PROLOGUE
Goodbye Alyssa McQueen
I’m running. Not like a speeding bullet. Not with the majestic grace of an athlete. Nope. I’m running like a foal on the day it’s born, looking like it doesn’t have command of its legs yet. This is because I’m running while wearing four-inch heels.
I zig and zag through the shopping mall with the backpack secured on my front instead of my back, so I can make sure I’ve got my arms tight around it. There’s no way I can lose this bag.
I wobble as I zoom through the purse and wallet store. These shoes are awful to run in. As terrible as they are, I know I’ll draw even more attention if I’m running shoeless, so I keep motoring.
“Does this place have a back door?” I breathlessly ask the bored salesclerk who’s scrolling on her phone.
Her eyes roll up from her screen toward my face. I probably look crazed. I am. With fear. I glance over my shoulder to see if he’s gaining on me.
I don’t have time to ask again, so I haul ass out of there and into the wine store next door to it. This shop is tiny. Bad idea.
Though, today has been a series of bad ideas.
There are too many things to bump into that will smash, break, and make a mess – not to mention draw attention to me, which I do not want. Though that might be difficult what with me wearing high heels, a little black dress, mascara tracks down my cheeks from all the crying, not to mention running through a mall with a backpack strapped to my front.
I boogie over to the next shop and find myself in a store called Christmas Everyday!
The exclamation mark after the everyday is an upside-down Christmas tree.
It’s April.
I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas is piped through the speakers and even in my panic, it strikes me as strange that it’s so busy in here. Who buys Christmas decorations in spring? There are dancing hippo figurines in Santa hats, twinkling lights, and sparkle and tinsel everywhere. The movie White Christmas, which my mother loves, is being played on a projector screen that’s aimed at a white wall and the staff who mingle with the shoppers are wearing elf hats and pointy green shoes.
Is that the guy in the trench coat wearing the Dick Tracy style hat? Shit! He doesn’t see me, but he’s just walked by and his head scans from left to right as he walks, looking like a Terminator movie robot.
I throw a tall, green elf hat on my head to distract from my blonde hair. “Can I use your restroom?” I plead to an older elf-dressed female employee. She has a grimace on her face.
“We got no public bathroom,” she rasps in a two-pack-a-day voice. “There’s one by the food court.”
I do a jig slash bounce and plead with my eyes, hopeful, because she looks like a grandmother – albeit a grouchy one – and grandmothers don’t want to see young people pee their pants.
She looks more annoyed as she jerks her thumb over her shoulder, pointing at an alcove behind the cash register.
Hallelujah!
Not Dick Tracy hasn’t seen me.
“Thank you! Bless you!”
I boogie.
And luck would have it, there’s a door marked receiving right beside the staff bathroom. There’s a warning sign that the alarm will sound if the door opens without the alarm being disengaged.
And shit. Because that alarm will be blaring and that’s going to draw attention, but it can’t be helped. I have zero choice.
If Not Dick Tracy catches me, I’m vulture chow, fish food, or something equally disturbing and final.
These fucking shoes: they have to go.
Beside the receiving door there’s a coat rack with Santa hats and one Santa coat. Below it, I see a pair of elf shoes.
I bite my lip in a brief beat of contemplation. Fuck it. I have no other choice.
They might have pointy toes and big buckles, but these green crushed velvet slip-ons will be a whole lot easier to run in than my current sky-high heels.
Where are the other peoples’ shoes, anyway? There are multiple people in the store wearing elf shoes. Why can’t I see a pair of Nikes or Converse or maybe even a pair of sensible Tender Tootsies belonging to Grumpy Grandma elf?
Whatever. I have no time to ponder this further so off go my strappy heels and on go the crushed green velvet elf shoes before I drop the elf hat, fill my lungs with air and then, being mildly superstitious, do a sign of the cross and put my shoulder against the big silver bar across the grey steel door.
The shoes are a little big but they’re way better than what I had on.
A split second after I shove and the door opens, sunlight and traffic noises spilling into the store and interrupting the now playing All I Want for Christmas is You, the alarm blares. And I’m running.