3. Santa Claus

THREE

SANTA CLAUS

DOVE

I ’m being stalked by Santa Claus.

In the beginning, I thought it was Jerry, the creep who wears the suit at Waverly’s during the holiday season. He’s new this year, having replaced Pat, the department Santa who posed with the kiddies for more than two decades. Pat finally retired, but he did it last minute, and Jerry was the only Santa my manager could find to keep the annual tradition going.

Jerry is about fifteen years older than me, so definitely a young Santa, though with the fake beard and a pretty decent wig, it’s hard to tell. Plus the elaborate Christmas setup helps, and the belly he came by honestly. He’s good with the kids, too, and I guess I should just be grateful that, when it comes to his wandering hands and lecherous gaze, it’s me and my fellow elves who get the unwanted attention.

Mainly me, since I’m the only one of the girls who got bumped to Christmas duty from mid-November to the twenty-fourth of December that is currently single. Not that that stops Jerry from hitting on each of us every chance he gets. Still, I’ve been his preferred target since day one.

Lisa thinks it’s because I’m the designated photographer. I’m the one who snaps every picture while the other girls are responsible for keeping the line moving, upselling the Santa packages, and convincing the children to smile from behind where I have the camera on its tripod. It’s considered a prestigious position in my line of work. I get a bonus for heading to ‘Santa’s Village’ while the other shutterbugs stick around our usual studio for family photos and couple shots, but as much as I enjoyed the gig last Christmas with Pat, I can’t fucking stand Jerry.

That’s why, when I first noticed that I was being stalked by Santa, I immediately thought it had to be him. Like, take a hint. I haven’t been on a proper date since I moved to Springfield two years ago, but I definitely prefer my battery-operated boyfriend to this sleazy bastard. If I won’t go out for a drink with you at the end of our shift, why do you think I’d appreciate you following me home while wearing the ridiculous Santa suit?

Only it’s not Jerry. After I turned him down the last time, he started sidling up to Ally in the shoe section since she just broke up with Scott, the manager for menswear. Then I realized that unless he had enough of a thing for playing Santa outside of our designated hours to rent his own suit, he can’t take Waverly’s out of the store. Like the elf costumes, they’re put away at the end of the night and laundered every week. It can’t be him.

But it’s someone .

I’ve seen him waiting across the street from the parking lot where I leave my car for the day. On the corner of the street where my apartment building is. Outside my local grocery store, and sometimes even shaking his bell near the Chinese take-out place I head to when I’m craving shrimp lo mein. At first, I thought he was from the Salvation Army or some other charity—but though he has the bell, the black boots, the red suit, the hat, and a cheap-looking beard to cover his face, there’s never any collection tin.

I didn’t want to think he was following me. Like, how conceited is that? Of all the women in Springfield, Santa was chasing after me ? It had to be a coincidence… and I believed that until I purposely walked past him one night, smiling and waving and being all friendly-like, and he chuckled and said, “I hope you’re being a good girl,” with such a strange look in his deep green eyes, I knew then and there something was off.

Every damn Santa I’ve caught watching me has those same deep green eyes.

They’re the only feature I can pick out from behind the Santa costume, apart from his height— at least a head taller than me —his build— nowhere near as round as Jerry —and his skin tone— as white as mine, with a touch of red on the part of his cheeks not covered by the beard. I’d put him at about my age, too, though that just might be wishful thinking. The idea that Santa is stalking me is weird, but him possibly being a septuagenarian is worse .

He’s not just watching me, either, the way that Santa does in that old Christmas song, ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’. You know the one. He knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows if you’ve been bad or good… He always seems to be there, but about two weeks ago, he sent me my first present.

It was a stuffed cat wearing a Santa hat, part of the same line of a collection that I’ve been working on since I was a kid.

I have at least twenty in my apartment now, all tucked away when it’s not the holidays, and I love them so much, I even had my parents ship them to me last Christmas. Anyone who knows me, knows about my kitty fascination, so that wasn’t so surmising.

What was? Was how that was only the first present.

Last week, I received a poinsettia plant, delivered from Louise’s Florals. It had a business card so I knew who delivered it to the front desk of my apartment building, plus a note that simply said: from your secret Santa.

Growing up, my family always had at least one cat in the house. Because poinsettias are toxic to them, we never decorated with the Christmas-affiliated plants in their pretty pots and the red foil wrapper. That’s one downside to my apartment, though. It’s cheap enough for me to afford a one-bedroom on my own, but my lease is clear: no pets. So while I have plenty of stuffed cats to replace the living ones I was used to, that meant I could at least bring the poinsettia inside, decorating my small kitchen table with it.

I love Christmas. Sure, it’s lonely since I don’t have any plans to go home for the holidays. When all I’ll hear are questions from my extended family—and immediate, too, for that matter—about when I’m going to get married and have kids, I don’t mind skipping the holiday reunions at Christmas. I’ll fly out to Colorado in February, and by then my mom will be so happy to have her eldest child home for the week, she won’t risk running me off by reminding me that I haven’t been in a serious relationship in nearly four years…

My secret Santa followed up the poinsettia with a wreath that someone hung on the front door to my apartment. I asked both the front desk and the neighbors on my floor, but no one knew who did it—or how they got into the building to do it in the first place without signing in on the first floor.

I know, though. Santa did it.

Am I losing it? I think I might be. For months now, I keep getting this whiff of male cologne in my apartment when I know damn well that the only guy who comes in to my personal space is my super and that’s only when I call for an issue. Besides, just to set my mind at ease, I asked Andre to check the leaky sink in my bathroom, surreptitiously sniffing him to see if he wore that cologne.

I’d be fucking pissed if he was using his master key to let himself in while I wasn’t home, but it wasn’t Andre. He didn’t wear any cologne at all, and I convinced myself it had to be seeping in from under the door or something. I live next door to a young gay couple. Maybe Todd or Jace like that scent.

The cologne was just the beginning, though. Sometimes… sometimes I get the feeling like someone has been through my shit. My remote is moved. My shoes aren’t where I left them. Snacks I don’t remember buying are in my cabinet.

I’m going through panties like crazy. The community washing machine must be chowing down on my private laundry because I’ve had to buy more twice since the end of summer.

And then, as though my secret Santa knows that, he left a discreet package just outside of my front door earlier this week. It was a lacy pair of red underwear that was my exact size, and for the first time, I felt a little… tingle when I thought about Santa stalking me.

If it was Jerry giving me underwear, I’d be on the phone with HR so fast, his head would spin. But some fantasy of a younger, fitter Santa wanting me to spend Christmas with him wearing nothing but those panties?

Yeah… I might just be losing it, after all.

It’s Christmas Eve, and apart from catching my Santa standing a block down the street from my apartment during a light snowfall last night, I haven’t heard from him at all.

Did he think he went too far with the panties? When I came to my senses and realized that it was inappropriate for my Christmas stalker to send me underwear, I hid them at the bottom of one of my dresser drawers. I tend to do that a lot, though I live alone, and it’s tucked out of sight just like my stash is.

It doesn’t matter. I’ve been too busy to spend time thinking about him. For all I know it was a sick prank. A joke, even. Someone who gets their kicks fucking with lonely women during the holidays. Besides, after Jerry gave up on Ally after she got back together with Scott, he’s been on my ass again to pay him a little attention outside of work hours. I already have one Santa who won’t leave me alone. Two’s pushing it.

I got through the last week by telling myself that, come Christmas Eve, Jerry’s contract with Waverly’s is over. I’ll go back to manning the photography studio in the store, and he’ll move on to sexually harass some other poor girl.

I usually enjoy being head elf in ‘Santa’s Village’. The costume is plus-size friendly, so I look as good in it as Nadine and Lisa do. I’ll admit, the prosthetic ears are a little annoying, but the kids love them so I don’t mind. Still, by the end of the season, I’m ready from a little break from holly and jolly and all things ending in -olly.

Management at Waverly’s do give us staff a tiny gift for the holiday: we get to shut up ‘Santa’s Village’ earlier than normal on Christmas Eve. After I dodged Jerry’s offer to spend the holiday with him, I’m looking forward to winding down, relaxing, and maybe watching a Christmas movie or two to put me in the holiday mood.

It’ll be sad, knowing that my meticulously decorated Christmas tree won’t have any gifts beneath it. That’s on me. I told my mom not to ship me any with how hectic the postal service is in December. I’m a big girl. I can wait until I fly out to celebrate Christmas with the fam after the new year, and that includes opening my presents.

Sure, she then pointed out that I shipped my wrapped gifts to them , but my brothers are barely in their twenties. To me, they’re still kids. I wanted them to have their gifts.

Besides, there’s only one thing I really want this year. Well, two, if I count knowing who the hell my secret Santa is and why he’s been stalking me. But since I’m not holding my breath on that one, and there’s no way my parents could afford to give me what I really want, I’ll practice my grateful expression for when I inevitably open up an oversized sweater, a new lens for my camera, another stuffed cat that looks like the ginger kitty I had to put down when I was twenty-two, and one of those digital picture frames that switch photos on a timer.

I get the same things every year. And I am grateful. It’s just… what I really want? I want to thank Mr. Waverly for the opportunity, then start my own portrait studio where I can be my own boss and use my hard-earned photography skills to make me money and not another department store.

I’ll never earn that on my paycheck. Neither will my mother—a high school teacher—and my dad—a janitor in the same school. They work hard, and they did everything to provide for me, Colin, and Brian, but buying the real estate in a city like Springfield to run my own business? That takes money.

Luckily for me, I’ve been earning some lately…

It’s a side hustle. That’s how I explained it when Mom was shocked at the amount of gifts I mailed out, and if she could sense I was being intentionally vague, allowing her to think I was taking head shots on the side like I did during college, that’s okay. She doesn’t need to know the truth. Not when it would only upset her.

I don’t have to do it all that often. Once or twice a week, maybe, and usually the exchanges take place near the delivery dock on the southside of Waverly’s. I take a break, do what I have to do, and walk out of work a couple of dollars richer. After four months, I’ve already earned enough for a down payment. Give it a year, and I might even be able to leave Waverly’s before having to deal with Jerry again.

For now, I’m counting down the minutes until I can clock out, go home, and celebrate Christmas my way.

And then, about twenty minutes until I can put out the sign that cuts off the Santa line, Nadine comes sidling up next to me.