“Welcome to Diggity Dog House’s
Holiday Wonderland!” I called out, forcing my lips into my best
cheesy smile. It was ridiculous to even bother smiling, since my
face was hidden behind a mesh screen, but I had hoped that smiling
might put me into the Christmas mood.
It didn’t work.
The old woman
looked me up and down, her eyebrows knitted together. “What are
you supposed to be?”
“Hot Dog Santa.” I attempted
the best bow that I could manage inside the giant foam costume,
waving my hands with a flourish.
The woman’s eyes lingered on
the ratty white beard attached to the front of my hot dog costume,
then the bright red Santa hat perched on top, and finally, as if
the rest of the outfit wasn’t humiliating enough, the red shoes
with bells on the toes.
“There’s no such thing as a Hot
Dog Santa,” the woman told me. Then she humphed and walked past me,
down the sidewalk.
“I have coupons!” I called out
to her back. “Get fifty cents off any meal with every item you
donate to our canned food drive!”
The woman kept walking, not
even looking back at me.
“Come on!” I shouted, jumping
up and down as I tried to get warm. Despite being wrapped in a
giant cocoon of foam hot dog, the cold late December wind still
found a way in. “It’s for a good cause! Don't be such a
grinch!”
But the woman disappeared
around a corner as the other pedestrians passing by shot me wary
looks before crossing the street to the safety of the other side.
Yes, everyone stay away from the crazed Hot Dog Santa with her
canned food and coupons and fingers that had turned into icicles
long ago. My toes had probably already fallen off inside my
oversized jingling shoes.
The interior of Diggity Dog
House looked so warm and comforting through the big glass windows
along the front wall. My best friend Molly was inside, leaning
across the counter while she talked to her boyfriend Elliott, who
was working the register that day. The only customers sat at a
table in the corner, a woman and a little girl. Business was
S-L-O-W. It had been slow since Halloween. It had been my idea to
organize a canned food drive to bring in business and do some good
for our community. When that didn’t work, my boss Mr. Throckmorton
printed up coupons in exchange for the donations. We’d gotten a few
cans, which were stacked in a pathetic little pile under the wimpy
Christmas tree near the counter, but not enough to change the fact
that business was still slow.
But really, who wanted to eat
hot dogs at Christmas time? No one ate hot dogs for Christmas.
People were filling up on Christmas cookies and pies and turkey and
cranberry sauce and hot cocoa.
Oh, hot cocoa. I’d eat my own
hot dog costume for a warm cup of hot cocoa.
I didn’t much care for cold
weather. Unless it was accompanied by snow, but it rarely ever
snowed in Willowbrook. A couple of flurries every five or six years
that never actually stuck. Honestly, what was the point in having
cold weather at all if there was no snow to make it at least look
pretty outside?
“You look like you’re turning
into a Hot Dog Santa icicle,” said a voice behind me.
I turned around, pulling off
the mesh screen so I could scowl at Zac Greeley. “I think I’m in
danger of turning into a Hot Dog Abominable Snowman,” I told
him.
“Well,” Zac said, rubbing his
chin as he considered me with a sly grin, “I could warm you up, but
I wouldn’t want my girlfriend to get jealous if she saw me kissing
Hot Dog Santa.”
“Just come here.” I wrapped my
arms around him, cuddling close to his chest and sighing at the
warmth radiating off his body. Zac wrapped his arms around me,
crushing the foam hot dog costume as he rubbed his hands up and
down my back.
“Avery?” he asked after a
moment.
“Yeah?”
“People are looking at us
funny,” he whispered.
I caught some kids giggling as
they walked by and a man giving us an amused smile.
“I hate winter,” I grumbled.
“It doesn’t
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