“Soon it will beeee Christmas day,” sang the elf.
Duh, thought Elaine, eyeing the swags of plastic greenery and twinkling lights that had infested the city since the day after Halloween. The season seemed to descend earlier every year. Yet every year, Elaine couldn’t help feeling a little secret jolt of excitement. And hope. Maybe this year will be different, she always thought. But nothing ever changed, and she grew more cynical and brittle as time went on.
“Come on, lady, gimme a break. Bestow a trifle.” The elf rattled the collection jar at her. He had a sing-along songbook and a stick-on name tag that said, “Hi! My Name Is Larry.” He wore a bright red muffler and an unjustifiably cheerful grin.
The light changed and she joined the surge of pedestrians in the crosswalk, but the persistent caroler kept stalking her.
“Just a little something for Westside Children’s Charities.” He flashed an official-looking permit.
It was probably forged, Elaine thought.
“Do it for the kids, lady.” Jingle bells bobbed from his pointy cap.
She scowled at him. “Go away.”
He gave her a puppy-dog look.
Be strong, she told herself. If she gave in to this one, another would take his place, and the next thing she knew, half the city would be wanting something from her. Pointing her face into the icy wind, she strode on.
“Away in a Manger” swept through the marauding carolers. The elf bobbed along at her side. “Look,” he said, “it’s not my fault the guy dumped you for some bimbo. Don’t take it out on the kids.”
Finally she could hold her tongue no longer. “This is not endearing you to me.”
“Think of the kids, then. There’s magic in giving, don’t you know that?”
“I don’t believe in magic.” There. Saying so aloud made it as real as the pitted, frozen sidewalk beneath her fashionably clad feet.
“That won’t keep it from happening. But you have to make a donation. Come on. What’s five bucks to someone wearing thousand-dollar Manolo boots?”
An elf who knew footwear. This was getting stranger by the moment.
“Five bucks, and the magic starts happening,” he said. “Guaranteed.”
“What, I pay you, and you disappear?”
He winked, and sent her a gladsome look. “Trust me, you won’t be sorry. Help us out, and the world will start helping you.”
“What makes you think I need help?”
“You can’t keep edging your way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance,” he pointed out.
Great. Not only did he know shoes, he quoted Dickens. I live in a world of fools, thought Elaine.
“Make it a ten, and I’ll throw in a miracle,” Larry offered.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake.” As the last threads of her patience unraveled, she reached into her purse, then shoved a twenty at him.
“Merry Christmas, Elaine,” he called cheerfully.
“Whatever.”
Then it struck her that he’d called her by name. She stopped, causing a businessman to slam into her from behind, then walk around her with only the gruffest of apologies. She searched the bustling crowd, but Larry the elf was nowhere in sight. How had he known her name? A lucky guess? No, he’d probably seen something with her name on it when she’d whipped out the twenty.
Dismissing the incident with a shrug, she continued up the avenue. The herd of carolers brayed, “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.”
Christmas didn’t mean merriment of any sort to Elaine. It hadn’t for a long time. These days, the holiday meant more meetings to schedule, more events to plan, more clients demanding her time.
Without Byron, it meant one less gift to buy this afternoon. The only discomfort his defection would create was a pained and awkward explanation to her parents, who had given Byron the St. James stamp of approval. The only fallout would be invisible to the world and felt only by Elaine. And she was getting awfully good at covering up her pain.
She ducked down a side street, mercifully uncongested except for a panhandler in an army surplus jacket and his scruffy dog. They watched her from a stoop next to Fezzywig’s Bar and Grill.
In her haste, she dropped her handbag and half the contents spilled across the dirty, rock-salted sidewalk. Gritting her teeth in irritation, she squatted down and scooped up the spillage—her cell phone, a tin of breath mints, her Coach leather agenda, a lipstick and assorted other gear—and stood up.
“Miss, you forgot something.” The panhandler held out a cluster of keys, strung on a ring attached to a silver skate.
“Thanks.” She grabbed the keys, stuffed them in her bag. She started to walk away, then hesitated and fished a bill from her wallet. Elaine was no pushover when it came to money, but she expected to pay for services rendered. Besides, the panhandler had given her back her silver skate key ring and for that he deserved a reward.
That key ring had a special purpose for Elaine. She kept it as a reminder of the price of giving her heart.
ELAINE HURRIED under the awning leading to Fezzywig’s, a supertrendy spot that had recently become the hottest in the city. Thanks to Elaine’s publicity firm, the upscale place was currently the favorite midday rendezvous of the twenty-somethings whose names graced the society pages and celebrity columns.
She dashed inside, and was immediately enveloped by the sleek, dimly lit decor of chrome and leather, the cheerful clink of glassware, and—mercifully—no piped-in Christmas Muzak. Instead, sinuous strains of vintage Coltrane provided a tasteful sound track for the ultrachic crowd. Gratefully, she shrugged out of coat, hat and gloves and handed them to the coat-check girl.
She ducked into the ladies’ room. Her ivory cashmere slacks and sweater looked fine—particularly with the buttery-soft Manolos, she thought—but her hair and makeup were a disaster. Yet another thing she hated about Christmas—the rough winds, not to mention the brutal cold and the icy streets.
She fluffed her hair back into a shining blond bob, then took out her compact and went to work, restoring order to her face with practiced strokes. Her mind worked furiously as she performed the damage control.
So Byron had dumped her. She had to decide the best way to play it. On the one hand, she could assume the role of the wounded party, fragile and in desperate need of support. That would allow her to bask in her friends’ soothing platitudes about how the jerk didn’t deserve her, how he’d never been good enough for her in the first place, how he’d grow old and bitterly regretful, thinking of the opportunity he’d passed up with her.
Leaning toward the mirror, she used an eyelash comb to de-clump her mascara. On the other hand, she could mask her humiliation and disappointment behind sarcasm, turning Byron Witherspoon into the joke of the day among their crowd. In throwing her over for a grade-A bimbo, he’d certainly given her adequate material.
Okay, she thought, holstering her lip-gloss wand and pasting on a smile. It’s Christmas Eve. The perfect time for amusement. She’d breeze through this, pretending the loss of her boyfriend was nothing.
Except she didn’t have to pretend. Her brow puckering a little, she studied her image in the mirror. Not bad, with that tousle-haired, cashmere-sweater, gold-earring thing going on. She hardly looked like a woman scorned.
Searching her feelings, she discovered she’d suffered no emotional breakdown over