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“Will we see you at the workshop this evening?” Emma called after me.
“Like I have a choice,” I muttered quietly.
“I heard that!” she yelled. “5:00 p.m. We start at half-past.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I closed my door, cringing at the day ahead of me.
I had a long day of working in the local council’s estates office manning the phone and boring data entry work before I’d be back in my jingling outfit. I think I must have been a total bitch in my past life because karma really had it in for me.
* * *
It was hours later and I was locked in the ladies’ toilets at Santa’s workshop, fixing the stupid green hat on my head. These next two weeks leading up to Christmas Eve couldn’t come fucking fast enough if you asked me.
I jumped in surprise when a loud banging noise came from the door.
“Faith, I need you!” Emma shouted through the door.
“What is it?” I called, unlocking the door and yanking it open. “What is it?”
She looked freaked out and was pacing outside the door.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. I pulled her into a hug and rubbed my hand up and down her back, trying to calm her. “What’s wrong?”
She pulled back from me.
“My Santa has just put his resignation in.”
“What?” I shrieked. “Why?” I looked past her, seeing Paul standing at the doorway. “Do you have another Santa?” I didn’t give her a chance to respond. I walked past her, going straight past Paul to find out what the hell was going on.
Nick was standing in the middle of the workshop dressed in normal clothes.
“What’s going on?” I asked him.
“I’m sorry, Faith.” He slid his coat on before dropping his hands at his side in a defeated gesture. “I have to travel out of town. My mother has taken a nasty fall and I need to go and see her.”
“Oh.” My shoulders dropped and I knew that there was no way that I could say anything.
I had come in here with the idea of asking him what the hell he was playing at but as I looked at him, I could see that he really didn’t have much of an option. It was his mother. Of course, he had to go.
“I’m really sorry, Nick.” I stepped forward and hugged him, tapping him on the shoulder before pulling back. “If there’s anything that we can do.”
“Thank you.” He looked past me and I knew that Emma and Paul had joined us in the room. “I’m really sorry to let you down, Emma.”
“Don’t be silly.” She walked toward us and pulled him down into a hug. “You get going and let us know how she’s doing, okay?” She pasted a brave smile on her face. “We’ll be okay. Honestly.” She smiled as Paul stopped at her side before he shook Nick’s hand and wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
We waited for Nick to go before I turned to face her.
“This is easy to fix,” I muttered. “Just promote Paul to the Santa position and . . .”
“No,” she said, shaking her head and cutting me off. “I chose Paul as an elf because he’s so friendly and he loves kids and . . .” she paused to look up at him before she grabbed my hand and pulled me over to the other side of the worktop. “He will kill me if I make him Santa. Plus, with all the hours that he works . . .”
I looked past her, freezing when I saw that he was talking on his phone to someone.
“I think I have an idea,” I said.
I walked past her, holding my hand out for the phone in his hand.
“Is that Jack?” I asked.
