Chapter 9 Violet
Violet
The crowd around me had grown.
I studied all the faces, trying to determine if my Secret Santa was in this group, watching me.
But I’d never been good at reading people. And all of my co-workers looked just as intrigued as I was.
“What’s today’s gift supposed to be?” my boss, Tim, asked.
“Uh, seven swans-a-swimming. But I don’t think there are any swans in this envelope.”
Today’s gift was wrapped in the same Christmas goat paper as all the other gifts. But there was just a small envelope inside the box once I opened it.
I almost didn’t want the crowd watching. What if the gift was personal?
“Come on, open it. I can’t stand the wait any longer,” Lenore shrieked out.
She was almost giddy with excitement. This might have been the most exciting thing to happen in her life recently, too.
She’d told me that she and her husband were a little set in their ways now that their kids had flown the coop.
I was excited too, but lately I’d started to feel a little anxious about the whole thing.
There was one universal truth in my life. I didn’t like being the center of attention. I was the quiet one who drifted through life, hardly making a stir.
And this whole thing was shining a giant spotlight right on me. I wished I could go back in time and not tell anyone about the gifts.
Carefully, I opened the envelope and found two tickets to somewhere called Where The Wild Things Are along with a note.
I tucked the note into the palm of my hand, hoping no one would notice it. It was potentially my first communication with whoever was doing this, and I wanted to read it in privacy.
“What is it?” Lenore asked.
“Uh, tickets to something called Where The Wild Things Are.”
“Like the book?” Nicole asked.
“Yeah. I guess so,” I told her, feeling confused.
Peter shook his head. “Not like the book. I’ve been there. It’s an animal sanctuary.”
That made sense. “They must have swans there.”
The fact that there were two tickets made me wonder if my Secret Santa planned to attend with me. The details would probably be in the note.
“What’s in the letter?” Nicole asked.
I clutched it closer to my chest. “I’ll read it later.”
During my lunch break, I went to Stephanie and Cory’s Sweets. It had dawned on me that maybe I should try to find some clues about who my Secret Santa was, and what better way to do that than by following his footsteps.
“Can I get a turtle dove?”
“Yup,” the handsome man behind the counter rumbled, springing into action. Thirty seconds later, he had the chocolate boxed up. “Two-fifty-nine, hon.”
I handed over a five-dollar bill. “Do you sell a lot of these?”
He nodded. “Yup. They’re popular around the holidays. But not as popular as our peppermint bark.”
“Do you know anyone who bought two of these recently?”
“Two? That’s kind of specific,” he said as a pretty woman joined him behind the counter.
I nodded. “Yeah. Someone gave me two as a gift. It’s a Secret Santa gift exchange, and I’m trying to figure out who it might be.”
“Oh, it was probably—”
“Cory. Shut your mouth. Secret Santas are sacred.” The woman with a name tag announcing herself as Stephanie said before turning to me and adding, “Sorry, we can’t get a reputation for blabbing about our customers.
But how exciting. A Secret Santa. You must be Violet.
We’ve been expecting you. Do you have any suspects in mind? ”
She knows who I am?
Huh. My Secret Santa had been talking about me to the people he bought stuff from.
I answered her question, “No. I don’t know who it is. My only clue is that it’s someone I work with. But I can’t imagine who would be going to all this trouble. Some of the gifts they’re giving me are expensive.”
Stephanie grinned. “I think it sounds romantic. Do you want another clue?”
My eyes popped open. “You have a clue for me?”
She nodded. “Look to the four directions for your answer.”
Four directions.
That made no sense. North. South. East. West.
Hm. East reminded me of my hunky crush, Easton. But that was probably just a coincidence. I’d have to ponder the clue. It made no sense.
I clutched my turtle dove box and stared the woman straight in the eyes. “So you know who my Secret Santa is?”
She grinned and laughed. “Yeah.”
Then I asked the most important question of all. “Do you think they’re a good person?”
Stephanie nodded fervently. “Absolutely. Any woman here on Red Oak Mountain would be lucky to get attention from him.”
Him. So it was definitely a man.
Cory gave her a frown, and she quickly continued, “Not me, of course. I’ve found my Cookie Monster.” She kissed Cory on the cheek, then added, “But any single lady. When you find out who he is make sure to treat him nice. He’s had a tough year.”
That made me feel for the man. I’d had a tough year, too.
I’d been laid off from my job and taken a transfer to a different division in Von Renpel Enterprises just to keep a paycheck coming in.
That’s how I’d ended up here on Red Oak Mountain, thousands of miles from home, without knowing a single soul.
Well, whoever my Secret Santa was, I hoped he’d have a happy Christmas this year, despite his tough year.
“Can you tell me anything more about him?”
Cory opened his mouth, but Stephanie poked him in the side and told me, “Nope. He’s a Secret Santa for a reason.”
If I could only get Cory alone, I had a feeling he’d tell me who it was. But Stephanie was guarding him like a weak link in the secrecy chain.
As I sat down and nibbled on the turtle dove I pulled out the letter my Secret Santa had given me. There might be more clues to his identity inside. Plus, it was the first time he’d actually left me a message.
In a sturdy block print, he’d written:
Violet,
When I started this whole twelve days of Christmas thing, I didn’t think too far ahead. It’s getting tricky to come up with the right gift ideas. I don’t know what I’m going to do for the leaping lords or the piping pipers. I might need to veer off from tradition and go my own way.
Let me know if this is all too much and I’ll stop.
I get the feeling that you don’t have a lot of people in your life right now.
At least not here on Red Oak Mountain. I thought it might be fun to get you out and talking to folks.
So you can gather up clues from all the places the gifts are from.
But you’re a smart cookie, so I bet you’ve already figured that out.
I hope you’re having fun with this, because I am.
Merry Christmas,
From your Secret Santa
The mystery deepened.
But what was at the end of it?
I chewed my lip while I thought about it. All I wanted for Christmas was Easton. And whoever was doing all this was awfully sweet, but I already had my eye firmly attached on another man.
I was afraid of hurting my Secret Santa’s feelings at the end of all this. Hopefully, they didn’t have a crush on me and it was all in good fun.