Sexy Santa (2 page)

Pam shook her head emphatically.

“Did you have a good evening?” Ed inquired.

“Good but short. I was tired! You wouldn’t think a job where you sit all day would be that tiring. I guess it’s all the emotional energy we invest into it. And it
is
a long day. How about you?”

“I hit the pillow by ten,” Ed admitted.

I’ll bet Misty was disappointed,
Pam thought wryly, remembering the woman who had come to pick Ed up after his shift was over.
And I’ll bet if it was me, I’d have found a way to keep you awake.
Suddenly her mind was playing mental movies of herself in bed with Ed, licking
her way down his strong, muscular chest from his neck to his
pecs to his bellybutton to his….
Stop it!
She derailed that thought train off its track quickly and felt a bit of a blush spread across her face as if she feared Ed could somehow divine her thoughts.

“Too bad we don’t get to go to lunch at the same time,” Ed said, putting a hand on her shoulder.

“I’d like that!” she answered—perhaps
a bit too eagerly, she thought
in retrospect.

“I have to admit it’s a good plan, staggering our breaks and always having at least one of us on duty, but I sure would enjoy the pleasure of your company over lunch.”

“You old flirt,” Pam said, elbowing him in the ribs.

“It isn’t flirting when it’s sincere,” Ed replied with
a straight face
.

What would Misty think if she heard you?
Pam wondered, but she didn’t voice the question aloud.

Her biggest challenge that morning, though, proved not to be keeping her impure thoughts at bay but rather facing a girl who proclaimed herself “eight and too old to believe in you anymore.”

“Then why are you here?” asked Pam logically.

“Partly just in case, but mostly it was my mother’s idea. She babies me.”

“Do you show her what a big girl you really are by cleaning your room and brushing your teeth and doing your chores without her having to prod you?”

“What does ‘prod’ mean?”

“Push, bug you, get after you.”

“Sometimes.”

“Maybe if you did it more consistently she’d be more willing to accept that you’re growing up.”

“If you were really Mrs. Claus you’d know if I was doing all that stuff. You know: ‘He knows if you’ve been bad or good.’” The girl smirked triumphantly.

Thinking quickly, Pam replied, “He knows. I don’t. He doesn’t always share his lists with me. He’s very busy—and so am I.”

“Doing what?”

Pam gulped. “Who do you think oversees all the elves and other factory workers?” she said, giving Mrs. Claus a big promotion from chief cookie-baker.
Let’s hear it for women. There goes another glass ceiling,
Pam thought as she briefly described “her job” as factory manager.
Cookie-baking my ass!

In the middle of recounting her many duties as manager, she looked to her right and saw that Ed was apparently paying as much attention to her as to the tyke on his
own
lap. He flashed her a thumbs-up, grinned his 4000-megawatt grin, then returned his attention to the boy whose wish list he was supposed to be memorizing.

That evening, when Toyland closed its doors for another day, Ed’s first comment before they even disembarked from their thrones was, “I liked the promotion you gave yourself. I heard a lot of what you told that little girl this morning. I think it’s high time Mrs. Claus got credit for more than baking cookies.” He stood up and took a step toward her.

Standing up
, Pam took
a step toward him
and then
squeezed his arm and said, “On behalf of women everywhere, thank you for your support.”

They walked back to the rear of the store together and lingered in the main area, just talking, till finally Ed said, “Well, I guess we’d better get changed.”

Yes. Don’t want to keep wifey waiting,
Pam thought, an edge of bitterness creeping into her thoughts. She was cordial to Misty, however, when she encountered her outside the storefront once again, waiting for Ed.
“How are you this evening?” Pam asked, hoping her smile didn’t look as forced as it felt.

“Just great! And you?”

I’d be better if you were out of the picture.
“Fine. Fine. It’s surprisingly tiring work, but I enjoy the hell out of it.”

“Well, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Ed said, squeezing Pam’s shoulder. “G’night.” And he surprised her by giving her a quick peck on the cheek.

In front of wifey? Well, maybe he’s the sort who kisses all the ladies, and his wife’s gotten used to it.

The month went on, very much in the same vein. November rolled over into December, and December hurried on in a headlong rush toward Christmas. With no time to go to stores to do her Christmas shopping, Pam found herself shopping on the internet during her few waking hours at home. She fell asleep early every night, pleasantly exhausted from the job.

Ed did get peed on a few times, and one little girl with an excitable stomach became so agitated over “really, really talking to Santa” that she threw up, soiling the arm of his costume and necessitating an unscheduled break while he scrubbed at it and scrubbed at it.

Every morning Pam arrived at the store early, eager to enjoy fifteen minutes or so of talking to Ed before their shift started, and every evening the two of them lingered in the back room, chatting each other up and enjoying each other’s company. Or at least, Pam knew how very much she was enjoying Ed’s company and believed it to be mutual, from the way Ed stayed and stayed, talking to her
. This was
despite Reg’s assistant’s evident impatience to get them out, lock up behind them, and be done.
It was also
despite the fact that Misty was faithfully waiting for him
just outside the door. Every evening Ed would greet Misty with a peck on her cheek, then say “Good night” to Pam with a peck on
her
cheek.
At least I get equal treatment,
Pam thought wryly, though she was sure Misty got much more than a peck on the cheek when they got home.

On December 24th, Pam awoke with a sense of foreboding, then remembered the reason: Today was her last day of working with Ed…and a shortened day at that. Toyland would be closing at five sharp, the gig over for the year. Well, she would make the best of it.

She arrived even earlier than usual and was pleased to see that Ed was there early too. Reg himself let her in, instead of the assistant to whom he’d delegated the task after the first day. “It may be a mad last-minute rush,” he warned her. “Be prepared for anything.”

She was prepared for anything but never seeing Ed again. She was having trouble handling that prospect.

Ed himself seemed filled with a certain melancholy. “It’s over after today,” he said. “I’ve been peed on for the last time, gotten the last candy cane stuck in my whiskers…but, you know, I’m going to miss the little monsters.” He said it very fondly. “I’m going to miss you, too,” he added.

“I’m going to miss you
also
!” Pam blurted out with more emotion than she’d meant to show.

“Want to have dinner?” Ed asked. “We won’t get a dinner break
today
, but we get out at five. Would you allow me to take you to dinner? Dinner’s on me…but you have to do the driving.”

“What about Misty?” Pam couldn’t help but ask.

“Her sister is making a Christmas Eve afternoon party. I told Misty I’d find my own way home.”

“You don’t have a car?”

“I don’t have a license. I lost it last year.” A burning sadness sprang into his eyes and a shadow crossed his face. Pam wanted to ask how it had happened that he’d lost his license, but the sadness and the shado
w persuaded her that the questi
on would be inopportune.
“If I spring for dinner, will you drive me home?”

“I would drive you home even if you didn’t buy me dinner.”

“But I
want
to buy you dinner! I don’t like the idea of never seeing you again.”

“It’s bugging the hell out of me too.”

There. She’d said it. In fact, they’d both said it…but where could things go from here? He was still a married man.

The traffic that day came in pulses. There were absolute hordes of kids for perhaps forty-five minutes, then a lull with few kids that left time for intermitten
t
conversation, then another influx, followed by another lull, and so it went through the day. At her lunch break, Pam forbore to eat, too nervous at the prospect of dinner with Ed followed, in all probability
,
by never seeing him again. Yet he seemed from what he’d said to be saddened by that prospect, too.
Was he about to propose an extra-marital fling? Would she assent to such an arrangement?

At four-thirty, with traffic down to a trickle, Reg made his way into the Toyland storefront.
Positioning himself between Ed and Pam, he observed, not for the first time, as they talked to the last of the month’s worth of visitors
. Reg
talked to the two of them when there were no kids on either lap. One little boy, a repeat visitor, sat on Ed’s lap and said, “I was here three weeks ago. I just want to make sure you’ve got all the things I asked for. You remember my whole list, don’t you?”

“It’s in my computer,” said the quick-thinking Ed.

“Are you bringing
everything?”

“I never promised that. You’ll have to wait and see.”

“Why not?” pouted the young lad, swinging his right foot and inadvertently kicking Ed’s leg on the
down stroke
.

“If you pout you’ll get even less,” Ed warned him. “Behave yourself. It isn’t a good idea to kick Santa, either.”

“I’m sorry, but you promised!”

“No, I didn’t,” said Ed very certainly. “I said I’d do my best. Do you always succeed one hundred percent when you do your best?”

The boy started crying and ran to his mom.

“It wasn’t your fault. You handled it great,” said Reg. “In fact, that’s one thing I wanted to talk to you both about. You’ll get your checks in the mail next week, but I wanted to express the mall management’s sincere thanks for a job done extraordinarily. We’re very pleased with you both and with our experiment in having a Mrs. Claus this year too. We’d like to do it again next year, and if either or both of you are available next year, you have first dibs on the gig if you want it.
”

At five minutes to five there was one little girl left in the Toyland storefront. Shyly letting go of her mom’s hand, she approached Pam and asked, “Are you really Mrs. Claus.”

“I believe I am. Don’t you?”
She heard Ed softly chuckling at her answer.

“May I give you a kiss?” the shy girl asked.

“I would like that,” Pam replied with courtly grace.

“How come you’re so much younger than your husband?” the girl asked.

“Santa has a very young spirit. That’s what really counts.”

“Are you going home to the North Pole together after tonight?”

“I can’t wait to get home…with Santa.”

“You won’t go
out
with him when he brings us toys later?”

“There’s no room on the sled for me with all those toy
s, b
ut Santa and I will be together later.
”
Her heart beat faster at the thought.

“Well,” Reg spoke up. “It’s five o’clock. Santa has to get ready for his ride.”

“Okay,” the little girl said. She kissed Pam again, then returned to her mother, and the two left the store. Reg locked behind them.

“Ready for dinner?” Ed asked.

“Let’s do it.” Pam got up from her throne and headed to the back to change clothes as quickly as possible. This time there was no chatting while lingering. This time both dressed expeditiously and hurried out with a cheery “Merry Christmas!” to Reg.

“I’m parked on the north side, near the entrance,” Pam said, guiding Ed toward the correct exit. “The car needs
a washing. I haven’t had time…
”

“As long as it runs.
Do you have a preference for where we eat dinner? If not, I have a plan in mind.”

“You’re paying. You choose.”

“It’s called Candyapples. It’s a hole in the wall with marvelous food. They’re not doing anything special for Christmas Eve, so they won’t get crowds. We’re likely to almost have the place to ourselves.”

“Are you sure they’re open? It seems half the restaurants in town are doing it up big for Christmas Eve and the other half are closed tonight altogether.”

“The owner’s a friend of mine. They’re open.”

Indeed, of the ten tables that were all the restaurant held, only two were occupied when Pam and Ed arrived. Karl, the owner and manager, welcomed them personally.
“Ed! It’s good to see you again! And with a charming young lady—you must be recovering…or is this business?”