13. The Season of Giving #2
The pet store smelled a bit like musk and feces, and the pimpled, brown-skinned man wearing glasses and a tan vest behind the counter looked about as bored as a human being could get. I marched right up to him. “Hello there.”
His head snapped up, evidently surprised to see another person.
Quickly, he closed whatever he was looking at on his phone though the sounds of it played for seconds after.
His cheeks flamed red around the pink pimple splotches.
“Hey. Um, welcome to Pets Aplenty. What are you looking for? We’ve got a sale on gerbils right now, buy one, get one as a pal for half off.
We’ll even throw in some cage liner for free. ”
“Oh, that sounds lovely, but no, thank you. I’m not here for rodents. I’m here for birds,” I said, hoping they weren’t sold out.
“For sure. Let me show you what we got.”
He led me to the back of the store, past fish tanks and large bags of food and one freaky-looking reptile that flicked its blue tongue out at me.
In the corner sat a collection of cages.
Inside, small birds of yellow and red flitted about, squawking at one another.
I read their tags and sagged with disappointment.
“Don’t see any you like?” the employee asked.
“I was actually hoping you might have a partridge. Could you check in the back?” I asked. It was a phrase I’d heard Henry say when he was shopping for his family, and it seemed applicable here.
“A… partridge?” the guy asked with a crinkled brow.
“Yes, one that might be interested in nesting in a pear tree would be best,” I told him.
He looked at me for a long, quiet moment before throwing up his hands and shaking his head. “Did Dylan from Foot Locker send you? Man, such a punk-ass joke. Tell him he needs to do better next time.”
“I think you’ve mistaken me,” I said.
“Dude, you are so obviously pranking me. Drop the act.” He quickly walked away. “A partridge in a pear tree. Yeah, right. Such a jerk.”
“Look, sir, please. This is important. It’s a gift for my true love,” I said. “My almost true love. I’m hoping the gift will prove that I’m his true love.”
“Oh my God. Give it a rest. Do you hear yourself? This is a bad prank. Bad! I’m not helping you, all right? Get out of here,” he said, slumping back onto the stool I’d found him sitting on. He unlocked his phone, already done with me.
“But… but… it’s the season of giving,” I said, echoing the kind woman from the bus.
“Fine. I’ll give you something,” he said. Before I could get my hopes up, he pretended to fish into the pocket of his vest and all he pulled out was his middle finger pointed straight in the air. “Have a nice day.”
Back in the main congestion of the mall, I checked my list again. It was a no-go on the partridge, but maybe I could still get the tree? Or should I go in search of the turtledoves? I found it odd that turtles and doves could mate, but what did I know about biology?
Unfortunately, the directory informed me there was only one animal store in the whole mall. They had no hens, no calling birds, no geese, and not a single swan, let alone seven. That store seriously needed to restock its inventory!
Out of luck on the fowl front, I wandered into the nearest jeweler.
The white woman—Kay, presumably—behind the brightly lit glass counter was sweet at first, showing me their selection of gold rings, but when she rang me up and saw what little cash I had, she turned on me.
She was so red-faced that I’d wasted her time she nearly called mall security while shouting something about—commissions?
Emissions? I couldn’t tell because I was too busy hightailing it out of there.
My luck proved no better in the music store.
While they had plenty of drums in stock, none of them came with drummers.
And when I asked them about pipes, they told me to visit the cannabis store on level one.
The cannabis store had such a pungent odor throughout that I plugged my nose and turned right back around.
My clothes reeked for the rest of the evening.
Without any gift and growing agitated, I trudged back toward the bus stop until a sign caught my attention.
SANTA’S WORKSHOP NOW OPEN.
COME MAKE YOUR CHRISTMAS WISH!
Santa appeared in a lot of the Christmas movies I’d watched with a begrudging Henry. He was a veritable wish-granting magician. If anyone could help me get ten leaping lords, or at the very least eight milkmaids, it would be him.
I tacked myself onto the end of a mile-long line composed of antsy children and their tired-looking parents. My stomach rumbled again, but thankfully there was a smiling elf passing out candy canes. I took and devoured ten of them. My mouth grew numb from the mint.
By the time it was my turn to meet Santa, I’d practiced exactly what I was going to say.
He cried out in pain as soon as I sat on his lap. “Sorry!” I yelped as I sprang up.
“That’s all right. Children get to sit. Children-at-heart have to stand,” he said in his deep, jolly tone as he rubbed his knee. “What would you like for Christmas this year, young man?”
“The wish is not for me. It’s for a friend. A friend that I hope will be more soon.” And then I ran down the list in one breath.
Santa broke out into a hearty chuckle. “Well, okay, then. Santa and his elves will…” He wiped at his eyes beneath his spectacles with his gloved hands. For some reason, he laughed so hard he cried a little. “We’ll see what we can do. Lean in close now for a picture.”
The flash that followed seared my unready eyes.
Back at the bus stop, I sat alone on the bench in the cold and stared at the single print of the photo I could afford from the exit kiosk.
I supposed I could frame the picture and give it to Henry as a gift.
It certainly didn’t match how I felt about him, how much I owed him for how kind and generous he’d been with me. At least it was something.
Another person joined me on the bench. Serendipitously, it was the woman from earlier who’d paid my bus fare. She wore the same coat and leggings, only now a tall, green elf hat sat atop her curly red hair. “It’s you again,” I said, waving to her.
She pulled a pen away from her mouth and blew smoke into the air. “Heya. I think you broke Santa.”
“I didn’t think I was that heavy,” I said.
“Nah, it’s okay. I’m just kidding. I know for a fact that Santa had a knee replacement last year. That shit’s, like, titanium or something. He’ll survive,” she said, then took another puff from her pen. The smoke smelled sweet like hot chocolate, yet still made me cough. “What did you wish for?”
I explained the trouble I’d had buying gifts and how I asked Santa to bring them for me.
“Okaaaaaaaay,” she said, looking at me like I was a weirdo. “Those are some very literal gifts, but I guess they get your point across. Why don’t you just buy all that stuff online?”
“Online?” I asked. “How do you mean?”
She showed me her phone and how there were millions of online shops all around the world you could buy from. “All you need is a credit card and voilà! Anything and everything delivered to your door.”
That night, after Henry popped in his earplugs and put on his noise machine, I snagged his wallet from the bowl by the front door and had myself an online gifting spree.