Hullabaloo and Holly Too ( A Cozy Cash Mystery Christmas Novella) (The Cozy Cash Mysteries) (2 page)

“Yeah, I know. But you don’t know how many times I’ve wished they made a little blue pill for this,” I said, for comic value only.

That wasn’t even close to my true feelings about my parent’s illness.

I was just trying to do like I always do and sweep my fears and insane-upbringing under the rug with inappropriate wisecracks.

I would never want my parents to be all doped up. They were the most loveably insane people I knew. In fact, everyone who knew them loved them.

“Seriously, you’re right, Roman. There is a ton of research out there advising loved ones not to attempt to argue away a delusion,” I said, knowing how tenaciously my parents held to their North Pole fantasy in the face of reality.

“I know about the research. And it’s fascinating at that,” Roman said, taking from his pants pocket a small folded-up piece of paper.

“Did you know there’s an actual empathy model teaching us how to respond therapeutically to their delusions?” He asked.

My prince looked so proud of himself, I didn’t have the heart to talk him down from his comfy, on the couch, pay by the hour approach to meeting my parent’s mental issues.

“I’m not sure those kinds of therapy work for my parents, but you’re more than welcome to give ‘em a whirl.”

“I think I might. Oh, and one more thing,” he said, tilting-up my chin so that my mouth was deliciously close to his, “don’t you worry. I have a feeling I’m going to really enjoy getting to know your family.”

Our pilot came over the cabin’s speaker system and advised us to buckle-up and prepare for landing.

“We’ll see,” I said, handing Vinnie to Roman.

“I hope Vinnie likes reindeer,” Roman said, while shoving him into his carrier.

What’s not to love, I thought to myself, knowing this was gonna be a holiday none of us would ever forget…including Vinnie.

Standing beside Roman in the doorway of our private jet, I watched as the royal-crested, red-and-gold-carpeted stairway unfolded onto the tarmac. Vinnie watched too, cradled in Roman’s arms and wearing his own little wool coat.

I breathed in the fresh, ice-cold, lake air.

Nothing beats the crisp chill of winter around Lake Michigan.

Truth be told…I always looked forward to coming home for the holidays. During the Christmas season, it truly is rather magical here.

But for years now, I hadn’t dared to bring anyone new into my nutty family mix. I just didn’t have the energy to explain my zany childhood.

This time, though, I didn’t really have a choice, did I?

Now that my PI Gig had landed me permanently in Thug Guard and Pretend Princess Land, I couldn’t very well hide this part of my life from Roman.

He deserved to know everything about his fake wife. So here we go…

Snow swirled through the air, brushing against our cheeks, which must be bright cherry red by now.

Stepping out into the lakeshore’s winter fury, it wouldn’t take us long to get frostbitten.

Large, white, crystaline flakes tumbled from the sky onto Roman’s dark hair then toppled over onto the shoulders of his gorgeous Alpaca wool mohair overcoat.

When I heard the jingling of Dad’s sleigh bells getting closer and closer, the snow globe magic of the moment was lost.

Here we go, I thought.

Ho-freakin’-ho.

When Santa’s sleigh glided to a stop in front of us, Roman handed off Vinnie to me and dashed down the jet’s stairway to wrap my St. Nick Dad in a tight hug. He followed this up with very Italian kiss-kiss sweeps across both my dad’s ruby red cheeks.

“God, I love Europeans,” my dad said, giving Roman a nice jolly-ho Italian kiss-kiss in return. “I’ll have to have Mrs. C break into our stash of limoncello. I always grab a couple cases during my Christmas Eve fly-ins.”

While Dad temporarily abandoned his limoncello dreams to scold Vixen for nipping at his ass, Roman looked to me for help.

“You’d best be checkin’ your empathy model a bunch more than twice, my luv,” I whispered in his ear.

As if he’d forgotten he had that saving grace, he whipped the list of recommended responses out of his coat pocket while I kept dad busy fussing over me being home for the holidays.

Okay. Who was I kidding? Dad was making a bigger fuss over Vinnie than me, or at least just as much.

“Gosh I’ve missed you, Zoey Bean,” my dad said, hugging me so tight to his huge white beard, I was concerned either Vinnie or I could very well suffocate.

“I’ve missed you too, Dad.”

And I had missed him.

For all my parents’ craziness, I still love ‘em so very much.

They, for sure, have a unique take on the world, but a take full of nothing but love for all mankind and all the world’s creatures too. That’s something I didn’t see much of in my fashion world.

Despite the thugs in my new Princess Diaries lifestyle, being a Duchess did indeed allow me to spread the love my parents raised me on. I was enjoying the philanthropic duties of my new title. With every little bit of goodness I paid forward, I always thought of my mom and dad.

“You say you do Christmas Eve fly-ins,” Roman said, evidently checking-off one of the approaches on his empathy model.

“That I do. And oh, they’re such marvelous fun. You should join me this year, my son. I’d love the company.”

Roman again looked to me, and I again motioned for him to just carry on with his behavior model methodology. The sooner he learned that thing was a huge farce, the better off we all would be.

“I can’t see that and the tests don’t show any worms in your head,” Roman said.

I damn near choked on the warm cocoa my dad always kept in a thermos in our sleigh.

“What?” My dad asked. “I’m sorry, son, I can’t hear ya very well with all these damn bells jingling.”

By this time I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe, which delightfully made my prince’s cheeks turn an even brighter shade of crimson.

Roman’s empathy model was based on subjects with a delusional disorder who thought worms were eating their brain. Not a particularly helpful model for dealing with the St. Nick Schizoid variety of this disorder.

“Roman said he’d love to see that. As in, he’d love to ride with you this Christmas Eve,” I said, deciding I’d answer for my prince just this once, before I peed my pants and choked to death on hot cocoa at the same time.

“I imagine I might feel overjoyed to share the adventure with you, Sir,” Roman said, beginning to recover, but still relying way too much on his behavioral model’s suggested wording.

“No need to be so formal, son,” my dad said, patting Roman on the back with one hand while he took hold of the sleigh’s reins with the other. “Call me Santa. Or Nick. Or Dad. Why yes, of course…just call me Dad.”

With that invitation, he lightly snapped the reins against Donner and Comet’s rumps.

Oh boy, I thought. That wasn’t gonna sit well with these super-spoiled and ornery reindeer.

Donner turned around and looked at my dad as if to say ‘you must be nuts, old man, we don’t answer to that trick anymore’.

“These guys can be a bit stubborn,” my dad said, his round, cherry-red cheeks glowing just about as bright as Rudolph’s nose.

And yes, The Witherspoons’ lead reindeer, aptly named Rudolph, also sports a glowing red nose.

You see, my father doesn’t just think he’s St. Nick, he’s also a toymaker and inventor, plus he has a few rather spectacular side gigs as well.

So yep, you guessed it. He designed and made a glowing red nose for our Rudolph. And it’s not just your basic, glowing red reindeer nose.

Dad also outfitted our Rudolph’s nose with some sort of specialized GPS device. Our Rudy had grown old and developed Alzheimer’s. So my dad added this rather sophisticated GPS system to help Rudy make it around the globe on Christmas Eve. Otherwise, Dad and his sleigh-pulling entourage sometimes got lost between Bali and Belfast.

After five minutes of no onward and upward progress, Dad got off of his captain’s bench to have a little heart-to-heart with Donner and Comet, who were always the cause of our reindeer stand-offs.

My guess was that it probably had something to do with Vinnie. I doubt they appreciated that my pot-bellied pig was now riding high and mighty in their sleigh’s co-captain’s spot.

Whatever Dad said to Donner must have really pissed him off ‘cause the next thing I knew, the jerk had bucked his head, snatched the empathy model right out of Roman’s fingers, and was chomping on it as if it were an organic carrot, his favorite snack.

“I hope that paper wasn’t too important,” Dad said, holding his belly full of jelly as he laughed for a jolly bit.

Dad then got back into the sleigh with us, took the reins, and without the slightest grunt or stomp, Rudolph and Company led us home.

On our ride, we weren’t just accompanied by sleigh bells, we were also being serenaded by Vinnie’s wild ouffs. He was making all kinds of racket while shaking his head back-and-forth, full of melodrama. Obviously, he wasn’t all that impressed with the family reindeers’ bad attitudes.

And no, we weren’t flying today. Dad and his reindeer had started saving that just for Christmas Eve. It was their way of “being green” by helping to save the ozone layer.

How did that work?

Well…let’s just say those reindeer eat a ton of cabbage to gear-up for their Christmas Eve flight. So their, ahem, emissions tend to be quite high.

I settled back into the comfy confines of our sleigh with Roman and placed a beautiful blanket my mom had made over our laps.

I love sleigh rides.

We began to follow the lakefront and would continue along its curving shoreline all the way to my parent’s house. With the snow falling at a good clip, it was nothing less than a magical journey.

Roman was no longer upset over Donner making a snack of his empathy model, and life just felt right.

I don’t know how else to explain it.

“I’m over the moon that you two are finally here, and with your terrific PI skills, I’m hoping you can help me out,” Dad hollered over his shoulder from his sleigh captain’s seat.

“Sure thing, um, Dad. What can we help you with?” Roman asked, again looking at me as if I could help save the day.

“I swear I’m being phone-hacked.”

“What?! By who?!” I asked, glad to pitch-in on Dad’s latest crazy-trip theory.

“Father Time, that’s who. The bastard has a beef with me and my Naughty List, and now I think he’s got me phone-hacked too.”

And just like that, my belief in life feeling oh-so-right took a reindeer-sized cabbage crap on me and my prince.

The sleigh’s runners glided along the long lane then cut through the snow-covered forest leading to the dunes that eventually gave way to our main house.

I couldn’t help but be taken in by the Winter Wonderland feel of my childhood home.

There is the North Pole of storybook fame. And then there is the North Pole ala Witherspoon.

Dad led the team around the half-circle drive that bordered the front door of our giant gingerbread house.

I still couldn’t believe how much my parents had paid a local mural artist to paint all the cedar shingles on our home to look like pieces of icing-topped gingerbread.

And the hundreds of thousands of multi-colored Christmas lights strung over the house’s eves and gutters really did look like the gazillion gumdrops on the most decorative of made-to-be-eaten gingerbread houses.

Two giant evergreens, their boughs so weighed down with lake effect snow that the poor things looked as if they were about to snap, were decorated to the max and stayed that way, along with everything else on our property, the whole year round.

“Wow,” Roman said, getting out of the sleigh and holding his chivalrous hand out for mine to help me exit the Witherspoon’s version of a family van, “this truly is magnificent.”

“You haven’t seen anything yet,” I said, hardly able to stand it till he saw the inside of our home, which would be very soon if my mother had her way.

I hardly had Vinnie out of the sleigh, secured to his leash, and doing his business, before my mother was all over us.

She wiped her flour-powdered hands on one of her gorgeous hand-sewn aprons. If my mom wasn’t baking, she was sewing. And if neither of those were on her agenda, she was covered in glitter from head-to-toe, making the next batch of Christmas ornaments she carefully attached to every package my dad delivered each Christmas Eve.

“Oh, Roman, it’s such a thrill to finally meet you. We’ve heard so much about you. But to finally see you in the flesh just gets me all teary-eyed,” my mom said, crushing Roman into her bountiful bosom.