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Jakob French is so not feeling the reason for the season. He’s stressed out, hemmed in, and has only a few hours left to finish his window dressing before the world’s most famous parade welcomes Christmas, and the world, to New York City. On top of all that he’s sure that the window dresser across the street has stolen his theme! With a head full of steam and a holly-jolly bonnet on his head, Jakob storms off to face down the purloiner of ideas and give him what for.
Once he lays eyes on Chet Wallace some of his ire fizzles out as admiration for his foe’s handsome face and rangy physique takes over. Some, but not all. The night then devolves into a holiday free-for-all that includes a snowy war, discomfited police officers, and a mad rush to dress a window before Santa arrives in the Big Apple. Can the spirit of Christmas save this budding love affair?
Dressed in Holiday Style
Copyright © 2020 V.L. Locey
Edited by Sue Laybourn
Dressed in Holiday Style
“Do you see what I see?!”
“In a sec.” Mona replied from somewhere behind the magic pond.
I huffed then plastered my rather adorable nose to the icy front window of Bosh & Marsh and glowered across 5th Avenue at the front window of Billing’s Department store, our archrivals in department storing. Department storing? That’s not even a real thing, Jakob. Stop making up words, you’re not Stephen Colbert. Get a hold on yourself, you know where this is going…
“Oh my God. How dare he? Just…how dare he?! Mona! Mona Lisa Hernandez, would you please come here before I exasperate on top of this arc deco, nineteen-eighties snow man?!”
“Can you hold your ass for like two minutes? I’m pushing a steel rod up this reindeer’s bunghole, okay? Remember you said you couldn’t do it because it would be too traumatic and would thusly bring back images of some twisted sex dream about Rudolph that you had when you were ten?”
“It was my first gay sex dream, leave me and Rudolph be. Honestly, Mona, this fishy bitch over at Billing’s is just too fucking much. Come here! Look at what he’s done this year.” I heard the Styrofoam reindeer squeak as he was pleasured by Mona and her rod. Then she finally appeared, purple bangs hanging into bright blue eyes. “Look over there. Just look! Can you imagine the gall? The sheer size of his galls?!”
“Move over.” She nudged me aside, stood in front of me and looked out over 5th Avenue. It was three in the morning after all but traffic was steady probably due to all the parade route street closures. Our front windows were covered with sheeting to keep my marvelous window dressings hidden from the public until they were done. Which had to be tonight as the Macy’s parade was tomorrow – or actually today - and the windows must be fitted out to impress the mobs who came into Manhattan for the balloons, bands, and arrival of Santa.
She was a tiny thing, short and stout, and one of my closest friends here at work so I could look right over her head. “Oh my God, Jakob!”
“Right?!”
“How dare he use red and green?!”
“Oh, just fuck right off. It’s not the color scheme, it’s the theme! A snowman and reindeer party?! Please, as if anyone who worked at that second rate store could come up with something as original as this.” I waved my hand at our work. “He stole my idea somehow. Oh! I bet he posed as a customer and snuck a peek around the curtains. That sounds just like him!”
“You don’t even know him. How do you know it sounds like a man you don’t even know?” She slipped around me, bumping into a snowwoman who lost her holly leaf bonnet at the bump. “I’d suggest you stop eyeballing what he’s done and focus on our work. We have until opening to finish this.”
“But he’s stolen my idea! How can we possibly use the snowman slash reindeer party theme now that Slutty Asshole Idea Thief over there has used it?! And his window is completed and ready to go and ours is still half-baked.”
Mona turned, bonnet in hand, and glared up at me. I did have a good foot on her so she did have to glare up. “Two things.” She held up two fingers in what could have been seen as a rude gesture in some countries. “One. If you paid more attention to our display and less on Chet’s we’d be done by now. Two. We are not starting over. I’ve been working double shifts to help you out with this. Are you feeling okay? You’ve been really frantic the past week.”
“Chet? How do you know his name is Chet? Gasp! Have you been cahooting with him? Oh! The utter audacity. That’s it!” I grabbed the bonnet from her hand, shoved it down over my stylish ginger hair to keep my ears warm, and stormed out into the bitter cold and snow. Chet. Chet. Fucking Chet the Cheater. How dare he steal my friend and my window dressing ideas?! A taxi rolled up to me, hit the horn, and called me a stupid shit.
“Ho-ho-ho to you too!” I yelled as he pulled away with his middle finger out the window and in the air. New Yorkers. You had to love them. Or not. I was a native from Queens so I could say that. Anyone who didn’t come from New York City had to shut it. Those were the rules. Man it was cold out here. I should have grabbed a coat and not a bonnet but I was committed to this now.
Yellow bonnet strings flapping in the cold wind, I made my way through traffic and hit the sidewalk in front of Billing’s Department Store. Chet was folding a sheet, talking to some guy, his assistant I assumed, showing 5th Avenue a genuinely nice ass all cradled in jeans. Mm, I did love jeans. On other men, not me. I preferred silkier fabrics next to my alabaster skin. Chet, who did not have alabaster skin but skin as dark as the winter sky over Manhattan, turned when I lobbed a snowball at the window. Actually, he jumped, dropped the sheet, and flung himself around. I whipped another snowball, this one kind of gray from the dirty sidewalk, at his face.
It hit the glass and splattered to hide his handsome face until it melted and slithered down to the pane. His brown eyes were wide. I gave him the finger. His eyes rounded even more. I gave him two fingers. Then he disappeared from the display, which was cute, sort of, if only he’d not stolen the idea. The other guy ran after him. I stamped to the front door as I fashioned another snowball. When it opened, I fired, and caught Chet the Cheater right in the face. I hooted, pumped the air, and then had my bonnet knocked off my head by an incoming snowball. War broke out then. The war of the window dressers. The Roses had nothing on us. Snowballs flew steadily. Many lives were lost. Not really, but a few cars took solid hits. Vulgarities rained down on us like fiery arrows.
When I caught one in the face I fell to my ass, my nose and eyes full of slushy, dirty, city snow. I heard someone running up to me so I lunged at the nearest snowbank, a poor looking thing that had been shoveled up yesterday and was now probably littered with cigarette butts and dog piddle. Making two wet balls I threw both at the sound of shoes rapidly approaching. Then I reached up to clear my eyes as the someone who’d been barreling at me stopped and began cursing.
Chuckling over my victory, I blinked the melted snow off my lashes and looked up to see a NYPD beat cop wiping dog pee snow from his face. He did not look amused. Another snowball impacted the back of his head knocking his blue cap off. Chet the Cheater ran up as apologies rolled out of him. The disgruntled cop said we were both being arrested for assaulting an officer with wintery weapons. Chet and I were told to sit on the curb until a police vehicle arrived while we both pleaded our cases as he cuffed us. Cuffed! Like common criminals. My mother was going to lose her shit when she heard about this…