A Gigolo for Christmas (2 page)

“Here, let me.” She hadn’t
realized anyone was in the kitchen area with her, and jumped, sloshing Kool-Aid
onto her velvet jump-suit. Fortunately, the suit was dark enough that the
cherry Kool-Aid would probably not show, even if it stained it.

“Sorry, Sheila, I didn’t mean to
startle you.” Anders deftly took the bowl from her hands and using his extra
four inches of height, lifted it effortlessly into place.

“It’s all right. And thank you.
For helping me, I mean.” Why did she feel like such an incompetent idiot
tonight?

One of the deli trays was empty;
one of the more expensive ones with the meat and crackers, of course, and Sheila
removed it from the wall, sliding the tray into the trash can she kept tucked
beneath the counter. She replaced cups, plates, and napkins from piles she had
sitting on the counter, ready to be used, then turned toward the refrigerator
to get out a fresh deli tray.

Anders was still standing there,
watching her. Why, when he had someone as lovely and socially perfect as Miss
Jacobson to squire around? Probably he’d never seen someone actually work at
their own party. Probably he’d never been to a home-made party before, the poor
schmuck.

At any rate, he was blocking her
access to the refrigerator.

“Excuse me,” she said as she
moved toward him. He backed out of her way, then watched as she removed and
disposed of the lid and placed the tray of meats and crackers on the wall.

“Elaine said you made the
decorations?” Elaine? Who was Elaine? Oh, he must mean Miss Jacobson. Somehow
it had never occurred to her that her office manager actually had a first name,
for she never encouraged informality in the workplace.

“Yes, I did.” She couldn’t help
the defensive note that crept into her voice.

“I wanted to tell you that I
think they’re lovely.”

She glanced up at Anders,
astonished.

“You...you like them?”

“Oh, yes. They remind me of my
growing up years when my brothers and I would start making decorations in
September. We spent forever making Halloween decorations for every window and
wall in the house, then we would tear them all down on November first to start
work on the Thanksgiving turkeys and pilgrims. We’d start making the Christmas
ones on Thanksgiving morning, but Mom wouldn’t let us take down the
Thanksgiving ones until Friday.”

“I’ve always made
some
decorations, but last January I lost...” her voice choked to a halt. She tried
to clear it, but her suddenly dry throat refused her speech.

“Have you had any punch yet?”
Anders asked.

Sheila shook her head, still too
close to tears to speak.

He reached past her and poured a
cup of punch, then handed it to her.

“No wonder your throat is so dry,
then.”

Sheila sipped at the drink,
enjoying the small tingly fizz as the heavily sugared water slid down and
soothed her throat.

“There was an...accident in
January, and I lost...everything...in a fire.”

“It must be hard to work your way
back from a disaster like that,” Anders sympathized. “I can understand how replacing
an expensive tree and new decor would be the last thing on your mind.”

Sheila nodded. In truth, between
grieving the loss of her parents, and at the same time sharply feeling the loss
of their financial support, she hadn’t felt much like acquiring anything, even
as her slender savings account had grown. Her apartment was comfortable enough
as it was, for the simple way she preferred to live.

“In fact, I was admiring how even
your fringe is on the Christmas tree, and wondering how you got it to curl so
nicely and uniformly,” Anders continued, his statement clearly an invitation to
tell him her secrets.

Sheila giggled. “They’re paper
towel and toilet paper rolls. I cut them in thirds, which gave me the curve,
then cut the fringes and spray-painted them green. I added a little glitter and
glued them together into the long strips and pinned them to the wall.”

“Well, I think it’s very
effective. The pine cones and holly berries were added after the tree was on the
wall?”

Sheila nodded. “Otherwise I
couldn’t be sure of the placement.”

“How did you make the pine
cones?”

Jenny, the young woman wearing
the Greek dress, stepped backward from her escort. "How dare you say that
about me?” she shrieked.

The man stepped toward her,
trying to calm her down. She backed away, and bumped into the full punch bowl.
Sheila reached out to steady the bowl. Her hand collided with Anders’, who was
also reaching to steady it, and together they managed to accidentally push it
off the opposite side of the half-wall.

The contents of the bowl
liberally splashed Jenny’s white dress, staining it bright red and plastering
the thin fabric to her body.

Jenny screamed. Sheila grabbed a
towel from the linen closet on her way around the wall. Even though the red
Kool-Aid would ruin the dress, at least she could help her get dried off.

Jenny wasn’t too interested in
drying herself off; she was too busy hurling insults at Sheila at the top of
her lungs, most of which called into question her taste in apartments, in
decorating, and her shortsightedness in not renting a large enough arena and
having the affair catered by professionals, as well as questioning her ancestry
and species. Apparently Jenny felt that Sheila had many canine qualities.

Not content with vocal epithets,
Jenny reached out and grabbed a handful of Sheila’s hair. Jenny’s date grabbed
her arms, trying to settle her down and prevent damage. Sheila squeezed Jenny’s
wrist, pressing her fingers between the forearm bones where she knew she could
mash the nerves against the bones and cause Jenny a great deal of pain without
actually causing any more damage than a couple of bruises. Hopefully the pain
would make Jenny release Sheila’s hair. The ploy worked, much to Sheila’s
satisfaction.

Jenny continued to screech,
scraping her fingernails sharply down Sheila’s face and cutting four deep
parallel gouges across her cheek. Jenny’s date attempted to corral her and
contain the damage. The scratches began bleeding profusely, as face wounds
usually do, and Sheila felt the blood dripping onto her shoulder and soaking
through the velvet.

As she struggled with her date, Jenny’s
gown slid sideways, showing a good deal more of her body than should be seen in
public. It was painfully obvious that she had chosen to wear the slender gown
without the benefit of underclothing of any sort, but she didn’t seem concerned
by her exposure. Her entire concentration was on Sheila, and exacting
retribution for her ruined dress.

As the guests tried to avoid the
melee, someone bumped into the television and toppled it from its perch atop
the medical books. It landed face down on the floor accompanied by the sound of
broken glass.

The other guests at the party
ceased their conversations to observe Jenny’s performance with a great deal
more interest than they had shown in anything else this evening.

“What is going on here?” The
thundering voice stilled Jenny’s rant, and everyone in the room turned toward
the source of the voice. Sheila’s eyes widened as she recognized Mr. Kooper,
the complex manager, standing in front of four of the widest, blue-uniformed
chests she had ever seen.

Sheila felt the dampness from her
bleeding cheek soak through the velvet on her shoulder. Staring daggers of
malice at Sheila, Jenny furiously tugged her dress back into a semblance of
order. The silence was broken as Jimmy Thomas scooted between the police
officers’ legs and darted over to his mother, saying, "Mama, come see! Santa
Claus is peeing off the edge of the balcony, and it makes a big splash on the
sidewalk!"

One of the policemen moved out of
Sheila's line of sight, presumably to deal with the urinating Santa. A second
officer moved past Mr. Kooper and asked, "Who lives here?"

Sheila raised a shaking hand.
"This is my apartment, Officer."

The officer eyed her cheek, then
muttered into the radio handset that hung at his shoulder.

“How did you get injured?”

Sheila indicated Jenny. “The
punch bowl fell, and she got splashed, and she got mad at me and started
screaming, and when he,” Jenny pointed out Jenny’s date, whose name she hadn’t
heard, “tried to calm her down, she got really...physical, and I ended up with
this.” She waved her hand in the direction of her cheek. “Could I get a damp
towel, please?”

The officer nodded. “So the red
stuff on her gown and the floor is punch?”

“Yes.” Sheila grabbed a hand
towel out of the linen closet and wet it with cold water from the sink, holding
it to her aching face.

“Did you hurt her?”

“No.”

“Yes, she did,” Jenny insisted. “She
squeezed my wrist. I thought she was going to break it!”

“Chill out, Jenny,” her date
advised. “She didn’t even break the skin. And she didn’t touch you at all until
after you grabbed her hair.”

“I’ll want statements from
everyone here on the physical altercation between the two women,” the officer
said loudly enough for everyone to hear. The officers still standing at the
door nodded. The officer in charge returned his attention to Sheila.

"So you live here, and all
of these people are your guests?"

Sheila swallowed nervously.
"Yes, sir. It's an office Christmas party."

"And Santa Claus out there
is part of your party, I take it?"

"I…I think he must be, but I
didn't arrange for him to come." Sheila looked around frantically.
"Miss Jacobson? Is Santa supposed to be here?"

Miss Jacobson’s sneering voice
came from somewhere near the Christmas tree. "Well, who else do you think
hands out presents at Christmas, especially when there is a young child at the
party?"

The officer who had taken charge
looked around the room. "Your landlord, Mr. Kooper, informs me that this
party has violated your apartment complex’s curfew, and that several of the
neighbors have complained about the noise. He says he tried to call you, and
that you refused to answer the phone, so he called us instead." He checked
his watch. "It is also past legal curfew for the city. Therefore, this
party is over. I would like each of the guests to gather their personal
belongings, leave their name and address with one of the officers at the door,
and leave quietly please."

"Hey! What about our
Christmas presents?" Jimmy demanded. "We’re all supposed to get
Christmas presents!"

"Everyone may leave with their
present. Pass them out quickly."

The guests stood unmoving; the
shock at having a party
they
were attending being raided by the police
was identical on each face. Anders moved quickly to the corner by the paper Christmas
tree, picked up a present, checked the tag, and read the name out. The owner
shook off his emotional lethargy and moved forward to accept the gift. He then
headed for the bedroom.

"Where you going, Sir?"
The head policemen asked.

The man whirled to face the
officer. "I'm just going into the bedroom to get my wife's wrap,” he said.

The officer nodded and motioned
to one of his officers. "Officer Morgan will oversee the retrieval of
outerwear from the bedroom."

Sheila closed her eyes in agony
as the officer accompanied her coworker into her bedroom. The gentleman emerged
a moment later with a fur that he placed around his wife's shoulders. They
spoke briefly to the police officer at the door, and left. The other guests
silently took turns filing into the bedroom to retrieve wraps, and collecting
their gifts, while they gave statements and information to the police.

Miss Jacobson appeared silently
at Sheila’s side, and hissed into her ear. “Come into the office tomorrow and
clean out your desk.”

Sheila turned to her in
amazement. The woman was wearing her ermine wrap, and clutching a large shiny
red foil-wrapped box. “Did I hear you right? You’re firing me?”

“Yes, of course. What did you
expect after a fiasco like this?”

“On what grounds? You can’t fire
me for not throwing a good party, especially when I tried to explain to you
that my home wasn’t big enough for entertaining, and you refused to listen.”

“Watch me.”

She swept to the door, pushed
herself to the front of the line, then gave her name and statement to the police,
and left.

By the time Anders had finished
passing out the gifts, paramedics had arrived to treat Sheila’s wounded face. The
guests, busy retrieving their outerwear and leaving their information with the
officers at the door, ignored her entirely.

Sheila allowed the paramedics to
bandage her face, but refused go to the hospital. She did promise them that if
the bleeding continued, she would go to urgent care. She wasn’t in mortal
danger, and knew it, but she didn’t feel as though she could leave until the
situation had reached its final resolution for the evening.