Love Santa by Sharon Glassman

Author:Sharon Glassman [GLASSMAN, SHARON]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780446571395
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2009-11-29T05:00:00+00:00

And would you look at that! The security guard gave me this totally nonthreatening dad-to-mom smile, the kind I’d never gotten from a man in this city before. Probably because I’d never been anybody’s mother before.

“Isn’t it the darndest thing?” he said. “We’ve got windows filled with pictures of kids wearing clothes with pictures of toys on them. Then folks walk in and find out that there are no toys to buy. I told the people who run this place, ‘Not that it’s any of my business, but don’t you think customers will find this confusing? Toys on clothes in the window. No toys inside?’

“They told me, ‘It’s a new “marketing concept.”’ Which, as far as I can see, just means, ‘Ain’t got a clue.’ But those marketing people figure folks will just give in and buy something if they can be tricked into walking through the door.”

This was probably a bad time to confess I earned my living in the field of marketing; that I was paid handsomely to convince innocent people to walk through the wrong door.

“Not me!” I said, the sympathetic shopping mom talking to tired, hardworking dad. “I’m immune to all that ‘marketing’ hooey!”

Hooey? Had I just said the word hooey? I had never said the word hooey in my life. But it definitely sounded momlike, which was a good thing—for appearances.

Dad nodded. He was antihooey, too.

“Kids like my son would rather have a toy than a piece of clothing with a picture of some toy on it any day of the week!” I said, suddenly realizing that might be true. “What’s a nine-year-old boy—my son, he’s nine… ”

Pause. No higher power smote me for making up the kid’s age.

“Nine and a half… ”

Big smile from dad. Mom smile back.

“What’s a nine-and-a-half-year-old boy going to do with a sweatshirt with a picture of a castle on it? Drive his toy soldiers up the sleeves and attack the collar?”

Dad, supreme guardian of innocent children from evil marketers, laughed. He knew, as (he falsely believed) I did, that the world outside the family unit is oh so cold and often strange. Thank goodness for normal parents like us in it!

“Or maybe he’s supposed to hold the sweatshirt over the bathtub and pretend the bathtub’s a moat?” he said.

“Whoo boy!” We sighed in unison.

“Well!” I said, realizing that we mothers also use a lot of words that begin with w. Wow, and whoo, and well! I guess they go where all the cursing should be.

“It’s been great chatting with you, but maybe I should start with something easier. Like sports.”

“There’s a sporting-goods store right across the hall from here. They actually sell sporting equipment, not just the clothes. I’d give them a try,” dad said helpfully. “And you have a nice day.”

“I already have!” I said, realizing that was true, too.

Before I crossed the threshold of the first sporting-goods store I had ever walked into in my life, I took a moment to silently, discreetly read my other little boy’s letter outside the electronic doors.

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