Piker. “No, thank you.”
“Who are you talking to?” Courtney said, her voice crackling with phone static.
“A lovely woman who just tried to buy the MacGuffin from me.”
“No!”
“Of course not, but listen, I’ve got last year’s model. The Mac One. I don’t think—”
“Evil Nemesis Brandon is getting this year’s model. The Mac Two. With extra toxic waste.”
Trudy shifted her weight to her other foot. “Okay, this ‘Evil Nemesis Brandon’ stuff? You have to stop that. Do you want Leroy thrown out of kindergarten for calling names?”
“Evil Nemesis Brandon’s mother knows we don’t have a Mac,” Courtney said. “I saw her today at Stanford Trudeau’s Christmas party. She said if we hadn’t found one, Brandon would let Leroy borrow his last year’s doll.”
“Okay, she’s a terrible person, but you have to stop calling her kid names.”
Trudy shifted the boxes, trying not to drop either one, and the eyes of the woman in front of her followed the Mac box. A man with a cap with earflaps, standing in front of the woman in front of Trudy, looked back idly and then froze and said, “Is that a Major MacGuffin?”
“Last year’s model,” Trudy said to him, and shifted the boxes again. It’s like being on the veldt. Gazelle vs. lions.
The woman in front of her stepped closer, and Trudy backed up and bumped into Nolan.
Lots of lions.
“Do you have any idea how humiliating that was?” Courtney was saying. “Do you have any idea—”
“Well, that’s what you get for going to a cocktail party while I’m busting my butt searching for a nonexistent war toy.” The line moved up and Trudy followed, praying she wouldn’t drop the Mac box. There’d be a bloodbath if she did. “I’m all for you getting out and playing well with others, but it’s Christmas Eve and you should be home with your family, baking something, not looking for your second husband. I’m sure Stanford Trudeau is a lovely man with an excellent retirement portfolio, but—”
“I’m baking gingerbread men and a gingerbread house right now, and Stanford Trudeau is five. It was Leroy’s playgroup’s Christmas party. And that woman mocked me.”
Trudy took a deep breath and reminded herself that Courtney had troubles. “Okay, so now you can tell her he has his own last year’s doll. I’m getting ready to buy it right now.”
“Last year’s is not good enough!” Courtney said, her voice rising.
“Oh, get a grip. This one is a collector’s item. It has a hand grenade.”
“And a gun,” Nolan said from too close behind her, obviously listening in.
“And a gun,” Trudy told Courtney as she ignored Nolan.
“Who said that?” Courtney said. “Who’s with you?”
“Nolan.”
“Nolan.” Courtney sounded confused and then she said, “Nolan Mitchell. The Chinese lit prof with the swivel hips you thought was going to be The One?”
“Yes,” Trudy said, cursing her sister’s excellent memory.
“Whoa,” Courtney said. “He’s the only guy you ever wore sensible shoes for.”
“I just ran into him,” Trudy said repressively. “It was an accident. It will not happen again.”
“It could happen again,” Nolan said.
“I don’t believe in The One anymore,” Trudy told Courtney, ignoring him. “But he is right that this Mac has a gun. Very convenient. It can shoot the other dolls.”
“That’s not funny.”
“Well, I don’t think so, either.” Trudy shifted the boxes again, making the woman in front of her twitch. “This is a really horrible toy, Court.”
“I mean it’s not funny that it’s not this year’s. Leroy has been talking about toxic waste for weeks.”
“See, that’s not a good thing.”
“Two hundred,” the woman in front of her said.
“No.” Trudy shifted the box again. “Listen—”
“Leroy says that Evil Nemesis Brandon—”
“Will you stop calling him that? I don’t believe for one moment that Leroy came up with ‘Evil Nemesis Brandon’ on his own. That was you.”
“That was Prescott,” Courtney said, loathing in her voice for her AWOL husband. “But Leroy cares. A lot. He … Wait a minute. Talk to him.”
“Court, no—”
Trudy heard the phone clunk as the line moved up a couple of feet. She stepped forward, thinking, At least Courtney will have the Twinkletoes this year. Courtney had been waiting to polish those toes for twenty-five years.
And now poor little Leroy would probably be waiting another twenty-five years for his toxic waste. She had a vision of herself many years in the future, handing the Mac Two to a sad-eyed thirty-year-old hopeless wreck of a nephew.
“Three hundred,” the woman in the cap said.
“No.” Trudy heard the phone clank again and then she heard her nephew’s voice, bright as ever.
“Aunt Trudy?”