First Christmas

by Trevor McCall

  “I’m just going to keep saying ‘call them’ until you say ok.”

  Mr. Clarke looked at Kyle. He saw Kyle’s eyes and knew Kyle wasn’t kidding. “You know what, son?”

  “What?”

  “I believe this may be exactly what I need.” The more Mr. Clarke thought about it, the more convinced he was Kyle was right. Something like this was what he needed. His sons could soak up all the sun they wanted to; he would pack snowballs in Timberville with people he barely knew.

  “Then say okay.” Kyle beamed.

  Mr. Clarke decided to commend his Christmas to these two acquaintances. Why not? As the young people were fond of saying, you only live once. Besides, it couldn’t be any worse than being in that big house all alone without his Annette. “Okay.”

  Kyle handed Aubrey his keys. “I’ll get the check. You two get the truck started. The faster we get out of here the better.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Aubrey and Kyle sat in the front seat of Kyle’s pickup, while Mr. Clarke politely took the seat in back in deference to Aubrey. As they passed Mr. Clarke’s store, Kyle noticed Michael out in front talking on his cell phone. He was wearing a groove in the sidewalk from all his pacing. The impish Christmas spirit, which infected Kyle while they were in the diner and caused him to invite Mr. Clarke to come home to Timberville with them in the first place, struck again. “Should we honk the horn?” He asked his truck mates. Aubrey and Mr. Clarke both laughed at the idea.

  “While I admit, I’d love to see Michael sprinting for the rental van and engaging in high speed pursuit of us, over snowy mountain roads, I think it would be better if we just let that sleeping dog lie.” Mr. Clarke answered.

  Aubrey turned sideways in her seat the best way her seatbelt allowed. She wanted to be able to, at least partially, address Mr. Clarke as she spoke. “You should call him in a few minutes to let him know your plans changed.”

  Mr. Clarke agreed. “That’s true. We wouldn’t want him clogging up a 9-1-1 line with a false abduction story.” Mr. Clarke pulled out his phone. “I’ll get this call out of the way right now.” When he pulled his phone from his jacket pocket and began to place the call, it occurred to him he was about to set into motion a chain of events that would alter Aubrey’s life forever. He wanted to check with her one more time before he did anything irrevocable. “Are you still okay with the implications of this call I’m about to make?”

  Aubrey didn’t think about it before answering. “I am. I can’t work for someone that would be so brazen about asking me to lie in the way Victoria did.” It reminded her of something her dad used to say. She decided to quote it for Mr. Clarke minus the proper attribution. “A true friend will never ask you to do something you wouldn’t do if they didn’t ask.”

  “Oh man, I like that one. You mind if I steal that one too?” Kyle asked.

  “It’s all yours.” Aubrey replied.

  Mr. Clarke raised his cell phone up into the air, almost as if giving a ceremonial toast. “Here goes nothing.” He selected Michael’s name from his recently called list and pushed the button to initiate the call. “I’ll put him on speakerphone so you two can enjoy the fruits of your labor.” Almost immediately, Michael answered.

  “Hello,” Michael said.

  “Michael, how are you?”

  “How am I? How am I? Are you serious with that?” Michael was sick of having to deal with this old man’s ideas about how to run a business. Just because Mr. Clarke had his name on the front of the building did not mean he was a business savant who had to be listened to no matter the cost. He had gotten lucky, been in the right place at the right time, and so on. That didn’t even touch the fact he inherited a prosperous design setup from his father. Mr. Clarke was no Steve Jobs, that was for sure.

  Mr. Clarke lifted the reins of Christmas impishness from Kyle and enjoyed his time in the driver’s seat of the sleigh. “Yes, of course I am serious, Michael. Why can’t I ask how you are doing?” Mr. Clarke got a small measure of delight from toying with his retail double agent.

  Michael, on the other hand, was finished playing games. He would not allow the old man to continue tormenting him even if his name was on the front of the building. “What are you doing, and where are you doing it? I sent Eric over to that diner you people went to. He just came back two minutes ago and told me you weren’t there anymore.”

  “That’s right, Michael. We weren’t there. Listen, I’ve decided to cancel the rest of today’s visits. Would you mind calling the other stores and letting them know? Just like you did with Gastonia.” Mr. Clarke hated to cancel those visits. He knew how much his Store Managers prepared for them in order to impress him. He made a mental note to be sure and send each store a gift basket of some sort as an apology.

  Michael was so irritated in this moment; he literally stamped his feet like an impatient child trying to tamp down on a temper tantrum. “Fine. Fine. Fine. When are you going to grace us with your presence so we can leave this place?”

  “Feel free to leave whenever you’ve given the store the attention it deserves, Michael. Our associates put a lot of effort into making everything pristine for us. You don’t need me there to show your appreciation for their efforts.” Mr. Clarke left out that he would be following up to be sure these instructions were carried out.

  “I don’t understand, are you on the road to the airport without us?” Michael’s consternation grew vapid. Mr. Clarke’s flightiness was annoying five minutes ago. Now it drifted closer to dangerous. If Michael weren’t careful, he might lose his temper with the old man and say things to his face he usually only said behind his back.

  “I won’t be meeting you at the airport at all. I’ve decided to spend Christmas with my new friends Aubrey and Kyle.” It felt good, to Mr. Clarke, to say it out loud. The phone line echoed with silence. After several seconds passed, Mr. Clarke wondered if the call disconnected. “Are you there, Michael?”

  “Am I here? Of course, I’m still here! Where else would I be?” Michael paused as he sought the precise way to make his point. In the end, he settled on the only form of threat he could come up with. “I hope you know, Tim, I have no choice but to take your behavior today to the board.”

  Mr. Clarke laughed out loud at the ridiculous threat. When Michael didn’t say anything else, Mr. Clarke realized Michael had legitimately been trying to motivate his behavior by waving the board in his face. “Oh, I’m sorry son, I thought you were trying to brighten my day with a small joke. I didn’t realize you were being serious.”

  “Of course, I was being serious. I mean it’s possible, at your advanced age, that… oh, I don’t know, perhaps, early onset dementia…”

  That was it. Mr. Clarke had enough. “Stop right there, Michael. My age is definitely advancing. I won’t deny that. But I am still sharp enough to see the rat in my belfry.”

  Michael lost all sense of where the conversation headed. He went all in on his threat about the board even though he didn’t know if the threat had any teeth or not. It was the only thing he could think of to use in order to frighten Mr. Clarke. “I’m sure the board would love to hear about the bats in your belfry. Thank you for that little tidbit.”

  Mr. Clarke advanced to being angry. Michael had never seen that side of him before, or he might have been more careful how he taunted. “How about you try this tidbit on for size?” Mr. Clarke began. “I know you’ve been willfully divulging company secrets to Cypress Equity in order to drive down the value of my company. The only thing I don’t know for sure is how long you’ve been at it. Has it been a couple of months? Or, is it more like a couple of years? So how about, instead of wasting time trying to schedule an emergency meeting with my rubberstamping board of directors, you worry about wiping your work computer clean of any incriminating documents I might find on it when I get back to the office on Tuesday.”

  Mr. Clarke gave Michael a moment to respond. When Michael let that moment pass, Mr. Clarke charged ahead. “You might want to wipe
the laptop too. Both of those items are company property so I can do with them what I want. I’m not sure about your cell phone. I’ll have to call Rick, in legal, about that one. I’d say there’s at least a fifty-fifty chance I own the contents of the cell phone too, since I bought it for you, and since I pay your monthly unlimited bill.” Mr. Clarke paused again to give Michael a chance to mount a defense if he had one to give.

  Michael opted out of defending his actions. Instead, he went straight for playing the false victim card. “In the face of such wanton accusations,” Michael began, “I have no choice but to tender my resig…”

  Mr. Clarke interrupted. “Resignation accepted. I want an emailed copy of it in my inbox within ten minutes, or I send someone from home office to confiscate your computer from your desk and hold it for me in a safe place until I get back from this mini-vacation I’ve decided to take.”

  “I will not be bullied by these mafioso tactics.” Michael was backed into a corner and knew it. He played the ‘mafioso tactics’ cards to see if he could bluff Mr. Clarke into giving him a few weeks of pay as severance.

  “I am not bullying you. You have ten minutes.” Mr. Clarke glanced at his watch. “From right now, before I give the order to confiscate your computer. If criminal charges result after that, I wash my hands. Do you understand?”

  Michael’s goose was cooked. “Yes, sir.”

  “And Michael?”

  “What?”

  “Tell your wife and daughters Merry Christmas from me.” With that, Mr. Clarke hung up on Michael forever.

  Aubrey gave him a high five. “What’s the over-under on how long before Victoria calls me.” She scrolled through a couple of screens until she was able to start the timer on her phone. She was serious about making this into a bet.

  Mr. Clarke ventured the first guess. “I’m going with two minutes.”

  Aubrey was next. “It’ll be quick. I agree. But I think he’ll probably have to give her an update on all the news from the day. And don’t forget, he has to send you an email before his ten minutes expire.” Aubrey made her case for the longer period of time and then summed the argument up into a total. “Because of all that, I’m going with ten minutes.”

  “I’m going to severely undercut you Aubrey, and even come in well below Tim. My guess is forty-five seconds.” Kyle knew that by going last, he could have hedged his bet and been more likely to win by going with one minute and fifty-nine seconds, or two minutes and one second, but those kinds of guesses were antithetical to his style. If he won, he wanted it to be because he was right, not because he gamed the rules.

  “Closest without going over wins?” Aubrey asked.

  They all put their arms into the backseat space of Kyle’s truck and formalized the bet with a three-pronged fist bump. In the very next moment, Aubrey’s cell phone rang. She looked down at it and saw two things simultaneously. The first was that forty-three seconds elapsed. The second was that the caller was Victoria. “Forty-three seconds, I can’t believe it, Kyle wins.”

  A brief, and wild, celebration ensued, especially from Kyle. “Okay guys, settle down,” said Aubrey, “I do still have to take this call.” Kyle and Mr. Clarke both quieted. “Speakerphone?” Aubrey asked.

  “Oh please,” responded Mr. Clarke.

  Aubrey chose the speakerphone option on her cell. “Hello.”

  Victoria began her interrogation with no preamble. “Aubrey, what have you done?”

  “What do you mean?” Aubrey asked sweetly.

  “I mean,” Victoria began in her best impersonation of the big bad wolf of Wall Street, who would huff and puff and blow Aubrey’s career down, “I sent you there to talk to that ancient buffoon Tim Clarke…” Victoria suddenly fell silent. “Am I on speakerphone? It sounds like I’m on speakerphone.”

  Aubrey looked at Mr. Clarke. He allowed the admission with a shake of his head. “Yes, you are.”

  “Is Mr. Clarke in the vehicle with you,” Victoria inquired while betraying no hint of emotion about the possible consequences of the answer she would receive.

  Another assent was given by another head shake from Mr. Clarke. “He is,” Aubrey said.

  “The doddering buffoon is present and accounted for.” Mr. Clarke thought it best to physically verify his presence for Victoria. By reflecting her words back to her, he was doing this in the most sarcastic way possible.

  “For the record,” Kyle chimed in, “it was ancient buffoon.”

  Mr. Clarke appreciated the help. “I believe you are correct, Mr. Morgan. Thank you.”

  “You would have gotten it right if you weren’t so old,” Aubrey joked.

  “Don’t forget about him being mentally feeble,” Kyle added.

  “With friends like these, I don’t believe I need any enemies. Wouldn’t you agree, Victoria.” Mr. Clarke enjoyed this high-stakes game of verbal tennis he and his new friends were playing with the notoriously deadpan Victoria. Later on, he knew it would annoy her to no end they had been joking around when her billion-dollar fortune was at stake.

  Although the humor in Mr. Clarke’s last statement was lost on Victoria, the subtext was perfectly clear. Still, she hadn’t been the type to blink first before, and she wasn’t about to start today. “Hahaha. I’m not sure who the Mr. Morgan is that’s in the car with you Aubrey, so perhaps he can be forgiven for attempting to cross me. However, you and Mr. Clarke do know who I am, so listen very closely.” Victoria paused a minute to give her next comments more weight. “I will be using every ounce of my considerable power and leverage to make the ancient buffoon pay through the nose for backing out on this deal. And, Aubrey?”

  “Yes, Victoria,” Aubrey answered.

  “You are fired.”

  Aubrey allowed herself to sound as thrilled as possible. “Oh, thank you so much, Victoria. I was offered a job, within the last two hours in fact, with a major construction company right here in Timberville.”

  Victoria became angry none of her usual missiles were hitting their targets in Aubrey’s psyche. She decided on a scorched earth policy. “Laugh all you want right now, Aubrey, but I can see to it you never work in this industry, or this city, again.”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing. Goodbye, Victoria.” With that, Aubrey hung up. Five years of accepting Victoria’s mistreatment of her was enough. She wasn’t going to take it for another second.

  “Way to go, Aubrey!” Kyle cheered.

  Not to be outdone, Mr. Clarke added a heart-felt, “Well done.”

  Aubrey stared into the snow filled forest which passed by in the passenger side window. She couldn’t believe she found the courage to finally stand up to Victoria. Where had it come from? Suddenly, she looked at Kyle. Everything had begun to change the moment he came back into her life. It couldn’t be because of him, could it? What a silly thought. From nowhere an even sillier thought occurred to her. And yet, she felt as if she had to act on it too. “I’ve just realized something,” Aubrey said.

  “What is it?” Kyle asked.

  “I have one more call to make.” Aubrey looked at Mr. Clarke and then at Kyle, weighed if it would be an imposition to ask them to sit through something so personal. She wouldn’t know unless she asked. “It feels to me like the three of us have made some kind of crazy pre-Christmas connection today, and I just want you to know I would never normally do anything like this, but I feel like I need you two to help me be strong enough to stand up for myself.”

  Mr. Clarke sensed she wanted permission and came out and offered it so she wouldn’t have to feel bad about asking. “I can’t speak for Kyle, but by all means, Aubrey, feel free to lean on my metaphorical shoulder.”

  Kyle concurred, “You can speak for me, Tim.” In case that wasn’t clear enough, Kyle added, “in other words, I’m in too.”

  “Thank you. Both of you. I’ll leave the speakerphone on.” Aubrey scrolled through the contacts in her phone. She quickly found Walter, but her finger hovered over the call button in indecision. Aubr
ey would never be able to say why, but she began to feel as though her father were in the truck with them and was urging her to complete the call. It was almost as if, by The Magic of Christmas, he pushed the call button for her.

  The phone rang several times. Just when Aubrey became worried it would go to voicemail, he answered. In a way that held an eerie similarity to the manner in which Victoria spoke to her, Walter dove right in to his first criticism of Aubrey. “How many times have I told you to only call me at work if it’s an absolute emergency.”

  “I think you should know; I’ve put you on speakerphone.” Aubrey lacked mean bones. Walter deserved no notice his performance would enter the public record through Kyle and Mr. Clarke, but Aubrey gave it to him anyway.

  “What?” Walter was so confused he couldn’t properly berate Aubrey in the way that was his custom. “What in heaven’s name are you talking about, Aubrey?”

  “I just thought you should know I have you on speakerphone. I didn’t think it would be fair to you not to let you know that fact about our conversation.” Aubrey, having soothed her conscience by warning Walter, was now ready to do some damage. “And, how do you know this isn’t an emergency?

  “What?” Walter couldn’t get a handle on what was happening to him. The way Aubrey began this conversation was so different than any way she’d ever talked to him before, he couldn’t keep up.

  Aubrey summarized for him. “You said when you answered the phone you told me not to call you at work unless it was an emergency. I’m asking you; how do you know it’s not an emergency?”

  Walter said the only thing that occurred to him. No linguist would never accuse him of being a genius. “Is it,” he asked? “I mean, is it an emergency?”

  “Of course not,” Aubrey replied. “But I don’t see how you could have known that when you answered the phone, and before I had a chance to speak.”

  “Aubrey, I don’t know what kind of childish mood you’re in, or why you’re in it, but I have work to do.” Walter sounded bored. The confusion had worn off. He was now uninterested in continuing.