Santa Series: Three Stories of Magical Holiday Romance Read online

  “I’m still not clear on any of this,” she said. “What does this Palmer want, exactly?”

  “He wants Santa to be a force for good,” Oskar said.

  Well, that was offensive. “Santa is a force for good,” she said.

  If she didn’t believe that, she wouldn’t be working for Claus & Company. She wouldn’t have given up her life for it.

  “We know that,” Oskar said, “but Professor Palmer’s tarnishing the brand. We can’t allow that. We must control the image ourselves.”

  She looked at Oskar’s sincere, unlined face, and resisted the urge to remove his hand from her thigh. She didn’t want to offend him, although really, Palmer and the job he represented was annoying her.

  “Can’t we just let this blow over?” she asked Oskar.

  “Some things blow over, some things don’t,” Oskar said.

  She’d heard that before as well. It was Marketing 101. The next thing he’d say would be that if they didn’t get ahead of this train, then it would pass them by, and she would say that if they got in front of a train, it could run them over, and then they’d all argue about the use of metaphor and whether or not it was accurate, and then they’d return to the topic, and the decision would end up being the same.

  When Oskar had an idea this strong, no one crossed him.

  But she had to try. “I’m afraid if we give this professor credence, then the story will become bigger.”

  “…not even sure kids can relate to Santa anymore,” Palmer was saying. “One hundred years ago, a fat, sated man was the epitome of wealth. Now we know that such a man is a heart attack waiting to happen. We associate his level of obesity with a lack of care instead of too much care…”

  She closed her eyes. Okay. That was a good argument. Santa the Slovenly was not going to play in Peoria.

  Oskar’s hand slid a little too close to her inner thigh. He leaned over and blew cigarette breath on her. “Now do you understand?”

  “Yeah,” she said, opening her eyes. The television image had returned, and it now showed rows and rows of clapping people, all looking pleased. “Unfortunately, I do.”

  2

  RYAN PALMER SPIT the last of the mouthwash into the highball glass and replaced the plastic lid. Then he opened the little cupboard on the limo’s side door and placed the entire mess in the dirty-dish box. That he knew where this model of limo stashed its dirty dishes pointed to the fact that he had spent too much of the last few weeks doing press interviews on someone else’s dime, and not enough time actually living his life.

  And now he was in New York. He’d recognize the city just from its sound. Honking horns, construction noise, the rush of traffic—all audible through the limo’s soundproof windows. He loved the city. He’d gone to school here. At any other point, he would look out the window, compare the city now to the days when he had lived here, but not even that interested him. Right now, all he wanted to do was get to his hotel and take a very long nap.

  Which wouldn’t happen for at least three hours, maybe more.

  The limo had pulled up in the elite section of the underground parking at one of the most famous network buildings in America. They even had had three television shows named after this place’s address. So many famous people went in and out of here that they needed several protected entrances, even though it was New York, and all the locals were supposedly blasé about the famous.

  Ryan did not want to be here yet. All the way from the airport, he’d been angling to be let off at his hotel. He figured he had an hour before he had to arrive for whatever show was on his schedule next, an hour in which he could shower, put on different clothes, and maybe, just maybe, be alone for just a few minutes.

  Ryan had asked the driver to take him to the hotel and the driver had politely refused. After all, Ryan hadn’t hired the driver, and drivers hired by publicists knew better than to drop an unsupervised client at an unplanned location. That was how drivers got fired and unsupervised clients made it into the tabloids.

  Although Ryan didn’t think he was famous enough to be tabloid fodder. Yet, his publicist would say. Or rather, the publicist hired by the university would say. That publicist came highly recommended, from the university’s usual PR firm. The firm’s usual university publicists handled the athletic department—the young kids who had no idea how to play Famous Star Quarterback or Nearly Superstar Basketball Player, not to mention the coaches and assistants who generally put a foot in something (and not always their mouths).

  No, that firm wasn’t used to a mild-mannered scientist who specialized in public health. In fact, upon meeting him, the publicist had told him that everything about his resume screamed Stay Away From the Media! Her name was Wendy (“Think magic!” she said when she introduced herself. “You know, like Peter Pan.”), and she was younger than half his students, although infinitely more focused.

  If it hadn’t been for the YouTube video one of his graduate assistants had talked him into making, Ryan wouldn’t be “on the cutting edge of celebrity,” as Wendy said, speaking learnedly about something that everyone else was taking just a tad too seriously.

  Ryan could not believe the fuss. Santa Claus did not exist, except in the imaginations of small children. Santa Claus in the 21st century was a media creation that the people once known as the Wizards of Madison Avenue had created to sell cola, for heaven’s sake.

  Back in the days when cola had cocaine in it.

  The limo driver opened the door, startling Ryan. “We’re here, Doctor Palmer.”

  Ryan hated being called “doctor,” too. He had a medical degree, but he chose not to use it. He never really trusted himself with diagnosis, and he had discovered that he hated surgery. He preferred “Professor,” but no one in this weird media realm he found himself in wanted to use that.

  Actually, he suspected Wendy told them not to. She thought “doctor” was a lot more impressive and added to his credibility.

  Think Doctor Phil, she said.

  Indeed, Ryan had replied, who was thinking of Dr. Phil, a man with a Ph.D., but no medical license. Ryan hadn’t said anything disparaging, but only because he had learned that arguing with Wendy was like arguing with his C students about homework—there really was no point.

  “I’m told they got clothes for you upstairs. Someone will meet you at the door and get you to makeup,” the driver said.

  Oh, goodie, Ryan thought, but didn’t add. Because really, who said “goodie,” any more anyway, at least as a full-fledged adult.

  “Thank you,” he said, and reached for his wallet. He was going to tip this driver, no matter what anyone said. This guy had at least been friendly.

  “No, no,” the driver said, waving his meaty hands. “I get well paid by your company. I’m not allowed to do the tip thing.”

  He didn’t even sound regretful, unlike the driver in LA who had complained about that regulation for half the drive through the virtual city that was LAX. There, Ryan had been happy to raise the privacy screen.

  He got out of the limo into a semi-decorated parking garage filled with murals of famous faces. That still didn’t get rid of the stench of exhaust and spilled beer, but it did let him know he was in a better class of parking structure.

  As if that mattered.

  He got onto the elevator and closed his eyes as the door eased shut. Just a moment of alone-time, but that moment might mean everything. When this little whirlwind was over, he was going to get off the media merry-go-round; he didn’t care how many books it sold or how famous he got. He didn’t want to be Dr. Palmer, talking about children’s health on national television and listening to fat people complain that their holiday recipes were a once-per-year indulgence and a family tradition.

  A slender arm with red nails and pricy bangles caught the door just before it closed. He felt a second of irritation before the door slid back to reveal the woman of his dreams.

  This woman was tall and slender, with wedge-cut black hair and almond-shaped black e
yes that snapped with intelligence. Her mouth was thin and a shade of red that matched those nails. But the rest of her makeup was subtle: pre-television makeup, the kind that kept the beautiful beautiful before they became HD-ready.

  She wore a form-fitting black dress that suggested but didn’t quite execute an art deco design. The dress’s geometric patterns actually accented the wedges in the woman’s hair. She clutched a white wool coat to her chest, as if she were hot (and she was hot, just not that kind of hot), even though it had to be below freezing in the elevator itself. She wore strappy, high-heel shoes that made her as tall as he was, and some kind of silvery legging that suggested both nylons and leg warmers.

  He had noticed all of that as she made her way across the elevator’s tiny space. He was staring, and that was probably wrong. Besides, identifying her as the woman of his dreams just proved that he was exhausted. He didn’t have dreams about women—except those dreams that he assumed every man had (and enjoyed) in those long days between relationships.

  She nodded at him, and then did the urban-elevator gaze. It focused on the changing numbers, as the elevator climbed its way up. He was heading to the third floor. He figured a woman clutching a large tote bag, a heavy wool coat, and the latest, coolest tablet would be going up higher in this seventy-story building, maybe to one of the business floors.

  Her hair moved ever so slightly revealing a small ear. It looked vaguely pointed, which, for some geeky reason, made her even more attractive to him.

  He sighed, and that made her glance directly at him. He gave her a nervous smile—he was always nervous around beautiful women—and then he focused on the elevator’s crawling numbers just like she did.

  Finally, after what felt like two hundred years, a ping announced their arrival on the third floor. He shifted as the door opened, then watched in surprise as she stepped out first. He had almost impolitely shoved his way past her, assuming she was getting out on a different floor, and he was glad he hadn’t. For some reason, he didn’t want to seem rude in the eyes of a woman he had never really met and would probably never see again.

  Wendy, darling Wendy, Wendy darling, (he sighed a second time) was waiting for him outside the elevator, her own tablet clutched against her massive (and expensively artificial) chest. She resembled a cartoon drawing of a beautiful woman next to the woman who had just gotten off the elevator. Wendy was taller and thinner, but her red hair had an orange tint that looked dyed, despite the efforts of the high-end salon that catered to her every whim.

  Wendy was frowning at him and he wondered just how rumpled he looked.

  “Who was that?” she asked, glancing at the back of the beautiful woman who was now walking down the hall.

  “How should I know?” he answered. That beautiful woman could have been the biggest superstar in the world, and he wouldn’t have had the slightest idea who she was. He followed media trends, but not industry gossip. He never knew who the latest, hottest star was. He’d learned, following trends as they applied to public health, that what was hot now would be forgotten a few weeks from now.

  Except for the mega-trends, the mega-creations like—um—Santa Claus.

  “She looks familiar,” Wendy said, but not in a positive I-just-saw-someone-famous way, but in a this-could-be-a-disaster way.

  Ryan shrugged. He didn’t want to think about the beautiful woman any more. Which wasn’t exactly true. He did want to think about her. When he conjured up ideas of female beauty. Alone. Not before yet another dumb interview.

  “Is there a green room?” he asked, changing the subject.

  “You’re not going to the green room,” Wendy said. “You need a shower, a change of clothes, and makeup. You have shadows under your eyes that children could sleep in.”

  Wendy, darling Wendy, Wendy darling. She was the one who had set up the brutal press schedule in the first place. Didn’t she realize that real humans needed to sleep and eat and maybe sit by themselves at least once every day?

  Oh, wait. He had already had that discussion with her, and she had said, You can handle this for six weeks. They had known each other maybe an hour at that point, and he had never figured out what made her so certain he could cope with a killer schedule.

  Even now, four weeks in, she wouldn’t listen when he mentioned sleeping and eating and alone time. She seemed to believe he should get up from the six hours of sleep the brutal schedule allowed him, and look camera-ready.

  He wasn’t camera-ready on eight-plus hours of sleep, let alone when he was jet-lagged, woozy with exhaustion, and hungry. That slice of pizza he’d managed to snag on the way through the airport had held him for exactly 90 minutes.

  He said, “Is there food—?”

  “There’s always food in the green room,” she snapped. “Make sure none of it sticks in your teeth.”

  The green room was one shower, some stupid dress clothes, and a half hour in the makeup chair away from him. His stomach was already rumbling.

  If he had known the price of media fame was exhaustion, boredom, and repeating the same argument in front of a new group of (unbelievably dumb) talking heads, he wouldn’t have signed on in the first place.

  And, to be fair to himself, he’d tried not to sign on. The president of the university had convinced him to do this. We’re in a tough time, the president had said. We can’t continue raising tuition. We need alumni donations now more than ever, and alumni tend to donate when someone from their alma mater becomes famous for the right things, especially things we can exploit academically. So help us out, Ry, okay?

  That “Ry” had almost made Ryan say no. No one called him “Ry.” He sounded like bread. But he had agreed, because he did care about the university. And he had thought getting his message out would help kids and families.

  He hadn’t expected everything to focus on the three pages in his book where he had used Santa Claus as an example of harmful media hype that needed updating for the modern era.

  “Doctor Palmer?” Wendy said in that tone that he was sure she would use on a poor, defenseless husband someday. “Shall we?”

  Ryan sighed a third time. Once more into the breach, he thought, because he knew saying it out loud would be worthless. Wendy would ask him what it meant, and then he’d have to explain Henry the Fifth. Hell, he might have to explain Shakespeare.

  Wendy was a high-end representative of the media/publicity/punditry class. She was smarter than most, which wasn’t saying much.

  He’d been on a few shows where he felt like he’d have to explain who Santa Claus was.

  He hoped the upcoming appearance wasn’t one of those.

  3

  THE MAN IN the elevator had been unbelievably gorgeous. Magically gorgeous. So gorgeous, in fact, that Nissa worried he was a celebrity whom she didn’t recognize. She’d met a lot of celebrities who could make themselves look relatively normal with the right choice of clothes, stubble, and a two-day lack of sleep. She used the word relatively, because it was always hard to hide the great facial architecture that a camera loved, blue eyes that suggested a thousand perfect summer days, and lips so kissable that it was hard for a woman—any woman—to resist.

  Get a grip, she told herself as she headed down the hall to check in with the producers of the show she privately called Made-up Controversies Are Us. She’d been on the show dozens of times, usually in the holiday season. But she’d become a regular at other times of year, talking about retail sales and unemployment rates—only because she was pretty and articulate and had a tangential connection to those things.

  If the producers truly knew who she was, she’d be on the show all the time, while they tried to get the Big Guy as the Big Get. But she used her time to plug Claus & Company, and then to remind people to donate to whatever cause was at the top of the company list that week.

  Besides, she liked being the go-to girl when the producers needed something. That meant she could trade favor for favor, and get on the show when she really needed to.

&nb
sp; She really needed to this time. She needed to deal with that Palmer idiot before he got any more airtime. She had promised the producers excellent television, so she needed to be focusing on her arguments.

  Not on that incredibly handsome man in the elevator.

  That was the weird thing: She saw incredibly handsome men all the time. She worked in PR, for heaven’s sake, and she was on television daily during the holiday season. When she came to this place, the home of two networks (one a spin-off) spread out over a dozen floors, she saw Everyone Who Was Anyone. The big names were either doing talk shows or long-running variety shows, always here to promote their latest TV series/album/film.

  She had shared a table with George Clooney in the commissary and not lost her head over his gorgeousness. (Honestly, in real life, he was a bit too thin—just like most actors. Not because they hated food, but because of that camera-ready thing.)

  She had corralled one of Brad Pitt’s 800 children, who, Pitt assured her when she brought the kid into the green room, was usually better behaved. She went out onto the loading dock one afternoon and stumbled on Ewan McGregor, smoking. She had been a bit stunned at just how short he was.

  The thing about actors, producers, writers, celebrities, was that they were real people and yeah, they might be good on TV or gorgeously airbrushed in the pages of Vanity Fair, but they had a human side just like everyone else. They wore too much cologne or ate with their mouths open or fell asleep and snored in the makeup chair.

  Even though she’d met almost all of People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive honorees (if you wanted to call them that), none of them had hijacked her brain (and other parts) quite like Elevator Guy.

  She probably should call him something else in her head. Or at least, try to forget him. Because she hadn’t even heard him speak. She hadn’t quite brought herself to say hello.