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“Fran, I…”
“What is theholduphere?” a woman demanded. The voice was oddly familiar. I turned and saw Ms. Cummings, our former geometry teacher, next in line, her hands on the shoulders of a small boy. Her haircut had improved considerably, though the denim jumper with embroidered reindeer was one I was pretty sure she’d had when we were her students. Her eyes widened. “Frances Cuthbert?”
“Hey, Ms. Cummings,” I said—pretty smoothly, considering how hard I was working not to imagine her plowing Cass with a strap-on. She really wasn’t that old. I looked older than she did, which seemed unfair. “Happy holidays.”
“Oh, Fran, it’s wonderful to see you.”
The little boy looked up at her. “I want to sit on Santa’slap!” he insisted.
“You will,” she assured him.
“Right, yes, I’ll get out of your way. Great to see you too!” I turned back to Cass. “Isshegoing to sit on your lap?” I whispered.
“Fran!” he hissed.
“Or are you going to sit on hers?”
“I swear to God, I will kill—”
“Can I use your oven? Please? My children are adorable. You’ll love making cookies with them.”
“Fine, just get the fuck out of here.” But he was trying not to laugh.
Katya emerged from the tunnel into the grotto. “Okay, all you good little boys and girls,” she said loudly. “It has come to my attention we have holdup in the line. I apologize for–” Her gaze fell on me. “Ah. Okay, this explains everything and also nothing.” She strode up to me and whispered. “Fran. Get the fuck out.”
“I was just about to.”
“Then do it.”
I scurried to the front of the store. Katya joined me there seconds later. “Fran. You have two children. If you need excuse to talk to Cass, why don’t you bring your children, or at least your best child, instead of flurking around like creep?”
“Did you say ‘flurking?’”
She waved a hand. “It has been a long day, I’m getting confused with words. I keep imagining I am in my beautiful village in Russia, instead of here in Hell.”
“But here it’s Christmas every day,” I said helpfully.
She glared at me. “Do you know, two children peed on Cass today? At the same time? One on each leg. Choreographed, like dance. Do you know we are out of little plastic birds holding wreaths that say PEACE in their beaks? Do you know Dr. Florris had the last peach pony known to mankind and he lost it here in my store? And now every day I search Elfwood and interrogate customers, but I cannot find his pony for his daughter and now she will be sad on Christmas because her mother has moved to New Jersey and she will have to say ‘Merry Christmas’ on Zoop and—”
“Zoom.”
“And she has no Peachflower.”
“Blossom,” I whispered, guilt surging in me.
“And now you are flurking.”
“I just needed to ask Cass a question.”
“There is text.”
“Fine, I wanted to see him. And…hear his voice.” Somewhere in the back of my mind, I registered what she’d said about Dr. Stephen Florris’s daughter’s mother living in New Jersey. So one might reasonably assume she was not married to Dr. Stephen Florris anymore. If she ever had been. So Dr. Florris did not, in fact, have a wife. And I didn’t even care. Because I was going to put my cookies in Cassidy Sullivan’s oven.
Katya sighed for so long, it sounded like air being let out of an inflatable reindeer. “Fran, you are so full of bad ideas, it’s like you are cyclone, scooping up every other human’s bad ideas and incorporating them into your very essence.”
Was I hurt? Sure. Had I ever heard truer words? No. “What bad idea am I even doing right now?”
“Getting involved with Cass again.” She stared at me until I squirmed.
