9. Pitching Blitzen
nine
Pitching Blitzen
M ake an S, or was it an H? H. Yes— ‘H,’ like Helen, the one who taught me.
I make my best H motion with the stick shift, hitting what feels like reverse, and roll down the drive. I’m hoping my leg is shaking because it’s freezing cold in this short sweater dress.
I can’t be nervous. Can I?
And is a short—let’s say shorter than I’d normally wear—sweaterdress the best choice for today?
Yes. I stand by that choice.
Archer always says if you want to get noticed, you have to get seen first.
Here’s looking at you, kid.
I peek down at my bare thighs and knees. That’s a lot of skin exposed.
To be fair, my boots are tall, and the leg warmers come up four inches above them. Still. A pair of tights wouldn’t have done any harm. However, I am Josie’s great niece, and I’d like them to recognize me at the meeting.
Who am I to let anyone down?
I pucker my raspberry lip stain in the rear-view mirror. Jeepers, my eyelashes do look fake with this new mascara. Shockingly I’m the poster child for a product that works. Deal with it, Kourt.
Still shivering from the waist down, I reach to turn the heat all the way up and the tape deck clicks on instead. A smile spreads wide across my face as I coast down Main Street beaming like a lunatic toward town hall, to children singing, “ Roll Out the Holly !”
I laugh out loud.
It’s from the Rosalind Russell movie Auntie Mame . Or—the Broadway show first, then there was also the Lucille Ball version, but who cares? Despite her Easter egg-dyed red hair color, Great Aunt Josie actually looks more like the Rosaland Russel version.
Wow. Yes. Yes, we do need a little Christmas, Blitzen. Perfect timing.
“Wowsers! Look at you, Erika.” Helen turns to eye me up and down as I approach the small group she and Kourt are huddled in. She steps toward me with wide, sparkling eyes.
And damn it if she isn’t dressed down for this. For the first time, she’s in sleek dark denim jeans and a navy-blue turtleneck. Great. This is when she wears her weekend clothes, on a Tuesday night among all the other town folk ironclad in their flannel shirt jackets.
I look like a cupcake in snow boots next to all the denim and plaid.
A pair of slacks turn front and center and beeline a few steps to land by Helen. I feel eyes on me as I raise mine from his charcoal-colored, neatly-pressed pants legs to a nice black belt and perfectly fitted dark teal sweater.
My heart skips a beat before I realize who’s looking at me.
“And here I thought you’d have found one of Josephine’s ugly Christmas sweaters and sported that for affect.”
Kourt’s eyes find mine and I watch them trace up and down my outfit. He pauses when they reach my eyes again, and I squirm a little in my boots like a child who has to go to the bathroom. At least he dressed up for the meeting. Maybe that’s what he wears when he teaches… when he’s not coaching.
I smile toward Helen to get my head in the game.
“You do look great!” Helen insists, and with that, something comes over me.
“Well, I would have gone for the ugly Christmas sweater… ’tis the season, and to fit in and all…” My eyes flash back up at Kourt’s face and land on his gaze. “Sorry to disappoint.”
I flash my lashes at him, then roll my eyes back to Helen. “You’ll never guess what song came on in the car on the drive here.” I squeeze Helen’s boney arm with excitement. “We Need A Little Christmas!”
“‘Right this very minute’?” she recites part of the chorus with a cunning smile.
“Sarcasm will get you everywhere with me,” I all but squeal, thinking of the meeting and the pitch I prepped for the town. “It’s a sign, don’t you think?”
Kourt leans in with his hands in his pockets. “That happens to you a lot, doesn’t it?” He squints down at me with a wicked smile, as a gavel sounds within the double doors behind us. The crowd begins shuffling inside.
How are there so many people?
“I thought this town was small.”
“ Everyone comes to the meetings. It’s their thing.” Helen answers over her shoulder as she ushers us in through the packed doorway. An accidental shove pushes me to the side as someone worms their way through, and I see a hand reach back for mine.
I grab it, thinking it’s Helen’s, only it’s way too big to be Helen’s delicate hand, and it’s attached to something much taller.
An electric charge shoots through my arm like I stuck my finger in a light socket, and I freeze as Kourt’s eyes blink back at mine in shock as he pauses through the crowd passing around us.
I pull my hand away and search for Helen. I’m sure that’s whose hand he thought he was reaching for anyway. Although sufficiently awkward, nonetheless.
This place is packed. Why would so many people show up for a town hall?
I’m amazed at how quickly people filter into place.
Someone calls Kourt’s name across the room and I see him lace through the crowd to take a seat next to several high school kids in team jerseys in the rows of chairs on the opposite side of the room.
“Erika!” Helen shouts from a few rows in front of where I’m standing. She pats the chair next to her and motions for me to hurry. The gavel sounds again and I’m staring at a row of very serious-looking town officials. They sit facing the crowd. There’s nine of them staring right at me.
“Relax. You’ve been deer in the headlights since the first knock of the gavel. It’s only a tiny wooden hammer, tapped by a tiny bald man who has nothing better to do than run this meeting. This is a cake walk compared to what you’re used to in Chicago.”
“I’m fine. I’m relaxed.” I pull my hand away from where Helen pats it.
It’s the same hand Kourt held and I’m back to squirming like a child.
“I just don’t get it.” I whisper-shout into her ear.
“All these people. They all turn up for this, yet not one Christmas decoration? What’s their motivation for this, above the Christmases they’re used to? ”
“Money. Honey. Seriously, if they don’t solve this issue, the insurance premiums and taxes could end small business, home and property owners, and that’s what this town is made of. I’m afraid they’re null and void of the Christmas spirit, worrying about their own futures in Blitzen instead.”
The gavel knocks faster and angrier this time. Whispers cease, as all eyes turn to our mini meeting.
“Mrs. Choi. I’ve been calling this meeting to order for the last five minutes.
Your guest apparently has a lot to say. Should we have her take the floor first?
I see you’ve penciled her onto my list.” The tiny bald man with the tiny wooden hammer looks above his glasses at me.
He looks like an elf, or a misfit toy at the very least. If Archer were here, a joke of him running a meeting in a town called Blitzen would not be lost on this moment.
Helen pushes me out of my seat, and I’m on my feet pulling down my absurdly short sweaterdress to make sure it covers my butt.
“She’s ready, Mayor Harris.” Judas hands me my heavy three ring binder.
I don’t remember setting it down or even walking in with it. I’ve got this. I really do. Selfishly, I adore Christmas and coming to a small town to experience it in true great Aunt Josephine style should be motivation enough to nail this pitch.
“That’s right, Mayor Harris. I’m excited to be here and for the warm welcome everyone I’ve met has given me. Blitzen is just a wonderful place. I’m sure all of you fine people are responsible for that.”
I smile and look at the long table stretched in front of me.
There’s no warm reception, so I drop my eyes and turn to the crowd surrounding me. Again, crickets.
Helen clears her throat beside me. I don’t have to look down at her to know she’s urging me to get on with it.
“As most of you know, I’m Josephine Amherst’s great niece. Apart from being delighted to be here through the holidays with you all, I found I couldn’t wait to experience a touch of the magic that is Blitzen during Christmas. Upon arrival, I noticed it’s fallen short of that magic this year.”
I pause, as the silence behind me is deafening.
There’s an additional throat clearing somewhere near where Kourt sits, and then what feels like a concert of whispers conducts its way through the crowd.
“Aunt Josie has a ton e of decorations in her attic. Enough to decorate the entire town.”
Oh. My. God. Why am I talking so fast?
I blurt that out like Ralphie from The Christmas Story, “And I know you have plenty from yesteryear, probably stored in this building. Aren’t there some tinsel-covered candle sticks from the 1960s the size of a large awning to hang on the streetlamps?
Or a gigantic wreath or two for the courthouse and post office?
Come on now. We’re batting for zero here in a town named after Christmas that apparently was once famous for its holiday magic.
Ergo, I propose we give it a go again this Christmas. ”
Wow. I just used ‘ergo’ and ‘give it a go’ in the same sentence. I sound like a real fish-sticking wordsmith. “And I was hoping I could help.”
I step forward and look around the crowd. And now I sound like a complete jack ass.
“Mr. Miller? You and I have a tree lot to discuss, and where’s June? June, I heard you’re in charge of the town lights and decorating the courthouse and town square every year. Don’t people come from miles away to drive through and see the lights? Or didn’t they , once upon a time?”
A silver-haired, attractive women with a weathered face and a nasty scowl peeks up at me from her buttoned-down flannel. A wisp of white hair drops across her face from her low ponytail as her eyebrows pinch together. June, I presume. She looks to be in her seventies and not very happy about it.
The gavel sounds again, and my heart starts a slow, timed out thump.
Yet I persevere.
“First Baptist. You’re the church with the Charles Dicken’s choir costumes for caroling, I heard.
We just need to schedule you on the evening along with hot chocolate and hot apple cider venders while the people are driving through town square.
They could get out and walk the grounds and shop venders.
There’s enough of our people that participate in the Christmas Flea market to put their booths between here and the courthouse. ”
Raising up on my tip toes I search for my antique dealer-friend who sold me the mixtape. “Where are you Mr. Hawkins?” However, I quickly pipe down when I feel my sweater-dress riding up.
“You guys could have a bona fide Christmas on the square again.”
“Miss Amherst, I presume. Do you have any idea what this meeting was called for tonight? Blitzen’s in real trouble. And I’m afraid our Christmas décor is the last thing on the list.”
If I wasn’t getting reprimanded in front of an entire small town, I would’ve laughed out loud. Mayor Harris literally sounds like he’s delivering a line from a classic Claymation Christmas cartoon.
“Exactly, Harris. Erika knows exactly what this meeting is for. That’s why she’s here.” Helen stands beside me and grabs the notebook from my side. “This notebook of hers is full of ideas. Huge ideas that are bigger and better than any fundraiser we’ve dreamed up yet.”
“It is?” I whisper to Helen, and she elbows my side as she continues.
Helen scans the town officials in front of us and lands on a more reasonable-looking, middle-aged man.
“Now Tom, you know yourself, you’ve only got bake sales and Christmas car washes on the list, and that’s small potatoes compared to what this town has to draw in.
We all know what a fire truck costs. If you hear her out, you’ll see that bringing back Christmas to the town of Blitzen doesn’t just benefit us by way of holiday spirit and boosting morale, but we’ll charge folks from surrounding towns a reasonable amount to come enjoy.
You don’t need a bunch of small fundraisers.
This— she is your fundraiser. Erika’s got enough in that notebook, that the fee to park for out-of-town visitors will make thousands. ”
A mumble snakes its way around the crowd, and I hear people whispering behind me.
“Go ahead Erika. Tell them.”