A Blazing Little Christmas

by Jacquie D’Alessandro

  “I don’t get tingles very often. Bad circulation, I think,” she answered, rubbing her feet.

  Natalie’s gaze turned wistful. “I had one of those. Once.”

  “What happened to yours?”

  “He got incarcerated, ten years for grand theft auto. I consider myself lucky to have escaped. Think of it, instead of planning a Disney cruise for the little guy, I could be scheduling my conjugal visits.”

  “Think he’s turned around?”

  Natalie shook her head. “Ha. And Santa’s going to drop down my chimney.”

  “Bite your tongue lest the reindeers and elves hear you and start offing themselves because you’ve dashed their Kris Kringley version of reality.”

  “You think this Cory person got incarcerated?”

  Rebecca thought for a minute. “Odds are good. He wasn’t at school long. Half a semester at the most. They said he had lots of problems. Foster kid. No parents. Hair too long, and eyes that revealed a level of experience far removed from the restrictive bonds of traditional adolescent behaviors. Every female has one of those boys in her closet.”

  Natalie wiggled her brows. “Would you have slept with him if those experienced eyes wandered in your direction?”

  “No. I had plans, goals, aspirations. I still do.”

  “Would have been fun.”

  “So is jumping out of airplanes. Don’t want to do that, either.”

  “And now?” asked Natalie. “What would you do today?”

  Rebecca allowed a moment of introspection, savoring the idea. As a rule, she stuck to predictable men, and with the clock ticking, she couldn’t afford to waste her prime-matrimonial years. But the single second in time had lodged in her brain, chiseled there for over a decade. Sometimes, late at night, when she was lying in bed alone…

  Whoops. Rebecca shook her head, her blond page boy shaking artfully. “The fantasy is better. Besides, my tastes were never a black leather jacket. My standards are higher.”

  “Alec Trevayne high?”

  Alec Trevayne. Now there was a man who rated A+++++ on her scale. She’d never met him in person, only drooled from afar when he pulled up in a bright red Bentley and dropped off Natalie’s husband at a party two months ago. Rebecca lifted her hands innocently. “I can’t help it if I’m seduced by such shallow things as a dimple, golden hair and abs made of steel.”

  “You said that about Jeremy Smithson when I set you up with him. Three dates and you dumped him.”

  “Snooze alarm, Nat.”

  Natalie got up and began to shuffle slowly around the room. Rebecca knew she’d be losing her partner in crime soon. Childbirth could do that to a woman, and Natalie was due in six weeks.

  “You’re too picky, Rebecca.”

  “You didn’t settle. Why should I?”

  Natalie leaned against the Wall of Presidents, a contented smile on her face. “No, I didn’t.”

  “Thank you for the vindication. I’m waiting for true love, too.”

  “Is that what you’re putting in your Dear Santa letter?”

  The Dear Santa letter was Rebecca’s annual Christmas tradition with her class. She believed in Santa as strongly as the kids. So the kids wrote their letters—wish lists, really—and then Rebecca took charge of mailing them off.

  This year Rebecca’s letter to Santa contained three wishes: a new, less volatile father for Pepper Buckley, a reading breakthrough for shy Isaac Gudinov and a fiancé for herself. “I also want you to know that I answered thirty-seven Dear Santa letters, all presents paid for out of my own pocket.” Part of the Dear Santa program organized at theThirty-third Streetpost office was the ability to write reply letters and send presents to kids, particularly to less fortunate ones.

  Natalie shook her head, rubbing her alarmingly distended belly. “It’s an inhumane heart that tries to bribe Santa Claus.”

  “Just want to make sure I’m making it onto the right list,” she answered. However, Rebecca privately admitted that somewhere in the last few years, what had been a holly-berry outlook on the Christmas season, had become something of a routine. A desperate tradition that she kept up with, only because she couldn’t bear to let it go.

  Just then, the hallway filled with the sound of DG sneakers, UGG boots and Roberto Cavalli hightops, signaling the end of her break. Rebecca slipped on her shoes and rose to her feet, a weary smile on her face.

  No matter how much she complained and worried, and griped and moaned, Rebecca loved her job. There were some days, some rare days, when the kids would get it, would actually learn, and she, Rebecca Neumann, Girl Most Likely To Become A Trophy Wife, was responsible. Those elusive happenstances made all the “thou shalt have no sugar,” nor any fun lectures from Cruzella worthwhile.

  Rebecca sighed. “And now back to the trenches. I must don my armor and face the mini heathens with a happy smile on my face and a trill of delight in my voice.”

  Natalie waddled toward the hallway. “Maybe this time Santa will come down your chimney. Maybe you’ll finally get a shot at dipping into the famous Trevayne S-H-O-R-T-S.”

  Kaitlyn stopped in the doorway. “I can spell, you know. That’s shorts. My mommy and daddy don’t think I can spell. She called him a D-I-C—”

  Rebecca clamped a hand over Kaitlyn’s mouth. “Precocious child. Come. Let’s fill your mind with more intellectual drivel. It would be the highlight of my educational existence.”

  * * *

  Three hours later, with quitting time fast approaching, Rebecca finished grading the last round of math sheets. The crisp clip-clip of Cruzella’s heels echoed through the marble hallways, and Rebecca pulled out her knockoff DB clutch, an “I’m going home now” hint in case the headmistress decided to launch into a lecture.

  Nina Marcel Cruz, known as Headmistress Cruz to all poor serfs in her fiefdom, was a stylish reed of a woman, with an innate fashion sense that made women jealous and men glad they weren’t paying for it. Sometime after thirty, Cruz had stopped showing signs of aging, so Rebecca wasn’t exactly sure how old she was, but the woman had foundedModernManhattanPreparatory Schoolin the boom days of the eighties, and since that first year, women had rushed from the maternity ward to put their children on the waiting list.

  “Mistress Neumann.”

  Rebecca rose, pocketbook in hand, exit door firmly in her sights. “Yes. I’m just leaving.”

  “We need to talk.” Cruz leaned forward, giving Rebecca a long, lingering whiff of Chanel. “I found these,” she said, throwing the Dear Santa letters on Rebecca’s desk. “Do you have an explanation?”

  It was late, Rebecca was tired and all she wanted was to go home. But noooooo, Cruzella wanted to duke it out.

  Fine. Rebecca jerked open her desk drawer, pulled out her spare Prada bag, which she used for emergencies, and searched frantically inside. Empty. “You searched my desk?”

  “The desk, the drawers and the closets, all fall under the oversight of this educational institution. Which I run,” she added, hammering a finger on the calendar desk pad. “ModernManhattanprides itself on not pandering to the fantastical myths that are told to children to foster their own sense of self-involvement and pull them further away from reality. If a parent wants their children exposed to the commercial extravaganza that is Christmas, there are any number of educational facilities that will cater to that belief system. We are not one of them, and I will not tolerate this flaunting of our mission. I want you to take these letters and return them to the children, explaining that this was nothing more than a simple exercise in letter-writing.”

  Cruz pursed her lips together (collagen-injected) and watched Rebecca, waiting.

  She should have seen this coming, she should have been more careful. She could have hidden the letters at home, or better yet, in Natalie’s desk. But she’d gotten overconfident and careless and now it was too late.

  Those letters contained the trivial and materialistic desires of twenty-two children’s hearts. They were written in scrawling
, sometimes teacher-assisted handwriting, nothing worth losing sleep over. And she could explain it to them. She could look into Pepper Buckley’s somber eyes and tell her that this was only practice for the real world. No biggie.

  She could gaze upon Ethan Wilder’s open, honest face and tell him that Christmas is simply another day when the post office wasn’t open. Easy, squeezy. Yeah, Rebecca could stand up in front of her entire class and proclaim that there is no such thing as Santa Claus.

  Ho-ho-ho.

  Her lips grew Sahara dry, and she picked up the stack of letters, her mind made up.

  “No.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Rebecca pulled herself together, her shoulders thrown back in best posture position. “No. I promised the kids I would mail these letters, and I will. I will not tell them this was a simple exercise in correspondence. It’s Christmas.” Rebecca could see the lecture brewing in Cruzella’s eyes, but she was standing up on principle. She’d get the lecture over, apologize and then move forward.

  However, Cruz was working herself into a late-afternoon rage. She stamped a heel on the floor. “We do not cater to the whims of fairy tales. Our teachers are grounded in fact and scientific method.”

  “It’s only a letter,” answered Rebecca, moving her tone to something light and conflict-free.

  “So was the Magna Carta.”

  Rebecca’s eyebrows rose. “You can’t compare the two.”

  “You’re fired, Miss Neumann.”

  Hello? Rebecca’s mouth fell open. “What? You can’t do this.” She held tight to the desk, so tight her fingers turned white. Okay, maybe she had flouted the rules a bit, but firing her?

  “I’m your employer. Of course I can.”

  No, she couldn’t. Rebecca might be a mere kindergarten teacher, but she knew the law. “There’s no documentation trail.”

  The headmistress’s eyes were cold and calculating. “If this had been the first time I noticed your behavior, yes, but year after year, you have ignored the principles we teach in this school. It’s all written up in your file. I’m not sorry, Miss Neumann. I don’t have a choice. Not anymore.”

  “But the kids…” Rebecca trailed off, realizing the kids would be fine. Oh, yeah, they’d grow up thinking there wasn’t a Santa Claus, they’d grow up to run Enron, and cheat on their golf scores, and fudge on their charitable donations. And it’d all fall on Rebecca’s shoulders. She’d be the one responsible. Rebecca. No way. She had not yet begun to fight. “I’ll tell the papers. The media will be incensed. I have the spirit of Christmas on my side.”

  Cruzella didn’t even stop to breathe. More proof of her subhumanity. “I have five hundred of the best lawyers in New York on my side, along with the heirs to three of the major networks, two of the news cable giants and three of the newspaper barons in the city. How many major networks are there, Mistress Neumann?”

  “Three.” Her fighting ideals were going…

  “News cable giants?”

  “Two.” Going…

  “New York dailies?”

  “Three.” Gone.

  “Have I left anyone out?”

  “No,” said Rebecca, who had spent four years as a cheerleader and knew that if your team sucked, fighting wouldn’t get you squat.

  “When they hear of your addiction to drugs and your scandalous doings with men, your reputation will be in tatters, and you’ll never teach kindergarteners in this town again.”

  “I don’t have a drug habit,” snapped Rebecca, glancing down to make sure that her Advil was out of sight.

  “I’ve seen the painkillers, Mistress Neumann. And then there’s the scandalous doings with men.”

  “I don’t have doings with men.” God knows, she had given it her best shot, but somehow it never seemed to work out.

  “Mr. Murphy tells otherwise.”

  “I have never, ever, kissed, fondled, caressed, groped, touched, teased, flirted with, or petted Mr. Murphy. He’s lying.” Mr. Murphy was the weasely science teacher who kept asking her out, which, of course, she had refused. Rebecca had meticulous standards in men. Mr. Murphy was a reptilian dweeb.

  Cruz didn’t seem to care. “Would you like to testify to that in court, Mistress Neumann? Go away. You don’t fit in here. You have never fit in here.”

  There it was. The writing on the wall, in Palmer method cursive script. Rebecca swore, a particularly vile interjection, just to see Cruzella puff up in rage for one last time. Then she tucked the letters back in the Prada bag and hooked it over her shoulder. “I’ll pack up my things.”

  “And don’t forget those reindeer antlers. Tacky, tasteless and made in a third-world country by sweatshop workers.”

  Proudly Rebecca stuck the reindeer antlers on her head, and walked out, never looking back.

  Chapter 2

  Rebecca shared an apartment with two of her sorority sisters from college. Both were on their way to matrimonial glory, brandishing two-plus-carat engagement rings whenever they got the chance. The plus side of the arrangement was that they were hardly ever home, and Rebecca saved enough in rent to subsidize her fashion habit.

  She stalked into her apartment and kicked off her shoes, fighting the urge to cry, scream, or both. Her feet ached, her head ached, her stomach ached, and now she had no job. There was only one cure. Rebecca took out a pint bottle of bourbon, the liter of diet soda and started to pour.

  One down, then two, and she still didn’t feel any better. The phone rang, caller ID said Mom, and Rebecca didn’t answer. She couldn’t face her family. She was too ashamed.

  Fired. What a miserable word. She pulled the pen from her ear and wrote it out twenty-five times on her While You Were Out Shopping…message page. She didn’t deserve this. She had worked hard for her kids. Who was going to bake them cupcakes with extra buttercream icing when she wasn’t around? No one. Who would be there to bandage bruised knees with a hug and a kiss rather than tincture of iodine? Not a soul. Give them extra candy on Valentine’s Day? Not even Natalie.

  Agh.

  Rebecca propped her feet up on the sofa, flexing her feet, which sent shooting pains up her calf. She deserved the pain for being stupid. But how stupid was she?

  What if, in the end, Cruz was right? What if Rebecca was coddling them and they’d grow up to be spoiled adults ten steps removed from reality, just like her? What if Rebecca was the misguided one?

  The phone rang again. Caller ID said Wilder. This time, Rebecca picked it up.

  “Miss Neumann?” The voice was high and hesitant, even through the fiber-optic phone cable.

  “Ethan?”

  “Is it true? Austin’s mommy called Daniel’s mommy who called Megan’s mommy who called my mommy. They said you won’t be our teacher anymore.”

  Rebecca sank into the carpet, curling up against the couch. “I think so, Ethan. But you’ll have somebody new.”

  “Megan’s mommy said you had a nervy breakdown.”

  Oh, no, thought Rebecca, wishing the bourbon would do its job. “I didn’t have a nervy breakdown. I told Headmistress Cruz that I believe in Santa Claus.”

  “There’s no such thing as Santa. My daddy said so.”

  Rebecca rubbed a palm over her eyes. “Ethan, I need to get off the phone now. You’ll be good? Don’t give the substitute heck, will you?”

  “No, Miss Neumann. Please come back. My birthday is next month, and I want cupcakes, but my mother said I can’t have cupcakes because of the sugar.”

  “I’m sorry, Ethan,” said Rebecca, a catch in her voice. Quickly she hung up the phone. She would not let her kids hear her cry. Not ever.

  Not ever.

  Not ever.

  Because she was wasn’t going to see them again. Rebecca took the reindeer antlers off her head and threw them at the closed bedroom door.

  “Hey!”

  The door opened and Janine walked out, in boxer shorts, and a T-shirt with no bra. Which meant only one thing. Janine’s fiancé was here, and they�
��d recently been indulging in afternoon nooky.

  Rebecca swore and then immediately apologized. “Sorry.”

  Janine picked up the antlers. “What’s wrong with you?”

  Rebecca limped to her feet, and discreetly shoved the bottle of bourbon between the box of Splenda and the green tea bags. “Nothing. Long story.” Her roommates would find out soon enough when she couldn’t make rent.

  Janine, still caught in the postcoital afterglow, didn’t notice. “The UPS man delivered a package for you. It was huge.”

  Rebecca managed the expected smile.

  Janine pointed to the corner. “I stowed it behind the TV. Go ahead, open it. I’m dying to see what’s in it.”

  It was a giant gift box, with shiny green paper and a bright red bow, all Christmasish, and if one hadn’t just been fired for said Christmas beliefs, one might have been totally excited. It was big enough, wide enough, deep enough.

  Maybe…

  Rebecca stared, her fingers crossed. Eventually curiosity turned into something more, and she tore off the wrapping. Then, sloooooooooooooooooooooowly, carefully, she lifted the lid.

  And looked down to find…

  A single sheet of paper.

  Okay, not the brand-new, hot off the assembly line, homeopathic foot spa that she had coveted since her podiatrist first told her about it.

  The paper was a handwritten note, with neat, tidy penmanship not seen in sixty years.

  Dear Rebecca—

  Because you’ve been good this year, I’m pleased to send you on a five-day holiday to the Timberline Lodge in Lake Placid, New York—all expenses paid, of course. I know what you want for Christmas, and there you’ll find it under the tree.

  Santa.

  Santa. Oh, that was rich. Even more pathetic, she could feel the old silliness springing up inside her. Gullible moron.

  She reread the note four times, willing herself not to fall for it. This was a time-share opportunity, cleverly disguised with gleeful Christmas trimmings, probably a bad joke from Cruz.

  However, she wasn’t moronic enough to dismiss it completely, either.

  Her first call was to the lodge, verifying its existence and asking if time-share opportunities were available. The old woman on the other end of the line sounded insulted.