The Magic of Mistletoe

Releasing the viselike grip, Mario smiled broadly and his dark hooded eyes lightened up as he grinned. “I’m really glad you came over today. I’ve heard so much about you...ow-ow-ow.”

Mario’s face suddenly twisted in a cringe; his eyes squinted and his mouth tightened as if to keep from cursing. Duke couldn’t imagine anything would cause the man pain. Didn’t he work out every single day? Duke checked out his muscles popping out from his blue tank top. Not only did he have one of those barbed-wire tattoos across his biceps, but there was also a much smaller hand pulling the hairs on his arm. Duke couldn’t see who the hand belonged to, but he had an idea.

Mario shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said in a robotic tone, “I’ve never heard anything about you before in my life.” His eyes widened and stretched while his head nodded to whoever it was behind the door. Duke caught the hint.

“Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you either way. Polizzi. Related to any of the Polizzis in DC?”

“So because I’m Italian, I gotta know everyone whose last name begins with a consonant?”

Duke opened his mouth to apologize, but when he did he saw the hand on Mario’s arm pull the hair again. “Ow, ow, ow.” Mario winced, his eyes visibly watering, but then he playfully punched the air just a fraction before Duke’s ribs. “I’m just messin’ with you!”

“So I heard there’s someone here who knows a little bit about journalism. Someone named Gia?”

“Oh my God, he knows your name!” squealed a squeaky, girlie voice from behind the door.

The door pulled open wider and Duke came face-to-face with a mini replica of Macy. He now knew exactly what Macy looked like as a young girl—all legs, hair and big brown eyes.

“Gia, honey, this is Duke Rodriguez. Duke, this is my daughter, Gia, the aspiring reporter.”

Frozen like a deer caught in the headlights, Gia stared at Duke. There was a slight sound of “hi” or “hello” that came out of her mouth, and then her two friends flanking her grabbed her hands and pulled her up the stairs. Behind the closed doors, he could hear their screams.

“Did I do something wrong?” Duke asked Mario.

Mario reached into his back pocket and extracted a black cell phone. “I’ll tell ya in a second. C’mon in. Can I get you a beer?”

“A beer sounds good.”

“So you’re an alcoholic?”

Duke did a double take. “What?”

Mario’s face spread out in a smile. Duke recalled the photographs of young MJ on the office refrigerator. He definitely saw the connection. Mario made the same punching gesture toward Duke’s ribs and laughed. “Aw, I’m just messin’ with you.”

“Mario, get away from him,” Macy said, coming from down the hallway. She was dressed in a beige strapless sundress that reached down to the floor. Her thick curly hair framed her face; images of running his fingers through it entered his mind. Duke noticed her shoulders were bare, but for a gold crucifix that hung around her neck. His mother would love her already, just knowing she was Catholic.

“Why are you answering my door? You’re supposed to be gone.” Playfully, Macy punched at Mario’s beefy arm before she turned and smiled up at Duke. She stood on her tiptoes, and instinctively Duke leaned down. She kissed him delicately on his cheek. Her lips were soft. The kiss was gentle, but he’d been thinking about her all morning long, so that was enough to send a stirring under his belt. “I’m sorry if he’s trying to get to your head.”

“I wouldn’t try anything like that,” Mario said, voice cracking. The phone in his hand chirped. “Hey, dude, you’re totally on fleek.”

“Mario!” Macy exclaimed.

In his defense Mario held up his phone in one hand and pointed at it with the other. “Hey, that’s not me. Your daughter posted this on Twitter.”

Macy took hold of Duke’s arm and led him down the hallway toward the living room, to the left of the stairs where Gia and her friends disappeared. “You’ll have to excuse Mario, and take him with a grain of salt,” she said.

“You two seem to get along well,” Duke replied.

“Please don’t be fooled by our banter.” Macy shrugged her shoulders. “His family and mine go way back.”

“I think I recall you mentioning it.” Duke hoped he came off nonchalant. “But now you two are friends, for the kids’ sake.”

“It’s easier being friends.” Macy laughed nervously. “We watched a lot of friends go through divorces, and their fighting tore their families apart. We’re the happiest divorced couple you’ll ever meet.”

Where Macy’s office downstairs was full of Christmas memorabilia, her new home was quite different. On one side, family portraits lined the hallway in black frames against the beige walls. The other side resembled a bar that overlooked the sunken living room, with no sign of Christmas coming.

He spied the Baezes and nodded their way, knowing he’d talk to them in a minute. Duke wanted to soak in Macy’s family pictures. He noticed an old picture of Macy when she graduated from high school, the standard photograph of casting a glance over her bare shoulder. Her hair had been pulled up; she was as gorgeous then as she was now. There was a wedding picture of an Italian-looking man with bronze skin and a woman with a café-au-lait complexion; he immediately recognized them as Macy’s parents. Macy had inherited her mother’s thick curly hair and her father’s almond-shaped eyes.

The hallway ended with the kitchen to the right and the living room to the left. The pictures on the wall ended as well, but from what Duke could gather from them, Macy still appeared to have had a normal upbringing with both sets of her grandparents. She at least did all the things typical American girls did, from amusement parks to horseback-riding lessons and camping trips. He liked the various captured moments of her kids growing up. “When Gia is good, she’s his, but when she’s bad, she belongs to me. Go figure,” Macy was saying.