Page 193 of Merry Christmas, You Filthy Animal
“I’m sure. Please just... just let me be alone.”
“Okay,” he answers skeptically. “But if that changes, you let me know.”
Max
“To what do we owe the pleasant surprise?” Ansel says, his feet kicked up on his desk while he pulls at a cheese stick.
“I need to talk to you.”
“Me?” Ansel points to his chest. “Is this about Mom and Dad walking in on you and Betty? Because I might have told them not to say anything to you about their arrival. Didn’t know they were going to walk in on you two with her kneeling?—”
“Watch your fucking mouth,” I say, coming right up to his desk.
He drops his feet to the ground and scoots back his chair. “Jesus fuck, what’s your deal?”
Calming myself because I know that I can’t come in here guns blazing, I say, “I don’t appreciate you talking about her like that.”
“Just stating facts.”
“Facts that don’t need to be public,” I say.
Ansel looks around his office, not a tourist in sight, since it seems like they don’t have any more tours for the day. Seems odd given the time of year, but then again, they could have their secondary crew out there. “There’s no one around.”
“Just don’t fucking talk about her like that. You don’t have the right,” I growl.
“Okay,” he says. “Sheesh.” He clears his throat. “Was there a reason you came in here, or was it just to threaten me?”
Deflection at its finest. He fucking started this bullshit. But I have to ignore it because what I need to talk to him about is more important, and I can’t have him on the defensive.
So I gather myself and take a seat across from him. “I need to talk to you about something,” I say in a calming voice.
He studies me for a moment and then says, “Okay.”
“And what I’m about to say, I have video evidence of you doing, so please don’t fucking pretend like you have no idea what I’m talking about.”
He shifts in his seat uncomfortably. “Okay.”
I slide my hands over my thighs, feeling nervous, because Ansel is the kind of guy who will jump down your throat with anger even if he’s in the wrong, and it’s just not something I want to deal with right now.
“Back when I was in high school, Dwight was going through a lot with Jessica. Remember her? She passed from cancer.”
“Yeah,” he says skeptically.
“Well, one night during the season, he made a wish on the ornament tree.” I can see realization start to form on his face. “It was a wish for Jessica to get better, and when he went to see the tree the next morning, his ornament was gone.”
“Fuck,” Ansel says as he drags his hand over his face.
“This entire time, Dwight thought it was me who did it, and it’s one of the reasons he hates me so much. But from your reaction, I’m going to assume we both know it wasn’t me.”
“Shit.” He places his elbows on the desk and then buries his head in his hands. “That’s who it belonged to? Fuck...”
“Why?” I ask. “Why did you do it?”
He pushes his palms into his forehead and is silent for a moment before he speaks, and his voice sounds rough... jaded. “It was a prank on Felix. He told me he was going to make a wish on the tree for a man in leather pants. He showed me the ornament, and it must have been the same as Dwight’s. I grabbed it that night to be a dick, because it was a stupid wish, but the next morning, when I saw that Felix was bragging that his ornament was still on the tree, I felt fucking sick, becauseI knew I took someone else’s. I had no idea whose it was until now.” He looks me in the eyes. “It was Dwight’s?”
“Yeah,” I say. “And he’s been blaming it on me all these years.”
Ansel nods and then stands from his desk and walks over to a picture on the wall. Confused, I watch him take it off the wall to reveal a safe.
