Page 54 of How My Neighbour Stole Christmas
I snap the blinds shut and move away from my window, trying to put the woman next door out of my mind. “Last night was bullshit. We should have won.”
“Well, maybe if you’d listened to me about the chest hair, we could have won, but you were too much of a prude to puff it out.”
“First of all, my chest hair is trimmed. Even if I wanted to ‘puff it out’ as you like to say, I wouldn’t have been able to. And secondly, we were going to win on dignity and merit.”
“Yes, and look how far that got you. You saw them last night, Cole. They came to play. Cindy put on the performance of her life. I genuinely thought she was taking her final breaths last night, and so did Thachary and Frank.”
“Yeah, and did you see her pop out of her wheelchair like a freaking spring flower? The woman broke her hip and yet was able to awaken from a near-catatonic state in seconds.”
“It was startling. I gasped when I witnessed her rise, like an erection sprung right from a pair of tighty-whities.” I grimace at my friend, not liking that analogy. He continues, “But you know Frank and Thachary. They love their grandmas, and, well, the girls played toward their weakness, which got me thinking…” Max moves around my living room and takes a seat on the couch, pulling the suitcase he brought with him over to the coffee table. “I think we need to be more strategic about our approach.”
I fold my arms across my chest. “And what exactly do you mean by that?”
“We need to start focusing on not just the competition, but the judges.” Max opens his suitcase, flops open the top, and lifts out a large, folded piece of poster board, revealing a picture of every judge with a list of what seem to be personality traits underneath. “This is a comprehensive guide to every judge, what they’re judging, and what they like and dislike. I scoured their social media profiles last night, stole their most unflattering pictures, printed them, and wrote down everything I know about them.”
“Why the most unflattering picture?”
He looks at me as if I’m an idiot. “Uh, so you’re not intimidated, obviously.”
“Oh, yeah…that checks out.” I take a seat next to him and settle into the lumpy couch from my childhood that I’ve never replaced.
Actually, not a single thing in this house has been moved or shifted since I lost my parents. My childhood bedroom remains mine, the holly berry dishes my mom would pull out on Christmas Eve have accumulated dust on the shelves, and not a square inch of this house has seen any sort of Christmas spirit in a decade. I rarely sit in this room, so I haven’t really noticed how bereft it is, the way it seems to long for…what used to be.
Max smoothes his hand over the couch’s wrinkles. “The key towinning this competition is not how many ways you can saySeason’s Greetingsin the Myrrh-cantile, but how you can edge out the competition with your knowledge of the judges.” He takes out a pointer from his suitcase and slaps it down on a picture of Sherry Conrad getting licked in the face by her dog. Her face is crinkled, one of her fake eyelashes is dangling off her eyelid, and her lipstick is smeared across her cheek. Yeah, not the most flattering. “Now, this is our judge for the Upcycle Christmas competition.”
“This is the live-action one, right?” I ask.
He nods. “Yes, meaning you’re going to have to pose in some sort of Christmas scene while we attack the town with a strategic, perfectly constructed sight to behold.”
Don’t like the sound of that.
He takes out a piece of folded paper and turns away from me, keeping it hidden from view. “Now, Cindy Louis won this round last year, and she killed it. She dressed up as Judy Garland and lip-synched ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.’ Everyone cried—it was an ordeal.”
“I think I remember hearing about it,” I say.
“So, they’re going to attack hard since Cindy is the reigning champion.”
“Yeah, I could see them working the crowd with the old lady cadaver again.”
“We need to keep in mind that they’re going to use Cindy in every competition. My mom was even telling me that she overheard Nina Dirk talking to Martha about the status of Cindy’s hip and how they’re worried it might be her last Christmas.”
“Damn it,” I mutter as I drag my hand over my face. “But from the celebration last night, I assume she has a lot more Christmases left in her.”
“Agreed, which means we have to remain educated about our judges, stay on our toes, and be sneaky about this. If they’re going to use Cadaver Cindy, then we have to use our intelligence and inside information. I have my mom working the town. She’s been putting in some good words for you, and so is her secret friend, Kathleen, who works over at stall twelve.”
Stall twelve is one of fifteen craft stalls that surround the Tinsel Twirl just left of Ornament Park. They’re open year-round and are usually occupied by craft vendors who sell their homemade goods to those traveling through town. Bob and Sylvia Krampus are very particular as to what is sold in the stalls because they don’t want vendors competing with proprietors.
“Secret friend? Wait, is Kathleen the one who came in selling jellies and jams?” I ask.
Max nods. “The very one.”
“I thought your mom was feuding with her because she was selling the same jam that your mom has at Evergreen?”
“They’ve kept up the farce but have secretly formed an alliance. This is top secret, man, and you can’t say anything, but…” He glances over his shoulder, as if we’re not alone in my house. “In order to drive up sales between the two locations, they’ve created a rivalry to see whose jam is better, when in reality they don’t really care. So, out-of-towners will buy both jams and decide for themselves when they get home. Kind of like those competing cheesesteak places in Philly. The rivalry just drives up their sales as people try to form an opinion for themselves.”
“Oh shit.” I chuckle, impressed. “I had no idea.”
“No one does besides me, my dad, and my mom, and of course Kathleen, and the only reason I know is because I walked in on my mom and dad talking about it. But I’ve been sworn to secrecy. Last night after we lost, I told her I needed her help and, well, we devised a plan. She’ll have Kathleen talk about you around town, and people won’t suspect a thing because you’re aligned with my mom’s side of the jam schism.”
