After our shift Hub is all like, “What got into you back there just now?”
“Waddya mean?” I ask, gently gathering the purple velvet ropes we use to line up the kiddies during the busiest times and sliding them together so the maintenance workers can wax the floor like they do every night.
“Nothing,” he grins. “I just… guess you’re really into the Christmas spirit tonight, huh?”
I shrug, still feeling a little cocky and coquettish from the juicy brain overload during my break. “You should know, Mr. Elf!”
He blushes at the huskiness in my voice and gathers the leftover printouts of kids’ pictures who didn’t buy them.
I’m using a lint roller to get all the fake white hair off of Santa’s throne – one of my more glamorous nightly cleanup duties – when Hub drops a picture from his stack.
I reach to pick it up, because that’s what Santa’s Helpers do, when I see myself in the picture, just off to the side as Mr. Dickens snapped it.
I must have been turning to look at the big shimmering tree just outside the food court, or maybe even smiling at a particularly cute kid in line, because I look happy and hopeful and smiling but… that’s where the humanity abruptly ends.
My face is ghastly, gothic white, my eyes limp and black, like dead things you might see lying on a dock in the sun, the arms sticking out of my Santa’s Helper costume varying shades of gray.
The picture looks like it was snapped at some Halloween haunted house, not just inside of Santa’s Winter Wonderland.
I gasp, and Hub looks over to see what I’m gasping at, but doesn’t really flinch or anything.
“Good gawd,” I snap, holding the photo up next to my face before handing it back.
“Is this… is this… really how I look?”
He gently takes it from me so he can get a better look, compares it to my face and says, “Yeah, so… what’s the big deal?”
“How can you even look at me?” I blurt, leaning on Santa’s throne, all earlier brain-high gone out the window. “I’m… I’m… hideous.”
“No you’re not,” he says quickly, sincerely. “I mean, sure, you look a little under the weather tonight, but… so do most vegetarians I know.”
He grins broadly, never one to pass up a good vegetarian joke.
I sock him on the arm, then look at my watch.
“Ooohh, I’ve got to go,” I say, leaping up from Santa’s arm rest.
I’m thinking Grady is going to be jonesing for brains by now, probably.
I told him to meet me in the park at the end of my street after work, our usual hang-out – and occasional make-out – spot when Dad’s not working the graveyard shift.
“Me too,” Hub says quickly, although I know he hasn’t finished all of his prep work for the next day’s shift and was probably hoping I could hang out while he did so. “Walk you out?”
“Sure,” I say, full of brains and feeling alive for the first time since, since, well falling off the roof after getting struck by lightning last night.
(Gheez, was it only last night???)
The side entrances are all closed, it being nearly 10 by the time all Santa’s beard hair has been dusted off his chair – sorry, throne – and the candy canes arranged for tomorrow’s shift, so we kind of meander through the halls behind the food court until we reach the grungy employee exit.
Typically I would stop at my locker and change out of my elf get-up before heading home for the night, but tonight I don’t care if I do get in an accident in my Santa’s Helper costume because, let’s face it – I’m already dead.
What could be more humiliating than that?
Hub never changes; he just slips on some sweats and a hoodie over his elf costume, puts his floppy Peter Pan type hat in his pocket and that’s that.
The air is cold this late, not freezing, but Florida cold; mid-60s.
“Nice,” he says on the way to my car; no further explanation is needed.
I agree by sniffing in great gulps and say, “Uhhhmmmm.”
We kind of linger as I open my door.
I’m eager to get to Grady, so I’m kind of in a rush, but the brain-high has left me feeling kind of mellow, too.
And maybe… just maybe… I’m being just the slightest bit passive aggressive about Hub being the one to walk me to my car every single night, and never – ever – Grady.
I mean, I’m not one of those needy girls who demands her man to wait on her hand and foot, or be there at my beck and call, or hold my door open and drop me off and pick me up wherever I go, and Grady’s definitely not that type of a guy, but would it kill the slacker to at least meet me at my car after work one night so we could maybe go hang out or something?
Sit at Denny’s and have a cup of coffee?
Take in a late movie?
Read me racy poetry – or even knock-knock jokes – by the dashboard light?
Shoot, I’d be happy just sitting on the hood of our cars and sipping melted smoothies until the mall cops drove us off.
So although I know Grady’s hungry (for brains, no less), I open my door, put his brain pate on the passenger seat, and then lean against my hood.
Hub stands next to me, enjoying the night air and my rare lack of impatience.
“Thought you were in a big hurry?” he says a little coyly, crossing his arms over his chest.
I shrug.
“He can wait,” I say firmly.
Hub doesn’t say anything, just nods.
“Some night, huh?” he asks, making small talk.
“Crazy,” I say.
“It reminds me of that scene in Elf, you know the one where—”
“Hub,” I blurt, before he can start. “Can I be frank with you?”
“Oh, uh, yeah, sure,” he stammers a little uncertainly, not quite sure what to make of my directness.
I mean, it’s not that I’m never direct with him, just never about anything… real.
Where to stick his extra candy canes?
Sure.
How to live his life?
Not so much.
His face doesn’t know whether to look hurt – or hopeful.
“I just, I like you, Hub. You’re smart, you’re cute, you’re thoughtful, you’re funny, but I gotta tell you… you gotta start living in the real world, dude.”
“Like… how do you mean?”
His eyes – are they blue? I’d never really noticed before – kind of get wide and round and… soft… but he’s not mad, not exactly, even though I interrupted what I’m sure is one of his favorite movie scenes ever.
“I mean, movies are great Hub, we all love them, but when two people get a chance to talk, like we are right now, one-on-one, nice night out, nowhere important to go, they should talk about real things, you know?”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, like tonight. I’m mellow, you’re mellow, usually I’m rushing off to meet Grady, and you’re usually all like, ‘Yeah, okay, whatever, see you tomorrow,’ but tonight I’m here, you’re here and what’s the first thing you do? Set up a scene from a movie. And I only have like 10 minutes or so and, frankly, if I’m standing in the parking lot talking to you, I actually want to stand in the parking lot and talk to YOU, you know?”
He shrugs.
“I guess,” he says a tad assertively, totally missing the mark, “but it’s a really great scene.”
“No, Hub, this is a really great scene. Life is the movie; movies are just… details.”
He finally smiles, puts his hand under his chin mock-thoughtfully and says, “What are you, writing greeting cards now?”
I snort, despite myself.
“Too much?” I grin, looking at him from beneath my bangs. “I just made it up.”
“No, I like it. I just have never been schooled on the art of conversation by a master before.”
“Like I’m some expert? Hub, please, I’m just saying, you’re always going on about how hard it is to find a girlfriend, like that little l
ass at the lemonade stand you chat up every night. Quick, what’d you talk about tonight?”
He blushes and I think maybe it was something nasty he doesn’t want to share with me (I wish!) but then he says, “You’re not going to believe this but, I talked about how Santa’s Winter Wonderland reminds me of that scene in… Elf.”
My face falls; I’d almost prefer if they’d talked about something nasty.
“Oh, Hub, tell me you didn’t, did you?”
“Yeah, Lacy, I did. I don’t know, I just get… nervous… is all.”
I shake my head and look down at my elf feet for a second, wondering if the curvy, jangly tops will impede my driving on the way home tonight.
“So… what?” I ask when I look back up. “That’s your default setting? Get nervous, talk about movies?”
“Kinda,” he shrugs.
I shrug back.
“Can I tell you something else?” I ask him, not waiting for an answer. “Girls get nervous, too.”
“They do?” he asks, and when I flick another glance at his eyes, they are; they’re definitely blue.
“Sure,” I say. “But we don’t like to waste time, so when we get nervous we start asking questions, and when you answer those questions with movie lines, or movie stats, or movie quotes we get, I dunno… disappointed? Like maybe you’re not all that interested in us in the first place and so… what’s the point of getting all nervous about you?”
“Really?” he says, stretching it out to about a dozen syllables and looking over my shoulder at the empty mall parking lot beyond.
I can’t tell if he’s ignoring me, or taking it in, or both – or neither.
I sigh and get up off my hood, signaling it’s time to leave.
He kind of starts, and inches over and says, “Uhhm, Lacy?”
“Yeah, Hub?”
“It was really nice talking to you tonight.”
He’s smiling, but won’t meet my eyes.
“Yeah,” I smile, genuinely and, no, it’s NOT just the brains talking. “Me too. See, conversation can be fun even when you’re not talking about movies, huh?”
“Well, technically, we were talking about movies by talking about NOT talking about movies but, yeah… I see your point.”
And I have to laugh because, seriously?
You’ve got to give him credit; the kid just doesn’t quit.
“See you tomorrow, Hub.”
“Yeah, bye Lacy.”
Zombies Don’t Read: 25 YA Short Stories Page 50