“So, my billable rate is like two thousand dollars an hour,” Jack said, using up the last of the tape of the present he was wrapping. “And this is a poor use of my time.”
“I’ve had enough family bonding time,” Jonathan said. “I need a drink.”
He tapped me on the shoulder with the empty wrapping paper roll. “I dub thee in charge of finishing the present wrapping.”
“You’re just going to quit?” My useless fucking brothers.
“We have made zero progress,” Jack noted as he and my brothers headed out the front door. “Just hire someone to do it and come have a drink with us.”
“No,” I said stubbornly.
Owen sighed. “Suit yourself.”
I watched them get in their cars and drive away.
“I can’t believe they just left me.”
But that’s what always happens, right?
I went back inside and gazed at the mound of unwrapped presents. Being in this house made me sick. I needed the presents out of the house. Then I was going to sell it and never come back.
I pulled out my phone and opened the TradeMe app. Surely someone in this Christmas-obsessed small town could wrap a present.
Thirty minutes later,Kringle barked and ran to the window. Outside, a run-down station wagon pulled up in front of the house.
I recognize that car.
The door opened.
And that coat.
I ran outside as Merrie hauled a large, quilted bag decorated with embroidered Christmas scenes out of the back of the station wagon.
“Is there no escaping you?” I asked.
Merrie waved to her friend, who drove off.
“You hired me.”
“I didn’t know it was you,” I protested as we climbed the front steps. “The app doesn’t tell you who you’re hiring.”
“Trust me when I say I was seriously considering canceling the job when it gave me the address,” Merrie said as she marched into my house like she owned it. “Except I have a Christmas code of ethics.”
“There’s no such thing.”
“Yes, there is,” she replied. “You can’t leave someone in the lurch when they’re trying to wrap presents.” She set her bag down in the hallway and opened it. Out came rolls of wrapping paper, ribbons, specialty tape, gift tags, and tissue paper.
“I’m all set,” she said, tying a cloth utility belt around her waist from which hung three different sizes of scissors, a ruler, two kinds of tape, and a pencil.
She hefted a pair of scissors that had a foot-and-a-half-long blade.
“Are you going to stab me with that?” I asked apprehensively.
“These are my special wrapping paper scissors. Now take me to your presents.”
Merrie burst into peals of laughter when I showed her the mound of boxes. “And he says he hates Christmas! This puts the Whos in Whoville to shame.”
“I’m on a deadline,” I told her. “I need these all wrapped by tonight. Can you do it?”
