"Good evening," Luther said to the kids.
"Hello, Mr. Krank. I'm Randy Bogan," said the taller of the two. "We're selling Christmas trees again this year."
"Got yours out on the trailer," said the shorter one.
'You had a Canadian blue spruce last year, Mr. Scan-Ion said.
Luther glanced beyond them, to the long flatbed trailer covered with two neat rows of trees. A small army of Scouts was busy unloading and hauling them away to Luther's neighbors.
"How much?" Luther asked.
"Ninety dollars, answered Randy. "We had to go up a little 'cause our supplier went up too."
Eighty last year, Luther almost said but held his tongue.
Nora materialized from nowhere and suddenly had her chin on his shoulder. "They're so cute," she whispered.
The boys or the trees? Luther almost asked. Why couldn't she stay in the kitchen and let him slug his way through this one?
With a big fake smile, Luther said, "Sorry, but we're not buying one this year"
Blank faces. Puzzled faces. Sad faces. A groan from just over his shoulder as the pain hit Nora. Looking at the boys, with his wife literally breathing down his neck, Luther Krank knew that this was the pivotal moment. Snap here, and the floodgates would open. Buy a tree, then decorate it, then realize that no tree looks complete without a pile of presents stuffed under it.
Hang tough, old boy, Luther urged himself, just as his wife whispered, "Oh dear."
"Hush," he hissed from the corner of his mouth.
The boys stared up at Mr. Krank, as if he'd just taken the last coins from their pockets.
"Sorry we had to go up on the price," Randy said sadly.
"We're making less per tree than last year, Mr. Scanlon added helpfully.
"It's not the price, boys," Luther said with another bogus grin. "We're not doing Christmas this year. Gonna be out of town. No need for a tree. Thanks anyway."
The boys began looking at their feet, as wounded children will do, and Mr. Scanlon appeared to be heartbroken. Nora offered another pitiful groan, and Luther, near panic, had a brilliant thought. "Don't you boys go out West each year, for a big camporee of some sort? New Mexico, in August, I seem to recall from a flyer."
They were caught off guard but all three nodded slowly.
"Good, here's the deal. I'll pass on the tree, but you guys come back in the summer and I'll give you a hundred bucks for your trip."
Randy Bogan managed to say "Thanks, but only because he felt obligated. They suddenly wanted to leave.
Luther slowly closed the door on them, then waited. They stood there on the front steps for a moment or two, then retreated down the drive, glancing over their shoulders.
When they reached the truck another adult, in uniform, was told the bizarre news. Others heard it, and before long activity around the trailer came to a halt as the
Scouts and their leaders grouped at the end of the Kranks' driveway and stared at the Krank house as if aliens were on the roof.
Luther crouched low and peeked around the open curtains of the living room. "What are they doing?" Nora whispered behind him, crouching too.
"Just staring, I guess."
"Maybe we should've bought one."
"No."
"Don't have to put it up, you know."
"Quiet."
"Just keep it in the backyard."
"Stop it, Nora. Why are you whispering? This is our house."
"Same reason you're hiding behind the curtains."
He stood straight and closed the curtains. The Scouts moved on, their trailer inching down the street as the trees on Hemlock Street were delivered.
Luther built a fire and settled into his recliner for some reading, tax stuff. He was alone because Nora was pouting, a short spell that would be over by morning.
If he'd faced down the Boy Scouts, then who should he fear? More encounters were coming, no doubt, and that was one of the very reasons Luther disliked Christmas. Everybody selling something, raising money, looking for a tip, a bonus, something, something, something. He grew indignant again and felt fine.
He eased from the house an hour later. On the sidewalk that bordered Hemlock, he shuffled along, going nowhere. The air was cool and light. After a few steps he stopped by the Beckers' mailbox and looked into the front window of the living room, not far away. They were decorating their tree, and he could almost hear the bickering. Ned Becker was balancing himself on the top rung of a small ladder and stringing lights, while Jude Becker stood back a step and carped directions. Jude's mother, an ageless wonder even more terrifying than Jude herself, was also in on the fray. She was pointing directions to poor Ned, and her directions were in sharp conflict to those of Jude. String them here, string them there. That branch, no that other branch. Can't you see that gap there? What on earth are you looking at? Meanwhile, Rocky Becker, their twenty-year-old dropout, was sitting on the sofa with a can of something, laughing at them and offering advice that was apparently being ignored. He was the only one laughing, though.
The scene made Luther smile. It reinforced his wisdom, made him proud of his decision to simply avoid the whole mess.
He shuffled along, filling his haughty lungs with the cool air, happy that for the first time in his life he was eliminating the dreaded ritual of the tree trimming. Two doors down he stopped and watched the Frohmeyer clan assault an eight-foot spruce. Mr. Frohmeyer had brought two kids to the marriage. Mrs. Frohmeyer had arrived with three of her own, after which they produced another, making six, the eldest of which was no more than twelve. The entire brood was hanging ornaments and tinsel. At some point during every December Luther overheard one of the neighborhood women comment on just how awful the Frohmeyer tree looked. As if he cared.
Awful or not, they were certainly having a wonderful time draping it with tacky decorations. Frohmeyer did research at the university, $110,000 a year was the rumor, but with six kids there wasn't much to show for it. Their tree would be the last to come down after New Year's.
Luther turned around and headed home. At the Beckers', Ned was on the sofa with an icepack on his shoulder, Jude hovering over him, lecturing with her finger. The ladder was on its side, being inspected by the mother-in-law. Whatever the cause of the fall, there was no doubt that all blame would be placed on poor Ned.
Great, thought Luther. Now I'll have to listen to details of another ailment for the next four months. Come to think of it, Ned Becker had fallen off that ladder before, five maybe six years earlier. Crashed into the tree and knocked the whole thing oven Broke Jude's keepsake ornaments. She'd pouted for a year.
What madness, thought Luther.
Chapter Four
Nora and two friends had just captured a table at their favorite deli, a converted service station that still sold gas but had also added designer sandwiches and latte at three bucks a cup. As always, it was packed at noon, and the long lines attracted even more folks.
It was a working lunch. Candi and Merry were the other two members of a committee to oversee an auction for the art museum. Around most of the other tables, similar fund-raisers were being plotted with great effort.
Nora's cell phone rang. She apologized because she had forgotten to turn it off, but Merry insisted she take the call anyway. Cell phones were buzzing all over the deli.
It was Aubie again, and at first she was puzzled as to how he had obtained her number. But then, she routinely gave it away.
"It's Aubie from The Pumpkin Seed, she explained to Candi and Merry, thereby linking them to the conversation. They nodded with disinterest. Presumably, everybody knew Aubie from The Pumpkin Seed. He had the highest prices in the world so if you shopped there you could one-up anyone when it came to stationery.