"That's odd, isn't it? These fit yesterday." Dad turned to Bernard and me. He had changed out of his "recreational" clothes and was switching into his "indoor lounge clothes", which didn't make much of a different appearance-wise, but he insisted on being comfortable before a serious conversation.
Bernard's fists clenched a bit tighter around the coat he held up for him.
"That is odd... You haven't been eating any less," I couldn't help but notice his belly was considerably less jolly-looking. "You've still been having your late afternoon cocoa right?"
"Hot cocoa for you, Santa," Abby, Judy's younger sister walked into the room with a tray, as if right on cue. While Judy was out on her honeymoon with Theo, she was momentarily filling in for her.
"Definitely no less cocoa," Dad smiled, and reached his hands out, jerking Bernard forward as he was trying to help him with his coat.
"I sent Dasher down for some Brazilian cocoa beans," She smiled, but this statement immediately made Dad and I turn to her with curious faces.
"What happened?' I raised an eyebrow.
"It's not a good time, Abby," said Bernard. "Can you go get Curtis? Now ?" He asked a bit sharply, causing me to give him a stern look and for him to add a hushed "Please?"
"What's the bad news?" Dad slowly sat down in his chair. I crossed my arms, leaning on the back of his tall leather chair, also waiting for her to respond.
"What do you mean?" She chuckled nervously, dark eyes darting between Bernard, Dad, and me.
"Whenever you play the "designer bean card", you generally have bad news." I said, looking at her face slowly drop, and she glanced over at Bernard.
I also looked at him, "Is this the thing you were going to say earlier?"
"What was earlier?" Dad asked him curiously. "Am I out of the loop or something? What's going on?"
"Sh, no- Not now." Bernard bit his lip. "This is something else, but it's also important... we'll get to the other thing soon."
Our eyes turned back to Abby, and she slowly brought up something from her side.
"What are you doing with the naughty-and-nice list?" Dad reached and grabbed it from her hand. "I've already checked this one twice, I could have sworn-"
"Oh dear," My eyes quickly scanned the list, hoping that it wasn't what I was thinking.
Dad put on his small glasses, and rolled out the piece of paper. By the way Bernard was staring down Abby, I had the feeling that he also was having her, and not him, deliver whatever bad news it was.
"It's Charlie," Abby said softly, her eyebrows turning into two worried swoops. "The list just got reprinted and it needs your approval."
"Sheen? I thought he straightened out!" Dad shook his head disapprovingly, but my eyes finally caught sight of the name I was hoping not to see with a C next to it.
I pointed out his name, "It's our Charlie, Dad," I took a deep breath and held it. How did sweet tiny Charlie end up on the naughty list? What happened in the last few years that changed him so much?
"My Charlie?" Dad asked, astonished, "My son Charlie? He's on the naughty list??" Dad clenched the paper in his hands.
"You can still change the list Dad," I tried to say, but it wouldn't be the right thing to do. Our new list machine made it easier to automatically sort kids, but Dad still did the final two checks. If it thought Charlie was naughty, that really meant something.
"There's got to be a mistake," Dad tried to hand the list back to Abby, but she shook her head.
"We don't make mistakes... I'm sorry Santa, please... excuse me. I'll go find Curtis for you," Abby nodded at Bernard as she left the tray with the leftover cocoa on Dad's desk and left the room.
"How could this happen?" I took the list from Dad and squinted my eyes at Charlie's name, thinking that maybe it was just a typo or something.
Who was I kidding though, magic elves don't generally make typos.
"That's not the bad news you were whispering about earlier?" I set the list back down and looked at Bernard.
"I- uh," Bernard said but was interrupted by Curtis rolling in the large magnifying glass... thing. We never came up with a name for it, but we had it specially crafted for Dad after he complained enough about not being able to see things clearly.
"Oh boy," Dad sighed and muttered under his breath, "Don't tell me there's more."
"Great! You told him! Now let's get you dressed for that meeting!" Curtis gave a big relieved smile.
"Oh great I forgot we had a meeting today," I sighed, flopping onto the big red sofa behind me.
"I can't have the meeting here, I'm going to have to go see Charlie," Dad shook his head. "Now what's that thing in here for?"
"Sir, you can't just skip a council meeting," Bernard put his hands up, again, beating around the bush to any question that was being asked.
"Tell him now!" Bernard hissed into Curtis's ear.
Despite us not being supposed to skip any council meetings, a meeting was the last thing I wanted to attend right now either. I was going to go to Charlie and... well I don't know, but definitely speak some strong words to him.
"Tell me what, guys? Come on, come clean." It was obvious that Dad was getting just as annoyed as I was with them acting so weird.
"Santa... there's a clause." Curtis began explaining.
"That would be me," Dad made an obvious face.
"No I mean there's another Santa clause," Curtis continued to explain poorly.
I looked up at Bernard who was slightly swaying side to side, his lips tightly pressed together, and his chin resting on one of his fists.
"Curtis, in case you haven't noticed, this time of year, the malls are filled with other "Santa Clauses."
"Yes, but there's another Santa " clause" . There was a first clause, but there's also a second clause. "
"Get on with it!" I was losing my patience with the two elves in front of me dancing around the problem. "Just spit it out!
Dad breathed an impatient sigh as well, waiting for Curtis to finally tell us the whole point of his clause talk. Curtis gave me a dirty look before continuing.
"When the last Santa fell off your roof and you put on his coat, you found this," Curtis held up the little Santa card.
"Right, "He who wears the coat takes on the responsibilities of Santa Claus... yada yada yada, something like that and the rest is history.
Right?" He gave a proud look as if remembering that much was impressive.
"But it seems our number... three elf, keeper of the handbook," Bernard turned and gave Curtis a look, "Overlooked, the single. most. important. detail in the history of Christmas!" Bernard yelled in his face.
"Wow," Curtis responded unamused, "One mistake in 900 years," He said smartly.
"I'd argue a few more than one," I shook my head, "As much as it amuses me to watch you bicker, can you get on with it already?"
"Look," Bernard pulled up the first magnifying glass, as angrily as one could possibly pull up a magnifying glass.
"I can't see that," Dad leaned in, and I watched from over his shoulder.
"Better now?"
Dad squinted his eyes even tighter, "Uh.."
"Or now? Better now? How about now?" Bernard went down the line of magnifying glasses, but after Dad kept shaking his head he finally pulled out the largest magnifying glass. "How's this?"
"I see good, good good... I see it. Okay..." Dad leaned in. We both read the blown-up card as Bernard and Curtis gathered around us. "The cardholder acknowledges a woman of his choosing... true love... not valid in the state of Utah... Holy...Matrimony?? I gotta get married??" He jumped back from the magnifying glass, but I stayed there frozen for a moment, the words I just read processing through my mind.
"He has to get married??" I repeated much louder and with more anger. "What do you mean he has to get married?" I grabbed Bernard by the shoulder and clenched my fist staring directly into his eyes now. "You didn't tell me this, why ?"
There was no way that I wanted a new "step mom". How was he going to even get married? Santa isn't normally seen as the most eligible bachelor... And to be told this out of the blue too, it made me wonder why the hell they didn't tell us sooner.
"Yes, It's the Mrs. Clause," Bernard was twisting his hands together even though he spoke calmly, avoiding my eye contact.
Dad shook his head adamantly as if making up his mind then and there, "What if I don't want to get married?"
"Yeah, I don't approve of this," I shook my head with him, "That wasn't part of the original deal," I finally lifted my hands in defeat and turned the other way, too upset to look at either Curtis or Bernard at that moment.
"It literally was," Curtis coughed, picking up the card again from the holder.
"I don't know about this, guys," Dad went to fix the belt around his stomach that seemed to undo a couple of notches, but when he went to pull it, there was a noticeable pause as he cinched in his waist which was obviously smaller as all of our eyes got wider.
"Oh dear... thede-santificationprocesshas begun!" Curtis said in a mash of words that could just hardly be understood.
"The de-Santifi-what??" I asked, immediately turning back to look at Bernard with another one of my numerous glares of today.
"Hold on, are you telling me, that clause says that if I don't get married, I don't get to be Santa anymore?" Dad asked slowly.
We looked at them hopefully but the two elves just looked back silently, confirming his question. He sighed and turned away, sitting down in a chair with a defeated look on his face.
"That's not fair," I shook my head. "What about the kids? The kids have been so much happier since Dad took the job... Or the elves," I looked up at Dad, "Or us, a family?" This clause wasn't related to my clause which turned me into an elf, so did it mean that I would have to stay here while he was forced to go back home?
"It's not completely hopeless," Bernard put a hand on my shoulder and moved forward to put his arm around me as if it was a comforting gesture after telling us all of that.
I tensed up, not wanting him to touch me right now, so he carefully lifted his arm back up. I decided that I was going to have to have a few "nice" words with him after for keeping this from us.
"You still have time to find a wife."
"How much time does he have?" I stepped away from Bernard, giving him a side eye as I moved.
"28 days," Curtis said.
"28 days??" I put my hands over my face and exhaled loudly, knowing my dad had the least amount of charisma when it came to wooing women.
"So I've got to find a wife by Christmas," Dad stared blankly in front of us before mustering up a half smile.
"Actually, Christmas Eve," Curtis gave a tight-lipped smile.
"I guess it's over," Dad shook his head, his smile dropping again.
"No! You can't think that way!" Curtis pulled my hands from my face and gave Dad a pleading look. "Please don't give up hope! If you do, then we have to," Curtis's eyes rounded out sadly.
The room was silent, all of us looking around in pity and slight despair, interrupted only by the sudden changing appearance as Dad's Santa beard magically shrunk back into his chin.
"Christmas is getting very complicated," Dad sighed.
"Angie. Angie!" Bernard followed me out after I left the room, silent and upset. "Angie, I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner!" He stopped walking and threw his hands up pleadingly.
I stopped and turned back on my heels to face him. "Didn't we talk about this like... eight years ago?? I could have sworn this topic was brought up in hindsight and you were all "Oh no, I'm sure he doesn't have to get married!"
"I said that?" Bernard bit his lip, "I would have told you before but-"
"But what? What's your excuse?? You guys wanted to wait until we had less than a month left to make him scramble to find a wife? Was it some sort of a joke or something? Please tell me because I do not understand." I could feel my eyes daring to tear up.
"Angie!" Bernard repeated, walking over and gripping my arms with his hand.
"What!?" I stepped away from him again. "We have been together for eight years, maybe that's not a lot of time in elf years, but that's a whole lot of time to have checked the clause card just once to make sure we wouldn't run into anything like this. The North Pole could lose its Santa. I could lose my Dad. Then what? Are we just going to pick another Santa off the road or something? Because I sure don't like that idea!"
"We will figure it out, everything is going to be okay," He tried calming me down but I was still angry.
"And how could you guys not tell me about Charlie? That's my brother, and not you and nobody in the whole List department told me about that?" I crossed my arms across my chest as Bernard pulled us into an empty room as elves were starting to stare at the commotion.
"Angie, I'm sorry." He looked at me with a desperate look on his face. "I really mean it when I say that I didn't know about the clause until just a few days ago,"
"But how? You know everything else around here, I just find that hard to believe," I wiped at my eyes, not completely believing him.
"You know I wouldn't lie to you," He said softly, putting a hand on my cheek, "You're right, I should have checked the card sooner. I didn't realize anything was wrong until the doctor pointed out that he had lost a couple of pounds. That's when I had Curtis pull out the card and we saw that. If I would have known it was part of the clause, I would have told you both long ago."
I sighed. There really wasn't much reason for any of us to read the Clause card. It's not as if it was very relevant to us running the Pole on a day-to-day basis but still, how was this left out?
"And I should have told you about Charlie sooner, that is on me. I just know you've been so busy lately getting ready for Christmas this year that I didn't want to add anything else to your plate."
"Okay, okay... It's fine just... If it's a family thing like that, do not keep it from me like that. You can't." I stared into his eyes directly and he nodded. He leaned in to kiss my cheek but I pulled away, "Now I need to get some stuff together," I stepped back, turning to leave the room but he stopped me.
"Wait, where are you going?" He seemed a little hurt at this, but understandably so I was not in a mushy sort of mood.
"I need to go see Charlie, I have to talk to him,"
"There's a council meeting this afternoon, you can't miss that."
"Ugh," I sighed, "I can't just miss one?"
"You know the rules just as much as I do. But right as soon as we're done we can arrange for you to go down to Charlie with your Dad if you really want to."
I sighed again, "Alright fine, let's just hope this meeting is a quick one."