A Touch of Mistletoe (11 page)

The line shifted in front of him, like corralled cattle the rest of the line shuffled forward, and a growl of frustration rumbled from Scott's throat. His basket banged against his thigh—a basket he only carried because he'd seen a dark roast coffee that he'd tried last year at that time, fallen in love with, and had then been unable to get afterwards. A "holiday only" product, they'd told him. As if coffee somehow could be. So he'd taken advantage of the find to pick up six bags. They'd stay fresh if he froze them. Probably. He was hoping anyway. But he swore to all the gods he could name that if the damned line didn't start moving at a reasonable pace, he was going to drop the basket right where he stood and say fuck it, cigarettes and all. Maybe once and for all, in fact. That would serve them. He'd just quit. After all, he was already grumpier than hell. Why not throw some withdrawal drama on top of it? Oh yeah, that would make for a pleasant time off, indeed. That would be just perfect—

A flump in his basket cut Scott's internal ranting short. He lowered his eyes, frowned, and turned back to glare at a little boy who immediately broke out into a giggle. As if the laugh were contagious, a slightly taller but otherwise carbon-copy image of the boy also started up, and the two of them stood there, tittering like Pan midprank.

With two fingers, as though the basket held something viral, Scott reached in and pulled out the recently deposited clump of plastic mistletoe. It was the very worst kind of recreation too—an overly green ball of waxy, tab-style leaves dotted by too many white plastic balls to look natural.

"Sorry," a cheerful voice pulled Scott's glare off the children and up. Soft brown eyes locked on to his, their corners crinkled with a smile. Pretty, Scott decided. Cute, anyway. One of those boyish-smile, life's been good to me, all American kind of guys. Smaller, but nice shoulders; not too young, but not too old. Not Scott's usual fare by any stretch of the imagination, though. Perky fatherly types didn't usually gel with pessimistic brooding. "Kids. You know how they are."

Scott narrowed his eyes in annoyance. A short blonde stepped up beside the man, rested her hand on his arm, and began to talk without giving any thought to Scott whatsoever. And that, Scott reasoned, was not going to happen. Not now. Not when he'd already had to deal with a half hour of being pushed, prodded, banged into and snarled at. Not when he'd been standing there, minding his own business. All he'd wanted was a damn pack of cigarettes. All he'd been trying to do was get in and out.

"No," Scott snarled, his voice cold and edgy. "Not kids. Parents. Bad parents. Parents who feel the need to bring their children out to venues like this at the worst possible time, then let them run wild. Parents who see their children doing things those children ought not to, and instead of correcting them, they merely offer up thousand-dollar, dentist-enhanced smiles and say 'Kids.' Like that's some kind of reasonable explanation for bad behavior."

The woman turned away from the man, lifted an eyebrow, and twisted her lips into her own expression of distaste. "Excuse me?"

"Karen, I—"

"You're excused," Scott said. He set his basket on the checkout counter and handed the ball of mistletoe toward the boy with his best you-better-believe-I'm-scary stare. "And you should be more cautious when it comes to approaching strangers. Some of them are very bad people."

It was the man that advanced, though, not the boy. "He was just playing around. I'm sorry." Another smile tried to work its way on to the man's face. "I should have been watching closer. It's just that he loves the holidays. Christmas is kind of..." The man swallowed and looked over his shoulder at the woman while Scott's guts rolled in disgust. Whipped, much?

The man turned back, tried yet another smile, and put his hand underneath the tangle of plastic in Scott's hand. "I guess he was just trying to make sure your holidays would have a little romance."

Scott groaned. He stepped back. He tracked his gaze over each of the four in turn. The woman looked two seconds away from drawing a sword in defense of family, the man looked like he'd been caught shoplifting, the oldest boy was watching the exchange in fascination, and the youngest boy had the blank, unaffected stare that only small children could manage without looking like utter morons.

"Romance?" Scott all but choked on the word. He held up the mistletoe, spinning it. "From
this
?"

There was enough poisonous inflection on his tongue to be true to the fruit he held. "Do you even know what mistletoe is? Any idea?" He scowled at each of them again. "Anyone?"

He shifted his hip and propped against the counter, ignoring the sales clerk that had started to ring through his items. "Then let me just explain you a thing. Mistletoe, this oh so jovial symbol of holiday fun, is actually what we consider a parasitic plant. For those new to the word, let me clarify."

"That'll be eighteen forty-five, sir."

Scott put up one finger, ordered his cigarettes, tossed two twenties on the counter, and turned back to the family, hardly missing a beat. "While photosynthesis is good enough for damn near every other plant on this accursed planet, our pal here," he paused to pat the mistletoe, "has decided that's just not enough for him. So, what does our little ball-bearing beauty do? He attaches himself to other plants, usually via the delivery method of birds, the clever little bugger." He lifted his hand to his mouth and curled it around, as if hiding his words from the children, "They shit them out, you see. Eat the berry, swallow the seed, and deposit the seed when they poop. The seeds then plant themselves in the tree and as the mistletoe grows, it leeches nutrients from its base..." He shook the plastic plant for emphasis. "
Literally
sucking the life force out of the tree. A tree that, if I may be so bold as to point out, did not ask, nor want, nor get anything in return for playing home to this evil spawn. And the best part of it all? This process more often than not results in the slow death of the host tree."

The family in front of him stared, speechless. "Whee," Scott continued, holding the vowel dramatically. "What fun, right?" He tilted his head, pursed his lips, and glowered at the man. "And how romantic: a process that begins from shit, forces itself on something else, and then dissolves into a withering, all-consuming death."

There were more eyes on Scott than just those of the family by the time Scott was done. He reached for his change and tucked it into his pocket, conscious of how strangely quiet the storefront had become. Good. Maybe they'd been listening closely enough to have learned something. Maybe they'd be walking away a little bit smarter. A little wiser. He picked up the bag of coffee and left the store with his chin up and a snarl on his face.

*~*~*

There was still no snow falling, one tiny thing to be grateful for at least, but the wind was cruel enough without it. How the doorman to his building always managed to seem so happy was beyond Scott's ability to understand. Even with wind-whipped cheeks and tearing eyes, Scott still got the man's usual greeting and wide smile.

Scott hurried through the foyer to catch the elevator before the doors closed, and rode in solitude and silence up to the fifteenth floor. It was his lobbying that could be thanked for the quiet ride. And while there were several other owners and renters in the building that hadn't appreciated Scott's meddling, Scott hadn't given a single concern to any of them. No, the very first time he'd heard Christmas music come through the speakers of the elevator had been the last time. He'd walked straight into the property manager's office and began a tirade about respect and personal rights. He'd used so many taglines about religious bias in holiday music, that the poor woman had been convinced that not only would he break his lease, but that he'd get it in his head to begin legal proceedings against the property over it. It had worked like a charm.

The heat was starting to settle back into his bones by the time Scott got down the hallway and through his apartment door. He took a moment to watch the harbor through his window, and another to gaze at the city below him. Chaos was running wild a mere fifteen stories beneath his feet, but at his vantage point, there was nothing but peace and calm.

He walked into the kitchen, flicked on the lighting below the cabinetry as opposed to the brighter overhead fixture, and set down the bag of coffee. Then he shrugged out of his jacket, tossed it over the back of one of the chairs, and loosened his tie. He was yawning as reached in the bag—it was definitely going to be a two-drink and then pass out on the couch kind of night—so he wasn't prepared for the scratchy odd shape in lieu of the nicely-squared packages he'd been expecting. Scott shrieked and yanked his hand back.

"Wait a minute..." Scott stepped forward, opened the bag and peered inside. With even more disdain than what he'd used to remove the item from his basket, Scott pulled out the fake ball of mistletoe. "How in the fuck?" He flipped it once, twice. He must have been holding it when he'd grabbed the bag from the cashier. Or had he put it on the checkout counter without noticing? Maybe the girl had thought he was buying it. His eyes flew wide. He had damned well better not have been charged for it. He'd return it. No way was he paying out the nose for some stupid ass plastic piece of holiday crap.

He dumped the bag, found the receipt and frowned at it. Nope. Nothing but coffee and cigarettes. Scott scratched his head and chuckled. The first and last time he'd ever shoplifted had been in grade four. He'd stolen a cola from the fridges at the back of a local store. He'd followed the same process all the other guys did. They made it look so easy, and they'd done it countless times without any repercussions. Scott had not been so lucky. He'd been caught, his parents had been called, and he'd spent the next week in his room without so much as his Nintendo for company. He'd never dared to try it again. "But this," he said, holding up the mistletoe and staring, "this seems almost poetic. Judicial, even."

He was smiling as he walked across the kitchen. He was smiling even wider as he used his toe to depress the mechanism for the garbage bin and open the lid. He dropped the mistletoe and watched it slip and settle over a day's worth of trash and coffee grinds.

"How's that for a nice romantic gesture," Scott said. He lifted his toes and the lid fell shut with a clunk.

*~*~*

Two quickly swallowed scotches and twenty minutes of some really bad porn that had left him cringing more than anything else had Scott opting out of wakefulness. Besides, he'd argued with himself when his mind had balked over the idea of going to bed at eight p.m., he'd said he was going to spend the next four days catching up on rest and relaxation. There was nothing wrong with getting it started early—he needed it.

It hadn't been an exaggeration, either. Scott had fallen asleep within minutes. So when something started rustling and mumbling hours later, Scott was not impressed with the interruption. He forced open heavy eyelids, tried to focus his eyes, and stared at the clock, slack-jawed and hazy. Midnight. What the ever loving fuck?

A rattle from the beyond the bedroom door sharpened every sense instantly, and Scott shoved his blankets aside furiously. "You picked the wrong apartment, buddy," Scott whispered. He crouched beside the bed, reached under it, and felt around until his fingertips touched wood. With a smile, Scott drew a small-barrel baseball bat. Not only was this jerk not going to get the Christmas loot he'd no doubt been hoping for, but he was also about to get his bell rung. Ho, ho, mother fucker.

Scott snuck down the hallway, ears and eyes alert. It wasn't a long hall, he could see most of the living area and through the pass-through into the kitchen. Only the farthest corners and the dining area were out of sight. So where the intruder was hiding, Scott couldn't say. There was another grumble as the lid of Scott's garbage bin flumped open or closed, and what sounded like a growl in the kitchen.

He slunk through the living room, staring at the walkway into the kitchen, and frowned when he realized it was coming from the garbage. He peered left, and then right, for an indication as to how an animal might have gotten in, and clutched the bat that much tighter. A mouse wouldn't be so horrifying. Or a bird. A possum, however, would be terrifying, though hardly possible that far up.

Nothing with teeth," he mumbled as he advanced. "Or claws. Nothing with teeth or claws."

"Argh," a pitiful voice said, and it was a sound that was way, way too human to fit where it was hiding.

"A trick," Scott whispered, stunned. He toed one foot forward, sliding it towards the bin, and popped open the lid.

"Well for gracious sake." An impossibly small man-like creature blinked back at Scott. "I'd say it's about time!"

Scott fell back, his foot coming off the lever, and as the lid began to fall, the creature put both hands over its head and shouted a "Hey!"

Scott stared, eyes wide. Okay, he was dreaming. Or hallucinating. Or... something. He swallowed. He reached again. As slowly as he could manage, Scott lifted the lid.

The little guy sighed, and stared out at him. "Always with the histrionics. Every time. Such a waste." It flapped one hand in the air. "Go on then. Hurry up. Do the 'oh my God, this can't be happening' thing. I'll wait."

Its voice was so tiny, yet it carried an air of authority that made Scott question his own sense of the word. It was dressed in green from head to toes, the outfit embellished with small white beads that looked oddly similar to... Scott tilted his head, frowned at the creature... something he was familiar with, but not quite. And the hair... not quite hair either, more like... leaves? Vines and leaves? Like a tangle of...

"Mistletoe!" Scott exclaimed. "You look like—"

"Well, at least some of you are quicker than others. Now if you could help me out of here? As it is, after all, your fault that I now reek of coffee." The creature put out his hand. "I've been a lot of places, sir, and let me tell you that being planted face-first on your used tissues is not one of my favorites so far."