Deck The Halls With Brand New Stories: Ho Ho Holiday Anthology

Dear Santa

She picked up the letter and examined the elegant handwriting. This was someone baring her soul. She could relate to the thoughts on this page. It had taken Carmen ages to admit to herself that she liked women. Had taken even longer to utter the word lesbian to the mirror. To this day, her Latin family still couldn't understand why she would "choose" to live this "lifestyle".

At least they still talk to me, she supposed. The support groups she'd gone to were full of people whose families had ostracized them. Just for being gay.

She shook the ruminations from her head and focused on the small stack of hand-written letters on her desk. She was supposed to write back to these kids as if she was Santa, but she had no idea what she was supposed to say. How about, Dear kid, there's no such thing as Santa Claus. Now stop whining for more useless crap and go clean your room.

The thought made her smile.

"See? I knew you'd enjoy it! Keep up the good work!" The senior partner who'd come up with this onerous idea had paused at her doorway, blurted her enthusiasm, and then raced off with such briskness, Carmen could almost see the cartoon dust cloud kicking up in the woman's wake.

Carmen sighed. Her eyes drifted back to Leona's letter. She liked that name, Leona.

Leona the graphic designer.

Leona the lonely lesbian.

Carmen smiled at the alliteration.

Leona, who worked somewhere walking distance from here.

The thought did funny things to her usually carefully guarded feelings. Something about the wistful tone of the letter had wormed its way past Carmen's armor and touched a part of her psyche she thought had shriveled up long ago.

She made up her mind. She would write back. Show Leona she wasn't as alone or lost as she thought. The girl just needed a sympathetic ear. Why else would she have dropped the letter into the box instead of burning it like she'd planned?

Carmen pushed the other letters aside, tore a sheet of paper from her legal pad, and began to write.

***

Leona blew warm air into her cupped hands as she walked. It felt good for about two seconds, then they got cold again. That would teach her misplace her gloves in December. They were probably hanging out in Jamaica with her self-respect, which she'd lost when she let that silly letter slip out of her fingers and into the slot of the Letters to Santa box.

What had she been thinking? Someone was probably laughing at her now, wondering what kind of sad sack of sorrow made a grown woman write to Santa Claus.

Insanity, that's what it was. Pure insanity. Because why else would she have signed her own name on the damn thing? At least she'd had the presence of mind not to put her address on it. No one could return-to-sender, or worse, answer the letter, telling her to grow up and write to an advice column instead. She could put this whole embarrassing thing behind her and pretend it never happened.

Her steps involuntarily slowed as she got closer to the accounting firm's modest office building. A festive wreath hung on the front door, and red ribbons adorned the windows. Leona was tempted to peek through one of the windows to, what, see if people were laughing at her letter?

Don't be ridiculous, she thought to herself. This wasn't high school. Not that anyone laughed at her in high school. People would've had to notice her first.

Stop! No more self-pity. It was good that people ignored her in high school. No one bothered her, and that allowed her to focus on her studies. She was an adult now, and her boss liked her, and her coworkers were nice. Life was going well. Mostly.