Carats and Coconuts

by Scott, D. D.

  A moment later, her car was bumping up the pitted lane leading to Father T’s house.

  “Let’s do this,” Kat said, adjusting her hat so it was perfectly centered on her head.

  She reached around to the back seat and straightened-up Gram’s magic cam ensemble, which was now clinging for dear life onto the right side of her bird-sized head.

  My mother took a yoga deep breath and got out of the car with her hit squad.

  And no, I didn’t say Shit Squad, although that would be more accurate.

  Kat took the plate of cookies from Grams, but Grams held on tight to her thermos of tea.

  “Are you both sure about this?” Mom asked while they waited on Father Time to answer his doorbell.

  “Brownies are sooo yesterday,” Grams said.

  “What?” My mother asked, looking to Kat for clarification.

  “Trust me. You don’t want to know till we’re back in the car and on the way home.”

  As shock set-in, my mom’s eyes opened wide. But before she could question Kat further, Father Time was at his door, greeting his company.

  “I was so hoping you wouldn’t forget me this year, Mrs. C.”

  “You’re soon gonna wish we did, Sucker,” Grams said, thankfully soft enough that only her microphone and Kat must have been able to pick it up.

  Kat put her arm around Grams and must have pinched her a good one, ‘cause Grams let out a yelp.

  “Are you okay?” Father Time asked.

  “Well it ain’t warm and toasty out here, that’s for damn sure. You gonna invite us in or what?” Grams asked, rubbing her shoulder where Kat had probably left a nice welt.

  “You’ll have to forgive her, she’s a bit old and feisty,” my mom whispered.

  “I heard that, but this dude’s gotta be older than me. He’s Father Time. Duh,” Grams said.

  Evidently she had her hearing aids cranked up today.

  Everyone laughed in that awkward way people do when they don’t know what the hell else to say or do.

  “Well, c’mon in then,” Father T said, stepping out of the doorway and motioning for The Squad to enter his home. “How nice of you to bring me cookies and beverages.”

  “You ain’t gonna think that for long,” Grams said.

  “What was that?” Father T asked.

  “She said we can’t stay for long,” Kat broke-in, setting the plate of cookies on Father T’s coffee table. “Oh, my goodness, your place is beautiful. You were so right, Suzie.”

  “Oh, I’d love to give you all a tour,” Father Time said, his cheeks glowing a bright red.

  Sometimes, I really could see where my mom was coming from regarding Father Time. He had no one. Thanks to his crotchety attitude and shy personality, he didn’t have any friends other than my on-again-off-again dad.

  But he was still an asshole. So I totally got my dad’s side of the situation too.

  “So, you must be Zoey’s friends that I’ve heard so much about,” he said, then coughed, his cheeks getting redder by the second.

  “Busted!”

  I shouted, scaring everyone in my family room.

  “I’d say so,” my dad said, toasting his cocoa mug to all of ours. “I told ya the bastard was phone-hacking me. He never would have known about any of you otherwise.”

  “I want to get this over with and fast. I don’t like those women being in that house,” R said, punching buttons on his cell phone.

  You mean you don’t like Kat being there, I thought, but didn’t want to call him out.

  Just then, we could hear Father Time’s cell phone ringing through my dad’s surround sound system. Consequently, we instantly glued our attention back to the flat-screen.

  “Excuse me a minute,” Father Time said, seeming somewhat relieved for the diversion. “I’m expecting this call.”

  “Liar,” Roman said, his eyes getting that Dark Knight quality that I knew meant he was goin’ in for the kill.

  We watched, as did our Mom Squad Hit Team, as Father Time walked over to a large desk by the solid glass back-side of his home and grabbed his phone.

  Now that we all knew where the phone was, we could begin the next stage of the plan.

  “Hmmm. Must have been a wrong number. Anyway, where were we?”

  “We were about to take a tour of your lovely home. But why don’t we enjoy these cookies first? They’re fresh out of the oven,” my mother said, motioning for everyone to have a seat in Father Time’s sunken living room.

  As soon as she’d handed out the cookies, Grams sprang into action.

  “I’ve made us some herbal tea as well,” she said, placing the thermos on the coffee table and taking out the holly-printed Styrofoam cups she’d brought along.

  “Leave it to her,” I laughed.

  “What? I don’t get it,” Roxy said.

  “Just watch, and you will,” Jules said.

  “Did you help Grams with the tea?” I asked Jules.

  “Let’s just say I showed her a little culinary school trick to get the most out of her chosen ingredients.”

  Oh boy. Father Time was doomed.

  He’d soon be bouncing off the walls. Well not the walls exactly…

  “Is someone gonna fill me in?” Roxy begged.

  Father Time downed his first cup of tea.

  “This is wonderful. Hit me again, please. Why, it’s just…I don’t know how to describe it…invigorating.”

  “It should be, dumb-ass,” I said, unable to keep from laughing.

  “C’mon, Guys. Spill it,” Roxy begged once more.

  I couldn’t. And neither could Jules. We were both doubled over laughing our asses off.

  “Roxy,” Roman took pity on her while rolling his eyes at me and Jules’ rowdy revelry, “holly is often used in South America as a stimulant. Some species, like the ones our Santa Claus here grows, have the highest caffeine content of any plant. In fact, here in the States, Native Americans used these holly-based teas as ceremonial stimulants that they called “the black drink”.”

  “Why was it called the black drink?”

  “Let’s just say it has a rather strong purgative property,” Roman said.

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “He’s gonna be on the john for hours,” I said, still laughing so hard I could hardly answer her.

  “Oh my God!”

  We all said in what seemed an eerily choreographed way.

  We watched the screen, hardly able to focus on what was happening.

  All at once, Father Time’s face had contorted, and he began to gingerly poke at his stomach.

  “Oh my. If you girls will excuse me for a moment, there’s something I need to take care of,” he said, practically launching off the couch. “Make yourselves at home.”

  We could hardly make out the last of his words as he ran out of the living room.

  My mother leaned over to Grams.

  “What did you do to that tea?”

  “I told ya. Laxatives in brownies are sooo yesterday.”

  My mother made the sign of the cross and sat there shaking her head while Kat sprung into action with the Cellebite device and began to capture everything we needed from Father Time’s phone.

  “Hurry up over there,” my mom said, looking more and more nervous by the minute.

  “Really, Suzie Snowflake. I’m tellin’ ya. We got all the time in the world. That asshole ain’t gonna be comin’ outta the loo for a long, long time,” Grams said, taking another cookie off the tray and putting her feet up on the edge of Father Time’s coffee table.

  Kat gave us a thumbs-up as she disconnected the Cellebite from Father Time’s phone.

  We all cheered and high-fived as we watched The Squad climb back into my mom’s car and head for home.

  Chapter Eleven

  Sometimes the only way to stop a vicious enterprise is to use the perps’ own tactics against ‘em. And that’s exactly what we were about to do.

  Standing with my entir
e extended family, right next to the gorgeous golden-star-topped potted evergreen trees my mother had decorated this year in ruby reds and over-the-top gilded splendor, we waited for the showdown to begin.

  Any minute now, Dad would have his team of reindeer hooked to his favorite sleigh for his annual flight-simulation run.

  With Christmas Eve only two days away, this was his final shot to make everything a “Go” for The Big Night.

  Watching Rudolph’s mesmerizing back-lit nose cast out its GPS signals, I giggled inside. He looked as if he had a Tavernier Stone-sized ruby attached to his real nose.

  Speaking of dazzling carats, I glanced at my mother, still amazed she and I had managed to keep our secret worries from my dad. He certainly had enough on his mind and didn’t need the added stress of our concerns.

  Thankfully, though, Mom and I had already made up our minds that after the holidays, we’d tell Roman and R about our problem.

  I took a deep breath, letting the crystal cold lake air rattle my lungs and shake me back into our present quandary.

  “You think Father Time is dumb enough to bite on Zoey’s message?”

  I overheard Kat asking R.

  “Oh, he’ll bite all right,” R answered her, standing way too close to Kat to any longer be able to deny their growing relationship. “This technique worked like a charm when I used it to bust the privately hired investigator who was feeding stories to the London tabloids about Roman and Ross.”

  I had to admit, R’s plan was brilliant.

  He’d had me call my dad’s phone and leave a message with a fake story about tonight’s test flight. It would lead anyone who might be tapping into it to think Dad was revealing his holly fodder secrets tonight to major investors and government regulators.

  I gazed out along our property lines, knowing our security elves were in their places and ready to jump into action, literally, when they were needed.

  “What have we got here?” Grams asked, cackling like a wild hen. “Your dad looks more like a drag queen than Santa Claus.”

  “Oh, for cryin’ out loud, he does not,” Kat said, then playfully swiped at Gram’s silly feather-thin head-scarf. “You’re the crazy-ass one who thinks that damn chiffon scarf is protecting your bird-sized head from certain frostbite.”

  “Your Dad’s coat is just beautiful this year,” my mother said, coming up to wrap her arms around me.

  She looked rather wonderful too, I must say, in the matching frock I’d made for her.

  Ever since I was a teenager, I’d been designing and sewing their Christmas gear. It was a project I looked forward to each year.

  I checked out my Dad in his gorgeous red Italian wool coat. I’d found the fabric in Italy, where I buy almost all my fabric now that I call Tuscany home.

  After cutting it and finishing the seams, I’d hand-sewn a gazillion sparkling gold threads and baubles onto it in the shapes of stars and s-shaped swirls. I’d envisioned a holiday season filled with stars on tree-tops and swirling blizzards of lake effect snow. That’s what I tried to convey on each piece I’d designed.

  “Personally, I think it’s my cane that completes the overall look of your ensemble,” Roxy said, making us all fall into fits of mischievous giggles.

  “I’ll second that,” my dad said, holding his bedazzled candy cane staff high into the air to all our hoots, hollers and whistles.

  I think the poor guy had more glitter in his beard than was left on his cane.

  “I like the hats best,” R spoke-up, holding up the huge, puffy yellow balls I’d sewn onto the ends of each of our guest’s Santa hats.

  My mom raised her eyebrows at me and winked. We knew those hats that we’d stayed up half the night finishing together would be quite the hit.

  We wanted to celebrate our new Italian family too, and make them feel at home. So each of us was now the proud owner of our very own under the Tuscan sun Santa hats.

  Not to leave out our elves and reindeer, we’d made sure each of them had a hat too. The reindeer also sported fancy yellow scarves. We always had to pamper their whiney asses.

  That said, it had to be awful chilly up in that Christmas Eve sky. ‘Course they probably sweat their antlers off in the southern hemisphere.

  “What are you thinking about, My Princess?” Roman said, putting his arms around me and pulling me close to his bundled up side.

  Realizing I’d never seen my prince wear so many clothes and layers as he was here along the whimsical winter shores of Lake Michigan, I laughed all to myself.

  “I’m thinking how much I’ve missed my parent’s crazy world. Sometimes, I just don’t think they’re all that crazy.”

  “I think you’re right. They’re not crazy at all. It’s never crazy to live your passions. And it’s so right to live your truth with the ones you love most,” he said, the corners of his eyes filling with moisture.

  Must be from the bitter cold, I thought.

  “Let’s get this show on the road…or, in the sky. Shall we?”

  My dad interrupted to the somewhat awkward, somewhat fabulous moment Roman and I were sharing.

  Dad’s audience went wild. Whooping and cheering for our very own Santa Claus to let the show begin.

  “So how does he pull off this part?” Roman whispered in my ear.

  “You’ll see,” I said, squeezing his gloved hand in mine. “It’s all in how much you truly believe.”

  My Dad began his reindeer call-out, just like Santa does in our favorite childhood storybook.

  “On Comet. On Cupid…”

  As he called out to each reindeer, they stammered and snorted, pawing at the ground with their polished hooves.

  And before anyone’s doubts could be flamed any further, my dad and his team took to the skies behind our Witherspoon Whoville.

  Like the storybook of all storybooks, however, there suddenly arose a major clatter, but not from our lawn, rather it sounded like it was coming from my parent’s rooftop.

  When we all turned around to see what was the matter, what to our wondering eyes did appear, but Father Time and his what?!

  Eight mechanical reindeer?!

  Who the hell ever heard of robotic reindeer?!

  Too bad Father Time, the goofball, forgot about metal not adhering well to ice.

  Evidently, he’d tried to land on my parent’s roof, and his technobot team had lost their footing.

  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…

  Chapter Twelve

  The 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.

&nbs
p; 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.