100 on lesser gifts for a select handful of distant relatives

With his feet toasty and besocked with heavy wool, Luther fell fast asleep and woke up even faster. Nora was roaming. She was in the bathroom flushing and flipping lights, then she left for the kitchen, where she fixed an herbal tea, then he heard her down the hall in Blair’s room, no doubt staring at the walls and sniffling over where the years had gone. Then she was back in bed, rolling and jerking covers and trying her best to wake him. She wanted dialogue, a sounding board. She wanted Luther to assure her Blair was safe from the horrors of the Peruvian jungle.
But Luther was frozen, not flinching at any joint, breathing as heavily as possible because if the dialogue began again it would run for hours. He pretended to snore and that settled her down.
It was after eleven when she grew still. Luther was wild-eyed, and his feet were smoldering. When he was absolutely certain she was asleep, he eased from the bed, ripped off the heavy socks and tossed them into a corner, and tiptoed down the hall to the kitchen for a glass of water. Then a pot of decaf.
An hour later he was in his basement office, at his desk with files open, the computer humming, spreadsheets in the printer, an investigator searching for evidence. Luther was a tax accountant by trade, so his records were meticulous. The evidence piled up and he forgot about sleep.
A year earlier, the Luther Krank family had spent $6,100 on Christmas-$6,100!-$6,100 on decorations, lights, flowers, a new Frosty, and a Canadian spruce; $6,100 on hams, turkeys, pecans, cheese balls, and cookies no one ate; $6,100 on wines and liquors and cigars around the office; $6,100 on fruitcakes from the firemen and the rescue squad, and calendars from the police association; $6,100 on Luther for a cashmere sweater he secretly loathed and a sports jacket he’d worn twice and an ostrich skin wallet that was quite expensive and quite ugly and frankly he didn’t like the feel of. On Nora for a dress she wore to the company’s Christmas dinner and her own cashmere sweater, which had not been seen since she unwrapped it, and a designer scarf she loved, $6,100. On Blair $6,100 for an overcoat, gloves and boots, and a Walkman for her jogging, and, of course, the latest, slimmest cell phone on the market-$6,100 on lesser gifts for a select handful of distant relatives, most on Nora’s side-$6,100 on Christmas cards from a stationer three doors down from Chip’s, in the District, where all prices were double; $6,100 for the party, an annual Christmas Eve bash at the Krank home,
And what was left of it? Perhaps a useful item or two, but nothing much-$6,100!


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It certainly will not

‘Oh hush, Luther’
‘Are your feet wet?’
‘No. Yours?’
‘No.’
‘Then why’d you ask?’
‘Just worried.’
‘Do you think she’ll be all right?’
‘She’s on an airplane. You just talked to her.’
‘I mean down there, in the jungle.’
‘Stop worrying, okay? The Peace Corps wouldn’t send her into a dangerous place.’
‘It won’t be the same.’
‘What?’
‘Christmas.’
It certainly will not, Luther almost said. Oddly, he …


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‘Just worried.’

‘Oh hush, Luther’
‘Are your feet wet?’
‘No. Yours?’
‘No.’
‘Then why’d you ask?’
‘Just worried.’
‘Do you think she’ll be all right?’
‘She’s on an airplane. You just talked to her.’
‘I mean down there, in the jungle.’
‘Stop worrying, okay? The Peace Corps wouldn’t send her into a dangerous place.’
‘It won’t be the same.’
‘What?’
‘Christmas.’
It certainly will not, Luther almost said. Oddly, he …


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‘ Luther mused

I hope you step in frozen water, Luther grumbled to himself. He fumed and muttered other unpleasantries. He switched the heater vents to the floorboard to thaw his feet, then watched the large people come and go at the burger place. Traffic was stalled on the streets beyond.
How nice it would be to avoid Christmas, …


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‘The butcher.’

And for what? I’m fine, Mom. Haven’t seen you in almost an hour. We all love each other. We’ll all miss each other. Gotta go, Mom.
The engine was running though Luther didn’t remember starting it.
‘You forgot the white chocolate?’ Nora asked, fully recovered.
‘No. I didn’t forget it. They didn’t have any.’
‘Did you ask Rex?’
‘Who’s Rex?’
‘The …


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Luther wondered. He’d seen phones on planes. Any credit card’ll do. Blair had one he’d given her

The water had seeped into his toes by the time he reached his car. ‘No white chocolate,’ he hissed at Nora as he crawled behind the wheel.
She was wiping her eyes.
‘What is it now?’ he demanded.
‘I just talked to Blair.’
‘What? How? Is she all right?’
‘She called from the airplane. She’s fine.’ Nora was biting her …


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sucking in lungfuls of cold air

A crowd had stopped to watch the old Mexican decorate his cigar store window. He was plugging in little robots who trudged through the fake snow, and this delighted the crowd no end, Luther was forced to move off the curb, and in doing so he stepped just left instead of just right. His left …


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slower than the other two. Chip’s outrageous prices forced its customers to buy in small quantities

The express line was, of course, slower than the other two. Chip’s outrageous prices forced its customers to buy in small quantities, but this had no effect whatsoever on the speed with which they came and went. Each item was lifted, inspected, and manually entered into the register by an unpleasant cashier. Sacking was hit …


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there was a shelf of baking chocolates. As he stepped closer

A stock boy was working hard on a display of Christmas chocolates. A sign by the butcher demanded that all good customers order their Christmas turkeys immediately. New Christmas wines were in! And Christmas hams!
What a waste, Luther thought to himself. Why do we eat so much and drink so much in the celebration of …


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fake snow already sprayed on a fake tree.

And every shop was full. Another Santa clanged away with the same bell outside the cheese shop. ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer rattled from a hidden speaker above the sidewalk in front of Mother Earth, where the crunchy people were no doubt still wearing their sandals. Luther hated the store-refused to set foot inside. Nora bought …


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