Page 23 of Secret Santa

She hung on the line for a spell as if she got lost in her own discussion and forgot what she called for.

“Oh yeah, I won a spa day at the garden club raffle. And Lord knows I have no use for some random woman rubbing oil all over my body and asking me where I feel tight. I’m too old to be tight anywhere on my body. I gave it to Priscilla from you. Well from her Secret Santa. You can thank me later.”

She didn’t even give me time to say thank you or say goodbye.

“Thank god. Can we please eat now?” Beckett stood the moment the call disconnected. “By the way…where is Harris? I haven’t heard from him all day.”

* * *

The walk back from campus took us directly through the square.

“What in the hell is Harris doing?” Beckett pointed toward Priscilla’s place where clear as day, we could see Harris up on the counter gyrating in gold sequin sunglasses, singing into a ketchup bottle, while pointing at his rapt audience of seven.

“Welcome to Ito Eats!” Harris boomed as we walked through the door, holding his hand up to his ear and holding his “microphone” out to the anemic group of diners in the restaurant, who all enthusiastically replied, “When we say it, people smile!”

Priscilla stood off to the side, gathering plates from a table, laughing with her head thrown back in delight as Harris goaded everyone to take over her greeting duties.

“Hi guys!” she said, practically skipping past us and pushing through the kitchen only to return seconds later with empty hands. “Your brother is a hoot. Can I keep him? I don’t think I want to let him go back to California.”

“You’ll hear no complaints from me,” Beckett mumbled with a wink, dodging my swat to his chest.

“Sit! Sit!”

Priscilla placed two menus down in a booth, waving us in with the enthusiasm of an air traffic controller.

“How’s it going?” she asked. “Any word from USAS?”

We shook our heads in tandem. “It’s a waiting game,” I replied.

Harris slid in next to Beckett. Priscilla grabbed him a menu as well before turning to take care of another customer. He looked at me with such a pride filled smile, I forgot for a second that he was actually a fully functioning—albeit a little immature—adult.

“Priscilla’s pretty cool,” Harris said as soon as she was out of ear shot. “She and I knocked out all of her baking today. The cakes will cool overnight and then she treats them with a sugar syrup to make sure they stay moist and they she slow freezes them until she’s ready to assemble them all on Tuesday. Who knew cake baking was so complicated.”

As she approached, I scooted in toward the window so she too could come and join us.

“Long time no see, stranger.” I felt her eyes taking a slow journey up and down my face. There’d been so many witty things I planned to say. When her eyes finally met mine though, and I saw a bottomless well of empathy, every comment I’d planned to make turned into dust.

“It’s been a week, that’s for sure. Harris says that you’re practically caught up?”

She opened her mouth, her eyes raising to expose the excited twinkle of enthusiastic agreement, and the jingle of the front door drew all of our attention.

“I’m gonna gift you some boxers with a GPS tracker sewn in for Christmas!” Fitzy yanked open the door to the diner and beelined straight for me. “Of course I should have guessed you’d be over here. I’m gonna start charging messenger fees to all of you that keep calling me upFitzy take this to my Secret Santa,Fitzy what should I get my Secret Santa, Fitzy can you put this on so and so’s door.I didn’t think starting this little gift giving thing for everyone would create such a headache for me.”

She pulled a tiny box out of her purse. “Here. This is from yours.”

“Presley’s Secret Santa had another gift for him?” Priscilla eyed the box, like I’d been gifted keys to a Ferrari. “I thought it was one a week? He was just telling me yesterday about the book he got?”

“Guess his is more generous than yours is.” Fitzy shrugged.

I opened the box to find two tickets for the Bourbon City carriage ride.

“What’s the Bourbon City carriage ride?” I asked, turning the tickets over, and discovering zero information about what I’d been gifted.

“It’s a tour of the town, in a carriage, obviously.” Fitzy pointed at the tickets as if all would be illuminated in those two tiny raffle sized tickets.

“Oh, cool. When does it open?” Harris asked, “Is it here in the square or do we have to pick it up somewhere else.”

Beckett hid his eyes beneath the palm of his hand, rolling them dramatically in my direction. He turned back to Harris and said, “Why not let the person who received the tickets, figure out what he wants to do with them? Did you think maybe he wanted to take a tour with Priscilla?”

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