’d sent to Robert. “Oh, crap! I can’t believe I did that!” There on the screen was the office side of the room. And there on her desk was the horse sculpture Robert so coveted. Her stomach roiled.

Margo: Robert? Did you get the pictures? There’s … She hoped he wasn’t back yet.

He suddenly popped online.

Bo: Yes, indeed I did.

Margo wondered if she should start explaining or just pretend nothing was amiss. He decided for her.

Bo: Lovely office you have there. Interesting décor.

Margo: Thanks. I’ll bet you’re wondering …

Bo: No, not wondering. Just amazed is all.

Margo: Amazed?

Bo: Yes, amazed that you lied, though I hardly know you, so I shouldn’t be.

Margo: Lied? I never lied! The statue was WILLED to me long after you wrote.

Bo: Oh. I see. Interesting.

Margo: It WAS!

Bo: And you kept that to yourself because …?

Margo: Because I didn’t know how you’d take it! The irony and all … a little hard to believe …

Bo: Indeed.

At this point, Margo was seething. Accusing her of lying! She didn’t owe this man any explanations! And he was being so damn condescending!

Margo: I don’t even LIKE the damn statue, but it was a dying woman’s WISH that I have it!

With that, she closed the chat program and shut down her computer, wishing fervently that she had a bottle of vodka to keep her company. It was going to be a long night.

*

It took hours for Margo to dig out her car the next day. When she got home late on Saturday, she fell into bed and slept 14 hours straight. By Monday, she had purged herself of anger and all other emotions towards Robert Bowen. She drove to the office with new vigor and cranked up an Aretha Franklin CD along the way. R-E-S-P-E-C-T!

But irony wasn’t done with her yet.

After Margo had had a lengthy phone conversation with the publisher, Carl knocked on her open door.

“There’s a woman holding on line two for you. I told her it could be a while, but she insisted she could wait.”

“And …?” Margo prompted.

“And her name is Ingrid. From Seattle.”

Margo suddenly knew what the phrase “her blood ran cold” meant.

“Ingrid? From Seattle?” she said stupidly. “Did she say what it was about?”

Something in her tone and face gave Carl pause. He actually looked embarrassed.

“Er … no, just that her name was Ingrid and she was calling from Seattle. Should I go back and ask?” he said, looking like it was the last thing he wanted to do.

“No, no, no,” Margo said, waving him away. Ingrid. Seattle. She needed to talk to Robert, and fast. Although she’d never called him before, she quickly found the number for the Little Museum on the Hill (Ingrid could wait), and with shaking hands, dialed the number.

“Little Museum on the Hill, Robert speaking.” Margo was surprised that he, the museum administrator would answer the phone.

“Robert, it’s Margo, don’t hang up,” she said in a rush. “We might have a situation. Ingrid called here. She’s on the other line right now.”

“What?! That’s not possible! She doesn't … Ingrid would never … are you certain?”

“All I know is that there’s a woman named Ingrid, from Seattle, who insisted on being put on hold while I was on another line. She’s waiting to talk to me. What did you tell her? Is this some sort of ambush?”

“Ambush! Calm down! Don’t take the call. I’ll run home and see what’s going on. Ingrid is an honorable woman, I’m sure this is a mistake.” He hung up.

Margo buzzed Carl’s desk. “Carl, please tell that Ingrid woman, if she’s still holding, that I’ve stepped out of the office and that I’ll call her back later. Get her number!”

“Right-o, Boss Lady.”

Margo sat with her head in her hands, waiting, her mind running wild. What kind of game was Robert playing? Was he trying to get even with her over the statue? What did Ingrid think she knew about them … them, there is no them,never was. Was he really going back home to confront her? He sounded surprised and upset. Maybe it wasn’t a game?

Carl buzzed her phone. “Two things,” he said. “That woman wouldn’t give me her number and said she’d call you back. And there’s a Robert Bowen on line two.”

Margo punched line two. “Robert? What’s happening?”

“As I surmised, nothing is happening. Ingrid knows nothing about this! She would never go behind my back in such a fashion. I suggest you quit making things up and leave me and my family alone!” He slammed down the phone.

Stunned, Margo replaced the receiver. What the hell was going on? She felt like Alice Through the Looking Glass.

Her phone buzzed again.

“It’s that Ingrid woman on line one,” Carl told her. Resigned, Margo picked up the phone.

“This is Margo,” she said.

“Margo, I caught you!” the heavily accented voice said.

“Er … caught me?”

“It’s Ingrid! From Heavenly Bodies in Seattle? We talked at the Great West Living Trade Show?”

Realization hit Margo in a flash. The trade show. That awful woman with the gaudy clothing and jewelry line trying to find a way to get into the magazine without advertising – this was not Robert’s Ingrid! Relief flooded over her.

“Ingrid, how nice to hear from you,” she said, meaning it. “What can I do for you?”

“I just knew you’d be excited to hear our latest news! Nefertiti, our newest line of fabulous fashions, has been bought up entirely by an Arabian prince! I’m certain your readers would love an exclusive pictorial ...”

Margo was shaking with laughter. She held her hand over the phone’s mouthpiece while the woman droned on. As soon as she could, she passed off the call to the managing editor and hung up, practically bursting with guffaws. Tears rolled down her face. Pretty soon, co-workers were poking their heads in the doorway to see what was going on. Margo shook her head and waved them away, unable to speak. How could she explain it anyway? She broke into a new round of laughter when she thought about sending a note to Robert to tell him what really happened. No, let him wonder. He wouldn't believe her anyway! It might be worth it, though, just to hear the righteous indignation. A new fit of giggles overcame her.

The horse sculpture caught her eye. She reached for it and held it up. “Gayle Clausen, wherever you are, I just want to thank you,” she said. “I’ll treasure this gift forever and it will forever remind me not to jump to conclusions.”

She replaced the statue tenderly on her desk.

“Carl!” she bellowed, “My office, now!”