NOTE: This fictional story contains threatening behavior in the form of someone following and watching the heroine... a.k.a. stalking. Real stalking is not cool. It is not romantic. It will not win you the person you love, ever. It's tough to let go, sometimes, but you do not own someone just because you think you love them. If you love someone, let them go, if they return to you, give them orgasms... or something. Don't stalk.
*
Honey smiled at the long line of children waiting to see Santa, flipping her phone from Google Translate back to see the information of the next little girl in line, who was looking up at her somberly with large liquid brown eyes. In her small face was a familiar mixture of fear and hope. Wonder... it was wonder in her eyes, Honey thought. Unlike the tired and jaded adults, dutifully shifting their weight from foot to foot, holding overstuffed shopping bags and all the coats of their kids as they distracted themselves on their phones, the children got more and more excited as they drew near the man in the furry red suit with white trim. Honey loved working with the children... because like them, she sometimes could still see the magic.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Norman shift uncomfortably in the painted plywood throne made for him to sit with the children and discuss their good behavior and of the wishes that they hoped would come true. Even at age 62, Norman still saw the magic with his merry bright blue eyes, but it faded when his prostate pained him.
When the photographer got the shot the parent wanted, Honey walked to where most of the long line could see her as Norman flashed her a look of worshipful gratitude. The adults' faces immediately fell, knowing what was coming. "I'm afraid Santa needs to take a quick break because apparently the reindeer have begun arguing again!" Norman put his gloved hands up to his real beard, pulled a comically dismayed face, jumped up from his throne, and ran off toward the restrooms. Honey shook her head mournfully and continued, "The reindeer were all practicing their Christmas carols when Comet and Cupid couldn't decide how many times Santa checks his list in Santa Claus is Coming to Town! Does anyone here remember how it goes?" she asked, scanning the line for people game enough to help.
Honey scampered back and forth along the line trying to choose among the eager volunteers, her white-trimmed, pink fur skirt flaring out around her thighs, her long legs clad in sparkly curly-toed ruby slippers and candy cane swirl stockings catching the eyes of several fathers. Suddenly, she gasped listening carefully to her headset, "Nina?" she called out. "Comet and Cupid say they will only stop arguing if 'Nina' gives the answer. Is there a 'Nina' here today? Nina?" Honey looked around at the crowd carefully until the little girl with the big brown eyes, who had been quietly waiting 57 minutes in line, gathered the courage to raise her hand.
"Oh! Are you Nina?" she asked, running over and crouching down near the girl.
"We just adopted her... she only speaks Portuguese," the weary woman holding her hand said quietly.
Honey gasped and smiled widely, "Você fala português Nina? Maravilhosa!" she said, watching the little girl's eyes brighten excitedly. "Você pode me dizer quantas vezes o Papai Noel verifica sua lista?" she asked, holding her microphone out to the little girl.
"Duas vezes!" Nina said confidently into the mic.
Honey listened carefully to her headset, concentrating, "'Duas vezes' it is! They've stopped arguing!" she announced. "But now, they want us all to sing the song in Portuguese! Nina, você vai me ajudar a ensiná-los a música?" she asked. Nina nodded and slowly she and Honey taught the familiar song to the crowd in a new language.
As always, a hush came on the crowd when Honey began to sing. Heads raised up from forgotten phones. Vague smiles drifted onto the turning heads of passers-by in the mall as they paused in their frenetic search for gifts. It wasn't so much that Honey's voice was beautiful, though it certainly was. It was more that when Honey sang, it seemed to make the things that didn't really matter melt away. To those that believed in such things, Honey's voice was magic. When she sang, people held their breath and didn't even miss the air.
Honey closed her eyes as she sang next to Nina. It was a newly acquired habit. Though she had been taught to let her eyes slowly drift over the audience, letting them make a connection with each person as she sang, she didn't do that anymore. She knew he was out there. She felt his presence frequently as she worked, but it was only when she sang that he came out into the open. She couldn't hold her voice steady when she saw him watching her, so she closed her eyes and let the magic continue for the crowd.
When the song ended, Honey opened her eyes as the crowd cheered, finding his powerful form immediately as if she had been commanded to look at him. Zach. He had changed a lot in the year since he brought his sister's children through the long Santa line, drawing her almost too-large dark blue eyes to him then, as easily as he did now. After bringing his nieces and nephews through the line, he'd gone home and brought all his neighbors' kids to see Santa in five more trips, watching her the entire time. He looked at her as if he'd never seen anything like her in the world, like he couldn't believe she was real. She had loved feeling his eyes on her then, hearing his voice. She had wanted to climb up in his lap, feel his large arms curled around her, whisper to him about how good she had been that year, and of how much she hoped he would make her wishes come true. Of course, all that was before he'd told her he wanted to kill her.
Zach's face looked leaner now, though his body seemed even larger, if such a thing was possible. His brooding, deep-set eyes were not merry, as they had been when children climbed his tree-like body in her line last year. They weren't nervously soft and adoring of every part of her, as they had been at their candle-lit dinner. His eyes weren't rageful or insane as you might expect from someone visiting their object of murderous hate, but rather... they were tortured, trapped. Pain and quiet desperation had taken up restless residence in the windows to his soul. Honey knew she shouldn't look at him so much, but she just wished she could understand what she had done wrong.
Once the line of children and parents had cleared, it was long past the official closing time. Honey cleaned up the display and prepared it for the next day while Norman took one last lingering trip to the restroom. Her phone showed numerous messages from work friends from her other job asking where she was. The firm had planned a Christmas party at Gatsby's, a gorgeous club worthy of F. Scott Fitzgerald's glamorous hero. It was also the place where Zach had taken her on their first and last date. The Gatsby's waiter had looked stunned and confused when she shakily ordered herself an "angel shot," the code-phrase used to quietly ask bartenders or wait staff for help when you felt threatened, but after his initial shock, the waiter immediately escorted her secretly to a taxi waiting outside before Zach returned to the table. Gatsby's had saved her life... but she didn't want to go back there.
After avoiding call after call from Zach, she finally answered and politely asked him never to call her again. To her surprise, he didn't. He never spoke to her again. Unless she sang, she never even saw him, but she felt his presence almost everywhere. It felt like she was haunted by him... haunted by something wonderful and magical that, inexplicably, went horribly wrong.
Her phone buzzed again, the display showing that the firm's senior partner wanted to FaceTime her. Steeling herself, she answered. "Honey Lane where in the hell—ohmygod lookit you!" Aaron Timberman held the phone high above his head with his long ex-basketball-player arms and Honey saw a crowd of her co-workers crowd into the picture behind him.
"Um, hi sir. Sorry I'm late to—"
"You're an elf!"
"Um, yeah. It's a volunteer thing—"
"Wait, wait, wait... you have the shoes? You know, with the... toes?" he slurred, motioning his finger in a spiral motion.
Honey bit her lips and tilted the camera down her body, showing her entire costume, tilting her foot to show off the curled toe. "I'm sorry it got late tonight, but I'll be there as soon as I can get home and get chang—"
Timberman looked around at the crowd surrounding him, "Guys, do we wanna see Honey Lane here at the party in some boring old Anne Klein shit, or do we want the elf?" he yelled, pointing at the screen.
Behind him, almost a dozen of her co-workers began chanting "ELF, ELF, ELF, ELF!!!"
