Santa (Maybe): A Rom Com Novella (2 page)

M
adeleine started walking away. Since neither of her hands were free, Emily clung to her coat tail. They got outside the picket fence before Madeleine noticed Ami wasn’t with them.

Ami
was talking to Santa. She handed him something small and white.

“What were you doing back there?” Madeleine demanded as soon as
Ami rejoined them.

“Just giving Santa my card,”
Ami said.

“Santa was coming on to you, too?”

“No, he was not!” Ami insisted. “Why, did he come on to you?” Ami was wearing her I’m-deliberately-playing-dumb-just-to-get-on-your-nerves face. She’d been playing that trick ever since they were kids.

Madeleine
ignored the question, but she refused to let the matter drop. “Why were you giving him your card?”

“I need a Santa for the Christmas party tomorrow night.”

Every year, the week before Christmas, the homeless shelter where Ami was director threw a party for the residents. Most of the women had kids, and any Christmas party for kids requires a visit from Santa.

“Cover your ears, Em
,” Madeleine instructed. Then she turned to Ami.

“Isn’t Wesley playing Santa again this year?”

Wesley was Ami’s assistant/handyman/cook.

“Wesley is on permanent furlough.”

“You mean you fired him?”

“Yes. He was selling drugs to the residents.
Well, not so much selling as trading—I had no choice.“

“Don’t you have
any male friends who can play Santa?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. I just made
a new one who was delighted at the prospect of playing Santa. He was even more delighted when I told him he could count on having a beautiful elf to assist him.”

“You didn’t!”

“I did! And don’t try to weasel out of Elf Duty. You know I’m already operating short-handed without Wesley.”

“I’m just not comfortable with that Santa.” Madeleine hesitated. She
confirmed that Emily still had her hands over her ears. Emily also had her eyes screwed shut for good measure. That little girl never did anything by halves. Madeleine continued. “He was practically kissing my neck.”

“I wondered what exactly was getting you so hot and bothered.”

“I was not getting ‘hot and bothered!’”

“Personally, I find it a refreshing change that you
found a man capable of making you blush. You find something wrong with every man you go out with.”

“I do not!” Actually,
Ami’s accusation was uncomfortably close to the truth, but Madeleine wasn’t about to admit that her younger sister was right. “And I was not blushing.”

Ami
just arched on eyebrow.

“Besides, how attracted c
an I be to a man I’ve only seen in a Santa costume?”

“Pretty darn attracted, judging by the look on your face. I thought you were going to spontaneously combust up there.”

“I was not!” Madeleine lied again.

“Alright! Alright!”
Ami said. “Maybe I misread the whole situation or maybe you have an-until-now-undiscovered Santa fetish, but I’m not throwing away a perfectly good Santa and I’m still counting on you to play elf tomorrow evening.”

M
ark
stood with his hand on the door to the Hospitality House Women’s and Children’s Transitional Shelter. He shouldn’t have waited until he was down-town—Santa suit in hand—to indulge in second thoughts.
It wasn’t wise, getting himself involved with a woman he’d been crazy head-over-heels in love with. He’d made a fool of himself already. There was no reason to make an even bigger fool of himself.

Or maybe there was. He couldn’t go on for the rest of his life comparing every woman he met to Madeleine. He’d built her up in his mind to the point that no other woman could complete
. He needed to see her again, just to burst the bubble of his fantasy. Besides, there was little danger of anything actually happening between them.

It had been hard to tell, the night before, as she sat on his lap, whether her reaction to him had been simple embarrassment or something
else. He hoped he hadn’t come across as a total jerk. He knew what sexual harassment felt like.

When it came to unwanted attention, he was usually the one on the receiving end. That was how he c
ame to be unemployed. He’d turned down the wrong woman. The last thing Mark wanted to do was subject Madeleine to unwelcome advances.

Well, he was about to find out if Madeleine would recognize him out of costume. He doubted it. There was barely any resemblance between his appearance now and the scrawny kid he’d been at 1
9. He’d been a late-bloomer. Very late.

T
here was also the problem of Ami. He’d spent time with Ami only 3 years earlier. He and Joe and Ami had taken a trip down the Oregon coast right before Joe moved to Hong Kong. Ami was sure to recognize him out of costume.

Mark took a deep breath and opened the door
.

“
Matchstick!” Ami looked back and forth between Mark’s face and the Santa suit. “You’re Sexy Santa! I should have recognized your voice.”

“Well, I’m Santa anyway. The sexy part is open to interpretation.”

Ami launched herself at Mark and gave him a big hug. “Madeleine’s going to freak out when she finds out she was getting all ‘hot and bothered’ over little Matchstick Jameson!

Mark was enormously pleased
with this assessment of Madeleine’s reaction to him, but he tried to play it cool.

“Don’t tell her,” he said. “I want to see if she recognizes me.”

“I seriously doubt she will. You look nothing like a matchstick anymore,” Ami said. “You’re so—“

Ami playfully squeezed one of Mark’s biceps. “I personally go for highly-tattooed skinny commitment-phobic musicians with ridiculous amounts of facial hair, but I can certainly see what women might see in you.”

Mark wasn’t sure how much of a compliment that was
, but he said thanks anyway.

“Hurry and get your costume on!”
Ami pushed him down the hall toward her tiny office. “Don’t let Madeleine see you yet. It’ll be much more fun this way. The lock on the office door is broken, but don’t worry. No one will walk in on you.”
 

Madeleine
was late arriving at the party. Chad was supposed to have picked up Emily at six, but he hadn’t shown up until seven. She’d also had trouble getting into her elf costume. It seemed to have shrunk since last year, or maybe it was all that stress-eating she’d been doing. No, the costume had definitely shrunk.

S
till, once she’d managed to pour herself into the tights, she’d been relieved to see that she still made a cute elf. She’d done up her eyes with heavy liner and green shadow and used extra blusher to make the apples of her cheeks pink. It was a lame attempt to cover up any real blushing she might be doing later on, but it was worth a shot.

The party was already in full swing when she walked in the door. Mothers and children were working on decorat
ions. Some were sitting at tables making paper chains and eating cookies. Others were overloading the tree with tinsel. A couple of the more forward mothers had backed Santa into a corner and appeared to be trying to flirt him out of his crushed velvet trousers.

Ami
came up looking harried and gave Madeleine a quick hug. She shoved a cookie into Madeleine’s hand.

“FYI!”
Ami whispered in her sister’s ear. “I saw Santa without his St. Nick gear and he’s spectacular. I’d jump on that, if I were you.”

Before Madeleine could comment on this revelation,
Ami scurried off. Madeleine took a bite of cookie—just what she needed to insure that next Christmas she really wouldn’t be able to get into those elf tights.

“Ho,
Ho, Ho!” boomed Santa from his corner. “Look, everybody! My helper elf has arrived. She’s brought your presents in from my sleigh!”

The presents
! She’d forgotten to retrieve the bag of presents from the back storeroom. Madeleine thought fast.

“Actually, Santa, it turns out the bag was so full of presents that it was too heavy for one elf to carry. Maybe Santa would like to help me bring it in. What do you think kids? Do you think Santa should help me bring the presents in?”

“Yes!” Screamed the kids. The room vibrated with the energy of two dozen children hopped up on fruit punch and way too many cookies.

“I don’t remember where I parked my sleigh
,“ said Santa. “Miss Elf will have to show me.”

Madeleine grabbed Santa by the arm. It was an impressive arm, even swathed in the cushiony costume.

“This way!” she hissed.

Madeleine was
hoping Santa wouldn’t smell as good as she remembered, but he did. She also wished Santa’s eyes didn’t have quite such a roughish twinkle, as if he could read her thoughts. Madeline dragged Santa to the storeroom and pointed to the bag. It didn’t look very heavy.

“
This is the heavy load you needed help with?” Santa enquired.

“
I was buying time. I forgot to bring in the presents,” Madeleine said.

“Really?”

“Yes. Really.”

Santa was standing very close to her now.
So close that she could see green flecks in his blue eyes.

“Are you sure?”

Santa reached out and brushed a cookie crumb off the corner of her mouth.

Madeleine swallowed. He was going to kiss her and she was going to let him.

“Ahem!” Ami interrupted from the door of the storeroom. “You’d better get back out here. A few of the munchkins are discussing forming a search party—when they find you they plan to tie you up with  extension cords, abscond with the gifts and divide the loot. They figure they can take Santa, but they think Miss Elf is a Tough Cookie. Tough Cookie is an exact quote, by the way.”

Madeleine wasn’t sure if
Ami was joking, but she was grateful for the interruption. What was she thinking? She’d been about to kiss a man she’d only met last night. She didn’t know his name. She’d never even seen his face.

“By the way, Madeleine
—“ said Ami as she shooed them out into the hall, “—this is Mark. Mark, this is Madeleine. I don’t believe you’ve been introduced.”

Ami
stuck out her hand and Mark took it. Instead of shaking it and giving it back, he raised her hand to his mouth, turned it palm in and brushed it with his lips.

Madeleine
could feel herself blushing again. She looked over at Ami. Ami was smirking. Madeleine yanked her hand back.

“Anyway
—“ Ami said, “—we’re all going out for a drink afterwards. It’s on me, to thank you for helping. And I have a check for you, Mark.”

“Oh,
that’s Ok. I wasn’t expecting to get paid,” Mark insisted. “I was able to trade shifts.”

Madeleine was curious.
What did this man do besides play Santa? Being a Santa impersonator was hardly a full-time job?

“Come on!”
Ami said and hurried them down the hall to the waiting crowd of kids.
 

Mark
stood in Ami’s tiny office. Distributing gifts to the kids had been fun. He understood why Ami had devoted her life to this kind of work, although he imagined there were a lot of dark moments, too. It wasn’t all parties and presents.

Mark
kicked off his boots and unbuckled his giant black belt and shrugged out of his coat. He pulled his fake-belly vest over his head.

It felt good to get out of his Santa suit. It was starting to feel like he lived in the thing. He wasn’t about to miss going out for a drink
with Madeleine and Ami, but he hadn’t brought along his spirit gum solvent, so he’d have to go with his Santa beard still glued to his face. It was just as well. He didn’t mind putting off the moment when he’d have to reveal his face to Madeleine. He found the Santa costume gave him courage he didn’t know he had.

He stepped out of his Santa pants.

There was a rattling at the door. The handle turned and it opened. Madeleine, still in her elf costume, stood framed in the doorway. For a moment she stood stone-still, mesmerized by the sight of Mark standing in the middle of the tiny office in nothing but socks and a pair of red boxers with “Ho, Ho, Ho” printed all over them. Madeleine held a duffle bag in one hand. She had obviously come to the office to change out of her elf costume.

Mark br
oke the silence. He pointed at his boxers.

“Gag gift. I only wear
‘em when I’m Santa. Helps me get in character.”

Madeleine didn’t say anyth
ing. She was going to come in and close the door, she just didn’t know yet.

“
Could you close the door, please?” Mark asked.

“Sure, I mean sorry.
Ami told me to come change in here. I—“

Of course
Ami had. Mark couldn’t have asked for a more hardworking cupid than Ami.

Madeleine started to back out of the room.

“That’s not what I meant.” Mark moved toward her.

Madeleine paused again. Now she
was taking in his bare chest and abs. All those hours at the gym suddenly seemed totally worth it. Mark grabbed Madeleine by the wrist and gently tugged her into the room. He reached out with his foot and nudged the door closed.  He wasn’t going to kiss her, but he’d make damn sure she realized she wanted him to.
 

Madeleine
was feeling dizzy again. This time it was no use blaming it on the flu going around. She had to face facts. Santa/Mark was having a very curious effect on her.

Mark
stepped toward her. Madeleine moved away until her back came into contact with the closed door and there was no space for further retreat. Mark stopped short of making full body contact, but Madeleine was acutely aware that inches away was a nearly-naked body of a man who was capable of making her go weak in the knees, even fully swathed in a ridiculous Santa costume. Now that there wasn’t even a ridiculous costume between them, she had to remind herself to breath.

Mark reached up and put a hand on either side of her face. He cradled her head
. Madeleine let herself relax against the closed door, but she pressed her palms flat against the door. She wanted to run her hands up and down Mark’s naked chest, but she wasn’t ready for what might happen after that.

Madeleine closed her eyes and soaked in the feeling of Mark’s thumbs caressing her cheeks. She felt surrounded by a cloud of love. Her eyes snapped open. This was a ridiculous. This man didn’t love her. Far from it. Only a complete player would
act like this with a woman he hadn’t even taken out for a cup of coffee.

Mark sense
d her shift in mood. He leaned down, brushed his lips across her forehead and removed his hands from her head. He moved away and started to put on his jeans.

The room seemed
suddenly cold. Madeleine didn’t know whether to leave or to stay. Mark buttoned up his shirt and pulled on his sweater. He gathered up his Santa costume in one hand and picked up his boots with the other.

“See you out there,” he said and left her.

Madeleine sat down in the middle of the floor. She felt like crying for the second time in as many days. What was it about this man that made her so acutely aware of what was missing in her life? Love. Love was missing. But the kind of man who came on this strong to strange women was not a good bet for finding the kind of lasting love Madeleine was looking for.

If it weren’t for Emily, she’d be tempted to have a fling
, but a fling was out of the question. Madeleine had a rule. She never went out for more than three dates with any man who wasn’t husband-material and she never ever brought men home to meet Emily. As it had turned out, since her divorce she hadn’t met a single man who was husband-material. At least not one who was both husband-material and shaggable.

Oh, well. She’d go have a drink with
Mark and Ami. That might be the last she’d see of him. Just one drink. Or maybe two. She was sure she’d lost her chance with Mark. He’d given her an obvious opening to jump his bones and she hadn’t taken it. Men like him were quick to move on.