Jingle All The Way

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SANTA UNWRAPPED

Theresa Alan

CHAPTER ONE

Have you ever longed for something so much, every fiber in your being is consumed with desire and yearning? It’s as if you’ve been overtaken. Your thoughts, your mind, your body—they are no longer your own. That’s how I feel now. The world has stopped. I can think of nothing else. I have invoked the stars, the Heavens, God above, the powerful forces of nature and the universe, and with all my will from the marrow of my bones and the center of my heart I urge the clock at the bottom of my computer screen to speed ahead to five o’clock, but no, no. It mocks me. Every century or so, it will crawl to the next number, 3:01, which after many eternities will toss me a bone and change to 3:02. It’s like a slot machine in Vegas: every now and then it will surprise me with a win, just enough to keep my hopes, my dreams, my greed, alive. Oh, how those three little digital numbers at the bottom of my screen taunt me.

I try to trick the clock into thinking I don’t care what time it is. I do on-line searches for recipes as if I’m very interested in something other than my workday coming to an end at long last. But it knows the truth. It knows I’m glancing at it approximately 876,543,281 times per minute, and so the numbers get their kicks by nearly standing still. Whole mountains have been eroded by wind and water into flat prairie lands at a faster pace than my clock is moving.

It’s 3:02 on Christmas Eve eve. Naturally, neither my officemate Olivia nor I have done a shred of work today on principle. It’s wrong to be asked to work on Christmas Eve eve. That’s just a fact. Especially when I have a ton of last minute Christmas stuff to do, and I clearly have no time to pretend to be productive at my job.

Olivia and I are underwriters, which means we approve loans or deny loans. We make dreams come true or squash dreams into oblivion. Our lives are an endless scourge of paperwork. But not today. Today is goof-off day. Read the ’Net day. Take a two-hour lunch day. Spend endless hours gossiping day. Fret about hosting Christmas for the first time in my adult life day.

My entire family is coming to Colorado to visit me from Montreal, which is where I’m from. I’m looking forward to seeing them, and I thought I was ready for their visit. Then today I realized I completely forgot to buy stocking stuffers, and I’m feeling like I really should get one more gift for each of them, and while I’d plotted our Christmas dinner in intricate detail, it slipped my mind entirely that we’ll want something to eat on Christmas morning, so I have to go grocery shopping for breakfast food.

And I’m going to have to get it all done tomorrow before they get here tomorrow night because instead of being able to shop and clean this evening, I have to go to a children’s hospital and give gifts to little kids. I signed up for it a few weeks ago when I was in this deranged frame of mind where I thought that I was a good person who gave back to my community. Today I remember clearly: I am not a good person. I have no desire to go to the hospital and be nice today. What was I thinking?

The organization I signed up to do the volunteer work with is called For the Children. They do stuff for needy children all year round. Even as I signed up to give gifts away for Christmas, I knew how insignificant this one little gesture was when all year long there are children who are sick and don’t have enough food or a warm place to sleep. So the truth is, I do want to give back, I really do. Just not tonight. Tonight I want to finish getting ready for my family’s visit and then be one with my couch and my TV.

There’s just so much left for me to do before they get here. Right now I’m frantically searching recipe sites online, trying to plan a suitably exotic breakfast to dazzle my parents and younger sister with on Christmas morning. Meanwhile, Olivia has spent the last hour reading every on-line horoscope there is and subjecting me to the predictions for both herself—Aries—and myself—Pisces.

Listen to what this one says here about Pisces, Olivia says. ‘Before the New Year, you will meet a love like you’ve never known before. It will transcend all of your expectations. ’ See, I knew breaking up with Sean was the right thing to do.

That’s a big fat lie. Olivia had strongly urged me not to break things off with Sean. He was, after all, perfect marriage material. Sean and I were together for four years, three of which we lived together. We didn’t fight. He didn’t beat me. He was good with money. He was kind. And because of all those things, it had been easy to keep on dating him, even though I knew he wasn’t the guy I wanted to spend my life with. We just didn’t laugh enough together. There was never enough passion. Our relationship was close to being what I wanted but never quite right. I kept trying to talk myself into being happy with him, but eventually I just couldn’t do it anymore. My body knew it before my mind did. It shut off from him sexually months before we technically broke up. We eventually got to a place in our relationship where he’d literally beg me for sex, and I’d be like, "We just had sex two months ago, and you want it again?" As if he were the one being unreasonable. I knew in some faraway place in my mind that when you get to a point in a relationship in which you can’t stand having sex more than once every other month, things aren’t going well, but I did my best to ignore this little tidbit of truth because it seemed easier to go on being miserable than to risk the fear of the unknown. Breaking up with Sean meant I might be alone forever or that my heart might get broken again and again or that I’d go on an endless number of awkward, horrible dates and never find true love. It seemed safer to stick with a low-grade misery I was familiar with.

Also, because we lived together, there was the added bonus of a breakup leading to an ugly snarl of fiscal entanglements. For the last several months of our relationship I just quietly moved into the guest bedroom of my two-bedroom townhome and did my best to be really mean to him, hoping he’d get fed up and break up with me. Very mature, I know. But he didn’t break it off, so I had to be the villain, the heart-breaker, the reviled ender of a long-term relationship.

It took a lot of courage for me to end things with him, but I know I did the right thing because I miss the DVDs I lost in the breakup more than I miss him. I hadn’t realized it, but apparently during the three years we lived together, almost every DVD I bought, I’d bought him as a gift, because when you live with someone, every book and DVD you buy him also just happens to get added to your collection. Then you break up, and suddenly property ownership becomes a very big deal. We had about a thousand conversations that went like this: I didn’t buy that for you as a gift. I’m sure of it. Then he’d say, Yes, you did. You got it for me for Christmas. "Well, maybe you’re right, but I’m sure Being John Malkovich wasn’t a gift. Yes, it was. You got it for me for my birthday. Are you sure? Damn!" Etc. etc.

Even so, now that the holidays are here, I’m thinking about him a lot. I miss him. I can’t deny it. Right now I’m thinking about how, even though we were only pretend happy together, maybe that’s as good as I’ll ever be able to get.

Olivia continues reading the Web site’s predictions. It also says that ‘You should be open to the unexpected.’ She looks at me and says, ‘A transcendent love.’ She gets a spacey, wistful look in her eyes. It’s going to happen for you.

I roll my eyes. Olivia has a little trouble with a concept I like to call reality.

Great. I’m glad to know a love will be delivered to my door. That’s fabulous. Do you think Mom and Dad will give him to me wrapped up in a bow or will Santa be bringing him by?

I think you need an attitude change, Aimee. Good things are going to happen to you. Christmas is a magical time.

Like hell it is. It’s a giant plot to separate people from their hard-earned cash just so we can have some lame gifts to unwrap. Magical time my ass.

The truth is that I really don’t hate Christmas. I’m just a wee stressed out by getting ready for it. Even though I bought a lot of gifts on-line, I feel like I’ve gone back and forth from the mall to Target to the local post office every single day this month. And I’ve spent a lot of money I didn’t really want to spend. And my fingers are permanently cramped from all the endless wrapping. But even though the holidays are a lot of work, I’m looking forward to it because I’m excited to see Mom, Dad, and my younger sister Bridgette again—I haven’t seen them in months. I moved to the States eleven years ago to go to college, and then I got a job right after graduation, and somehow I never went back to Canada. I visit them when I can, but it’s never often enough.

I actually get along with my family. Mostly. Although I fully anticipate that my mother will pester me about having children the whole time, and we’ll have at least one fight about it, but we have this fight every time we see each other, so it’s not really a problem. I’m used to it. The thing of it is, I wouldn’t even mind her bugging me about it if she’d bug me in the right order. She never gives me a hard time about not being married. She never urges me to run out and snag myself a husband. But for the last few years, her urging me to get on with making grandbabies has bordered on relentless. I genuinely don’t think she’d care if I had the kid out of wedlock. She’s just obsessed about me getting knocked up. The thing is, Bridgette has a boyfriend, so she seems the much better candidate to harass about procreating. But because I’m the eldest, Mom has all her grandmotherly hopes set on me. She doesn’t care if I get preggers from a one-night stand, immaculate conception, or a drive-by insemination. She just wants me to generate babies. Mom acts like some mythical kingdom is going to fall if I don’t produce an heir to the throne IMMEDIATELY.

I turn my attention back to the Internet browser I have open. I’m just writing down all the ingredients for a spinach quiche when my cell phone rings.

Hello?

Hi. I’m looking for an Aimee La . . . La . . .

This is Aimee Lachaussée.

Hi. This is Vince Contreras. For the Children gave me your name and number to talk to you about tonight.

Yes?

Well, I wanted to know if you were going to be getting to the hospital early so I could get you your elf costume.

Elf costume? What are you talking about? Nobody said anything to me about an elf costume.

Yeah. You’re the elf. Me and my buddy Gerry will also be elves, and my friend Ryan will be Santa. Do you want a ride or anything? If you want, we could pick you up.

An elf costume. Merde! I will never forgive myself for getting myself into this. I will never be charitable or nice ever again.

Yeah, actually a ride would be great. The children’s hospital we are going to is in the suburbs, and as I am a city girl, I have no idea how to get there. I’d printed out Mapquest directions and had armed myself with my mapbook of Colorado, but leaving the navigation up to someone else seems a much safer plan.

What time were you thinking we should leave? I ask.

With traffic . . . I was thinking we should head out of Denver at five.

Could you pick me up from my office, then? I give him the directions and then click my phone off. I look at the clock at the bottom of my computer screen. It’s still only 3:29

P.M.

How is that possible? Five o’clock seems like a distant dream.

It takes a few millennia, but eventually five o’clock does roll around. I shut off my computer, bid Olivia a Noël joyeux, and bound down the stairs. I wait for Vince in front of my office building, and very quickly become bitterly cold. The cold isn’t so bad when the sun is out, but between the sun going down and the bracing winds, it’s freezing. Still, I stick it out because I’m worried I won’t be able to see Vince from the foyer of the office building.

I check my watch: 5:11. He’s not that late, but every minute seems like an eternity because it’s so cold out. Also, I have to wish happy holidays and Merry Christmas to my coworkers who are leaving work, and I’m just not really in the mood to be cheerful and friendly right now. I’d better get in a better mood, though. Otherwise I’ll be snarling at the sick children tonight, and that will do awful things to my karma.

I realize I stupidly didn’t ask Vince what kind of car he was driving, so every vehicle that goes past I squint at expectantly and full of hope, only to be disappointed.

I hear a strange beeping sound, and I realize it’s coming from my cell phone. It’s the sound it makes when it’s running out of juice and is going to shut itself off. I’m pretty hopeless about remembering to charge the thing. I just hope Vince either calls me very soon to tell me he can’t make it or gets his butt over here quickly.

My nose hairs weld together from the cold. Fabulous—I have icicles in my nostrils. That’s just great.

I try to rearrange my scarf babushkalike to better cover my nose, ears, and head, but then my neck is exposed, and it instantly hurts from the biting wind.

At last, a van stops in front of the building. It has the words For the Children emblazoned on the side. It hadn’t occurred to me that For the Children would have lent out a van. A man rolls down the passenger side window.

Are you Aimee? he asks.

Yep.

Hey. I’m Gerry. I’ll open the door. Hang on.

He gets out of the van and shakes my hand. He’s wearing baggy green velour pants, pointy elf shoes, and a white T-shirt. He’s got crewcut blond hair, rough skin, and pale blue eyes.

Hi. It’s nice to meet you. I’m Aimee.

When he opens the van door, I realize there’s something weird about this van, and I’m struck by the sudden knowledge that I’m getting into a vehicle of total strangers. Maybe they painted For the Children on it as part of an elaborate ruse. These three guys could be serial murderers who have outfitted their van so they can trap me inside it and then gut and flay me in a particularly brutish manner. Then I see that the only real thing that’s different about this truck is that it’s got a fold-out ramp, and that’s when I realize this van hasn’t been designed to kidnap random women; it’s a van for somebody who uses a wheelchair.

I get in, and there is a very attractive man sitting in the backseat. Before I tell you what happens next, I have to give you some more background on me. You need to know that I’m not normally a woman who gets crazed with lust over a good-looking guy. I’ve never been out just for fun, meaningless sex. It’s important to me to care for somebody and for that somebody to care for me before I get physical with a guy. I tend to be practical with my choice of boyfriends. I’m not looking to reform a bad boy who treats me like crap. Give me a sweet guy with a good job who treats me well over a jerky pretty boy any day. Because I care a lot less about dating a hunk than choosing a sweet guy, I usually go through this whole evaluation of a guy that’s not based so much on initial attraction but on things like whether he’s smart and has a good career and so on. Having said all that, you’ll understand how surprised I am when, with one look at this guy, my body is rocked by this intense carnal craving. In just moments, the wave of desire eases, and I decide to pass off the powerful surge of emotion to the fact I haven’t had sex in several months.

Then I see the wheelchair folded up against the wall beside him, and that jars me even more.

Hi, I’m Aimee, I finally manage.

I’m Ryan.

I wave up front at what must be Vince. Hi. Thanks for picking me up.

No problem. Sorry we’re late.

Gerry closes the door and gets in the front seat, and Vince takes off. I smile shyly at Ryan, feeling a little awkward.

I’d put all three guys to be about my age. Vince is Hispanic and very good-looking, with dark hair, dark eyes, and a nice smile framed by two small dimples. Vince is also wearing green pants, and I think it’s an interesting choice to have the guy in the wheelchair play Santa while the rest of us are the elves. I wonder how the kids will react.

Ryan has curly brown hair and friendly brown eyes. He looks like he was once a jock. He has large, muscular arms and a powerful chest. He’s not wearing a winter coat, just his red Santa pants and a white T-shirt. He doesn’t need a jacket because the heat is cranked up to levels you’d expect to find in the center of the sun. Within a minute or two, I’m all warmed up, and a couple minutes after that I start to sweat, so I peel my jacket, scarf, and gloves off. I catch a glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror and discover that my hairstyle can best be described by the word disastrous. I have curly hair just like my mother and sister, but unlike the two of them who always blow-dry and straighten their hair into sleek, orderly styles, I’m far too lazy to bother with much in the way of primping, and today I regret it. The scarf has completely flattened the curls on the left side of my head while causing the curls on the right side to spring all over the place in lunatic coils. Lovely.

So, Aimee, Vince says, how’d you get roped into doing this? Did your office make you so it looks like your company is full of charitable, well-meaning employees?

No, no. I volunteered by choice. I get a little delusional every now and then and think I want to be a better human being, and then I remember being a good human being takes a lot of energy, and I’m not really up for it. But here I am. How about you guys?

We’ve been doing this every year for three years, Vince says. It’s actually really fun. Well, Gerry and I have done it for three years, and Ryan has done it for two.

I was recovering in the hospital three years ago, so that wasn’t my fault, Ryan says with a smile.

Again, I feel uncomfortable, and I absolutely hate myself for feeling this way. So he’s in a wheelchair, get over it!

How do you guys know each other? I ask.

High school. We went to high school together, Vince says. We were all on the football team together. You like football?

I don’t much like watching any sports, I say. I like playing them. Volleyball, skiing, swimming, tennis, really just about anything. I was a jock in high school and college, but football has never been one of my favorites.

We talk some more, and I learn that Vince owns his own motorcycle repair shop and Gerry is in the air force. Ryan once worked as an organizational management consultant in the medical industry, but since he got out of rehab from his accident, he’s been reexamining his life and trying to figure out if he wants to go back to doing that or take his career in a new direction.

The traffic is absolutely unbearable, which I don’t understand. People should have taken the day off to fly home to be with their families. They should not be in our way, anyway. I feel strongly about this.

Is there an accident? Why aren’t we moving? Ryan asks.

I don’t know. I don’t see anything, Vince says.

When we finally get off the highway, we’re able to go a little more quickly, but we still seem to drive and drive and drive for an eternity. I don’t understand how it can take so long to get to a suburb.

Where is this place? I feel like we could have driven to the Himalayas in the same amount of time, I say.

Welcome to urban sprawl, Aimee, Vince says.

To kill time, Vince and Gerry tell very explicit off-color jokes. I can tell a racy joke every now and then, and I don’t usually get offended easily (although if something strikes me as sexist, I can go from calm to outraged in seconds flat), but because these guys are strangers, it makes me a little uncomfortable.

At long, long last, we get to the hospital, and Vince hands me a plastic bag. You can change inside.

Oh, goody.

Inside the women’s washroom, I change into the green velour top and pants that could comfortably clothe a rhinoceros. I tuck my hair back beneath the green felt cap and add a ton of red lipstick and pink blush to affect looking merry.

I join the guys in this waiting room area just outside the children’s ward. They are completely dressed in their Santa and elf attire. They are the youngest, buffest, hottest Santa and his helpers I’ve ever seen in my life.

Okay, so what is it I’m supposed to do? I ask.

Well, here’s the scoop, Vince says. The gifts are color coded. Red is for girls and green is for boys. On the bottom of the gifts, it says what the gift is and what age group it’s appropriate for.

He flips over a red box, and written faintly in pencil it says, Age 3. Doll.

We can’t guarantee that every kid will get what he or she wants, but Santa will ask, and we’ll do our best to accommodate. I was thinking we should have one elf sort of entertaining the troops while they wait and the other two elves picking out the gifts for Santa to give out. Aimee, how about you do the girls’ gifts, I’ll do the boys’ gifts, and Gerry, you can maintain order while the kids wait their turn.

Sounds good, I say. Gerry nods his agreement as well.

With our plan in place, a nurse ushers us into a large room where the kids are waiting for us, and the stressed-out, bummed-out feeling I’ve been battling all day lurches toward a full-on depression because these kids look very, very ill. Several are bald, a couple are bedridden and hooked up to machines, and all of them seem pale and weak. It is heart-wrenching and soul-diminishing at the same time.

The walls are painted in relentlessly cheerful primary colors. Kids’ artwork—crayon drawings and watercolors that range from discernable images to abstract, Rorschachian shapes—is taped to nearly every available inch of wall space. There is a Christmas tree with ornaments that were obviously crafted by the kids, and the handmade decorations, with their perfect imperfections, put a smile back on my face.

It turns out my worries about how the kids would react to a Santa in a wheelchair were unfounded. They seem thrilled by him. Some of the kids don’t mention the chair at all. Others ask how he got hurt or why he needs the chair. Each time he tells a new made-up story that makes the kids laugh, and then he turns the attention to them, asking what it is they want for Christmas. A boy who is also in a wheelchair seems especially excited to meet this particular Santa.

Do you really need a wheelchair? the boy asks.

I really do, Ryan says.

What happened?

It was when I was going down a chimney. I came down the wrong way and blammo! Wheelchair City.

The boy giggles.

But it’s not too bad being in a wheelchair, Ryan says.

Yeah it is; you can’t skateboard or anything.

But just think. Your feet never get tired when you’re going through museums or the zoo. You get special seating at the movies, and you always get a parking space.

Parking space?

You’ll care about it when you’re older, trust me. Now, what is it you want for Christmas?

An X-box.

I watch Vince do some frantic searching through his bag of gifts, and then he leans in to whisper something to Ryan. Ryan nods, and Vince hands him the gift.

Now, since you don’t have your own TV to use while you’re hanging out in the hospital, why don’t you check this out?

The boy unwraps the package, which turns out to be a Gameboy, a handheld computer game player.

All right! the boy says. Cool. Thanks.

No sweat. You have a Merry Christmas, okay?

The boy hugs Ryan, and my heart melts. It’s easy to see Ryan as a former football-playing hunk, but it takes a little suspension of disbelief to get my mind around the idea that this cute, brawny, young guy could bond so well with little kids. It’s the stuff of made-for-TV movies, cotton candy, and greeting card sentiments—sickeningly sweet, but also irresistible.

The next kid in line is an adorable blond girl with slightly chubby cheeks and ringlets of curls springing out from her head. She looks like she’s around five or six years old.

What’s your name? Ryan asks.

Madelyn.

So, Madelyn, what is it you want for Christmas?

See her? Madelyn says in a whisper. She points to one of the little girls who is asleep in a bed and attached to various scary, futuristic-looking machines. Her name is Sarah. Can you bring her a new heart? She’s been waiting a real long time. She’s real sick.

A stricken look crosses Ryan’s face, and for a moment, he’s rendered speechless.

I’ll see what I can do, okay? But what about you, what would you like for Christmas?

She shrugs. Just the heart for Sarah’s all I want.

I lean in and whisper into Ryan’s ear, Give her two stuffed animals. One for her and one for Sarah.

Good thought, he says.

I hand him two boxes marked Age: 4–8. Battery operated stuffed animal (cat).

Why don’t you take this one for Sarah and this one for yourself so you can play together?

Madelyn smiles. Yeah. ’Kay. Thanks, Santa.

I’m impressed with how comfortable Gerry, Vince, and Ryan—three tough-guy-looking types—are with the little kids. As I watch the guys with the kids, my dark mood softens, because there is no possible way anyone can feel grumpy when little kids are scampering around, squealing and laughing with delight.

I’m not sure how long we’ve been at the hospital when the nurse tells the kids that Santa has to go home because it’s getting close to their bedtime. I can’t believe how quickly the night has gone. There are many protests—plaintive choruses of Nooooo! fill the room—and I understand a little of what it’s like to be a beloved celebrity.

We leave the hospital still dressed in our outfits, and that’s when I feel the fatigue of the long day—the long month—hitting me. As Vince pulls out of the parking lot, I say, Weren’t the kids adorable?

That girl with the red hair is going to be a babe when she grows up, Vince says. She is going to be one juicy morsel.

I know technically that kids grow up and become adults with sexual feelings, but I don’t want to talk or think about it, and I really don’t want a man I barely know to talk or think about it.

She reminds me of that girl that was after me the other night at the bar, Gerry says.

She wasn’t after you. She couldn’t have been less interested in you if she tried.

Vince and Gerry start arguing loudly about whether this girl they met at a bar the other night was flirting