Dana Bell - The Ornament - Max and Emma

“Oh, Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree, why don’t I know the stinking words. Ya dada da, ya dada da, nobody knows the stinking words.” Behind her she could hear her partner Becky giggling. She paused in hanging the evergreen garland from the mantle over their fireplace. “Oh please. Do you know them?”

“No. That’s why I don’t sing it.”

Emma shook her head, unable to hide her happy grin. Max had hinted that he had something special he wanted to share with her and she couldn’t wait to find out what it was. “When do we close again?”

“Emma!” Becky shook her head. “Christmas Eve is still two days away.”

“Your point?”

“Didn’t you say Max was hinting at something special for then?”

“Yes.”

“So why are you so hyper now?”

“Hello! Max and surprises.” She finished hanging the garland, tweaking it slightly before stepping back with a satisfied nod. “Last time he surprised me I found myself mated to him and contemplating kitty condos.” She tilted her head, studied the garland, and tweaked it one last time. “And because of the mating the surprise isn’t going to be something like, ‘That chick over there is having my love child’, so it can’t be bad, right?”

Becky was silent.

Emma turned to stare at her friend, suddenly worried. “Right?”

Becky shrugged her head down.

“Becks!” Now Emma was worried. Becky looked torn, and guilty as hell. “He can not tell me that.” Can he?

“Oh no! No, of course not,” Becky laughed nervously. “No way.” She scurried into the back room. “Need more tinsel!”

Emma blinked. Dread settled into her stomach like a lead lump. Oh, no.

What was Max going to surprise her with?

Max stared down at the little black box and grinned. “That should do it.”

“Gah, I hate setting these things up.” Simon stood, stretching out his back before shaking himself all over.

“But it’ll be so worth it once it’s done.” Adrian handed around coffee, sipping from a steaming mug when each man had his own. “Besides, once you plug it in it’s going to look bitchin’.”

“You think the girls will like it?” Simon sat down on the step, running his hands around the mug. It was freezing out.

“They’d better.” Max picked up the plug. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

“Light ‘er up.”

Max plugged it in.

His house lit up like a gaudy bawdy house. Red, green, blue and white lights twinkled merrily. Rattan deer, their innards lit, moved their heads up and down with mechanical precision. And a blow up snow globe type… thing contained a spinning Santa and blowing paper that was supposed to be snow. He even had a glowing baby Jesus, safe in his plastic manger. “It looks. Hmm.”

“Like Rudolph threw up all over your house.”

He glared at Adrian. The man was smart enough to throw up his hands and back off.

“Thank God I picked white lights.” Simon’s head ducked into his coat as a snowball came flying at him.

“Shaddup.” Max studied his yard, frowning. “Maybe I went a little overboard.”

“At what point does it go from ‘overboard’ to ‘Kmart blue-light special’? Because I think we’re there.”

Max turned to Simon and growled. “Asshole.”

“Emma might get jealous.” Simon batted his lashes at Max, earning himself another snowball.

“We don’t have time to fix it now. We still have my place and Adrian’s to do.”

Max grumbled and headed for his Durango, worried how his Curana was going to react to what he’d done to their house. Emma wasn’t exactly shy about letting her opinion be known. He got in the car, following his friends over to Simon’s house.

He only hoped she’d be willing to understand what it was he was trying to say.

And maybe take some of it down. It’s the six foot tall snow globe. If I remove that, it should be fine.

Now to decorate Simon’s house. He patted the bag of colored lights on the passenger seat. White lights my ass.

“What the fuck?” Emma got out of her PT Cruiser and stared at the house she now shared with Max. She pulled out her cell phone and called Becky. “Becks?”

“Yes?”

“Santa smoked a reefer and decorated my house.”

“What? Hold on, I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Emma hung up the phone and stared at her home blinking garishly in the night.

She’d envisioned the beautiful old craftsman house in twinkling white lights, a Christmas tree just visible behind the drapes. Perhaps a garland draping the fireplace with two stockings, gold for her, silver for Max.

What she hadn’t pictured was a glowing baby Jesus and a scary, half blown up snow globe.

A car door shut behind her. “My God. Who hit the Kmart blowout sale?”

The two women exchanged a look. “Max.”

“Oh, my God. Simon and Adrian were spending the day with him.” Becky raced back to her car. “I’ll call you!”

She waved by as her phone rang. “Hello?”

“Emma?”

“Hi, Sheri.”

“Do you know where the men are?”

“No. Why?”

“I need to kill Adrian.”

Emma bit her lip. “Did they decorate your house?”

“How’d you know?”

“Lucky guess.” Emma didn’t know if she should laugh or cry.

“I need my darkest glasses to look at my front lawn.”

“I have a baby Jesus night-light on mine. And I think the space shuttle could land safely on my driveway, it’s lit so bright.”

“Oh, dear.”

Her cell phone beeped. “Hold on, I’ve got another call.”

“I’m going to kill him.”

“You too, Becks?”

“Yup.”

“Sheri too.”

“Frank’s?”

“On my way.” She clicked the phone over and relayed the invitation to Sheri, offering to pick her up.

“I’m in.”

Emma got into her car. “Be there in a few.” She hung up and pulled away from the house, wondering if Lion-O’s dead body would fit in the snow globe.

“What the hell were they thinking?” Becky bit into her burger, a savage frown on her face. Emma wondered if she was picturing Simon’s ass.

“That’s just it. They couldn’t have been.” Sheri, the calmest of the three, took a sip of her double-chocolate milk shake. Sheri was legally blind. The fact that she found her mate’s house decorations an eyesore said a lot about what Adrian must have done to their home.

“So, what are we going to do about it?”

“Not a clue.”

“No idea.”

Emma bit into her own burger, thinking hard. “We could just take most of it down.”

“Yeah, but, think about it.” Sheri leaned forward, her expression morose. “How long do you think it took them to put all that up?”

Emma and Becky exchanged a horrified glance. “You’re right. We should make them take it down.”

“No, not that! Do you think any of them would have gone to all that trouble, put all that stuff up, doing three different houses in one afternoon, if they didn’t think it would please us? They must be exhausted.”

Becky collapsed back into the booth. “Damn. She’s right.”

Emma resisted the urge to bang her head against the Formica table. “Hell.”

“Yup.”

“We have to live with it.”

“And next year make sure we put up the decorations.”

“Amen.” The three women clinked their glasses together.

“Frank!”

“Hey, Emma, what can I do for ya?”

“I, no we, need three to-go orders.”

Three bags landed on the table. She looked up at the sweaty, grinning face of Frank. “Thought you might.”