I’m half on top of him and not too far from suggesting that we sneak back into the corn maze, where at least it’s dark.
“It’s okay, we’re in love,” I say, and Hunter grins.
The chaperone walks on past.We don’t stop making out.
Epilogue
Clementine
Christmas Eve
Jennifer looksup and down the long table, biting her lip, looking very serious.
“I want the tiara,” she finally says.
“You can’thavethe tiara,” Lucy says, her words just a little mushy-sounding.“It’s already been traded twice.I am thefinal ownerof the tiara.”
Her face is perfectly straight as she places the tiara on her head, staring down Jennifer.
Jennifer sighs, her shoulders slumping.Her husband Carl pats her on the back.
“Okay, what’s actually available?”she asks for at least the third time.
“Not this,” Lucy says, pointing at her head.
“Iknow,” Jennifer says.
“Don’t confuse the situation any more than it’s already done been confused,” says Mike, who’s drunk enough to get folksy.
Since it’s nine o’clock the night before Christmas, the Rusty Beaver is empty except for us.Actually, I think they might have intended to close at eight, but the bartender and the single waitress seem like they’re enjoying this show.
We were supposed to have our office holiday party a week ago, but a black bear went rogue in the National Forest and we had to deal with it.The bear is fine, just relocated, and now we’re doing this on Christmas Eve.
“This is available,” Mandy says, holding up a twelve-pack of toilet paper.“It’s available.And useful.”
“It’s utilitarian as fuck,” I say.
“Jennifer,” Hunter says.“Jennifer.Jennifer.”
“What,” she says.
“Have you ever played with these,” he says, holding up a package of what looks like multi-colored pills.“When you put them in water, theyturn into dinosaurs, and I’m not even kidding.”
Jennifer just rolls her eyes and keeps looking.
“This is all bullshit,” she says after a minute.“I want a new one.”
She reaches for the pile and grabs a hastily-wrapped present from the pile, as allowed by the somewhat-complicated rules of our annual workplace gift exchange.
There are two easy rules, though: one, the gift cannot cost more than ten dollars, and two, the exchangemusttake place at the Rusty Beaver.
She rips the paper off, revealing a metal sign, and starts laughing hysterically.We shout at her to turn it around, so the whole table can see.
There’s a moment of silence, and thenwestart laughing.
On the metal sign is a cartoon bear, skiing down a mountain, its front paws over its genital region, and the bear looks either sultry or embarrassed.It’s surprisingly hard to tell.
Across the bottom, the sign reads BEAR NAKED SKIING.
