Sometimes the Best Presents Can’t Be Wrapped Read online

  “I….”

  Yes? Ned wondered without looking. Not looking made them so uncomfortable. It gave him power.

  “I got bitten by a copperhead.”

  Ned couldn’t help but snap his head in Jake’s direction. “A snake?”

  Jake blushed. “Yeah. Thank God he didn’t get me good. I’ve had a couple friends get hit hard, and their foot got huge and the swelling didn’t go down for days. I just got scraped, they think. There weren’t… you know… two holes. But a bad scratch. Bad enough the pain was pretty awful and my foot did swell, and I couldn’t stand on it for several days, and it happened on the last day of the festival I was at, and I had to be at work the next day and I couldn’t do it. Luckily the festival ended on Thursday and it happened on Wednesday. I was out of the hospital the same day, but I still couldn’t work. I was back on Monday, though, peg-legging like a pirate, but here….”

  A memory hit Ned then, of the pretty man—

  He’s not pretty!

  —limping around and him asking Lillian, his production floor supervisor, what was going on and… did she say he’d been bitten by a snake?

  Or had she simply told him, in her motherly way, not to worry about it; she had it covered.

  Probably the latter.

  Why hadn’t he looked all this up before hauling Mr. Carrara in here?

  He was almost afraid to ask about last week. He did anyway. “And last Thursday and Friday?”

  Jake looked down at his lap. Blushed. Then looked up and… those eyes. Wet again. Maybe more so.

  “My dog…,” he all but whispered.

  Dog? Dog? “What about it?” Ned snapped, suddenly angry again and not even sure why. But then, of course, he was. He glanced down into the open desk drawer, where the divorce papers stared back.

  “He died.” And damn if a tear didn’t roll down Jake’s cheek.

  Ned’s eyebrows shot up. “Died?” he asked.

  Jake nodded. “He was sixteen. I knew him longer than I knew Bruce.”

  Bruce. Probably the ex.

  “And with everything else… I just sort of—”

  Wait a minute. A dog? He didn’t come to work because a dog died? The anger was back. “You didn’t come to work because your dog died?” Ned exclaimed, and Jake jumped. Cringed back in his chair. Somehow that only made Ned angrier. “You called in for a fucking dog?” Ned was actually up out of his seat. He was trembling he was so mad. A dog? A fucking dog? A fucking dirty, nasty, flea-infested, shedding, leather-couch-ruining, shitting, pissing dog? “You did not come to work because your fucking dog fucking died?”

  There was a knock on the glass door that made Ned jump. It was a loud knock. He ripped his stare from the wide-eyed Jake to the glass window of the door and saw his floor supervisor standing there. Lillian. She did not look happy. She looked pissed.

  Well, what the hell did she have to be pissed about?

  “I’m busy,” he yelled. “Come back later!”

  But instead of leaving, she opened the door.

  “Ned,” she said stiffly. “I need to talk to you.”

  “I’m busy,” he said again, and before he could tell her to come back, she shocked him by saying, “Jake. Return to your station. One of the glue guns looks like it’s getting ready to mess up.”

  Jake looked back and forth between them like a squirrel on the road trying to decide what to do about an approaching car.

  “Now, Jake,” Lillian said in a voice that was not to be ignored.

  Jake jumped up from his chair, she moved aside, and he ran past her as if the hounds of hell were after him.

  3

  “HOW DARE you?” Ned growled.

  She stepped in. Closed the door behind her. “How dare you circumvent my authority.” Lillian was a big woman, wide but not tall. Somehow, though, she didn’t look short right now. She could do that. “It is my job to discipline employees.”

  “Did you know that little fucker didn’t come in because his fucking dog died?”

  “Yes,” she said, voice quieter but no less strong. “I authorized it. He called me last Wednesday night, crying his eyes out. I went to his place and helped him with Coco.”

  Ned’s mouth fell open.

  “He’s had that dog his entire adult life. Coco was what got him through his breakup. You know something about breakups, don’t you, Ned?”

  Ned opened his mouth to respond, but nothing would come out.

  “He couldn’t afford to have Coco cremated, and he lives in this shitty apartment building on Main. Bruce wanted the apartment they’d lived in for years. And with his mother passed away and the family house sold, there was no place to bury Coco.”

  Now Ned’s mouth was doing the fish-out-of-water thing, and he hated that. He looked past her into the outer office, and a couple of people who were watching slack-jawed from their desks quickly looked away. He snapped his mouth shut.

  “We buried him in the woods behind the dog park where Jake always took him to run. Or Jake did. I kept watch. You’re not supposed to bury dogs. I don’t know what the city expects you to do when you don’t have the money to cremate them or take them to a pet cemetery. Do they expect you to—”

  Throw them away? Ned almost said but….

  “—throw them away?” She said it instead. “Throw a family member in the garbage?”

  “It was a dog!” Ned finally found the voice to say. “A dog isn’t a member of the family.”

  “He was a dog,” Lillian said, her round cheeks flushed, her dark bangs in disarray. “And dogs are most assuredly members of the family.”

  Of course she would say that. She had two of those goddamned yappy Pekingese. Treated them like they were children. She and her husband had pictures taken at frigging JCPenney holding the nasty little things.

  A new rage started to form. He could feel it. It was rising like lava up the conduit of a volcano, and it was about to explode.

  She held up a hand. Halt! “Ned.”

  He froze and—

  Her expression softened. “Ned,” she said so quietly he almost missed it. “I’m sorry.”

  Ned almost started doing the fish-out-of-water thing again. Sorry?

  The ramrod of her spine relaxed. She seemed almost to melt. Her hand fell slowly to her side. “About Cliff….”

  Cliff? Cliff? What did Cliff have anything to do with any—

  And his eyes filled with tears. “Some bastard served me with divorce papers this morning.”

  She closed hers and sighed. Opened them again, and they were wet as well. I guess it’s a morning when everyone is supposed to cry. I must have missed the goddamned memo.

  “I know,” she said.

  Ned gawked at her. “You know? How would you…?” But then of course she would know. Cliff had told her, hadn’t he?

  She stepped to the desk and took the back of the chair where Jake had so recently been sitting in her hand as if to steady herself. Then he realized that was just what she was doing.

  “Why didn’t you tell me, Lil?” he asked, using his secret friend name for her. He hardly ever used it. “I was so blindsided. Why didn’t you warn me?”

  “I didn’t know until a half hour ago,” she said. “It was why I was coming to see you. That’s when I saw you talking to Jake.”

  “And you yelled at me? In front of an employee?”

  “I didn’t yell at you. But I was already pissed at you and—”

  “Pissed at me? Why the hell would you be—”

  “For driving him away!” she cried and then… then she cried. Tears ran down her cheeks. Not in rivers, but God, they were running, weren’t they? And he could feel a storm of his own brewing on the horizon.

  No! He would not cry. Would not. Cliff was the motherfucker! Why should he…?

  Lillian went to shut the blinds over the big office window.

  “Don’t bother,” he said. It almost sounded like a hiss. “Thank you for your concern.” The hiss was gone, and he was proud of
the note of neutrality that had replaced it.

  She sighed.

  “You can go now.”

  He sat down—hadn’t even realized until now that he was still standing—and turned to his computer.

  “And Jake?” she asked. “What about Jake?”

  “It’s up to you. You’re right. Production floor employees are your responsibility. I won’t do anything like that again unless we’ve talked.”

  Silence was the answer.

  Finally, when there was still no answer, he turned from the screen. She was still standing there.

  “He’s an amazing young man, Ned. Not only is he a good person, but he’s a fantastic employee. When everyone else is running around in a panic like Chicken Little shouting ‘the sky is falling!’ when the glue guns start firing glue in every direction, he takes hold of the situation. When employees are quarreling, he steps in and calms them down. The thing he says when things get dramatic has become a catchphrase around here. Everyone loves him. I need him, Ned.”

  “Catchphrase?” he asked.

  She held up both hands, palms out, and while she slowly lowered them, she said, “Take it easy,” just as slowly. “Everything’s gonna be fine.”

  Suddenly he heard the words in his head. He’d heard them out on the floor more than once. In the break room. And everyone would laugh, and they’d take it easy. He wasn’t sure he’d heard Jake say them. But he had certainly heard them.

  He nodded. “Like I said. He’s your responsibility.”

  “Did you know his father worked for your father for years?”

  Ned blinked at her. He hadn’t known that. His reply, though, was “I’ve got work here, Lillian.”

  She nodded.

  Then she left.

  4

  CLIFF CALLED just shy of four o’clock.

  Heart pounding, Ned said, “Cliff. Is this real?”

  There was a pause. “Yes, Ned.”

  “Then why the hell are you calling?” Which wasn’t what he should have asked. It should have been “Then why are you divorcing me?” But, pride. He couldn’t for his pride, and he knew it as he said what he said—and what he didn’t. That and anger. He could feel the anger coming again.

  “I really don’t think it’s appropriate to talk about it on the phone like this,” Cliff said. “Hold on.” Then “Give me a minute,” but muffled. He was talking to someone else. At the lake house?

  “Are you with someone?” Ned asked.

  A pause. A sigh. “I just called to find out if you got the papers. My lawyer told me not to, but I was hoping….”

  “Hoping what?” Ned snapped.

  “That you might beg me not to divorce you. I knew better, but still….”

  “Why should I beg?” It was all he could do not to shout. “If you want fucking out after all these years, then get fucking out!” He almost slammed down the phone, because he could, by God. It wasn’t a fucking cell phone. When there was no immediate answer, he said, “Why have them served to me at work? Did you want humiliation added to the list?”

  There was a little gasp. At least, that’s what it sounded like. “Because you’re never at home. And the guy was told to give them to you first thing, before anyone else got there. You insist on being there before everyone else. Like Balding Adhesives needs you to turn on the goddamned lights.”

  Oh. Well. What was there to say to that?

  “What happened to you, Ned? What happened to the man I met and fell in love with? The man I wanted to be my husband?”

  You wanted it. I thought living together was fine. It worked for homosexual men since the cavemen!

  “You wanted the whole husband thing. I never did. I thought civil unions were good enough. It was you and your friends who marched in the streets for same-sex marriage!” Cliff had even gone to Washington so he could be there when the Supreme Court handed down its verdict. He’d been mad that Ned hadn’t gone.

  “Jesus.” That was the answer. Like Jesus ever had anything to do with anything either. Parting the Red Sea or walking on it or whatever He was supposed to have done. Somehow Ned figured the Son of God wouldn’t have been waving rainbow flags on the steps of the Supreme Court building.

  “Okay. Well, I’m going.” And was that a sob? Oh! That’s right. It was the day everyone was crying. “I simply called to see if you got the papers. I thought that maybe you would have called me. I was hoping….”

  Anger flared again. “You know I got the papers. You called Lillian!”

  “Just to tell her that you might need her—”

  “Well fucking leave off on Lillian, you hear me, you asshole? In the division of assets, she’s mine. Hear me?”

  Was that another gasp or sob, or did Cliff really have someone with him in their place by the lake?

  “Who do you have there with you!” he shouted, jumping to his feet. He was vaguely aware of faces turning to him from the other side of the office window. He should have let Lillian close the blinds after all.

  The only answer was a very soft sort of bleep noise. The equivalent of hanging up on somebody these days. In response, Ned did slam his phone. Banged the receiver down hard enough to maybe even break it, and he caught his thumb. He hissed and brought the stinging digit to his mouth. Outside, three people were staring. His “executive assistant”—fucking secretary is what she was—Yvonne, among them. She was wearing a bright red sweater and lipstick almost as red. Whore red.

  “What are you all looking at?” he screamed.

  They looked away.

  Of course they did.

  Assholes. Each and every one of them.

  Assholes.

  5

  NED DIDN’T feel like making dinner. He hadn’t since Cliff walked out. Before that, Cliff usually made dinner. It was the least he could do.

  Ned ordered a pizza for pickup at Papa Daddy’s, a gay-owned place in midtown. Cliff had found it—of course, if it was gay, Cliff found it—but it was really good pizza. Papa Daddy’s was only about five minutes from Ned’s house, so by the time he got back home, the pizza should still be hot, only not so hot it burned the roof of his mouth.

  But he couldn’t find a place to park near the pizza joint, and Christ, it was snowing! Snowing? How could it be snowing? Yes, it was November, but it had been over sixty degrees that morning when the asshat had thrust those frigging divorce papers in his face. And whoa, it was really coming down. It was like driving through a swirling white tunnel. Kind of scary, like something out of a Disney animated movie.

  He almost passed the pizza shop, it was so hard to see. Then he had to go on for nearly two blocks before he spotted a parking space. He was going to have to walk two blocks in this? His only protection was an autumn London Fog coat meant for milder weather. Fuck a duck.

  Ned parked his car, and after looking carefully to see if any cars were coming, or trying to, he opened the door—it was nearly ripped out of his hand—and stepped out into what felt like a blizzard. Ice and snow lashed at his face. His coat whirled around him, almost lifted him off his feet. “Good Christ,” he cried, and raised his arm to try to protect his face. He was hit by another huge surge of wind, and if it hadn’t been for the door of his BMW 335d, he would have surely been knocked off his feet. Do I really need this pizza?

  But the prospect of making something, even a sandwich, was enough to convince him to battle the car door closed and start down the sidewalk. He was almost to the pizza joint when a most peculiar calm seemed to almost rattle down the city street. It was still snowing. He could look up at a white, white sky and see that. Farther down Main Street, both north and south, it was also almost solid white. But here? Now? Why, there was hardly a breeze to ruffle his London Fog.

  Weird.

  But fortuitous.

  And hell! There was a Salvation Army Santa Claus not three doors from Papa Daddy’s. Full regalia too. Why, it looked like the tubbo even had a real beard. It was a big one too. He was ringing that damned bell and wishing everyone a Mer
ry Christmas.

  It’s fucking November fifteenth, you old cocksucker, he thought and then… then the bastard wanted to know if he wanted to give to the poor!

  “Fuck you,” Ned said and flipped him the bird, swift and with an upthrust fist. He almost elbowed the guy aside, only to be confronted by a big brown dog. It came out of the alley right before his destination and looked at him with big mournful eyes. And what should it be? A chocolate Lab of course. Did the universe hate him today? “Fuck you too,” he said to the dog, and when it wouldn’t move out of the way, he kicked at it. Kicked again.

  “Hey you!” came a loud boom of a voice behind him. Ned spun around to find the Salvation Army Santa practically on top of him.

  Ned stepped back.

  “I can deal with you being such a creep about poor Jake Carrara,” the Santa said, pointing a big red-mittened hand close enough to almost touch him.

  Ned’s eyes went wide, and he stepped back again. How the hell did he know about that?

  “I can deal with you yelling at your employees, who are doing nothing but being concerned about you.”

  Wha-what? Who was this joker? Who had talked to him? Had Yvonne heard Ned order the pizza? Had she put this loser up to this?

  “I can deal with you flipping me off… me! Although I know your mama would be ashamed.” The Santa shook his head.

  My mama? How dare he….

  “But a dog?” The Santa glowered at him. “You kicked a dog?”

  “I-I…. Ah….” Ned found himself stuttering and taking yet another backward step. “I didn’t kick him!”

  “Oh, but you might as well have! If he hadn’t gotten out of your way, you would have.”

  Another step and Ned found he was up against the brick wall of Papa Daddy’s. The Santa looked furious. He looked crazy.

  “And that,” the Santa said—and this time he did poke Ned in the chest, right in the middle—“is too far.”

  “I-I….” Say something. “Go away” is what he wanted to say. Crazy. The blubber-bottomed son of a bitch was crazy!

  “Just what happened to you, Ned Balding? What happened to the man that so many people loved? You have been on my Good-Boy List most of your life.”