Xmas Spirit by Tonya Hurley Page A

do you close tonight?” Charlotte asked the pawnbroker.

11
Up on the Grave-Top

    Lay Away
    Christmas is a day for getting. It is also a time for not getting. We drop hints, make lists, send letters to Santa, all with the expectations our wishes will be granted, our order filled. As we eye our gifts beneath the tree with anticipation and open them with bated breath, we have every expectation our desires will be realized, only to sometimes suffer the shattering disappointment of finding that dreams are out of stock.

    Eric, DJ, and Mike were moping around. It hardly felt like Christmas at all.
    “What’s the matter, dude?” DJ asked. “Why so emo?”
    “Sorry, man. I’m just feeling it,” Eric said.
    “Feeling what? The Big Fade or Charlotte?”
    “Both, I guess.”
    “Don’t fret!” Mike screeched in his best heavy metal howl. “She’ll be back.”
    “I don’t know, Mike.”
    “Don’t know if she’ll come back or if you care?”
    “Both.”
    “Now I know you’re lyin’,” DJ said. “It’s written all over your face.”
    “She skipped out, not me. I’m not the one walking around here making her feel like I’d rather be somewhere else.”
    “You know how Charlotte is, man,” Mike wailed. “That’s just talk. She loves you, bro.”
    “And you love her ,” DJ chimed in. “Don’t front.”
    “No more Electric Eric’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” Mike sang, trying to lighten the mood. “Okay?”
    “What is she doing there, and who is she doing it with?” Eric asked them, but neither could answer.

    The Wendys were the last customers at Curl Up ’N’ Dye beauty parlor. It wasn’t just because the beautician was closing early for Christmas. They planned it that way. To protect their salon session from prying eyes—hackers, they called them—who might try to bootleg their latest style incarnation.
    “I’m leaving you girls the keys,” the stylist said. “Make sure to lock up.”
    “It’s almost time,” Wendy T. advised. “What are you wearing?”
    “I’m not sure,” Wendy A. replied. “I’ve never been to a Christmas-party-slash-funeral. I was thinking maybe a candy-cane-striped shroud?”
    “Platforms?”
    “Black high-heeled elf shoes!” Wendy A. said, reaching into her bag and producing the goods. “Peep toes, no less!”
    “Let’s see the fashion haters try to knock those off by midnight,” Wendy T. waxed arrogantly, offering her sister from a different mister her fist for a quick knuckle-blaster.
    As the smiles on their surgically enhanced faces gradually returned to their natural pouty state, The Wendys did something they rarely do. They reflected.
    “You know, I’m really beginning to have second thoughts about this.”
    “Consider the alternative, Wendy. Petula will not be denied. Besides, Damen is on his way over to pick us up.”
    “Well, thank God for that stalker girl. She’s going first.”
    The Wendys ducked into the bathroom and changed clothes, and then stepped back out into the salon for some last-minute primping in the wall of mirrors.
    “I’m ready to melt some snow,” Wendy A. said, checking herself out. “Hot.”
    “This outfit is guaranteed to wake the dead!” Wendy T. said, busting some cleavage out between the buttons of her jacket.
    Self-compliments flew, fast and furious, followed by a competitive pose-down, fueling a chain reaction of self-aggrandizement by the two mirror stars.
    “You better watch out. You better not try. You have no clout, I’m telling you why. The Wendys are coming to town!” they sang.
    A blaring horn outside broke up their self-love-in.
    “It’s Damen,” Wendy T. said, grabbing her fur coat.
    “Love it,” Wendy A. commented. “Fake?”
    “No, it’s baby seal.”
    “So jealous,” Wendy A. sniffed.
    The Wendys hobbled carefully out to Damen’s car and hopped in.
    The guilty look on Damen’s face was instantly worrisome to them.
    “Listen, there is something I have to tell you.”
    The Wendys’