by Cat Kane
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Cat Kane
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review. For more information, contact: [email protected].
Cover design by Lin Owen
Images sourced at bigstock.com
Fonts sourced at creativemarket.com
The Spirit of Giving
Cat Kane
Author’s Note
"The Spirit of Giving" was originally published in 2006.
This edition has been revised and extended.
ONE
The local radio station said the temperature was in the thirties, but inside the beat up old Ford it must have been somewhere in single digits. Every breath sent a cloud of mist into the air, ephemeral heat, there and gone, and not for the first time Jase wished he still smoked. Wished he could still afford to smoke.
The cops would be looking for the car soon, but he couldn't quite bring himself to leave. There was the small matter of having nowhere else to go, but more than that, he didn't want to stop watching the scene in front of him.
If the glow of the store lights, beacon-bright in the frosty dark, could have warmed him up, he'd have shuffled closer. But even though the signs above the door proclaimed a sparkling tinsel-edged welcome, he didn't feel it. This was someone else's world. It didn't belong to him.
The local charity collector huddled in the entrance way, her shivers making the collection tin shake erratically. She offered smiles and wishes of a Merry Christmas even to those who didn't reach into their pockets. The optimism baffled him. Who would choose to stand in the bitter cold out of the goodness of their hearts, only to be snubbed and shunned? He'd been parked in this same spot for the best part of an hour, and he'd seen about a dozen people part with money. In that time, the parking spaces flanking his had been occupied by vehicles that cost more money than he'd ever dream of seeing in his lifetime. Jase didn't even have enough for the cigarettes he craved now, hard enough to turn his knuckles white as he gripped the steering wheel.
Goodwill to all men my ass...
It wasn't as though it was Christmas's fault, but he still felt it all the more keenly this time of year. That dividing line between the haves and the have-nots. It wasn't goodwill or festive cheer that he saw on the countless faces trooping in and out of the store, carts laden with their newly acquired junk. At worst it was a blank sort of avarice, and at best it was a resigned panic. There'd been one or two he wouldn't have bet on their making it back to their cars before keeling over from the stress etched into their faces.
He wondered if the inside was the same as he'd always seen on TV shows and commercials, last minute shoppers fighting over the last of this year's must-have toys, carts clashing and a distinct lack of the merry all around. He'd never seen it himself, had never gotten the opportunity. Christmas in his house had consisted of whatever his dad had managed to buy at the gas station or the convenience store on the way home from the bar, Christmas Eve. For several years the staple gift had been a coloring book and a bag of Doritos. It didn't exactly make a kid believe in Santa.
Jase tried telling himself he wasn't missing much, but the conviction fell pretty flat.
He didn't want to go inside, despite his curiosity. It would ruin the fantasy. But when he caught sight of the Sheriff’s car prowling the fringes of the parking lot, there was nowhere else to go. For all he knew, the cops left their shopping till the last minute too, but he couldn't afford to take that chance.
The cold bit through his worn jacket as he got out of the car, huddling as much as he could. Hands stuffed into empty pockets, he hurried towards the store entrance.
The charity collector smiled at him and wished him a Merry Christmas, but he could barely meet her eyes.
Inside, the store looked as though someone had let all the weirdos out early for the holidays. He'd imagined crazy, but nothing on this scale. Most of the displays were empty and messy, their trimmings and labels falling off the shelves and being trampled underfoot in the frenzy. Lines at the checkouts stretched deep back into the aisles. He could quite easily get lost in the crowd, but there was the mild fear that if he waded into all this, he'd never get back out. Besides, wandering around with no cart and no money would draw too much suspicion, even from these people with nothing but their purchases on their minds.
The noise barely let him think, the static of the store's announcement system mingling with tinny carols and the dull roar of voices, none of them distinguishable from the other. He'd barely edged his way into the chaos before the sickly synthetic scents of candy cane and eggnog forced him back.
It had been better as a fantasy, he decided grimly, fighting his way back towards the exits and wondering if he could hide in the bathrooms for a while, or at the very least leave a different way to which he came in, in case he was really being watched.
But then they always said the best place to hide was in plain sight…
It wasn't as though he'd planned it, but one more black mark against his character wasn't going to make much difference now. And the abandoned cart seemed like his own personal gift-wrapped present from the Universe, sitting there by the toy-grabbing machines, enticing him to take it home.
He'd be doing the poor thing a favor. And if he strolled out of here looking like every other anonymous schmuck, he'd slip through any net that might be closing around him.
There didn't seem to be anyone nearby ready to lay claim to the cart, and if anyone was dumb enough to walk off and leave all their stuff, that was hardly Jase’s problem.
His conscience prickled at that, but he placated it by promising to ditch the cart and its contents in tact as soon as he could, so the dumbass who really owned this stuff might actually be able to retrieve it.
If he hesitated now, someone would surely notice and raise the alarm. So he grabbed the cart handle as though he'd owned it all along, and walked right out of the store.
* * *
The gum-chewing girl at the salon had about six colors in her hair, and took about six hours to make an appointment for Aunt Bree’s hairdo. Personally, Riley thought it was a weird thing to want for Christmas, but he supposed it made more sense than getting a bunch of crap she didn’t need. Even if the bunch of crap would’ve worked out cheaper; how was it okay that getting your hair done one time cost almost as much as one of his textbooks? Bree deserved it of course, but man… he’d have felt better spending that much money on something she could keep longer than a couple of weeks.
The girl behind the counter kept looking at his hair while she flicked through the appointment book, as though he wanted to come in for a perm and highlights for himself. He was that close to feeling incredibly uncomfortable under such scrutiny when she cocked her head and drawled; "You get that done here?"
"Get what done?" He’d managed to resist the urge to reach up and touch his hair, in case it had turned green.
"The color. That’s not real, right?"
He did reach up then, fingers combing awkwardly through messy strands the color of polished mahogany. While he loved his Mom dearly for the color, he despised her for the fact he’d inherited the slightest touch of her curls, enough to make it tuft and kink in unruly choppy waves if he grew it anywhere past his ears. All in all, the love and hate balanced out into the same usual non-emotion he reserved for her.
Aunt Bree had promised this year if she came to the door, she wasn’t going
to let her in. He’d thought that was a bit harsh, seeing as it was Christmas and all, but last time his Mom showed up it had been with the entire family of some rat bastard she was seeing, and they’d stayed for three weeks, only leaving when said rat bastard apparently heard of some sure thing job opportunity three states away. Bree had asked if it bothered him, and Riley had shrugged and said it was her house. What he hadn’t added, for fear of embarrassing them both, was that she’d been more a Mom to him than anyone else, and whatever she wanted to do with her Christmas was fine by him.
He figured the hair salon girl didn’t need to know any of that. No one did.
"Yeah," he said, "it’s real."
She snapped her gum.
"Oh."
Finally getting Bree’s appointment done for seven-thirty Christmas Eve—she hadn’t said it in so many words, but if she could show off a new hairdo to the ladies at Christmas Eve mass then it’d be a bonus—he edged back out through the throng of little old ladies who were evidently planning their own hairdo contests. He hadn’t even been able to bring his cart into the salon through the narrow door – he’d had to reluctantly leave it in the entranceway if he wanted any chance of getting through to the desk before the store closed.
It didn’t register for the longest moment that the cart wasn’t where he left it.
It took less time, though, to realize the cart wasn’t anywhere.
He stood there for a moment, feeling a chill of panic that had nothing to do with the cold air blasting in each time the automatic doors swished open, trying to school his hands to stay at his sides, instead of reaching out stupidly for the missing cart.
He must have looked at dumb and bewildered as he felt. The door greeter frowned at him for a moment, before finally asking, "You all right, hon?"
"I…" He shook his head, asking the most unintelligent thing that came to mind. "Did you see my cart?"
"You’ve lost your cart?" the door greeter asked, and even in his state, Riley wondered how it was possible to come up with a dumber response than his initial question.
"No, I… It was right here. I went into the hair salon for a couple of minutes, but it was right here." He punctuated `right` and `here` with generous, desperate arm waving, blocking off a space of empty air where the cart had once stood, as though that was helpful.
The greeter stared at him, an icy glint forming in her eyes as though he’d started drooling and crying. "You just left it here? You didn’t have somebody watching it?"
"Well, no but—"
"You walked off and left it there?"
He could have sworn he’d already answered that question. The possibility that he’d inhaled some weird fumes in the hair salon, and as a result was both imagining a missing cart and hearing things twice, seemed more and more likely by the second. He took a breath, forcing himself to regain a little calm, a little patience.
"I was only gone a couple of minutes, and it was right here. I mean, you were standing right there, I didn’t think it was that big a risk."
She sniffed, bristling. "Are you telling me how to do my job, young man?"
"No,"—well, yeah kinda—"I thought it’d be safe with you standing right there."
"Well now that was pretty irresponsible of you, wasn’t it?" Sighing, she reached for her radio, bells jingling cheerily on her name badge, as though the very act of helping out such a dumbass as him weighed heavily on her. "Do you have any idea how many carts come through here? Did it have your name on it? How exactly are we supposed to know it was yours?"
He wasn’t up for a fight. He wanted his possessions back and he wanted to go home. "I’m sorry, ma’am," he said. "Is there anything you can do to help me find my stuff?"
She eyed him sceptically, speaking to someone on the other end of the radio. "Can I get security to door two, please?" A reply came through a couple of seconds later, crackly gibberish that Riley didn’t understand, but a language in which the door greeter seemed to be fluent. "Someone’ll be along shortly, but there’s really not a lot we can do. You could check around the door if you wanted, see if you can spot anything that’s yours."
Like my mind? Cause I think I’ve lost that, too.
"Thank you, ma’am." He offered as much of a smile as he could muster, before trudging off towards the door, hoping fervently that it was only kids playing a prank and he’d find the cart outside.
It’d almost be worth another lecture from the door greeter.
There was nothing outside except cars and people and cold. He wrapped his arms tightly around himself as he futilely scanned the nearest edge of the parking lot, hoping someone might have taken his cart by mistake and then dumped it, or even ditched his bags and taken the cart because there weren’t any left for new shoppers. He didn’t care why; he just wanted his things back. He couldn’t go home to Bree with the news that he’d managed to lose all the kids’ presents. He’d known it was a mistake for her to have given him the money and told him to take care of buying her gifts too, but she’d been working extra shifts and wouldn’t have time, so he hadn’t argued.
Now, staring out hollowly at the brimming parking lot, Riley wished he had.
TWO
Out of sight between an Explorer, a Pick-up and the back fence of the parking lot, Jase kept an eye out for anyone following him as he poked at the contents of the cart. He still didn’t plan on taking anything, but the brightly colored boxes and packages that peeked out from the bags made him curious.
So what if living someone else’s Christmas was probably the most pathetic thing he’d ever done? It wasn’t as though anyone would find out. There was no one to find out.
One bag was almost full of gaudily colored Christmas picks, their wire stems and plastic pine-cones spiky as they jabbed his fingers, the pain sharpened beyond tolerable by the cold. The shiny little parcels had begun dropping off a couple of them, and enough glitter was collecting at the bottom of the bag to cover a small third world country. Who the hell wanted a whole bag of this trash? Even the most tasteful of the decorations, with vaguely realistic holly leaves and tiny plastic trumpets and drums wasn’t something he’d have let past his front door. If he had one.
If the tacky decor heightened the intrigue, the next bag stirred up significantly more unease.
He’d never really known what toys were cool even when he’d been a kid – there had been no point coveting stuff he knew he’d never get. He sure as hell had no idea what peer pressure and crappy commercials kids were succumbing to these days, but the stuff in the bag was probably a good cross section. A robot in a beat-up box. Some kind of Barbie in a poofy dress and enough pink to make him go blind. Two board games, neither of which was Candyland, the only game he knew, by dint of it being the only game they’d had in the house when he was a kid. He’d always been able to gauge the state of his parents relationship by it: if his mother was drunk, out came Candyland; if his dad had just hit him and his mother felt guilty, out came Candyland; if Jase was home from school because his dad had spent the money his mother had kept by for some field trip, out came Candyland. He was pretty relieved for the recipients of these bags that they wouldn’t have to make that association.
Another bag held three different stuffed animals—two bears and something that might have been a monkey—one toy make-up kit with eye shadow the shade of blue he’d only seen on middle-aged women in trailer parks, and two sets of plastic pirate swords, one of which already had a bend in the blade. Several bags of candy were tempered by the more sensible offering of three pairs of socks—one with pink bears, and two with dinosaurs—and three pairs of gloves. Incongruously enough, the last bag held a coloring book and a long ass set of coloring pens almost as wide as the cart, a foot massager gift set, and a packet of cigarettes.
Well…okay. Maybe he’d take the cigarettes. But really he was doing them a favor; they shouldn’t be smoking around those kids anyway. He almost tossed out the coloring book too, but reasoned that there weren’t any Doritos and this wasn’t
some surreal flashback brought on by the cold and lack of nicotine.
He’d had the packet open, one cigarette between his lips and cursing the fact that he had nothing to light the thing with, when the owner of the pick-up returned.
"Hey, what’re you doing?"
Well, shit.
"Ah, nothing." Jase plastered on a cocky grin around the cigarette "I was wondering where I’d lost my lighter is all."
"You ain’t gonna dump your cart right here, are you?" The driver looked at him suspiciously, as though a plastic cart could do more damage to the front of the truck than several signposts and years of rust already had. "There’s a place for carts right over there."
"Yeah, I was heading over there," he said amicably, putting the last back bag in the cart and wheeling it towards the cart stand. He could hardly leave them there, not now he’d been careless enough to let someone catch him with them. Still, he paused contemplatively as he passed the driver. "Hey, you got a light?"
The driver still watched him warily, but reached into the pocket of a flannel coat for a shiny metal lighter. The flame flared at the third click, crackling delicately in the cold air, and Jase’s eyes fluttered closed as he leaned in, lighting the cigarette and sucking down a lung full of the drug he’d been craving so badly all night.
"Thanks, man." The sudden rush of nicotine helped his fake cheer along nicely. "Merry Christmas."
He felt the driver’s wary gaze on him all the way over to the cart stand, where he dutifully picked the bags out of the cart and stowed it safely with its carty brethren. He supposed it stood to reason; he really was engaging in suspicious activity now, albeit not entirely of his own free will. The cigarettes, yeah. The rest of some poor sap’s screwy Christmas shopping? Not so much.
Looking around for someone else to dump the shopping, somewhere it wouldn’t get taken by a real—and better—thief, his gaze landed on the store entrance.