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Satan’s Workshop

Dodi

Cat is inexplicably perched on Santa’s knee, and next to her—crazy smile pasted to his face, red paint spattering his shirt—is Jake.

Jake , who is supposed to be anywhere but here.

“What are you doing ?” I snarl at him.

He takes me in, baseball bat and all. His big smile collapses down to that small, asymmetrical twist, the real one, and my stomach flutters and I feel foolish and sweaty. “What are you doing?” he says.

“I want Mommy,” Cat says sullenly from Santa’s knee.

“Come,” the grand old gentleman says in a stentorian voice, beckoning to me with one white glove. An elf grabs me by the coat sleeve and hustles me along, impatient to process this special holiday moment. I stumble up onto the dais to stand on Santa’s other side, and the surly elf grunts directions.

“Happy birthday, baby Jeeeee-eeeee-eeeee-eeesus.”

“Smile,” Jake says through gritted teeth, and I force one out at the last second. The flash blooms and my vision goes for a moment. Cat rubs her eyes and Santa unceremoniously dumps her from his lap.

“All right, move along,” the elf says. Cat hops off the dais with me, chattering.

“He’s a pervert. He made me sit in his lap, and then took a picture ,” she says.

The elf tries to hand me a photo, but I didn’t pay for a stupid photo. A voice rings out.

“I recognize you!” Santa shouts, and I turn to look. He’s frozen on the dais, eyes locked with Jake.

“You’re in the business of giving gifts, too, aren’t you?” Santa says in a different voice, his normal voice, which carries quite clearly, nevertheless. “What have you got for me this year? Another sex doll?”

There’s a split second’s pause before Santa jumps to his feet and shouts for security. Jake glances at me.

How many dolls were there?

“Jesus freaking kidding me.” I grab Cat’s hand, Jake takes her other, and the three of us run —down the thruway, across the mezzanine, down the escalator, across the food court—Cat shrieking and holiday shoppers dodging out of our way with outraged expressions—and we don’t stop until we reach the deserted cinema at the far end of the mall. Cat lets go of Jake’s hand and melts onto the floor, spread-eagle.

“What happened?”

He pretends to misunderstand my question. He holds up a bandaged hand. “Knife accident,” he says breathlessly. The paint on his shirt is blood . He waves the knife in his other hand. “Had to get a new one.”

There’s a sigh from the floor. “I hated that,” Cat says rapturously. “I hate Mall Satan.”

There’s a flicker of that twisty smile when he looks at her, but he’s serious again when he looks at me.

I break eye contact immediately. “I don’t do Santa stuff with Cat.”

“You can’t teach her it’s acceptable for a strange man to keep tabs on her and break into her house and leave her gifts.”

“Exactly! I—” I can’t tell if he’s agreeing with me or making fun of me. I look at his face, and he’s definitely making fun of me. I feel pissed and traitorously delighted, but before I can come up with a retort, it hits me all of a sudden: gifts . The bags of presents I dropped to pursue Cat.

“Come on, Cat,” I say urgently, taking her hand. I leave him there and half jog back across the food court, up an escalator, Cat trailing with her sweaty hand in mine. The crowd has mostly left and half the shops have already been shut for the night. Upstairs, I scan for the bags I dropped. I spot a trampled bag kicked under a bench and pull it out. Empty. The presents were all beautifully wrapped…

I stand and pan around, feeling about an inch tall. There’s no trace of the other bag. Cat watches me with wide dark eyes.

“What are you looking for?”

I startle and turn to find Jake behind me, standing next to Cat. He followed us. I lift my chin. “Nothing.” I’m not going to say it in front of Cat. I have a few other presents at home. A few.

I head toward the exit and Jake falls into step next to me, Cat trailing after us singing “Jingle Bells” in a mournful key to herself.

I wonder where he’s been this whole time. I don’t know how to ask him without sounding pathetic.

“You really do look like Ted Bundy now,” I say.

He glances down. A polyester button-up with a deep pointed collar, pants that almost suggest a flare, and a knife.

“I had to borrow some clothes from someone.”

“A time traveler?”

“No.”

“The blood’s a nice touch. Somehow you can pull it off. Who’s getting the knife, and are they going to live long enough to enjoy it?”

“Me, I guess. I’m making Christmas dinner.”

“At the homeless shelter? Or is there a little kitchenette in the back of your supercar?”

“Nothing fancy. Just a burn barrel under the bridge. Are you doing turkey?”

I bite my cheek. I didn’t have room in my freezer for a turkey because there was a sex doll’s head taking up real estate, so I left it to the last minute to buy one.

“No. We’re victims of the Great Turkey Shortage this year. We’ll be heating a tin of beans for Christmas dinner.”

“You could do a roast,” he says oh so helpfully.

“I’m a garbage cook.”

“That’s fine. You—”

“I’ve lost most of her presents,” I snap. I glance over my shoulder to make sure Cat’s out of earshot. “Our Christmas tree’s broken,” I hiss. “I had to duct-tape the fucking thing together. I haven’t had time to make cookies with Cat, either, and someone stole some boxes from our basement storage and now we don’t have any Christmas ornaments. I don’t need advice on how to salvage Christmas because it’s already completely fucked.”

I can’t look at him. I’m furious. I’m pathetic. If I look at him right now he’ll see right past the anger in my voice, and he’ll say something helpful and supportive, swinging a mallet at the weak point in my architecture. Everything will come down and I really will have to kill him.

At the exit I wait for Cat to catch up, and finally notice she’s lost a boot. I have no idea when. For all I know, I took her on an escalator without a boot. Outside the glass doors the rain is picking up again. I can’t look at Jake. I wish he would sink through the floor and disappear and I could get on with my shitty parenting and my shitty Christmas. You’re giving her a good childhood, indeed.

I turn back to Cat in time to find her strangling Jake from behind as he crouches on the floor. He hoists her up in a piggyback ride and waits for me to open the door. My throat closes and my eyes burn.

At the car he swings Cat into the back seat, and I stash the baseball bat on the floor.

“You play baseball, Cat?” he asks.

“No. Mommy got it to keep by the door.”

I shrivel a little. Jake doesn’t even react. “Maybe you can get a turkey if you call around,” he says to me.

“Whatever,” I mutter. “I hate Christmas.”

“Me too,” he says.

“Me more,” Cat says from the back seat. “I like Halloween.”

That twisty little smile again. “Halloween is objectively better by every metric.” He looks at me, and his eyes are so green. This time the smile stays in place, uncertain, but still there. He’s wondering if he’ll get some sort of smile back. There’s no danger of that. It’s taking everything I’ve got to keep my face from collapsing right now.

I climb into my car, shut the door, and pull out.