mirrors.
“Use the lockers over there for your clothes and bag,” Tuck said. “And don’t forget to pin on your Santa hat.” He pointed to the hairpins on the table. “It might come off when you’re bending down to hand out the promo candy.”
“Bending down? In this thing?” I shuddered at the thought.
Five minutes later, I emerged from the dressing room, my face redder than the form-fitting outfit I had indeed squeezed into.
“You look fabulous, Clare,” Tucker proclaimed. Then he placed his hands on his hips. “But you can’t go through the entire event clutching your hem with one hand and covering your cleavage with the other.”
“Why not?”
“Well, for one thing you need a free hand to pass out the promo candy!”
I gazed at my reflection in the mirror. The dress (for lack of a better term) had long sleeves trimmed with fake white fur around the wrists, so my arms were covered. But those were the only body parts on me that were modestly draped. My legs were sheathed in tights, but the nude shade made it look as if I were exposed all the way up to my—you know. And the plunging neckline, also fur trimmed, left little to the imagination. Plus the fur was ticklish.
“Don’t worry about a thing. You look absolutely scrumptious,” Tuck gushed, pulling me to the makeup table. “Now stand still.”
In three minutes flat, he’d sponged pancake makeup on my face and chest areas; did up my eyes with (way too much) mascara, liner, and snow-white shadow; added gloss to my lips and rouge to my cheeks; and dusted every inch of bared flesh with some kind of sheer glitter powder.
“Tuck, that’s too much makeup!”
“It’s Santa’s Helper stage makeup, honey.”
“Santa’s Helper? I look like Santa’s Hooker!”
“Here’s your bag, Candy Cane Girl!” He passed me a bulging red velvet sack with a long shoulder strap. It was packed with gourmet chocolate-dipped red and white candy canes and green peppermint sticks,
“Whoa, this is heavy.”
“Sorry—but you’re now doing the work of
“Ouch. Don’t elves have a union or something?”
“Okay, sweetie, get upstairs,
I climbed the wide marble staircase to the enormous Rose Reading Room. On a normal day, this stately space with its massive windows and majestic chandeliers was library-quiet, with brass lamps glowing on heavy tables of darkly stained wood. Tonight, raucous laughter and children’s holiday ditties (“Frosty,” “Rudolph,” “Jingle Bells”) were echoing loudly off the high ceiling.
The room’s chandeliers were still burning brightly, but the reading tables had been replaced with twelve- foot-tall candy canes, toy soldiers, rag dolls, and a Santa sleigh as big as my Honda. On one end of the room an open bar had been set up in front of a wall-sized enlargement of a children’s picture book cover—the one this Hollywood movie was based on. At the other end of the long space, a temporary stage was flanked by two foam “snow” mountains.
“Hey, there, little elf. Got something sweet for me?” called a male voice.
I turned to find an extremely tanned guy in a tux shooting me with a trigger finger.
Gritting my teeth, I reminded myself that this flashy PR event was also a fund-raiser for charity. But after fifteen minutes of passing out confections to little ones, I realized I’d attracted an embarrassing amount of Big Boy attention, and I looked for a place to hide.
That’s when I spied Breanne. She was stunning, as usual, in a pine-colored taffeta dress with a kicky flared skirt and a bolero jacket dripping with hand-sewn gemstones. Her long blond hair was piled high to show off her annoyingly swanlike neck, and her slender back was turned to me (a lucky break).
As I moved to hide from her—behind a giant toy soldier—I realized a dashing, dark-haired guy in Armani was ogling my cleavage. A few seconds later, he finally noticed the face above it.
“Clare?!”
“Matt!”
“What are you doing here?” he whispered. “And why are you dressed like that?”
“I’m here to have a talk with Dickie,” I replied.
“Dickie? Why? Wait! Don’t tell me—” Matt took a long belt from the tumbler in his hand. “I don’t want to know.”
“You better get back to your wife.”
“I know,” Matt griped. “She’s royally pissed at me for taking off to grab your new kitten—who’s safe and snug in the duplex, by the way. I refilled Java’s food bowl and bought some kitten chow at a convenience store. The box is in the cupboard.”
“Thanks. I mean it.”
“It’s okay,” he sighed. “Anyway, you’re right. I better get back to Bree. If she saw me talking to you right now, with you dressed like that—” He took his good old time looking me up and down, then blew out air. “I’m pretty sure she’d be wearing my private parts for earrings come Christmas morning.”
“Hello! Good evening!”
A diminutive man in a spotless white tux had stepped up to a microphone on the temporary stage.
“My name’s Dickie. Welcome to my pah-ty,” he said with what sounded like a slight Bronx accent.
Loud applause greeted the man. As it intensified, I made a study of the famed party planner. With dark hair slicked back, a spray-tanned complexion that bordered on burnt orange latte syrup, and a Botox-numbed face, the Napoleon-sized Celebratorio (whose younger photographs cast him as a Dean Martin lookalike), now struck me as a cross between George Hamilton, Austin Powers’s Mini-Me, and a Madame Tussaud’s wax figure.
I moved to get closer to the stage. If Dickie decided to dash away without notice, I wanted to be in a position to follow him. But my movements were halted when strong fingers wrapped tightly around my upper arm and a man’s hot breath tickled my ear—
“Come with me, honey.”
I turned, ready to push away whoever had taken hold of me—and found a five-eleven, golden-haired elf gawking down my neckline.
Twenty-Seven
“We need to talk,” Shane whispered in my ear.
“Let me go.”
“Come on, honey.” He pulled my arm again.
A few people looked our way.
He yelped. “What’s that for?!”
“I am
“Wait, Clare! You’ve got the wrong idea—”
I turned to dash. He jumped in front of me. “Listen to me. Please, it’s important.”
“Ten seconds.”
“Your life is in danger.”
My tapping go-go boot stilled. “Okay. You’ve got my attention.”
