Santa Steps Out: A Fairy Tale for Grown-Ups (21 page)

"It doesn't have to be that way."

She looked up archly. "It surely doesn't."

"That's not what I meant. I need Rachel, dammit. And I need you."

"Oh? Whatever for? What could you possibly need me for when you've found yourself a sexy young widow eager to fall at your feet and worship the great Santa Claus?"

"You're being unfair to her. She's a mortal—"

"She's a mortal homewrecker is what she is," Anya broke in, "and far worse than most—she has the gall to ride in, arm in arm, with my philandering husband and peddle her wares right under my nose." The woodland hung dreadfully still around Anya's rising passion. "Don't go talking to me about fairness, Mister Tell-Anya-It's-Over-But-Screw-The-Tooth-Fairy-Anyway."

"Anya, must we dredge that up again?" he pleaded. His wife's arms were tense, right down to the mittened hands poised against the rocktop of the Altar. "Who slept with a thousand elves while I was out on my yearly rounds, picturing my loving wife rocking and knitting by the fire when all the while she had her skirts hoisted, her legs parted, and her womanhood splayed open for the delectation of my helpers?"

"I did, that's who. And I'm glad I did it, not that I had much choice in the matter. It cleared things up for me, or seemed to until you . . . you . . . ." Anya broke off, blinking back tears. In that instant, Santa wanted to take her in his arms, kiss her tears away, and assure her of his love by doing precisely what she wanted. But Rachel rose to mind, so perfect, so full of love, and it was impossible.

"So," he said, "we've reached an impasse. I want Rachel and Wendy to stay, to blend in, to become part of our family. You want them to leave."

Then, for the first time, Santa saw the hardness in Anya's eyes soften. "Well," she said, staring down at her boots and thrusting her hands deep into her coat pockets, "I'm quite taken with the little girl. I don't know if I could bear to see her go."

It stunned him. "What are you saying, Anya?"

"That there's room for compromise." She attempted a smile. "A few days ago, I would never have said such a thing. But Wendy's so precious. I love watching her with the elves. I love teaching her things. She brightens my life."

An image came to Santa: Wendy beside Anya in the kitchen, stirring a pale-green bowl of cake batter with a large wooden spoon, Anya steadying the bowl with one hand and resting the other on the little girl's shoulder. They looked wonderful together.

"So it's not hopeless?" he ventured.

Anya glared at him. "Not in the way you mean, you old satyr." Santa had never seen her this touchy about anything. "I will never welcome Wendy's mother into our home, and you and she had better get used to that. That's not about to change. No, if she's not comfortable around me, you'll have to put her up somewhere else."

"Where?"

"That's your problem, not mine. Build her another cottage if you like. You seem fond of new buildings for your paramours. All I know is I plan to avoid her and I hope she'll have the good sense to do likewise."

Santa wondered why he still felt defeated, despite Anya's assent to their staying. "There are bound to be times when you two are together, holiday gatherings, that sort of thing."

"We can work around them. I'll promise not to look daggers at her if you two promise not to make a public spectacle of your affection for each other. Oh God in heaven, listen to me. It makes my throat hurt just to think of it!" She slapped the flat rock silently with her mittened palm and gritted back tears. "And don't expect me to . . . there won't be any relations between us as long as she's here. None."

"Are you sure you'll be able to live with that?" he said, feeling a chill inside.

"The question is, can you live with it?" A pause, then quieter, "I always thought you were such a kind and generous soul. Now you've chosen another woman over me."

"I'm making no such choice," he protested. "I love both of you. Why can't you accept that? No, don't bother snapping back at me. It's obvious you can't. And I guess I've got to honor your feelings and accept you as you are. All right, then. I'll tell Rachel what we've talked about and see what she thinks."

Anya nodded. Her eyes were moist.

"Shall we walk back?" he asked.

"You go," she said. "I want to stay here a while and collect my thoughts."

"All right," said Santa. He raised a hand to touch her sleeve, then thought better of it. White head bent, he turned away and trudged back through the woods. The glare of sun on snow made everything red when he blinked: fallen branches, rocks dusted white, Anya's bootprints pointed off determinedly in the opposite direction from the fresh tracks he now made.

*****

It was a wonderful year for Wendy. Midway through their first week at the North Pole, Rachel, tucking her in, had asked whether she would mind staying longer. Wendy flung her arms around her mother's waist and said she wanted to stay forever, going on and on about the reindeer and the elves and Snowball and Nightwind and Mrs. Claus and dear dear Santa. Her mother seemed both happy and unhappy, but she hugged Wendy and cried tears of joy, and the next morning Wendy woke to find that Santa had built them their own cottage.

Wendy came awake knowing that Santa stood beside the bed looking at her. Nightwind and Snowball raised their heads from the blankets. Santa lifted a finger to his lips and said, "Can you keep a secret?" Wendy nodded and he took her hand and led her to the living room window and pointed across the commons. Santa's workshop made its usual bright red sprint across the snow, but now, beside it, stood the dearest little cottage she had ever seen. She clapped her hands in delight and promptly dubbed it the gingerbread house, and so it was called ever after.

It had a kitchen and a sewing room, just like Santa's cottage, its own Christmas tree in the living room, and the best bedroom a girl could wish for, with plenty of shelves, a workbench for her art projects, a lovely bed that precisely fitted her, and a huge picture window opening out onto the commons. Her mom's bedroom, at the back of the house, had a perfect view of the wooded hills rising from the far side of the workshop. For days, the gingerbread house was the talk of the community. There was a lot of tramping in and out, much elvish gawking and grinning in at windows, and that first night a ceremonial toast shared by Santa and Wendy and her mother and a few dozen lucky elves. But Mrs. Claus did not come, nor did she ever visit the house afterward. Whenever Wendy asked her why, she pretended not to hear, or she changed the subject, or she told her she would surely have to do that some day—and Wendy soon accepted it as how things were.

Wendy's life that year was filled with wonder and instruction. From Mrs. Claus she learned and perfected the arts of handstitching and macrame, tie-dying and stained glass, quilting and needlepoint and cream etching on glass. She became her helper in the kitchen, growing intimate with spices and spatulas and the magic of putting together meals that brought rare smiles to her mother's lips. Most of the time Wendy ate at the dinner table with Santa and her mother, carrying out each course when Mrs. Claus called from the kitchen that it was ready. But sometimes, and more often as the year advanced, she ate with Mrs. Claus at the old oak table in the kitchen, sharing the day's experiences and waiting to see if Mrs. Claus would wink at her and reach into the pantry for some special chocolate treat she had prepared just for them.

Once when a fox darted from behind a tree and nearly tore poor Nightwind's throat out, the elf who responded to Wendy's cries of alarm chased off the attacker and rushed the broken kitten to Mrs. Claus. She swept Nightwind up into her arms and licked at the bloody flesh and fur until he was whole and purring again. "It's a special talent I have, dear," she said, and Wendy was suitably impressed.

Santa and the elves taught her, more by example than explanation, the intricacies of toymaking. Their simple love and respect for the tools and materials they used were abundantly clear. Every task they put their hand to they carried out with sensual joy, and this approach Wendy learned and applied as diligently as she could to her own tasks.

But what she liked best was to climb up on Santa's lap each evening in the living room of the gingerbread house, feeling on her scalp the warm glow of the lamp beside them and listening to his deep voice thunder forth stories of dragons and kings and monumental quests from a heavy leather-bound book he held open in front of them. And when her eyes grew heavy and the thundering images took on distance, Santa carried her to her bed, tucked her in warm and snug, and touched his lips to her cheek.

Still, from the way the grown-ups acted, her visit to the North Pole did not feel at all like forever. So she was disappointed but not surprised when her mother took her aside a few weeks past Thanksgiving to tell her that they would be leaving after Christmas. Wendy acted as brave as she could, giving her mother gigantic hugs and assuring her that things would be all right (though just once, late at night, she cried her eyes out on her giant teddy bear's shoulder and felt better for it).

"Besides," she added, "Mrs. Fredericks has probably missed us a whole bunch."

"That's my big girl," her mother said, giving her a squeeze. Wendy had smiled back and worried her loose front tooth with her tongue.

Despite the happy times, Wendy had noticed her mommy's growing sadness. She had been okay at Easter, standing beside Santa watching Wendy and the elves hunt for eggs in the snowy commons while the cats sniffed curiously at the Easter baskets, batting at bits of grass. But by Independence Day, a chronic anguish lay upon her face. Despite the fireworks Santa set off above a skating pond full of whirling elves, sadness lifted in waves from her mother as they watched from the porch of the elves' dormitory.

Even Santa couldn't lift her mother's spirits when she was sad. Wendy noticed his unusual way of trying, though. She would sometimes waken in the night and hear Santa groaning at the back of the house; then her mother, higher pitched, joined in. When she asked them about it, they smirked at one another and mumbled something about making love, assuring her she would understand when she was older. But it didn't sound much like love to her—she had never heard anything remotely like it when Daddy was alive, and he had certainly loved Mommy. No, Wendy was convinced they were just trying to make the sadness go away by bringing it out in the open and sharing it with each other. But she knew it wasn't working because of the way they kept at it and the way the groans never seemed to ease up; they were, if anything, louder and more insistent. By the time autumn came, her mother had begun to sob quietly afterward. It made Wendy sob too and feel cold inside her skin, despite the thick blankets that covered her.

So she accepted Rachel's announcement with all the stoicism of a maturing seven-year-old and felt pleased at her mother's relieved look. When Santa came in and hugged them both, Wendy brightened at his promise: he vowed to bring her back to the North Pole for a visit every Christmas thereafter.

She knew better than to ask if her mother would be coming with them.

*****

"Please try to understand," Rachel pleaded. "It's nothing you've said or done." Through the window, she watched her daughter, scarfed and mittened and booted, being pulled on her sled by Fritz and Heinrich from one end of the commons to the other.

"Then why are you leaving?"

"Because I don't want to be your mistress. I want to be your wife."

"But dear one, you
are
my wife."

"You say that, and I know you mean it, and we both know it's true. But as long as I'm a problem for Anya, I don't fit in here the way I want to. She's been fine. I'm not faulting her. But all she can do is avoid me and expect me to avoid her. Your helpers feel that tension. So do the reindeer. Even my own daughter treats me like the outsider I am."

Santa chuckled bitterly and ran his fingers through her hair. "You're not an outsider,
liebchen
. Or if you are, it's only because you worry yourself into that role."

"The reason's not important," she said, kissing his free hand. "When we're together, just you and me, it's wonderful. But that can't make up for the rest of it."

"Please reconsider." There was pain in his throat. "I need you. You saved me from my own weakness—"

"You did that—"

"No, Rachel, it was you. I could never have stayed away from the Tooth Fairy if I hadn't met you. If you go away, I'm afraid the not-Santa will return and drive me back to Thea's mouth."

"Don't you see, that can have nothing to do with my decision. Fight him if he returns, and triumph over him. But Wendy and I have to go."

Santa held her for a long time without saying a word. Closing her eyes, she let the touch and the smell of him invade her senses.

The first indication she had of Santa's heartache was the sting of a tear, cold and shocking, tumbling down his cheek where their faces touched. Then he began to shake and Rachel opened her eyes to find Santa Claus sobbing in her arms. The sight was heartrending. From the surprise on his face, she doubted that Santa had ever had occasion to cry before.

At her ear: "Shall I . . . visit you at Christmas?" What he was asking was clear.

"No," she choked out. "I couldn't bear it. Take Wendy with you if you like, but let me sleep."

He nodded against her shoulder, then made to pull away.

"No. Come with me," she said. "Wrap us in magic time." And Rachel led Santa, wet-faced, to her bedroom, where—while Wendy and her friends froze in frolic—they made the most dolorous love the world will ever know.

*****

"They're going then?" she said.

"It seems so, yes."

"I'll miss Wendy."

"So will I." He paused. Anya said nothing. She stared into the fire, mindlessly rocking. "At least," he said, "we can look forward to her visit at Christmas."

"Yes, there's that."

"Anya, I'm scared."

"I know you are."

"I'm afraid about what may lie ahead. About our future."

"I am too, Claus."