by Maren Smith
“And speaking of frogs,” Jenny said, as she closed the pizza box to store the remaining slices for a later date. “There is an opening at the mall to play one of Santa’s elves. Are you interested?”
“You mean they are looking for someone to wear those tight dresses and carry kids to seat on a creepy old man’s leg?”
“That creepy old man would be Pierce and he is a really nice man mind you. But Pierce retired from the mall last month and moved to Florida. So Jason is filling in for him.”
“Jason? I don’t think I’ve heard you talk about a Jason from work.”
“That’s because he does not work with us. And that has nothing to do with my question. So, do you want the job or not?”
“How much is it paying?”
“Peanuts,” Debbie spoke candidly. “But you’ll finally get a reason to get off your ass and go outside. Maybe get hit on when guys at the mall see you in your elf outfit. Besides, it’s not like you’ve got anything else to do.”
“And what if I do?”
“Really, like what?”
“Like finding a better job,” Jenny scoffed. Then she really thought about it. “Okay, I’ll take the job. But only because it means I get to spend more time with you—”
She was not allowed to finish as Debbie started to cheer loudly, moving on the couch to hug her friend. Jenny returned the hug. And as she did, she realized she had messed up. True, she had gotten her heart broken. But even that was not a good enough for reason for how she had behaved.
“I miss you too,” Jenny quietly whispered in her friend’s ear. It was time she started to live a normal life once again. And even though her heart would remain broken, she was sure with time and the help of friends, she could learn to live with that pain.
CHAPTER TWO
“CRAP,” JENNY SWORE, as she quickly slipped her legs into her ballet flats and then ran out the door. She was supposed to start working at the mall today and had promised Debbie she would make it in early when her roommate came to wake her up. But as soon as Debbie had gone, she found she didn’t have the energy or desire to stand up from bed. By the time she remembered the fact that she had made a promise to Debbie, she was already late. Luckily, her old and usually reliable Toyota didn’t disappoint her today and came on at just one twist of her key.
By the time she made it to the store, she figured she was so late they probably already had time to send for a new elf from the North Pole. Nevertheless, she had made a promise to her friend and she was going to at least show her face. Finding a space in the mall parking lot, she quickly opened her door and ran toward the mall. The sounds of Christmas jingles started from the parking lot, and the moment she made it into the mall, it was like a full blown Christmas commercial. Everything red and white, everyone smiling and happy, and everyone shopping for Christmas at the same time, it would seem. Considering the fact that this was just the first week of December, Jenny considered these people either anal or psychologically damaged. Realizing she was letting her general mood dictate her thoughts again, she took a deep breath and walked further into the room. The first clue she got as to how late she was would be the very long line of children lined up in front of Santa and his...elf. Elf, as in singular. That is, there was only one male elf flanking Santa. And if the outfit he was wearing was anything to go by, Jenny got the feeling she may have to fight off horny teenagers and old men with an elf fetish. It was tight enough to double as ballet tights. Her second clue was when she felt someone yank her arm and dragged her backwards.
“Hey...” she started to say, when she heard Debbie hiss, and pull her into a changing room at the back of the mall.
“You are late Jenny. I kinda staked my whole job on getting you this gig. Why are you doing your best to screw it up?”
“I’m not trying to screw it up, I got caught up in traffic about three intersections back.”
“No, there was not, and I know because I’ve been asking everyone who entered through that door if there was. Since I could not figure any reason why my friend would want to get me fired, I started imagining you behind the wheel in a ditch somewhere.”
Jenny glanced at her friend. “Are you being dramatic now?”
“Yes, and still very, very mad at you. Now get into your elf outfit and you better be the best goddamn elf this mall had ever seen or you better sleep with one eye open this night.”
“Okay, now I’m scared.” Jenny said, with an exaggerated shiver as she took off her shoes and reached for the elf costume that had been laid out. A green elf tunic with a flared waist that came to just a little bit above her knees and candy-cane colored stockings. She also put on the ridiculous point shoes that came with the outfit, and when she was done took a look in the mirror. The clothing showed no cleavage, but was tight enough that it wasn’t too hard to imagine what she carried underneath. Fiery red curls peeked from below the green stocking hat she wore, falling all the way to just beneath her shoulders and Jenny wondered if she should take the time to braid her hair before going out.
“Okay, that’s enough,” Debbie declared as she grabbed her friend’s hand and pulled her out of the closet. “Now get to work, and you better have a big smile when you take those kids to tell Santa what they want for Christmas.”
“And what about what I want for Christmas?”
“You can sit on Santa’s lap and tell him all about it after you’ve clocked out for the day,” Debbie joked. “Now get to work.”
As Jenny quickly joined and Santa and the elf in front of the mall, she forced a big smile on her face.
“Hi, I’m Jennifer. But you can call me Jenny. Sorry I’m late,” she said to Santa and the elf, going for a slightly apologetic smile.
“Hi, I’m James. But I guess you could call me Jimmy.” The elf returned, his own smile almost as shy as hers was sorry. Santa on the other hand didn’t look too impressed, and the slightly turned down slash of his lips was still visible despite the mass of white curls that framed them. He lifted a hand and beckoned to her.
“Hi, sorry for coming late,” Jenny apologized as soon as she came within earshot of him.
“Good, now that you have apologized to me, would you terribly mind so much apologizing to the fifty kids you’ve kept waiting all morning?”
His voice was deep and low-pitch, his tone stern enough to send shivers down her spine and harsh enough to raise her hackles. “I’m sorry, Santa, I promise I’ll be a good girl now.”
His reply of, “You better be. Or else,” was enough to make Jenny even madder, and she found herself clomping back to her position on his left side looking just a bit miffed. At the last moment, she remembered she was supposed to be a cheerful elf helping children meet Santa, and she exchanged the disgruntled look for a beaming smile.
“Okay, kids,” Jimmy stepped forward with a smile, sweeping his hands theatrically. “Why don’t you come and tell Santa what you would like for Christmas.” Then, leaning forward in a loud and conspiratorial whisper, he added, “And I hope your name is not on Santa’s naughty list.”
The kids all laughed and beamed, clearly taken in by his charm. So Jimmy worked the crowd, going among the kids and chatting with them, clearly enjoying himself, while Jenny led each kid to Santa, and then back to their mothers, who stood to one corner of the line, eyes on their wards. Her smile remained in place, but barely, and it was clear from the imaginary daggers she kept shooting at Santa that she was definitely miffed at him.
If Santa was aware that one of his elves was mad at him, he apparently had enough Christmas cheer to overlook that. He smiled as she handed the kids to him one by one, all of his attention on them as he spoke in a singsong cheery voice and seemed to genuinely care about what it was they were saying. That explained why he was spending two minutes more than the time they had set for each kid. When they’d used almost two hours, and the line seemed just as long as it did when they just started Jenny couldn’t take it anymore and walked up to him.
“You’re gonna ke
ep us here all day,” she whispered to him. “Just do what they are paying you to and let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Really? And you have something better to do than put a smile on small children’s face?”
“Sure, anything that puts a smile on my face,” Jenny said as she stalked back to the front of the line to resume her duties. Four hours later, they broke for lunch and Jenny almost couldn’t feel her legs. While Santa and Jimmy took their time to talk to the kids before leaving, Jenny made a beeline for the back of the store where the makeup aisle was, and found her friend advising a woman on what color lipstick would go with some kind of dress.
Jenny waited until she was done with the customer before she spoke. “When do you break for lunch?”
“Right about now,” Debbie said, glancing at her phone to check the time.
“Good, because I think I need a break from this place.”
Debbie glanced at her friend with one brow raised. “Please don’t tell me you found taking kids to Santa annoying too. I mean, who the hell can still manage to stay mad while they are dressed in an elf’s outfit? A really cute outfit, by the way.”
“Damn,” Jenny glanced at herself. “Forgot I was wearing this stupid outfit. I need to change out of this. Where are we having lunch?”
“At the diner across the street from us, and just wear a jacket over that.”
A few minutes later, when they pushed the door to the restaurant open, Jenny discovered that apparently everyone at the store came to the same diner for lunch. Debbie led Jenny to the back of the diner and they sat at an empty table. Debbie waved at some of her coworkers as they took their seats.
“You know, I really thought being in the land of living would provide the spark you needed to get over that douche.”
Jenny just made a noncommittal sigh and grabbed one of the laminated menus on the table.
“You gonna talk to me about him one day?” Debbie asked when she saw her friend yet again trying to dodge the issue.
“I would if there was anything to talk about, Debbie.”
“There actually is, and we can start by talking about what kind of relationship you guys had.”
“I’ve told you a million times, we were friends.”
“With benefits?”
“Yeah, maybe something like that. And one of the benefits of that was that I never needed to worry about these kind of questions.” Jenny turned in her seat and looked at Debbie. “You are a romantic, and I know you always wish I was with someone who fit your traditional concept of what a relationship should look like—”
“Well, is that so bad?”
“No it is not. But I want you to understand that Barry gave me something I needed, and in his own way loved me for the fact that I gave him something he wanted. I won’t lie and say that getting dumped by him didn’t suck, but I’m getting over it. In the meantime, you trying to understand what we had would only leave you more confused than you are now. Trust me on this, okay?”
Debbie thought for a moment, “Okay. I guess I really didn’t understand what you two had, which is why when you guys broke up and you got really sad I got kind of confused. I’m still confused about that, but I’m not going to bring up again unless you want to talk about it.”
“Thanks,” Jenny said, just as the waitress walked up to them and took their order.
“So how did your first day as Santa’s helper go?” Debbie asked as soon as the waitress left to bring their order.
“Horrible. The elf was nice, but that Santa was mean, arrogant and overbearing.”
“Really?” A voice said behind them. It was a voice Jenny recognized all too well. “Or is it that he just cared more about the kids than a grownup who decided to act like a child?”
Jenny swiveled around to find the Jimmy the elf in regular clothes, and another man standing behind her, but all her attention was focused on that man standing beside Jimmy. He was tall; clearly over six feet. He wore a flannel shirt and not even the thick material could hide the impressive build he had under there. A silky fall of jet black hair with just a little bit of silver threading through that was too short to require a haircut, but long enough to make her wonder how he would look in a rock band. As lead singer, of course, since there was no way someone with that arrogant smile would ever play second fiddle to anyone. But his eyes were a study in contradiction. Blue, and soft, and the kind you would love to stare down at you as you lay on a...
Jenny blinked once, then twice and then yet again when she realized she was about to fantasize about a man who had just accused her of being a big overgrown baby.
“Jenny meet Santa,” Debbie chirped, either too obtuse to notice the tension between the two of them or just plain ignoring it. Jimmy sat beside Jenny while Santa sat next to Debbie.
“The name is Jason, by the way,” Santa added, and even though he was not wearing a mane of white hair on his chin, or the big pouch that apparently was hiding...whatever it was that he was hiding under his shirt. Jenny realized she was finding it hard to shake the Santa persona she had attributed to him.
“Jason owns the store, by the way,” Debbie added to Jenny before she turned to Jimmy and asked him how it felt to be an elf for the store Christmas play. As Jimmy talked about what a great time he was already having, Jenny turned her attention to Jason. A.K.A big bad Santa. A.K.A her new boss apparently. Only to find out he already had his eyes on her. The smile on his face had Jenny baring her teeth at him without even realizing she was doing so. And when his smile got even wider, she found herself wishing she was not a gun control advocate. She had no idea what a sawed off shotgun looked like, but Jenny knew if she could get her hand on one, she would not need any lessons in using it on Jason.
The voice of the waitress asking to take down their order was the only thing that stopped her from sticking her tongue out at him.
CHAPTER THREE
“THANKS, GRACE,” JASON smiled up at the waitress as she dropped his plate of bacon and eggs in front of him. If he noticed that his plate looked a bit fuller than Jimmy’s even though they had ordered the same thing, he did not show it. She smiled down at him, walking slowly backwards before turning around just as slowly and sauntering off. The invitation in her glance and movement was implicit and not even Jason could claim not to have seen it. Not that he was interested in what she had to offer though. For all her wanton looks and smoky gaze, he seriously doubted Grace could hold his interest sexually.
Someone who was succeeding in holding his interest though was the woman sitting across from him. Her gaze was belligerent, and the stubborn tilt of her chin reminded him of a child who was being forced to sit down and eat. Judging by the way she was pushing her food around her plate, he couldn’t deny the urge to do just that. Stand over her, and order her to eat what was on her plate or else.
That train of thought led to a station Jason was definitely not willing to go with this particular passenger. Still, it was a pity she was wasting such good food. Raoul made the best bacon he had ever eaten, and even though she was not reed thin, she could still stand to add some meat to her bones. As it was, he could easily pick her by her waist and bend her as—
“Something wrong with the food, today?” Jimmy asked, breaking Jason out of his thoughts.
“What?” Jason asked, looking a bit confused for a moment.
“I asked if there is something wrong with your food. You are usually halfway through your plate before I swallow my first bite.”
“Maybe his doctor recently reminded him that he needs to be on a liquid diet at his age.”
The jibe came from Jenny, and while she meant it to insult Jason, Debbie and Jimmy thought it was really funny as they burst into peals of laughter. Jason himself smiled as he stared at her across the table, and Jenny realized exactly how ironic her words sounded. Apart from the gray in his hair, and the faint lines that fanned out from his lips when he smiled, he could have passed for her slightly older brother. That is, if she had a brother who look
ed like he should be at the back of a magazine, modelling cowboy jeans. Hell, even those features just added a touch of regality to his bearing.
“Sorry, I was just wondering why someone would allow perfectly good food go to waste,” Jason replied, his voice just a bit low.
Jenny glanced down at her plate and realized that even though her food was missing a few bites, she couldn’t say she had really tasted anything she had put into her mouth.
“Don’t tell me you are one of those girls who believe salads fulfill all your nutritional needs?” Jason lifted his fork and began to eat. Debbie and Jimmy were discussing animatedly a new display for the store.
“I just don’t want to eat,” Jenny replied, her tone still acerbic. “Not that it is any of your business,” she added and briefly wondered what it was about him that was making her act so bitchy.
A part of her wanted to blame her breakup for her prickly disposition, and maybe in part it was. But Jenny was not in the habit of lying to herself. And if she wanted to be truthful, she knew he was the reason why she was acting so bitchy.
“It’s not a good idea to miss meals you know. And I’m sure if you give it a chance, you’ll come to find that you would enjoy it.”
“And if I don’t want to eat, what are you going to do then?” she stared at him defiantly, almost as if she was waiting for him to give her an excuse to do something.
The look of disappointment on her face when he instead smiled and kept eating must have been funny enough that Jason chuckled. “Your loss,” he muttered to his plate, before turning to join Debbie and Jimmy in their discussion.
Jenny struggled to hide the feeling of shock and humiliation that enveloped her as Jason casually dismissed her. Almost as if she was a child who was throwing a tantrum. She wanted to scream at him until he turned back and they finished what they had started. She had no idea what that was, exactly. But if they were keeping scores, it was Jason one, and Jenny zero. Telling herself she was getting worked up over nothing, she grabbed her fork and took a stab at her plate. She lifted her fork to her lips, and when her mouth closed around the morsel it carried, she struggled not to moan in delight. The food was that good and she realized he had been right. She suddenly felt very hungry. So that would make that two points for Jason and one for her.