"So fire me," Satsy croaked, looking far more like a Halloween ghoul than a Christmas tradition.
"You're being unreasonable," I said to Miles, putting my arm protectively around Satsy's bulk. "Post a sign and some elves to explain that Santa's been called away on a Christmas emergency. Maybe that will hold off a seasonal riot and give you time to find a fresh Father Christmas."
"Jonathan! Jonathan!" The boy's mother was starting to sound frantic. I realized that we should alert security that he needed to be located. If we could locate security, that was. Those guys were never around when you needed them. "Jonathan!"
Miles glared menacingly at Satsy for a long moment, then his shoulders slumped and he sighed. "Yes, all right, this Santa obviously can't work this morning. You and Candycane escort him to the break room, make sure he's all right, and get the costumer to do something about his outfit. I want him ready in time for the afternoon shift!"
"I don't think he should work today," I said, still wondering what had driven Drag Queen Santa into such a frightened frenzy.
"Nonsense!" said Miles. "The show must go on!"
"But-"
"It's all right, Esther," said Satsy, starting to regain control of himself. "I need a little time, but I'll be able to work later."
"Are you sure?"
Satsy nodded, his beard flopping askew against the side of his head. I reached up to remove it.
"I'll call Rick," said Miles, pulling a cell phone out of his pocket. "At least he can always be relied on."
Rick was a grad student in psychology, rather than an actor or cabaret artist. We called him Super Santa because he was amazingly good with crying kids, shrill parents, high-strung elves, and cranky managers. He was also punctual and always eager to work extra shifts; like me, he needed the overtime pay.
"You'll need a relief Santa for this shift, too," I said to Miles, thinking of someone else who needed the extra money. "Call Jeff Clark."
"Which one is he again?" Miles frowned. "It's been a revolving door of Santas this year."
"He's the black guy," said Twinkle.
"Diversity Santa," I added.
"Oh, right," said Miles with a nod. "I'll call him next."
"You really think he'll show up?" Twinkle asked me. "That guy hates this job."
"So do I, and I keep showing up," I said. "He'll come in, if he's available."
Miles was holding the phone to his ear, evidently waiting for Rick to answer his call, as he told me and Candycane, "I want you two back on the floor and working as soon as you get this Santa settled down. I don't want any more prob-"
"Eeeeeeyaaaahhhh!"
We all froze and looked in the same direction. I realized that the high-pitched, blood-curdling scream had come from a child at the same moment that I heard his mother shrieking frantically, "Jonathan! Jonathan!"
And my day was just beginning.
2
I let go of Satsy and was already running in the direction of that eerie scream when I heard wailing and crying. It was coming from the North Pole-or, rather, the section of the fourth floor that was called "the North Pole" and decorated in traditional style. This was where the original Fenster's Christmas exhibit had been for decades.
The boy's mother again screamed, "Jonathan!"
"Jonathan!" I shouted, with Miles, Twinkle, Candycane, and Saturated Fats running right behind me.
As I reached Santa's Workshop-where little mechanical elves engaged in a very limited range of repetitive-motion activities twelve hours per day, every day, throughout the season-I was relieved to see the child and to find him apparently unharmed. He ran toward his mother as she sobbed his name with relief, having found him at last, and scooped him up into her arms.
Something had obviously terrified the kid, though. He was red-faced and sobbing loudly, his nose running and his face screwed up with emotion.
"What happened?" I asked, coming to a halt beside the pair.
"He got lost," said the mother, her voice breathless with relief as she clutched Jonathan in her arms and stroked his blond hair. She crooned to him, "It's all right, sweetie. Mama's here now. You're okay, you're okay."
The boy kept crying hysterically.
Behind me, Satsy asked with concern, "Is he going to be all right?"
The mother started to say something reassuring, but Jonathan opened his eyes at the sound of Satsy's voice-and when he saw Scary Face Santa, he started shrieking, "Santa tried to eat me! He tried to eat me!"
"Fuck me," said Candycane.
"That's enough," said Miles, glaring at her. But I'd evidently been right; he wasn't going to fire her for profanity three days before Christmas Eve, not when we were so understaffed. "Candycane, get back to work. Now."
The elf turned and left with alacrity.
Twinkle said that he needed to find his abandoned accordion and then find Rudolfo, and he left, too.
While Jonathan's mother tried to soothe the boy (but he would not be soothed), Miles said censoriously to Satsy, "Now do you see the consequences of your actions? Do you see how your irresponsible behavior has upset this child?"
"Well, the freight elevator tried to eat me," said Satsy. "I was upset, too."
Miles, perhaps fearing that the mother was thinking about suing Fenster's for emotional trauma, grimaced alarmingly at the child (a moment later, I realized this was intended to be an ingratiating smile), gestured to Satsy, and said, "Santa is very sorry that he frightened you, young man. And he's going to apologize to you personally for that. All right?"
"No, no, no!" Jonathan shrieked. "I don't want to see Santa again! No!"
Now Satsy looked distraught. He was doing this nightmarish gig for the second year in a row primarily because he liked kids-and, indeed, he was good with them. Frightening a child was certainly not what he wanted to do, let alone ruin a little boy's faith in Santa Claus.
So Satsy approached the child tentatively, his scarily streaked face gentle and concerned as he said, "Jonathan, I'm so sorry I upset you. Especially since I was looking forward so much to meeting you! But I had a really scary experience when I was on my way here from the North-"
"Not you!" Jonathan said to him.
"-Pole today, and it made me-"
"Not this Santa!" Jonathan said tearfully to his mother.
"-made me . . . made me . . . Huh?" Satsy's long, purple lashes fluttered a couple of times as he gave the boy a puzzled look.
"It was the other Santa," Jonathan said, tears of fear still running down his face.
"The other Santa?" I repeated blankly.
"The other Santa tried to eat me," Jonathan said, exasperation creeping into his voice. "The other one! The scary one!"
"This isn't the scary Santa?" I asked in surprise, nodding toward Satsy.
"No, the other one tried to eat me! The one with big fangs and claws and glowing eyes!" Jonathan buried his face against his mother's shoulder and cried loudly again, overcome anew.
His mother's expression was appalled as she asked us, "Do you really have a Santa here with fangs and claws and-"
"No!" Miles said, while I shook my head and Satsy stared at the child with his jaw hanging open.
Jonathan's mother said indignantly to Miles, "Then I guess one of your Santas is going behind your back to pull nasty pranks on children who get separated from their parents!"
"I assure you," said Miles, "if that's the case, the employee will be dealt with very severely."
"If that's the case?" she repeated angrily, still trying to soothe her son. "What else could it be?"
"Well, your child had just been frightened by the, uh, unfortunate event which occurred earlier . . ." Miles gestured again to Satsy. "An event he associated with Santa . . . He was separated from you and probably feeling scared and disoriented. He was wandering around this exhibit alone, where it's rather dark and perhaps very easy for a frightened and imaginative child who can't find his mother to think that things from his nightmares are actually coming to life and menacing him."
It was a reasonable suggestion. And the sobbing child's mother, though still very angry about her son being traumatized by his visit here, was obviously realizing that this could indeed be what had happened.
But Jonathan had been listening, and now he insisted tearfully, "I didn't make it up! I'm not lying!"
"Shhh, sweetie. No one's saying you lied," said his mother gently. "But this is a big scary place, and you were all alone, and maybe-"
"I wasn't alone! Santa was there-right there!" The boy pointed to the shadowy Enchanted Forest that lay beyond the North Pole; the forest was rather dark and creepy by the standards of childhood (and sometimes also by the standards of grown-up elves). "And he tried to eat me!"
The mother gasped as she realized what might really have happened to frighten her son-who may have interpreted a genuine threat to his safety in a way that made sense to his young imagination in these surroundings. She looked pointedly at Miles. "Do you think there could be someone lurking around here who . . . ? I mean, so many children come here, and some of them are bound to get separated from their parents . . ."