Holiday Madness: A Boyfriend Thief Christmas Story Read online

  “He better,” Mr. Throckmorton said, running a hand through his hair again. “I’m counting on the two of you to pull this off and get some business back in here before I go broke.”

  How did I manage to get the blame for something my insane boyfriend had come up with?

  Mr. Throckmorton disappeared into the back again while I tried to find ways to pass the time at the counter. I swept the floor. Then I organized the packets of ketchup and mustard so that they all faced up in the baskets. I stacked the drink lids so they were neat and even. The stack of small sized lids was a little shorter than the others, so I went to the back and counted out seven lids to make them all the same height.

  If Zac were there, he’d give me a look and say, “Avery, you’re being obsessive-compulsive again.” It was one of the ways we worked together. He reminded me to not be so uptight and I reminded him to focus.

  Although, when he set his mind on something, he had way more focus than anyone I knew. In just two days, he had gotten almost everything together for the Hot Dog Holiday Wonderland Hop. No one else would have been able to throw this thing together at the last minute.

  Maybe I was still just a tiny bit jealous that Mr. Throckmorton loved Zac’s idea so much. But I was a supportive, enthusiastic girlfriend. I could stand in the shadows for one night while Zac got all the glory. It was for a good cause.

  Just as I felt my eyelids growing heavy and wondered if I could actually take a nap while standing up, Mr. Throckmorton burst through the kitchen door again. His face was red and sweating even more profusely.

  “That boy!” he roared, running a hand through his hair and making it stick up even more. “He can’t stay out of trouble for five seconds! He knows how important this is, and he has to go and break his leg!”

  My eyes widened. “What? Who broke their leg?”

  “Reiser.”

  “Blake broke his leg?” I gasped. “How?”

  Mr. Throckmorton sucked in a deep breath, then let it out, his nostrils whistling. “Well, maybe not broken. He says he slipped on a patch of ice while walking out his front door and twisted his ankle. He’s at the emergency room now, waiting for it to be looked at.” My boss paced back and forth, mopping at his forehead with the dingy rag again. “He can’t dance now, not with a twisted ankle.”

  My stomach had already begun that sinking to my toes sensation before Mr. Throckmorton’s gaze even fell on me.

  He pointed a thick finger. “You’ll do it.”

  No. No. No. No. No.

  I shook my head. “How about Mark? Or Luis?”

  “They can’t get the shuffle right,” Mr. Throckmorton said. “You’re doing it, James. No complaints.”

  “But—”

  “No complaints!” Mr. Throckmorton called as he disappeared into the kitchen again.

  Great. Just great. Of course Elliott would twist his ankle the day before the dance-a-thon.

  I pulled my phone from my pocket and texted Molly.

  Your boyfriend and my boyfriend are teaming together to torment me. It’s a conspiracy!

  A few seconds later, Molly texted back, You think everything’s a conspiracy. Calm down. Deep breaths. Nothing is as bad as you always think it is.

  Yeah, right.

  Zac arrived at my house just as I had gotten off work that night. School was out for winter break and we had planned to spend a lot of time together, but this wasn’t exactly what I’d had in mind.

  “I have a lot to do and not much time to do it,” Zac said as he stepped into my house. He carried a box overflowing with Christmas lights and ornaments and Santa Claus hats.

  “What is all of that?” I followed him into the den, where he dumped the box on the floor by the couch. The box tipped over, spilling the contents across the carpet. There was even more inside than what seemed possible to stuff in a box that size.

  “Decorations my mom said I could use for the Holiday Wonderland Hop,” Zac answered. “I was planning to go to Diggity Dog House in the morning and get everything set up.” He dug into the stuff and found a pile of papers clipped together. “These are the sponsor posters I’ll tape on the walls and windows. It’s been a rush since we didn’t have much time, but it’s all coming together really nicely. I even called the newspaper and the local TV station to let them know what we’re doing. The paper is going to run a notice in the events section tomorrow and the TV station said they’ll send a reporter out to film us for one of those feel-good holiday stories.”

  Film us? By us, he meant me. Because I would be dressed as a giant Hot Dog Santa, doing the Diggity Dog Shuffle. On television, in front of the whole county.

  My stomach churned. A huge chunk of something that felt like the hot dog I’d had for dinner earlier was working its way up my esophagus.

  “I don’t think I can do this,” I said.

  Zac wrinkled his nose. “Do what?”

  I flailed my arms. “This! The Hot Dog Holiday Wonderland Hop.”

  He patted me on the shoulders. “Yes, you can. You have to.”

  I crossed my arms, scowling as he bent back over his pile of Christmas junk. Specks of glitter had fallen off one of the Santa Claus hats onto the beige carpet I had vacuumed that morning. He didn’t even seem to notice the mess he was making. He never noticed the messes he created, like he expected everyone to just deal with it and live the same way he did.

  “I don’t have to do anything, Zac.”

  Zac sighed. “Okay, sorry. You’re right, you don’t have to do it. But it was your idea.”

  “No,” I said, my teeth clenched hard. “My idea was a canned food drive. Which no one paid any attention to. All of this insanity is your idea.”

  “Yes, and I would really appreciate it if you would dance tomorrow.”

  Fury bubbled inside me. My neck felt hot and my collar itched at my skin. “Why? So you can bask in all the glory of putting this together? Everyone is so in love with your idea, but they never even bothered to notice what I was trying to do all along! So now you can be on TV and in the newspaper, with everyone admiring how brilliant you are and how you got people in this town to think about someone other than themselves? Meanwhile, I’m just the stupid giant hot dog, doing a stupid dance for a stupid fundraiser!”

  When Zac’s expression turned from confusion to hurt, I realized what I’d said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said quickly, my tantrum deflating fast. “I didn’t mean your idea is stupid—”

  “That’s what it sounded like,” Zac said, his voice flat. He turned the box right side up and began tossing things into it.

  “It’s not stupid,” I told him. “It’s not you. It’s me. I don’t want to dance in front of everyone. Especially not on TV.”

  “You’ve danced in front of people before,” Zac pointed out.

  “That’s different!”

  “How?” he asked.

  I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t explain. I didn’t want to be the center of attention, with all of those eyes on me while I humiliated myself. I didn’t like for people to laugh at me. Even now, even after how far I’d come with my insecurities, I didn’t want to be the giant hot dog dancing for hours on stage while people laughed.

  “If you thought my idea was dumb, you should have told me two days ago.” Zac stood and hefted the box up on his hip. “You would have saved me all this work for such a stupid idea.”

  “Zac,” I said.

  But he stomped out of the house, slamming the front door behind him.

  Christmas Eve.

  I stared up at the ceiling, not wanting to get out of bed. Once I got up, I’d have to face a day of dancing in a giant hot dog costume. A day of my boyfriend being mad at me. A day of being laughed at.

  I grabbed my phone and checked for text messages. Nothing. I had texted Zac at least twenty times after he’d left my house the night before, but he still hadn’t responded. I wanted to call him and apologize, but I also didn’t want to give him a chance to hang up on me. It would be compl
etely understandable if he did, but I didn’t want to deal with the possibility of it actually happening.

  When I couldn’t avoid it any longer, I rolled out of bed, showered, dressed, and drove over to Diggity Dog House. Zac’s beat up car was already in the parking lot and my stomach lurched at the sight. I parked a few spaces away and then sat in my car, my hands gripping the steering wheel. Deep breaths. I could get through this. I would not have a panic attack just because I’d be dancing in a giant hot dog costume all day and my boyfriend wasn’t speaking to me on Christmas Eve.

  A knock on the window next to my head made me jump. Molly grinned at me through the window.

  “You look like you’re thinking about running off to the Himalayas,” she said when I climbed out of the car.

  “Don’t tempt me.” I pressed a hand to my stomach. “I don’t feel so great.”

  “Have you eaten anything this morning?” she asked.

  I tried to remember everything I’d done since I rolled out of bed. “I don’t think so.”

  “That’s your problem, then. Go inside and get a hot dog.”

  “Ugh,” I groaned. “I cannot eat a hot dog this early in the day.”

  Molly grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the door. “It’s too early for whining too. So get in here and see what your boyfriend’s done with the place.”

  When I stepped through the glass door, I wasn’t sure that I had entered the right restaurant. It did not look like the Diggity Dog House I knew. The ugly orange and brown walls had been covered with sheets of cotton matting. Colorful lights were strung all around the walls, so that it looked like Christmas lights glowing against a snowy background. The floor was also covered with white cotton, with lumps here and there covered with the cotton matting to create snow drifts piled around the room.

  The tables closest to the drink dispenser had been cleared away and a small temporary stage had been set up, with tiny Christmas trees all around it and a glittering disco ball hanging overhead. There was even a fake snowman standing in one corner and a chair covered in a red cloth, with a big red Santa's toy sack next to it.

  My mouth hung open as I turned circles, taking in the transformation. Even the sponsor posters were nicely done and made to look like sign posts attached to giant red and white striped candy canes. Zac had gotten more sponsors in the last day. There had to be at least fifteen posters around the room.

  “Zac did all of this in two days?” I asked.

  “Can you believe it?” Molly said. Even her eyes sparkled as she looked around the room. “He said he’s been here since six this morning, setting everything up.”

  “By himself?”

  Molly nodded. “I told him he should have called and asked for help, but...” She shrugged. “Zac likes to do things his own way.”

  Yes, he did. And he had done something amazing. He had taken my little idea of a canned food drive and turned it into a real winter wonderland.

  He had given us snow for Christmas.

  Mr. Throckmorton walked out of the kitchen and clapped me on the shoulder. “I don’t know how he did it, but your boyfriend pulled it off.” He shot me something that I assumed was supposed to be a smile, but looked more like a grimace. “Now we just have to hope the people come.”

  “Of course they’ll come,” Molly said. Her phone beeped and she pulled it out of her pocket to check the text. “That’s Elliott. His parents drove him over. Poor thing is on crutches for a couple of weeks. I’m going to go help him inside.” She pointed at me. “You should go get into your costume.”

  Mr. Throckmorton looked at his watch and his eyes widened. “Yes, go! We need Bob ready in five minutes. Shoo!”

  “Where’s—” But Mr. Throckmorton pushed me toward the kitchen, not letting me get the question out. My gaze scanned the room and the kitchen area, but there was no sign of Zac anywhere, only my coworkers scurrying around to start up the grill and hot grease.

  He was probably busy with some last minute preparations. It didn’t mean that he still wasn’t talking to me.

  I changed into the giant hot dog costume in the small employee bathroom, trying to ignore the dull ache in my stomach. If I could just see Zac and make sure everything was okay between us, it would all be fine.

  “Customers are here!” Mr. Throckmorton shouted, pounding on the door. “We need Bob now!”

  I sighed, then prepared myself for a day of total humiliation.

  It’s for a good cause, I told myself as I waddled into the restaurant. It’s all for a good cause.

  A cheer erupted when I walked out of the kitchen and into the dining room. It was hard to see well through the mesh screen, but I could make out a crowd already packed into the restaurant.

  But not just any crowd. Most of the people in the room were dressed up. There were giant snow people and Santa Clauses and Mrs. Clauses and elves and even a bottle of mustard helping a bottle of ketchup balance on crutches.

  One of the Santas, an especially round one with a thick white beard, helped me onstage. I stood facing the crowd, waving my giant puffy-gloved hand.

  “Welcome to the Diggity Dog House Hot Dog Holiday Wonderland Hop!” Mr. Throckmorton called out over the restaurant’s P.A. System. “We are about to start our canned food drive and Bob is ready to dance! Do we have an opening request? Each can gets you five minutes of dance time.”

  “I have ten cans!” one of the snowmen shouted, holding up a plastic grocery bag. He grinned and pointed at me. “Get dancing, Bob!”

  Mr. Throckmorton took the cans and then the music blasted through the speakers. All eyes turned to me. I gulped as I stared out at the crowd.

  “Go, Bob! Go, Bob!” someone started to chant. Soon, the rest of the crowd followed, the sound roaring through the tiny restaurant. People clapped and cheered and many of them even started dancing--bouncing snowmen and Santas and elves everywhere, arms flailing as people laughed.

  The spirit in the room was infectious. I grinned behind my face mask and let myself go, turning into Bob the Giant Dancing Hot Dog Santa instead of Uptight Avery.

  It was the best canned food drive ever.

  Six hours later, I was a sweaty, panting, exhausted hot dog. The TV crew had shown up and got video of me dancing, but when I started to feel panicked, I just danced harder.

  I had danced my bun off, only stopping a few times for food and bathroom breaks. During those few times I was on break, a collection of Santa Clauses and elves would take the stage in my place and dance for the crowd. The roundest Santa sat in his chair in the corner, talking to kids and handing out candy canes and posing for pictures. The giant bottle of mustard helped collect the cans while the giant ketchup bottle balanced behind the register on crutches along with four more of my coworkers dressed as elves. Even while I danced, I could see how busy the counter was, constantly rushing back and forth to take and fill orders. Mr. Throckmorton was absolutely beaming by the end of the day.

  The people from Willowbrook Helping Hands had just left with the entire collection of cans—hundreds of them. Way more than I had imagined getting three days ago.

  “All right, time to close up,” Mr. Throckmorton called. He looked around at the Holiday Wonderland inside the store and shrugged. “Ah, it’s Christmas Eve. We’ll clean this up in a couple of days when we reopen. You all go home. Merry Christmas.”

  Who was this guy and what had he done with my stressed out boss?

  Not wanting to give him a chance to change his mind, I hurried to the back to change out of the hot dog costume. I tossed Bob into the supply closet and wiped at my sweaty brow, pushing sticky hair from my face. I felt good. Zac had done a great job with everything.

  My stomach churned. Zac. I hadn't seen him all day. I didn’t want to think about what that meant.

  “You were great!” Molly called out as she walked through the swinging door into the kitchen, the mustard and ketchup costumes tucked under one arm.

  I raised my eyebrow at her. “You know this area is for
employees only, right?”

  Molly waved a hand. “I was dressed as a giant bottle of mustard all day. I think that gives me the right to trespass on hallowed Diggity Dog House ground.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were dressing up?” I asked as she tossed the costumes into the supply closet along with the giant hot dog.

  “Zac wanted it to be a surprise for you,” Molly said. “He found the mustard and ketchup costumes in an old box in the storage room. Apparently, Mr. Throckmorton had once wanted a whole team of Diggity Dog mascots, but the mustard and ketchup weren’t as popular as the hot dog. Elliott was the ketchup, by the way.”

  I smirked. “I figured that out. The crutches kind of gave it away.”

  “Too bad he had to go and twist his ankle.” She shrugged. “But if he hadn’t, I guess he would have been Bob in the end instead of you.”

  “Yeah,” I said, smiling. “I guess it all worked out anyway.”

  We walked back to the dining room, where Elliott was sitting in a chair, his crutches propped against his knee.

  “Ready to go?” Molly asked him.

  Elliott nodded, wincing as he stood, balancing himself on one leg. “My ankle is killing me. I’ve been on my feet too long today.”

  “Man up,” Molly told him. “It was for a good cause!”

  Elliott sighed and rolled his eyes toward me. “I get no sympathy at all.”

  We stepped out into the cold night air and I shivered as the breeze hit me. All around us, colorful Christmas lights gleamed from stores and buildings, and the red ribbons tied to the lamp posts flapped back and forth. Traffic streamed by, people on their way home, probably to spend Christmas Eve with the people they loved.

  “Have you guys seen Zac?” I asked.

  Molly and Elliott exchanged a glance. Molly frowned and my stomach sank.

  Elliott cleared his throat. “I think you should go see Santa Claus.”