6. The Eighth Day Before Christmas
The Eighth Day Before Christmas
Scene I
[The entrance to Snowspruce Christmas Village.]
Viola peeks in through the employee entrance, dressed in baggy attire.
On the eighth day before Christmas, I realize how much not being allowed to show up as Santa puts a wrench in my plans.
This means that I have to sneak in, as a woman, while we’re closed, get my Santa suit from the laundry, and find a private place to change, which includes attaching a fake belly and semi-gluing on a beard. Not a short process.
This means that between arriving early and staying late to change in private, my ten-hour shifts have become twelve-hour ones.
Normally, I’d be a bit miffed to be working so much, but last night, I fell asleep the second my head hit the pillow.
I didn’t even wake up in the middle of the night to check to see if Mal had texted me.
My mini triumph is a little hard to hold onto in the morning, though, as I contemplate the best way to sneak into a family theme park.
I’m wearing Sebastian’s over-sized winter coat with my hair tucked into my collar, so, hopefully, even if anyone sees me from behind, they’ll think I’m Sebastian and they’ll let me just keep walking. I should know better by now to expect any such luck.
“Hey!” a voice yells, scaring me half to death. Footsteps crunch on the fake snow behind me. Despite the perpetual drizzle of rain, Snowspruce Christmas Village continually puts out fake snow to keep the place looking full North Pole. “Sebastian, is that you?”
Oh God. I know that voice. I shrink into my brother’s coat, hoping he ignores me as I scuttle along faster in the snow.
“Wait up!” Then, his hand is on my shoulder, turning me around. Even though it’s through a thick winter coat, his touch zings through me. “About yesterday— Woah! Sorry.”
When Duke turns me around, about a hundred different expressions flit across his face.
“Oh, hi,” I say innocently. “Is everything okay?”
“We’re closed,” Duke answers slowly, still looking intently at me.
“Yeah. I know. I, um, just dropped off my brother. Sebastian. You know him?”
Duke is still eyeing me over. Eyeing me over with his hand still on my shoulder, I might add. “If you dropped him off, why are you in the park? And where is he?”
Right .
“Well, I dropped him off and then he texted me to see if I could drop off his…” I trail off and try my best to surreptitiously feel around in my pockets for something he could have forgotten.
If I had my purse, I would have nearly a thousand random objects to choose from.
But, of course, I couldn’t bring my purse.
Instead, I just have Seb’s jacket and all he has is, “This receipt.”
I hold up a crinkled gas station receipt.
Duke looks at it. I look at him, doing my best to look like this is perfectly reasonable and not, in fact, crazy.
“He wanted you to bring him a receipt? It couldn’t have waited?”
I shake my head. “He suspected some fraud on his credit card. Needed to verify the amount on the receipt.”
“And he needed to do this now? At eight in the morning?”
I shrug. “Fraud doesn’t wait to have its morning coffee.”
Duke laughs. “Anyone ever tell you that you and your brother are a lot alike?”
“We’re twins, so… no. That’s a first. Can’t believe no one’s ever commented on it before. I’ll alert the medical journals.”
Duke laughs again, and my stupid heart wants to burst. I know he’s a jerk, that he apparently would only ever go after a girl like me because it’s easy, but my heart doesn’t believe it. It wants to write poems to his smile and lick chocolate off his body.
“You guys have a lot of the same mannerisms too.” He shrugs, a near perfect imitation of myself. “Plus, you both have those eyes…” He clears his throat.
“Thanks.” I try to look nonplussed, even though I’m very, very plussed.
Duke winces. “Sebastian didn’t tell you what happened last night, did he?”
When I was with Mal, I never poked the bear. I ignored every jab, I apologized for things that weren’t my fault, I always did whatever he wanted to do—you name it, I did it to keep the peace.
Oddly enough, I feel no such compunction with Duke. With Duke, I want to poke the bear. I want to throw peace out the window. I want to stomp on serenity.
“He did tell me, and, honestly, it was gross.”
Duke runs a hand through his hair. “It wasn’t our best moment.
Curio can be a bit—nah, that’s not an excuse.
We were all out of line. It’s actually why I’m here early.
I wanted to apologize to him.” He looks around like he’s expecting Sebastian to just magically appear in front of him (ha!). “I can’t believe I missed him.”
And this is it: my opening. The key to making this whole farce so much easier. It’s just going to hurt a bit.
“If you really want to make it up to Sebastian, don’t apologize. Don’t apologize and don’t talk to him. Just stay away from him and keep it professional. He doesn’t need someone like you making his job any harder.”
“With all due respect, you don’t know me. I’m not a bad guy…”
“No? Then answer me this: what kind of girl am I?” I raise my hand above my head. “Am I an Olivia?” I lower my hand to my waist. “Or am I the other kind of girl?”
Duke doesn’t answer me.
Still full of a fury I didn’t know I had, I hold the receipt in front of his face. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get this receipt to my brother.”
Then, I storm off.
I could be wrong, or maybe it’s just an indication of how terrible Mal was in bed, but I think storming off feels even better than sex. I could get used to this.
Viola storms off.
Duke watches her, rubbing a thumb along his jaw with a smirk on his face.