Mistletoe Over Manhattan

'You'd look good in that dress.'

She nearly decapitated herself leaning out over the escalator railing to see it. It was champagne-colored, clingy-and out of sight. 'Umm,' she said, and they continued upward, past sports clothes and more sports clothes, towels and sheets, china and silver, at last reaching a floor that smelled of bayberry and spice and glittered with heavily decorated trees.

They strolled through this fantasy land, Carter apparently enjoying himself, while Mallory tried not to think of the time they were wasting. Carter bought an ornament. Mallory rolled her eyes heavenward when she saw the price. While she was looking up, she noticed the balls of mistletoe hanging in each doorway. That's what she'd like to buy. She'd hang it in the doorway to her bedroom. Next time he yelled, 'Mallory!' because he'd forgotten something, she'd open the door, stand directly under it and-

'Santa Claus is in the next room. Come on.'

She had a crick in her neck. Rubbing it out, she followed him dumbly to the store Santa Claus who spied them and said, 'Ho-ho-ho,' in a thin, lonely sounding voice. The photographer sat in the store-fixture sleigh, hunched over an F-Stop magazine. It was a large room filled with shoppers, adults who seemed not to notice Santa as they grabbed up wrapping papers and ribbons, ornaments by the dozen.

'He's not getting much business,' Carter whispered.

'I guess the kids are still in school. Or day care.' Mallory glanced at her watch. 'They have to wait until their parents come home from work to visit Santa.' She was still obsessing on mistletoe.

Carter nodded, but said, 'I feel sorry for him.' He hesitated, then said, 'Sit on his lap. Tell him what you want for Christmas.' His hand nudged her elbow along.

'No, no,' Mallory protested. 'Don't be silly. Of course I'm not going to-'

'I dare you.' A gleam in his dark blue eyes issued a challenge, but something else lay behind it-the certainty she'd refuse.

Could she rise to the challenge? Humiliate herself by doing something completely out of character?

It would certainly get Carter's attention, wouldn't it, and wasn't that what she wanted?

Without another thought, she made a beeline for Santa and perched herself on his lap. Behind her, she heard the most satisfying sound in the world, a sharp gasp of surprise from Carter. Once she was on Santa's red velour knees and could spin around to see a small and amused audience gathering, she saw he looked uneasy.

Good. Let him feel uneasy for once in his disgustingly self-confident life.

'Ho, ho, ho,' Santa Claus said. 'Well, have you been a good little girl this year?'

'Entirely too good,' Mallory said, 'which may be my problem…' She stopped short, realizing this wasn't a therapy session.

'Ho, ho, ho,' Santa said, shifting a little in his tapestry wing chair. 'So what does this very good little girl want for Christmas?'

Mallory let her gaze wander back to Carter. The group gathered around him was larger now, and he seemed edgy. Edgy but sexier than ever with his arms crossed over his broad chest and a slight frown drawing his dark eyebrows down in the middle and up at the ends.

She suddenly knew what she wanted. She knew with a confidence every bit as disgusting as Carter's. By Christmas, she would make him see her as a woman, a feminine, desirable, irresistible woman, or die trying.

'I want him,' she whispered in Santa's ear. 'I want Carter for Christmas.'

4

Asshe sat on Santa's lap, a hot flush of humiliation climbing her face, the last thing Mallory expected to hear Santa say was 'Him? Ooh. I can't blame you.'

It was not a Santa-like thing to say. Mallory took a close look into his appropriately blue eyes.

'Ho, ho, ho,' he boomed suddenly, then threw her off balance again by whispering, 'You mentioned a problem. So what's the problem? You're a dish, he's a hunk, you're both single, I presume. And straight.' He sighed.

It was not a Santa-like sigh. 'I'm not a dish,' Mallory said, giving him another close look.

'Please don't report me,' Santa said. 'I shouldn't have said 'dish.' I know better. Santa Claus is politically correct.'

'Oh, think nothing of it,' Mallory assured him, realizing he was a New York Santa, not a Midwestern Santa, and she should be sophisticated enough to adjust to slight differences in mannerisms. 'I meant I'm not beautiful or sexy or any of the things I need to be to attract him.' She crooked her neck in Carter's direction.

'Who says?' Santa's eyes got very big behind his silver-rimmed spectacles.

'I says. I mean, I know I'm not.' The more whispering she and Santa did, the deeper Carter's frown became. 'My boss says I'm not. He-' this time she sent her thumb in Carter's direction '-treats me like I'm not. So I'm not. I'm frumpy and dull and when he looks at me, he sees a-a law book.'

'Sounds like Santa needs to give him glasses for Christmas,' Santa muttered.

'No, Santa needs to give me-' she stopped and thought for a second '-a whole new image,' she finally got out. 'I want to turn into a sex goddess.'

'By Christmas.'

'That's my target date.'

'This is so serendipitous,' Santa breathed. 'If it were in a book, nobody would believe it.'

'Believe what?' He wasn't merely a New York Santa. He was truly a very odd Santa.

'That you need help and I know exactly where to send you to get it.' He darted a glance at the growing crowd, and apparently motivated by Carter's thunderous expression, almost knocked Mallory off his lap with his next hearty 'Ho-ho-ho.' Then he dug into his pocket and pulled out a peppermint and a card. 'Call this number,' he whispered, then shouted enthusiastically, 'Merry Christmas.'

Deafened by the sound, Mallory tucked the card into the breast pocket of her jacket and slid off his padded lap. If a department store Santa Claus had just referred her to a psychiatrist, that would be absolutely the last straw.

On the way back to the hotel, Carter was unusually silent. Not that Mallory could have heard him if he'd been chatting companionably away. They'd emerged from Bloomingdale's to find the streets jammed with honking cars and the sidewalks packed with shoppers. Their Brown Bags jostled with Saks Fifth Avenue red ones, Bergdorf Goodman's handsome navy totes, Lord & Taylor white ones printed in red script, Gucci, FAO Schwartz and Sony bags.

Through narrowed eyes she caught the glances women sent toward Carter as he effortlessly cut a path through the crowd, snowflakes dusting his navy overcoat and dark hair, while Mallory struggled to keep up with him. From time to time she peeked into her own Medium Brown Bag at the gift box that held Macon's sweater. Burnt orange. Blue stripes. A shudder passed through her. While she'd inherited her mother's Nordic blondness, Macon took after their father, a symphony in browns, chestnut hair, interesting amber eyes, olive skin. The pale beige V-necked sweater would have been perfect for him. What was he going to do with a-

Save receipts at least three months. File them under Appliances, Gifts, Services and Personal. You never know when you may have to return an inappropriate gift or faulty appliance, or demand that a job done poorly be done over.

Ellen Trent again. One of her major rules for a well-run life. Until that thought popped into Mallory's mind, her first priority had been to look at the business card Santa had slipped her. Now the worry that she might have forgotten her receipt took precedence.

Surreptitiously she began to grope around in the bag. When Carter cast a glance in her direction, she suspended her search, then resumed it when he wasn't looking. She didn't want him to know she was obsessing over a receipt, didn't want him to know she'd been rattled enough to buy a sweater she was already thinking of returning.

At last she thrust her hand all the way down to the bottom of the bag where her gloved fingertips snagged a loose corner of paper and tugged on it.

The receipt. She glanced at it, gasped and came to a dead halt at the corner of Fifty-ninth Street. The crowd rear-ended her, righted itself, then divided like the Red Sea, casting nasty looks at her as they swarmed around her.