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Chapter 11: Bad Santa
 By Jim Caple |
Previously at 24 College Avenue: After getting caught taking steroids at a track meet two summers ago, former State College sprinter Nicollette Mayle is trying to qualify for the Olympics with a clean slate as part of Athena Athletics’ “Born Again’’ program. John Higgins is a vice-president for Athena and a former housemate. . . .
The seven-foot Noble fir would have been the perfect Christmas touch Nicollette desired for the house had Josh remembered one thing: It needed a tree stand. When Nicollette pointed out his error, he pretended that it was no problem, that he hadn’t simply spent the rest of his money on a six-pack and couldn’t afford the stand but that he had worked it out ahead of time in his head. Then he cleared away a pile of pizza boxes and newspapers and leaned the tree in the corner of the living room.
“There,’’ he said. “That’s not so bad, is it?’’
“It looks like the mascot from a private California school died,’’ Nicollette said. “And how are you going to keep it watered?’’
Again, Josh had completely neglected this bit of elemental tree care. He stood looking at the tree and considered the possibilities. Perhaps he could water it with a spray mister of some sort (though he had no idea where such a thing might be sold). Or maybe he could wrap wet towels around the tree’s base and pour water on them occasionally. Or what if he tried standing up the tree inside a bucket of water? Or what about a beer keg? How much water did a Christmas tree drink, anyway?
Slightly disgusted but nonetheless amused, Nicollette left Josh to figure out the physics of tree watering and headed up the stairs to her bedroom.
The Christmas tree exemplified Nicollette’s feelings about having moved back into the house. On the one hand, it was wonderful to be surrounded by friends who supported her so much and went out of their way to do the little things to brighten her day, such as dragging a Christmas tree all the way back from the lot six blocks away. On the other hand, she had long since grown tired of living in a filthy house where such simple items as a tree stand always took a back seat to the purchase of beer. Not that she was against beer per se but she longed to live in a house where the holiday window display wasn’t beer cans spray-painted green and stacked in the shape of a tree.
Mostly, Nicollette was tired of still living a college student’s life almost two years after graduating. College was fun but she had had enough of sharing a house with more than a half-dozen others and waiting to use the bathroom and taking lukewarm showers and wondering what the hell could be the cause of the various smells that were part of the daily routine. She wanted to move on with her life. That meant racing on the international level but she was still banned from formal competition until the spring. She wished so much she had never given into temptation and taken that performance enhancer before the meet in Paris. It was just that she had been so down and so pessimistic about her chances on the international circuit that first summer out of college, and so disturbed by what she knew most of her chief competitors were doing. Still, cheating was wrong no matter how many other peo ple cheated and Nicollette knew she would regret it the rest of her life.
The rest of her life? Hell, Nicollette regretted it every single day when she had to provide a daily urine test for Athena to document that she was on the up and up. Thanks to Higgins, the company was footing the bill for her training and had built the entire “Born Again’’ marketing campaign around her. The company was adamant that she must stay clean to keep the ad program from blowing up in their faces like a similar one had with those decathletes a while back. In addition to the urine tests, she was also subject to random blood tests.
Just as bad was the daily blog she was obligated to write for the “Born Again’’ website. Some people loved to tell the world the most intimate details of their lives – perhaps it had to do with her generation’s insatiable need for attention at all times – and felt nothing of filling a MyWeb page with their latest drunken and sexual escapades. Nicollette, however, was not one of them. The last thing she wanted was to invite any other strangers into her life.
It was a little odd, Nicollette had to admit. After all, she was the one who had posed in her underwear for a national magazine two years ago. She had done so to draw attention to women’s sports and show that females could be athletic AND sexy. That they could pursue sports for the same reason so many boys did in school: for a love of competing as well as a way to make themselves attractive to the opposite sex. Of course, she had come to regret posing. Not because athletic director Hudson Bay threw a fit over the photo spread but because even now she still was receiving emails from lurkballs who told her the most disgusting things they did while staring at her photo.
There was one creep in particular who hounded her, repeatedly sending emails and attaching the underwear photos and asking “When are we going to get more photos like this?’’ or some such crude message. Whoever was sending them signed each one “TrackFan.’’
As a female athlete (and a good-looking one at that) Nicollette was used to stalkers so she was more annoyed with TrackFan than afraid. As a precaution though, she reported the emails to campus security and the police but they said they weren’t able to trace their origin. They reassured her that people sending this sort of email rarely ventured beyond the safe anonymity of the Internet and almost never initiated any contact. “It’s probably just some lonely kid in a dorm who thinks he’s being funny,’’ one officer said, then suggested that she change email addresses and providers. That would work for awhile but somehow TrackFan always tracked down the new address and the emails would start again. After the steroid story broke, TrackFan sent Nicollette an email that included an arrow pointing to her breasts and the message: “Tsk, tsk -- are these artificially enhanced as well?’’
There were times Nicollette even suspected whether TrackFan was someone she knew, perhaps someone in the house. But she couldn’t imagine Josh, Kenan, Steve, or any of the other guys who had lived in the house in the past couple years doing such a thing. Although there was that one guy on the third floor hardly anyone knew or that weird Fairhaven guy. Who knew what sick thoughts could be going on in the mind of someone who spoke only in lines from movies? Then again, he seemed harmless enough otherwise. She was just glad she hadn’t heard from TrackFan for awhile.
Nicollette closed the door to her bedroom and sat at her desk. While she waited for her laptop to power up she wondered what she would write in her blog this time. Maybe she could make a list of her 10 favorite Christmas movies and invited readers to submit theirs. It was lame, sure, but it wouldn’t take long and she would be done with it quickly. Wondering whether “A Charlie Brown Christmas’’ qualified as a movie, she connected to the Internet and called up her email.
She clicked on a message from Athena athletics with the subject “Important Christmas schedule update!!!’’ She gasped. It wasn’t from Athena.
“Merry Christmas, Nicollette!’’ it read. “I know when you’re sleeping and I know when you’re awake. I know when you’ve been bad or good. So be good for goodness sake. And that means no more steroids.’’
It was signed TrackFan.
# # #
Higgins greeted Nicollette with an affectionate kiss on the cheek as he entered the century-old Victorian, then sniffed the air.
“I see the house still has that certain smell that I’ve only experienced here and in the shanty towns of Casablanca after the traditional slaughtering of sheep for Eid al-Adha,’’ he said. “That was back when I headed up Athena’s African market. Never thought I would have to put up with such appalling living conditions until I moved into this house.’’
“Yeah, well,’’ Nicollette said, gesturing to the couch. “I thought I was done with this place, too.’’
Higgins cleared the coach of Maxim and FHM magazines and sat down. “Yes, I’m sorry about that but having told everyone else in marketing about my experiences here, they all thought it would be a good idea to have you move back in. Figured it would provide some compelling back stories for your webpage. Which reminds me. They would like to see more mentions of Danny’s drinking.’’ He pointed to the Christmas tree leaning against the corner with no stand. “I love what you’ve done with the tree. What, did you lose the stand when Linus took his blanket back?’’
Nicollette smiled and sat down at the other end of the couch. She brushed her blond hair back with her hand. “So,’’ she said. “What did you find out about that creep? Did someone with Athena really send me that email?’’
Higgins shook his head. “No. As soon as you called me the other night I had our security crew do a thorough search of the company email system. All they could find for sure is that the message definitely did not originate anywhere within Athena. But as to who sent it and from where, we still don’t know. They’re going to keep searching.
“I know it’s annoying but I agree with what the police told you. TrackFan probably is harmless. Just some lonely person out there who is afraid to make any real contact so he hides behind these anonymous emails.’’
Higgins rubbed the white hairs of his goatee.
“In a way it reminds me of when I oversaw Athena’s shoe production outside Hanoi,’’ he went on. “This was back when everyone was accusing us of exploiting foreign workers and running sweatshops – as if paying triple the going wage was somehow exploiting the workers just because it worked out to less than $15 a week. Let me tell you, a man could live a pretty good life for $15 a week in Southeast Asia back then. Why, I remember this one weekend in the Patpong district of Bangkok. And by Patpong, I mean Patpong 2, where you see the really disgusting stuff with the ping pong balls . . . but that might be a story best left for another day. Maybe when Danny is around.
“Anyway, like I said, I was Athena’s Asian director when some guy kept mailing and phoning in bomb threats to our largest factory. I knew they weren’t real threats but we had to take them seriously because we would have been absolutely killed by the media if we ignored the warnings and a bomb had actually gone off and hurt anyone. Couldn’t take that chance. We eventually caught the guy and turns out I was right. He had no plan to bomb anything. Didn’t even know how to build a bomb. He just knew that if he made a threat, then everyone got off work early that day. All he really wanted was to get a couple extra days off.
“This is probably the same sort of thing.’’
“Yeah, probably. But what if he’s not?’’
Higgins shrugged. He didn’t have a response to that other than to hope TrackFan was harmless.
“So where is everybody?’’ Higgins said, changing the subject. “Home for the holidays?’’
“I don’t know for sure,’’ Nicollette said. “Josh is around somewhere. Jenn is probably working at the Java Monkey. And Kenan is in New York for that football award. Do you think he has a chance to win?’’
“Not really. They never give it to a defensive player, no matter how good he is.’’
She nodded and glanced out the window. “I kind of worry about Kenan. He’s been having a lot of headaches ever since he got a concussion in a game.’’
“Yeah, head injuries are an increasing problem in football. Or at least, people are finally beginning to take them seriously. Has he gone to a good doctor? I mean, someone apart from the team doctor/’’
“I’m not sure,’’ Nicollette said.
“Well, you tell him to give me a call and I’ll line him up with someone. He’s got a lot at stake here.’’
The front door suddenly swung open, startling both Higgins and Nicollette so much they nearly jumped off the couch. They looked to the entrance and saw Fairhaven stomping in. He waved and started up the stairs to his bedroom. The wood ornamental ball at the bottom of the stair rail came off in his hand, however. He took a look at it, glanced back at Higgins and Nicollette and smiled.
“You call this a happy family/’’ he said. “Why do we have to have so many kids?’’
When Fairhaven went upstairs, Higgins raised his eyebrows slightly at Nicollette. “I see he still is speaking only in movie quotes? I believe that’s from ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’”
“Yeah,’’ Nicollette said. ‘Josh and Steve think he’s funny but it’s a little weird to me.’’ She touched Higgins on the forearm. “Would you mind staying here with me for awhile? Just until some of the others get back?’’
“Sure, Nicollette. You know I’d do anything for you.’’
Higgins ordered pizza and the two sat and talked about running and the Olympics, then made some hot chocolate and started a marathon of Christmas shows on the DVD player. “A Charlie Brown Christmas’’ was first, followed by the Grinch (‘Whoever was responsible for that painful remake with Jim Carrey should be taken out and water-boarded until he promises to destroy every copy,’’ Higgins said), Rudolph and “A Christmas Story’’ and “Bad Santa.’’ By the time Billy Bob Thornton had taken over the job as the crudest, drunkest department store Santa in shopping mall history, Nicollette had drifted to sleep on Higgins’ shoulder. He woke her gently and said it was time to go, that Steve and Jenn had come home while she was asleep.
When Nicollette opened the front door to say good night she was startled by a wall of white. At least three inches of snow had fallen while they were watching TV. “Oh, look! It’s snowing! The world always looks so peaceful after the first snow.’’
“Reminds me of when I was first starting out with Athena and had the Upper Midwest sales region. Let me tell you, selling running shoes on straight commission in the middle of winter in Duluth doesn’t make for the holly-jolliest of Christmases. Not a lot of silver or gold in those days.’’
Nicollette laughed and gave Higgins a tight, lasting hug, then told him to be careful driving home. She watched his car spin its wheels, then slowly pull away from the curb and head down College Avenue.
As Nicollette stood in the doorway watching the snowflakes fall and Christmas lights dance in the wind, she almost forgot all her troubles. She thought of Linus telling Charlie Brown what Christmas was all about and the Grinch’s heart growing three sizes in one day and the little elephant on the island of misfit toys. She had completely forgotten about TrackFan when she noticed a man in an overcoat, leaning against a nearby tree, peering between two branches directly at her.
And judging from the lack of footprints in the surrounding snow, he had been there for some time.
Next: Tough Guy
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