Cassie exhaled. Reached back and took Massarsky’s hand. “You show this to people every year? And it’s really there?”
“Not every year. Not last year.”
“What happened last year?”
He squeezed her hand. “I met someone who…distracted me before midnight.”
Cassie grinned at him. “Bad boy, James. You find yourself a distraction every Christmas Eve? Is that all I am?”
He moved closer to her, kissed her neck from behind. “Of course not.” This time she thought she did feel something stirring against her back. Maybe his age hadn’t completely unmanned him yet, or maybe it was the Viagra talking.
“Actresses, I bet,” she said. “You make them promises, right? Isn’t that the game?”
Massarsky stopped kissing her neck. “I help people out sometimes. Have a little fun along the way. I can see you’re not naïve. You’re too pretty not to know the way this town…”
“The way this town what?”
But Massarsky had stiffened, and now he shifted her aside. “What the hell?”
He glanced at his watch, then into the case. He put his hands on either side of the glass, peering inside. “What the hell?” he said again.
Midnight, she thought. “Maybe your watch is wrong.”
“I set it just for this,” he sniffed. “Down to the fucking second.” Baffled, he stared at the glass case. At the little wooden display stand, upon which nothing at all had appeared.
“I expected smoother moves from a guy with your casting couch history,” Cassie said. Smirking, she stepped back from him. Reaching into her purse, pushing aside her cell phone.
Massarsky huffed. He scratched his head and stared at the case. “Get the fuck out,” he said, without bothering to turn. “You were interesting. Most don’t know movies like you do. But now you’re just getting on my nerves.”
Cassie drove the knife into his back. Stabbed deep and twisted the blade before sliding it out. He cried out and dropped to the floor, reaching around for the wound as if there was anything he could do about it. Flopping, twisting, he started to swear at her, and she stabbed him in the gut. Blood poured onto the floor, pooling around him. Cassie stepped carefully, avoiding the blood, trying to keep as clean as she was able.
He stared at the knife in her hand.
“I stole it last year, since you’re wondering,” she whispered. “You were fucking my friend Anita over by your precious De Niro tooth. At midnight. You didn’t get to tell your story last year. But I’d heard it before, the year before that, when I was heavier and blonder, and you had half a dozen people in here for your midnight story. You barely noticed me.”
“Fucking bitch,” he slurred. “Fucking…” Massarsky drew a deep breath, preparing to scream for help.
Cassie stabbed him in the throat. Blood burbled up through his lips and ran down over his chin. She smiled.
“Three years ago, it was my sister Cori in here with you. Oh, the promises you made, just to get her to open her legs. She had stars in her eyes when she came home. She told me about your collection, about this knife, called it magic. Told me you’d promised to do some magic for her career. And you did. The cell phone video you made, the one you showed to all your fucking cronies, it got her all sorts of offers. The kind of offers that made her take all of the pills in her bedside drawer. Your little game killed her. The magic you promised her.”
The knife disappeared, right out of her hand, blood and all.
She didn’t need it anymore. Massarsky’s eyes had already gone glassy. His chest had stopped rising and falling. She went to the little bathroom at the back of the room and washed her hands, then checked her clothes and shoes and legs for blood. Most of Massarsky’s friends would know his habits, know not to come looking for a while after he’d taken an actress to see his collection. They all played the game. Still, she had to hurry.
Where the knife had fallen, she had no idea. Next Christmas Eve, it would appear again, likely on the floor. But only for a minute.
She paused on her way out, just beyond the expanding pool of blood, and peered again into the glass case. For the first time, she noticed the little bone-white card set into the nearest corner, just below and to the right of the photo from the movie. She saw what Massarsky had printed there and a quiet laugh crossed her lips, followed swiftly by a whimper, as tears began to spill from her eyes.
Backing away, covering her mouth to keep from screaming, she rushed to the door, peered into the corridor, and slipped out. The words written on that bone-white card stayed with her as she fled, and she knew they always would. Massarsky’s sense of humor made her wish she could kill him again. But the words on the card had been accurate, she couldn’t deny that.
1946, it had said. The year of the film’s release. And then four words.
It’s a Wonderful Knife.
And it was. Oh, it was.
She retraced her steps to the sunroom and pushed through the French doors. The room had been decorated with ribbons and Christmas knickknacks and the largest gingerbread house she’d ever seen. A massive wreath hung on the back door, and when she unlocked the door and yanked it open, the bells on the wreath jangled merrily.
Cassie froze, hung her head, and couldn’t stop the smile on her lips as she drew the door silently closed.
Every time a bell rings, she thought.
Then she darted across the lawn, pulling off her shoes as she went, laughing to herself even as she wept for Cori. She could almost hear her sister’s voice in her head.
“Attagirl, Cassie,” she said aloud. “Attagirl.”
MISTLETOE AND HOLLY
JAMES A. MOORE
The children were happy. That was what mattered.
Deanna watched her boys run around with the other kids on the snowscape that had replaced their usual day-care playground.
Jeannie looked her way and said nothing, but that look was there, just the same. Deanna knew it wasn’t intentional, but her sister kept casting pitying glances at her, as if she might be too fragile to survive the day.
“Stop it, Jean.”
“I’m not doing anything.” Her tone made a lie of her words. She’d been busted and she knew it.
“I’m fine, okay? It’s been almost two years.”
“I know. And I don’t mean to, but it sucks, Dee. It sucks a lot.”
That was the truth of the matter. Almost two years since the nice men in uniforms had arrived at her door and told her that Matt was never coming home again.
She couldn’t remember the words. She could only remember the way it had felt when she’d opened the door to the men in their formal Navy blues. The light had been too bright. That was a thing. The sun had been blasting off the field of fresh-fallen snow in the yard and she’d had to squint. Still, as soon as she’d seen them, she’d known why they were there and she’d forgotten all about the brightness of the day.
There’d been words. Oh, so many words. Expressions that were polite and firm. These men did not offer tears. They offered sympathy, but she’d had no doubt they made the same condolences a dozen times a week. For a moment she’d felt pity for them. How horrible. What a miserable job, to go door-to-door and tell people that their loved ones were coming home in boxes and being buried with full military honors. What a miserable way to spend a workweek. How, she wondered still, did it feel? How did they go home and not become roaring drunks?
She thought about that a lot, especially when she was settling back for a glass of wine and contemplating going for the pack of cigarettes she had hidden behind the family portrait over the mantel.
She still hadn’t broken and gone for one of those cigarettes, but they were there as a constant temptation. That was her daily victory march for a while. Her silent mantra: Only one glass of wine and I still haven’t broken into the Pall Malls. Whatever worked t
o get you through it without breaking into tears, or screaming at the kids when the worst of the loneliness came along.
The sensations swept through her again. Her stomach fell away. Her heart hammered steady as ever but too damned loud. The tears were the absolute worst, of course. There were the boys to consider and they never needed to see Mommy crying. Too young, and she wanted them to be kids for as long as they could, because that meant she was still a young mother and not a middle-aged widow.
She was still young. That was what everyone said. Thirty-five wasn’t so old. It just felt that way when she rolled out of bed and saw the empty spot on Matt’s side. She still didn’t sleep on that side. Part of her sleeping mind and heart insisted that he would be coming home.
Closed casket funeral service, of course. Even with the morticians doing their very best, there was no way she would have let the children see their father that way.
She had not spared herself the same fate. She’d needed to see him. She’d needed to know. There could be no doubt at all, no false hopes, and so she looked at the remains when they came back. They’d done their best with wax and makeup and a military-cut wig to hide the fact that most of his forehead and skull were still lost somewhere in the Middle East.
There had been a time when she believed in the war. She thought they were over there doing good. God knew she and Jeannie had argued the benefits of war versus the virtues of peace on a hundred occasions. All of that changed after Matt died.
What good was a war that left her without a husband and her kids without a father?
“You still there, Dee?” Jeannie looked at her with a half frown. Her brow was wrinkled up like she was concentrating.
“Yep. Just trying to figure out what’s left to do.”
“Well, we’ve got the worst of it, don’t we? The packages come home with me and I’ll get ’em wrapped in no time.”
“You’re a lifesaver,” Deanna said.
“I am not a little candy with a hole in the middle.” She looked down and poked herself in her perfect, flat stomach.
Sometimes she wanted to punch her younger sister on general principles. Perfect hair, perfect smile, perfect body, perfect social life. Most times Deanna was okay with that, but the last twelve pounds refused to go away, no matter how many classes she took or miles she jogged.
Jeannie continued, “I mean, belly button, yes, but it doesn’t go all the way through.”
“Really? That’s the best you’ve got?”
“There are kids present.” Jeannie winked.
As if that were their cue, the boys all called out at the same time and came trotting through the snow, smiling their beautiful smiles. They had their dad’s smile. Every last one of them. How had that happened? She didn’t know but she looked away from them for a brief second to close her eyes. It was one of those days. The tears were closer than she wanted to think about.
Jeannie must have seen it, or sensed it, or whatever it was that little sisters who became aunts did. She called out to them and moved closer, squatting so she could capture two five-year-olds and one three-year-old in her arms. “Baby boys,” she cried out, a perfect smile on her face. “Who has hugs for auntie!”
Not nearly for the first time, she thanked any gods that might be listening for her sister.
“You have your hands full, don’t you?” The voice was pleasant and completely unknown, smoky and sultry in the way of the very best jazz singers. Deanna turned her head and looked at a woman a few years younger than she, with dark, wildly curly hair, perfect Irish skin and the bluest eyes she’d seen in a long time. The woman was wearing a black, fur-lined coat that probably cost as much as a car. She had a perfect smile to go along with a model’s body. Model’s height, too, though that might have been the heels on her boots. How the hell could anyone walk in high-heeled boots? Deanna would have hated the woman on sight, but she was smiling too brightly.
“You better believe it.” She found herself smiling right back, the dreaded tears suddenly pushed aside by a stranger’s smile.
Shelly, the woman who owned and operated the day care, looked over from where she was herding a gaggle of heavily bundled charges and offered a quick wave. Her cheeks were rosy from the cold air, but she, too, looked immensely happy.
It was the holidays, and sooner or later it seemed the Christmas spirit bit almost everyone.
Almost everyone. Fake it till you make it. That was her motto and she was sticking by it. So far it had done her pretty well.
“Dee, meet Ella.” Jeannie’s voice was warm and happy and—looking at the woman and then at her sister—Deanna knew instantly that they were an item.
“It’s nice to meet you, Ella.” She smiled and she meant it. Anyone who made her sister happy was good news. One of them needed to be filled with cheer. Deanna had spent ten wonderful years with Matt. She’d hit the jackpot. It was time for Jeannie to do the same, whatever she needed to get there.
“You good from here?” Jeannie looked her way as all three of Deanna’s children adhered themselves to her legs.
She looked at her sister and then at her sister’s friend. Jeannie had plans. Ella had the same plans. She nodded her head. “Yep. You guys go have fun. I’m baking some cookies for my kiddies when I get home.” All three of her sons let out happy cheers at the mention of cookies.
For once, just for a moment, Jeannie’s look of pity was gone, replaced by a different sort of expression—one set aside solely for Ella.
That, in itself, was something of a holiday miracle.
* * *
—
Deanna called Jeannie at nine that night, and despite the temptation to torture her sister over the amazing woman she was with, she said nothing at all about Ella.
Jeannie took care of that in seconds.
“What did you think of Ella?”
“You mean aside from hating her for looking that good?”
“I know, she’s stupid gorgeous, isn’t she? And smart. Who knew smart could be so interesting? She’s studying ancient religions, with an interest in the roots of modern Wicca and witchcraft. She wants to be an anthropologist or archaeologist. One of the two.”
“Smart and she looks like that? I think there should be laws. She should have a tax levied against her or something.” Wine made her think she was funny. That thought made her snort and chuckle. “Seriously, where did you find her?”
“She just came into the store one day, looking for pastries because she was hosting a book club at her place. We got to talking. Next thing I know, I’m in a book club.”
“You? Seriously?”
“I can read.”
“Yeah, I know. You just don’t.” Her wineglass was empty. She looked at the bottle and decided against. Happy sister or no, distracted or no, it was best not to take chances.
“Well, I do now. At least one book a month.” She laughed as she said it.
“Good. You should expand your horizons.”
That one was a little too close to the subject at hand for Jeannie. “So. I got the packages finished. You want me to keep them in the car for now?”
“You okay with that? They’re probably not going to start looking for a few more years, but just in case, you know?”
“They can’t find them in my trunk. None of the little boogers knows how to drive and I always lock up.”
“You’re the best.” Deanna sighed and thought about how lucky she was to have an awesome sister. The little blessings. They were what made the days tolerable. She closed her eyes and smiled and for a moment she could almost feel his breath on her neck, smell his cologne as it sighed softly away from his warm body. God, how she missed him.
The tears tried to come around again and she shook them away as Jeannie started talking. “So me and Ella are going shopping again tomorrow. No stuff for kids. Serious stuff, like shoes a
nd dresses. We might even go nuts and look at hats. Wanna come with?”
There was not enough time in the day. She shook her head. Still, her mouth had a mind of its own. “Yeah. I can spare a couple of hours. Especially if this is an excuse to go out for lunch.” That was the good thing about being a teacher. She had lots of time off for the winter break. The pay could be better, but Uncle Sam still reimbursed a bit every month to make up for taking her husband.
“I think we can squeeze in time for lunch.”
“Perfect.” They worked out the details, Deanna making a note to take the kids to day care, and then Jeannie was saying good night and Deanna was walking over to the front door to make sure everything was locked up properly. On a whim she opened the door and checked to see if any more snow was falling.
No snow. But there was a set of footprints that walked across the front yard, meandering along from the mailbox to the stairs. The footprints were heavy and the tread was definitely from a boot. They walked all the way up to the door, and then faded into a light marking of water where the snow failed to reach.
By rights she should have been chilled. The fact that the boots had the same sort of tread that Matt’s boots in the closet had—she certainly knew them well enough and had held them a hundred times since he passed—gave her a sense of comfort. She let herself have the thought that Matt was looking out for them.
Sometimes she had the most amazing dreams about him: long, wonderful conversations that she never remembered clearly in the morning. Was there a heaven? She had her doubts. Was there an afterlife of some sort? She thought maybe yes. Maybe he came to her in her sleep sometimes, and said hello. Like the footprints in the new-fallen snow, she found that notion comforting.
Still, when she slept that night and Matt came to visit, he was not happy and loving and warm. Instead he was angry and drunk and stank of alcohol and something darker.
Sometimes, when she slept, her mind reminded her that Matt wasn’t always loving. Sometimes, just now and then, he’d been a complete bastard. When he was alive he could apologize and make it right. In her dreams, the bad ones, he never ever said he was sorry.
Hark! the Herald Angels Scream Page 13