In Love by Christmas: A Paranormal Romance

by Nathan, Sandy

  “Yes.” Doug’s eyes misted again.

  Leroy didn’t laugh. It was more of a convulsive chuckle. Doug’s feelings were nice, and unusual, but only a white man would think he was such a flimsy piece of business. He was sweet and kind because of Grandfather and the Great One and his own Self, not because people hadn’t noticed the color of his skin.

  “You’ve never been where you’re going now.” Doug glared at him. “I know you think I’m stupid, but you don’t know what you’re in for.” Leroy could almost hear a growl under Doug’s breath. “We’re up early tomorrow for breakfast instruction, by the way.”

  “Breakfast instruction?”

  “Yes, sir. Breakfast and tableware. Do you know how many pieces of flatware there are in a formal place setting?”

  “No.”

  “Nine on a skimpy service. With three crystal goblets and three plates. And a bowl. How many courses does a formal dinner have?”

  “Why are you asking me this?”

  “Because Leroy, you may end up dining with heads of state. You need to know that a formal dinner has eight courses, with a ninth optional.”

  “That’s what I’m going to be doing here?”

  “Some of it. Will has a lesson in table settings set up for you tomorrow morning, then for a little quiz on what you learned, a formal lunch with Peter Alexander Payton Faxmore, Lord of Ballentyne at his club. Then we play golf with him and a few pals.”

  “I’ve never played golf.”

  “I’ve played it all my life. I hope you’re a fast learner. They’re good here.” Doug leaned toward him. “This is serious, Leroy. Your future hangs on mastering shit so stupid that if anyone ever told you that it mattered, you’d think they were joking.

  “If you mess up with this shit, they’ll fry your ass. Except you’ll never know what you did. You’ll break some rule and you’ll never get invited anywhere in polite society again.

  “That’s why I need to stay with you. To cover your ass when you screw up. And you will screw up.”

  Doug’s blue eyes bored into Leroy’s like he was looking for the Titanic. “Anything else you want do before we turn in?”

  “Yeah,” Leroy said, as serious as Doug. “They’re supposed to retire Jackie Robinson’s number at the Mets/Dodgers game tonight. President Clinton’s going to be there. Let’s see if we can catch the ceremony on TV. It may make you feel better about what a black man can do.”

  Turned out they’d missed the presentation, so they channel-surfed the news. They stopped when the screen showed a couple of English newscasters standing in the dusty road leading to Leroy’s reservation. The unmistakable loaf mountain poked up in the distance.

  “Well, Clive, still no sign of the hundreds of people who disappeared only a few miles from here.” The announcer looked like the raven-haired version of every newscaster Leroy had seen since news of what happened at the Meeting exploded around the planet. The camera panned the sky. Black military helicopters shot toward the Mogollon Bowl and the setting sun.

  “Only a few miles up that road on reservation land, a mass murder as horrifying as the Jonestown/Guyana massacre occurred.”

  “That’s right, Edmund. Thousands of Native Americans came here for a spiritual retreat led by a famous shaman.” An artist’s conception of Grandfather filled the screen.

  “Thousands went, but thousands didn’t return. We’re going to cut to New York City and Paul Running, the head of the Running Way, a prominent Native American spiritual group. Paul is a shaman himself and witnessed the disaster.”

  “Paul Running Bird isn’t a shaman!” Leroy cried. “He’s a been my grandpa’s student for twenty years and didn’t learn a thing! He wasn’t in the Mogollon Bowl when it happened.”

  “He’s on every channel,” Doug said. “He’s the new face of Native American spirituality. The massacre is just what he needed.”

  Paul’s sonorous voice quivered with emotion. “It was hideous …”

  8

  Out of the Ballpark

  Lords Martingale, Surcingle, and Pontificate joined Lord Ballentyne, Doug, and Leroy at the Heritage course of the London Golf Club. He was introduced all around. They already knew Doug. Everyone knew Doug.

  The English Lords were as polite as he’d seen them portrayed on Hermitage Estate: Upstairs and Down. He and his dad sat in front of their TV every Sunday night and discussed the plot for days after each episode. The people around him could have been in the show. The Lords looked him over without staring. One finally said, “How tall are you, Leroy?”

  “I’m six foot, eight and a half inches tall. In my socks.”

  They tittered politely.

  “You could be a basketball player,” Lord Surcingle said.

  “Yeah, if I knew how to play basketball, I could do that.”

  Leroy did fine at lunch. He’d grasped silverware well enough to make it through the meal in fine form. He grew more anxious as they approached the golf course. The London Golf Club—a private club—said ritzy in an exceptionally low-key way. Brilliant green grass swathed everything: green lawn mowed close. Mowed extremely close. Bushy. Sand patches nestled in, ringed by trees. Wide avenues of lawn turned abruptly around lakes that looked like they were there to swallow golf balls.

  Leroy realized that this was probably a difficult sport, even if it was stupid. How much had the Lords paid for him to whack up the turf from his first step on the course to his last?

  “I hope you all know that I’ve never played golf.”

  “Doug told us that. Give it your best shot, old fellow. We’re playing for fun.” That was Lord Pontificate.

  “All right. I just don’t want to have to replant this course at the end.”

  They laughed.

  Leroy dropped into the inner state where he lived when he healed. Relaxed, vigilant without being tense … “What club do I use, Doug? The big wood one?”

  The Lords tittered and then stared, open-mouthed. Leroy’s ball soared past theirs, landing in the middle of the fairway.

  “This is kind of fun,” he loped after his ball, making the mistake of trying to carry his own clubs.

  “The caddy does that, Leroy.” Doug was plainly delighted. When they got to the green, Doug whispered, “Do not step on the green between anybody’s ball and the hole. That’s a no-no.”

  Leroy kept going, his balls soaring past the others’. “Yeah, I’m kinda getting the hang of this.” Another fantastic swing and the ball shot through the air like a Winchester 223 Super Short Magnum, the fastest bullet in the world. Leroy loped ahead of the group from hole to hole, eschewing the carts.

  “Oh, yeah, this one’s hard. You got to be very careful here. I can see that. William, would you get me that one with the flat edge.” He called his caddy by his first name. The Lords twitched every time he did it.

  “Boy, this grass sure is short. I wonder how they get it this short.” Leroy squatted on the green of the fourteenth hole and studied the distance between his ball and the hole. Someone pulled the flag out of the hole. “That’s a good idea. Easier to get the ball in.” He gave it the tiniest little tap, and the ball scooted into the hole.

  “Good lord, you’re on par,” Lord Ballentyne. “The fourteenth hole is the hardest on the course. It has a stroke index of one!”

  Leroy scored seventy-eight, probably the lowest of any first time player in history, on that course, certainly. The only place he didn’t score was the 19th hole.

  They went to a dark-paneled and very posh bar at the end of the course. Everyone ordered with gusto. Except Leroy.

  “You don’t imbibe?” one of the Lords asked. Maybe Lord Martingale.

  “I don’t drink. It’s against my religion.”

  Drinking wasn’t against their religion; the Lords drank freely, Scotch, mostly. They were very interested in his beliefs and spiritual life. He had to explain about shamans, spirit warriors, and his grandfather.

  “Your grandfather is a shaman?”

  �
�Was. He died a little while ago.”

  “Did he have supernatural powers?”

  “Yes, he did. He could heal anything. Broken souls, mostly. And do all sorts of other things. Even blow things up.”

  Leroy could see it happen: with one mind, the Lords recalled the sensational reports of a bull that exploded at a Las Vegas rodeo not so long before. A very tall, African American cowboy had been implicated. Their collective eyes continued to widen as the coverage of a recent and horrific spiritual retreat led by a Native American shaman in New Mexico returned to their minds full force.

  This was exactly what he and Doug had realized would happen as they watched the news the night before. Everyone—including the noblemen they were meeting the next day—knew about the massacre and the general descriptions of the parties involved. Will had been there: all the major networks had interviewed him. He was trying to do damage control for Grandfather. The Lords knew that Will employed Doug and that Leroy was connected to him. Was Leroy’s grandfather the leader of a cult and a mass murderer? Was Leroy himself?

  “This is your first big test,” Doug had said after he turned off the news. “You have to convince them that you’re a good guy, your Grandfather’s a good guy, and neither of you were in on the massacre. If you don’t convince them completely tomorrow, you won’t have a future in England or anywhere. If they buy you and your story, they’ll tell their friends and the upper classes will open to you. You’ll never hear about it again. If they don’t accept you, you might as well go home.”

  “How will I know if they’ve accepted me?”

  “They’ll invite you to their country houses.”

  “You were at the massacre?” Lord Ballentyne’s features stiffened. Leroy learned that the British stiff upper lip included the whole body. “Did you see it? And what about the rodeo and the exploding bull?”

  “I didn’t blow up the bull. I don’t know how he blew up,” Leroy spoke carefully, using all the spiritual power he could muster. “The FBI said a crazy agent made up the story about the bull so he could get a promotion. President Clinton agreed. I got to the Meeting when it was almost over. I don’t know anything about what happened, except that my grandfather is the best person I ever met.”

  Doug jumped in. “I was at the retreat the whole time and I don’t know what happened. Everything was fine until a bunch of hoodlums brought out the booze. They had threatened to cause trouble every year, but this year they did it. They had mushrooms, psychedelics. I don’t know what. They started a riot.

  “Grandfather got us to a cave where nothing could get us.” Doug nodded at Leroy. “His grandfather is the most wonderful person in the world. And Leroy got to the retreat the night before we came home. He didn’t see anything.”

  “Good heavens,” said Lord Ballentyne. “Drunken ruffians on drugs caused a riot? Is that what all the fuss is about? What about the monsters?”

  “I didn’t see any.” Doug raised his hand. “Swear to God.” Leroy was amazed by how easily Doug lied, and with such a convincing effect. But then he had lied. He’d told the Lords his first lie. He had blown up the bull to save his father.

  “Were there monsters?” Lord Ballentyne’s eyebrows rose so high that they nearly hit his hairline.

  “I’m not supposed to say anything more. It’s classified.” Doug’s face was emotionless.

  “Oh.”

  “Every federal agency you can think of interviewed everyone from Numenon. They’ve got a division that investigates paranormal experiences and UFOs. That’s where the case ended up. In the division for fruits and nuts. And I’m not supposed to tell you that. It’s all classified.”

  “But the news …”

  “The news destroyed the feds’ case, tromping all over any evidence. Everyone whose spouse ran off in the last ten years is saying it happened at the retreat. All the whackos in the world are swarming the desert and reservation.” Doug shook his head, looking pained. “Your Lordships, we’ve known each other for years. You know I wouldn’t lie to you.”

  “That’s true,” Ballentyne spoke for them all. “It’s classified?”

  “Extremely.”

  “Leroy wasn’t implicated?”

  “No. Tell them, Leroy.”

  He repeated the script he and Doug had worked out as sincerely as possible.

  “Well, if Will Duane and Bill Clinton agreed, it must be true.” Ballentyne nodded gravely and his noble compatriots nodded in sync. “Besides, Leroy has too much potential as a golfer to do wrong.” He chuckled merrily.

  “Where is your grandfather?” said Lord Martingale. Leroy’s eyes filled instantly. The others turned to Martingale, scowling.

  “I say, John, that’s rather personal,” Ballentyne added quickly.

  Doug cut in again, which was a good thing, because Leroy’s eyes swam with tears. Doug spoke barely above a whisper. “Every year after the retreat, Grandfather—that’s what we all called him—went for a walk in the desert. This year he didn’t come back.” Leroy jumped to his feet and ran toward the men’s room, stopping where he could hear what went on at the table, but not be seen. Doug continued. “They’ll never find the body. Scavengers.” The Lords gasped.

  “What brings Leroy to England, if I may ask?” That was Martingale, who Leroy realized was a gadfly, but the one who asked all the questions that no one else would.

  “Leroy did Will a personal favor,” Doug’s calm voice reassured them. “He’s giving him a year on the continent to repay him.”

  “Oh,” the Lords said collectively. All of them had had a year on the continent when growing up. It was a rite of passage. Martingale opened his mouth to ask about the nature of the favor, but Lord Ballentyne cut him off.

  Leroy slipped back to his chair, shaky but composed.

  “Is there anything you’d like to do while you’re here, Leroy?” Ballentyne asked after a moment’s silence.

  “Yes, your Lordship. I’d like to play polo. I’ve never done that. And I’d like to go fox hunting. I’ve never done that either. Though I can’t see any reason for hunting foxes. Wild boar. Elk. Deer. They’re worth hunting.” That earned him more smiles.

  “Will has Leroy fully scheduled through December,” Doug said. “But maybe we can cut him some free time. He goes to Rome soon.”

  “The hunt season starts in November. We could get you up an exhibition game of polo then too. Informally.”

  “Right on! Her Grace and I will expect you at our country house,” said Lord Ballentyne.

  “And then at my place.”

  “And mine!”

  9

  Charm School, Week One

  “That wasn’t so bad,” Leroy said, basking in his triumph.

  “That was baby stuff.” Doug looked at him from under furrowed brows. “You hit a home run, but you’re barely into the first inning.”

  “I still don’t get why all this matters. Why don’t I just travel around and see things?”

  “Because you’d still be Leroy Watches Jr., cowboy rancher, when you’re done. Will wants you to be his ambassador. Do you know why Will wants you to make it with these people? Or why he cares about them at all?”

  “No.”

  “They’re gatekeepers. They can open doors that pure money can’t. Doors to bankers, more nobility, and royalty, plus the people who really make decisions. There’s more to being at the top than just money.

  “Will has wanted to expand into Britain and Europe in a big way for years. He wants to beat Donatore on his own turf. Europe is where Donatore is from and where he plays. And he plays; he’s a social bigwig. Will wants a piece of the action.”

  “Will’s the richest man on Earth. Why does he need ‘in’ on anything?”

  “Will is in, but you need to know something else. There’s rich, and there’s rich. Among people who have been rich for four hundred years, Will’s the new kid on the block. Did you know that he couldn’t get invited anywhere when he first got to California? Couldn’t get into a singl
e top country club in San Francisco or the Peninsula, even for lunch?”

  Leroy shook his head. “Why?”

  “Will was raised with a lot of money, but it was from handling industrial waste or something; dirty and definitely not classy. His father was a thug. Will was too rough as a young Stanford grad for society to accept him, even though he was starting the tech industry and making a bundle, on top of his family’s bundle. That was in the 50s and 60s. He had to do the same thing you’re doing.”

  Leroy was dumbfounded. “Will had to learn knives and forks?”

  “Yeah, Will Duane had to learn what people who are truly upper class care about. We’ve got an upper class in the US just as much as here. What got Will’s career in the fast lane was meeting this crazy old lady, Dr. Vanessa Schierman. Her ancestors were the ones who took California from the Indians. Before that, they ruined the lives of peasant farmers back in Germany for a thousand years. That’s old money.

  “Dr. Schierman took a liking to Will and cleaned him up. And she got him in everywhere. They kowtow to her anywhere she goes. Breeding, money, and brains. She’s a physicist. She views Will as a member of the family.”

  “Will got where he is because he had good manners?”

  “No. The right people would talk to him and treat him as an equal when he got into their clubs because he has good manners, and connections to people with money and social power. He got where he is because he’s a ruthless, driven competitor who was in the right place at the right time. Wait until you meet Dr. Schierman.” Doug grinned ear to ear.

  “Why?”

  “You’ll see.” Doug smiled. “I know all this because Will and I were best friends once. I said we fucked our way around the world together; we also talked. I thought he was the best man on Earth once.” Doug shrugged. “I found out he’s OK. Not the best, not the worst.

  “But—you’re gonna be busy. The tailor is coming at one, followed by your hair stylist and manicurist.” The doorbell rang. “That’s your staff.”