Matt Cowper - The Clerk

As he walked towards the entrance, Thomas recalled some of the more distinctive things that had occurred at the Party over the years. There was Vernon under the mistletoe, as usual, inviting the girls to give him a smooch, only to get plastered with a kiss from a flamboyantly gay employee, the only out-of-the-closet homosexual Oxendine’s had ever had. As Vernon stuttered and blushed, and as everyone else laughed or looked shocked, the employee purred and stroked the sleeve of Vernon’s Santa suit. Finally Vernon recovered with “I’ve got no problem with you and your preferences, Nate, but don’t plant those lips on me , ya hear?”

There was Vernon under the mistletoe, getting kissed and groped by a drunken Milly, the store’s young sexpot, as Yolanda stared and complained loudly about “that hussy and her siren-like ways.” After this, there were rumors that Vernon and Milly had assignations all over Morehead City: at the seedy Quality Inn, in Vernon’s office after the store closed, on sand dunes. Thomas could neither confirm nor deny these reports. Milly eventually left to study nursing, and Vernon was noticeably glum for several weeks after her departure.

There was the time one of the high-school-age employees insulted Eldridge, who responded with a haymaker that sent the teenager crashing into one of the Chamber’s potted ferns.

There was the time Maureen got a flat tire on her way to the Party, and everyone had driven out to help her in an explosion of goodwill, and she’d cried thankful tears because “you all are so helpful and kind to me!”

There was the time Alexis, a known cougar, had dragged Thomas behind the building and given him a handjob, all the while looking at him in a strangely sinister fashion. They’d had a stormy one-week relationship after that, until Alexis dumped him (though it could be argued they were never dating at all), married a Marine ten years her junior, and followed her new husband to Germany. Whenever Thomas thought of her, he got hard quite quickly: she’d been into crazy, kinky stuff, like anal. After he’d had a few beers, he sometimes found himself browsing through her Facebook photos. Even though she was now in her fifties (and, of course, divorced — twice), her knowing sneer and come-hither eyes suggested she still rolled around in the hay from time to time.

But the one memory that stood out was the first Christmas Party Thomas attended, way back when he was a teenager himself. He hoped the evening wouldn’t be too boring, and he wondered how long he was expected to stay; he had teenage things to do, like play video games. Instead of boredom, however, he found ecstasy in this mirth-filled building. He wished they could stay there forever, laughing, eating, and drinking (he’d stolen a few sips of vodka, and felt powerful), just seal up the building and forget everything else except holiday cheer.

Though the evening had, of course, wound down eventually, to Thomas’s dismay, he held this memory in his mind like an enchanting snowglobe that could be shaken again and again.

As he burst through the door now, he was as hearty as those older people had been so long ago, and he was determined to set a few things straight. He would apologize to Cynthia and Orianna for being rude to them after Kara’s temper tantrum, and he would, if possible, extend his apology to Orianna into a discussion about — things. What exactly they would say could not be conceived, but it would work itself out.

Yolanda was the first person he met. She was standing by the entrance, next to the receptionist’s desk, sipping a drink and admiring the lifesize Santa the Chamber had put in a corner.

“Thomas!” she cooed. “There you are!”

She wrapped him in a plump hug. Thomas was conscious of bosom, hot breath, and a stale attic smell mixed with a sharp perfume of some kind.

“Won’t it be fun tonight!” she exclaimed.

“Of course,” Thomas agreed. “It is every year.”

“I’m glad you think so. We do love to throw a little event for our employees, who’ve worked hard all year, and — what’d you bring? Oh, cheesecake! Yum yum! And beer! Now, don’t let any of the young’uns get ahold of that, ya hear? I’ve got my Eagle Eye on them, but some of ’em are crafty and might get by me!”

Thomas assured her that he would tenaciously defend his beer against theft from minors, and moved to the conference room, which was bubbling with noise.

The long conference table was covered with food and drink of all sorts. Thomas picked out Eldridge’s meatloaf and Maureen’s pigs-in-a-blanket, and smiled hungrily. There was a pasta dish of some sort, a towering platter of barbecue, a small pizza that looked homemade because it wasn’t exactly circular, potatoes au gratin, a saliva-inducing peach cobbler, peanut brittle — and this was just a small sample of all the goodness. There were so many smells drifting around that it was hard to fixate on just one. The alcohol hadn’t been neglected, either: several liquor bottles stood classily and sinfully on the table, and there was a large ice-packed cooler on the floor for the beer. Thomas set down his cheesecake, stuffed his beer into the cooler, placed Eddie’s Secret Santa gift in the large pile with the others gifts, and peered about.

With most of the employees present, and with the room being relatively small, there seemed to be a billion conversations going on at once. Thomas looked around, waiting for someone to come talk to him, and was mildly annoyed when someone didn’t immediately ditch their conversational partner and hurry over. Rather quickly, however, Vernon waddled over in his Santa suit and clamped Thomas’s hand in the well-known Oxendine handshake vice.

“Well, well, well,” Vernon boomed through his fluffy white beard. “Well met, young traveler. Mayst thou partake in the foodstuffs me and mine have prepared for this magnificent occasion?”

“I will,” Thomas replied. He was fairly confident this was the correct answer.

“Good! This’ll be a fun evening, don’tcha think, buddyrow? I’ve got my mistletoe ready, and I believe I can get Carly to give me a peck. What do you think?”

Thomas looked over at Carly. She was ravishing in a curve-hugging, low-backed blue dress. As Thomas should have expected, Noah was grovelling at her feet, and she was giggling in a way that was clearly boosting her admirer’s confidence to cruel and unrealistic levels. There were several other high schoolers (boys Thomas didn’t know very well, since they only worked a few night shifts) drifting around her and glancing at her ass every five seconds, but Noah was keeping them at bay by giving them dirty looks and by holding Carly’s attention with an endless stream of words. Thomas grinned at the scene, then turned back to Vernon.

“If you do get a peck from her,” he said, “looks like Noah will have something to say about it.”

“What! That little pissant!” Vernon hollered. “He’s still after her, ain’t he? Bet he thinks tonight’s the night, don’t he? They’ll get a little tipsy — of course, they’re not supposed to be drinking, but I know they will, nothing to be done about it, but don’t tell Yolanda I said that, she’ll get mad — and then he’ll drag her to the broom closet and have his way, isn’t that his plan? Ha! Never happen!”

“Looks like you’ve been drinking some yourself.”

“Of course, of course. About six or seven or eight beers. Nothin’ to it. Back in the day, I could down a twelve-pack in half a night. Oh son, we went hard back then. I remember scuffling with them Marines…”

“That was back then, Vernon. You’re not young anymore.”

“The hell I ain’t! I feel fit as a fiddle! I — hell, you’re right. Should pace myself. Look out for me, like Yolanda, and maybe the two of ya’ll can keep me straight.”