Secret Santas Read online

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  SECRET SANTAS

  by Diana Laurence

  “Okay, so who’d you draw?” Jamie asked Kelly as they bought their morning sodas from the machine in the break room.

  “Jeff! I drew Jeff, can you believe it? Who would have thought he’d want to participate in Secret Santa?” Kelly backed out of the way with her Diet Pepsi.

  “Weird. I wouldn’t peg him for the type either.” Jamie dropped her quarters in the slot.

  Jeff Morgan was one of the I.T. guys, the one who usually dealt with hardware problems and setting up new systems. He had fewer “people skills” than the other I.T. guy, Doug, so preferred the tinkering and after hours tasks to dealing with help desk problems and training people. Even though Jeff’s cubicle was adjacent to Jamie’s, she didn’t know him well. He’d only been with the company six months, so nobody really did.

  “I don’t know how I’m going to figure out what to give him,” Kelly whined. “You gotta help me out.”

  “Help you out? How?”

  “You sit right by him . . . do some scouting for me. Eavesdrop, check out his desk. See if you can get any clue about his interests. Since they made that rule this year about two small gifts and a big one, I can’t get by with just giving him a bunch of candy canes or something.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’m so glad I drew Maggie, she’ll be easy.” Jamie took a swallow of her Dr. Pepper.

  “I’m serious, Jamie! I have absolutely no clue about Jeff. Any hint at all you can give me . . . ”

  Jamie sighed. “Okay, I’ll see what I can do.”

  “You rock! I’m going to Target on the way home, so if you get any ideas today, e-mail me.”

  It was a good thing Maggie would be so easy, Jamie thought as she headed back to her desk. Now she was going to have to come up with six gifts total in the next three days. Her friend Kelly, although a sweetheart, tended to shirk responsibility. At this point in Kelly’s mind, she had checked off “Secret Santa gifts for Jeff” on her to do list. And for some reason, Jamie felt it was important that Jeff’s S.S. experience be a decent one; she had always felt like under his bashful exterior, the man was a hardworking and okay guy.

  It wasn’t really that surprising he had signed up for the Secret Santa thing. Jeff was a pretty good sport about office activities. He’d brought a dish to the Thanksgiving potluck, and Jamie recalled him having a pretty good time playing softball at the office summer picnic. And she’d heard him tell their boss he was coming to the Holiday Party Friday night, so maybe he just figured it would be more fun if he were a part of the big Secret Santa Reveal between dinner and the dancing.

  As Jamie passed Jeff’s cubicle she found him at his computer, updating a spreadsheet from some notes. They hadn’t had a chance to say good morning yet, so as she went by she called, “Hi Jeff, how goes it?”

  He glanced up from the screen and replied. “Not bad. And you?”

  Normally Jamie would have said back something cursory and moved on, but this time she had better try to make conversation. She paused at the side of Jeff’s desk and said, “I’m okay. Although I’m going into a little withdrawal this week since the P.A. is playing this Christmas station all week. I miss my eighties music.”

  “Bet you do. Have you gotten the new Duran Duran CD yet?” asked Jeff.

  The question took Jamie aback. Fact was, she most certainly had been meaning to get it soon. She thought fast, trying to figure out how Jeff might have guessed this, considering they barely knew each other.

  Then she remembered talking to her sister on the phone about it the week before, certainly within earshot of Jeff . . . and the fact that she had been singing along with the PA like an idiot when the radio played “Hungry Like the Wolf” last Friday afternoon. It wouldn’t exactly take ESP to guess she liked Duran Duran. And, after all, she had a bit of a reputation in the office as an 80’s music aficionado.

  So she answered, “Not yet. I thought I’d wait and see if it goes on sale after Christmas.”

  “Ah, good idea,” said Jeff, softly.

  Jamie noticed he was blushing.

  Jeff was fair and freckled, so the pink in his cheeks and the edge of his ears was quite apparent. He wore his light brown hair a little on the long side and had the requisite techie goatee, but Jamie had always though he was a good-looking enough guy and the look worked fine on him. When he smiled, which was not often, his eyes lit up in a very becoming way. But why should he be blushing?

  It was still her turn to speak, so she thought fast. “You like Duran Duran?”

  “Not as much as some other bands of the time, but they’re good.” A quirky smile formed on his lips. “I thought they were improved by your back-up singing.”

  Jamie could count on one hand the number of times she had heard Jeff be funny, so this remark also took her by surprise. “Uh-huh. Well, I’m not quitting my day job,” she quipped back with a smile.

  “I hope not! Where would the seventh floor be without the song stylings of Jamie Reno?”

  She laughed, and noted Jeff looked very pleased at her laughter. She was emboldened to go on. “So, who do you like better than the irrepressible Duran Duran, Jeff?”

  “Sticking just with 80’s bands?”

  “Sure.”

  He rubbed the knuckle of his right thumb down his bearded chin. “Let’s see . . . The Mighty Lemon Drops, The Alarm, Immaculate Fools, Flesh for Lulu . . . ”

  “You like those bands? My big brother had albums from all those bands! And then he went off and moved to England and took them all with him. I sometimes think he moved just to keep his collection safe from his baby sister.”

  Thus ensued a twenty minute conversation on music. Jamie died a thousand deaths envying Jeff his CD collection. His knowledge of alternative 80’s music even exceeded hers. Why had he never said anything?

  But as far as ideas for Kelly, the conversation didn’t help much. Unlike herself, clearly Jeff was not in need of any new CDs. In fact, he had combed the internet in typical computer geek fashion and burned collections of all sorts of rare live recordings. Jamie had completely failed in her mission for now.

  Nevertheless, the conversation had yielded one interesting piece of information: much to Jamie’s surprise, it was pretty clear that Jeff Morgan had a crush on her.

  * * *

  Jamie had a five block walk from the office to her parking lot. This evening it was snowing lightly and completely windless, so the soft, large flakes drifted straight down in the light of the street lamps. The store windows along her route glinted with gifts: rings and necklaces, sweaters, cell phones, all festooned with the red, green, silver and gold window dressings of the season.

  Jamie hated to give credit to the marketing-savvy decorators for her mood, but she felt truly the spirit of giving for some reason. She would be stopping at the candy and nut shop in the next block to get some cashews for Maggie for tomorrow’s Secret Santa gift, to go with the little squirrel Beanie Baby she’d found at lunch. Maggie was on the eighth floor near Kelly, so she hoped to get a report of her reaction.

  As she came up to the Salvation Army bell ringer in front of Marshall Fields, Jamie pulled a ten dollar bill from her purse. She had passed that red donation kettle a dozen times and never till now thought about putting anything in it. What was up with this mood?

  She had to be honest with herself: The day’s revelation about Jeff had put her in amazingly good spirits. Of course she absolutely couldn’t figure out why; she’d really never given the guy much thought before today. But honestly, there was something so cute about the idea that he had been sitting one desk away from her all these months, all sweet on her, and been too shy to say a word. It was amusing, it was exciting, it was—

  It was kind of Christmas-y. After all, it was a surprise, and it was also, in a way, a gift. This news about Jeff was like a Secret Santa present to her, of sorts. Anyway, it really tickled her. She wished she had drawn Jeff’s name instead of Kelly getting it, that would have been a lot of fun.

  At the candy and nut shop Jamie ordered the half pound of cashews and looked through the glass of the counter while she waited. She spotted a platter of white chocolate concoctions cunningly decorated to look like electronics equipment: little cell phones, computer monitors and mice, and the like. So she bought one of the monitors for Kelly to give to Jeff. It wasn’t particularly personal, but it would do.

  And even though the gift wasn’t technically from her, Jamie felt good getting to pick it out.

  * * *

  “Maggie had a total cow over the squirrel, she showed it around to the whole floor,” Kelly e-mailed to Jamie the next morning. “Thanks again for getting that candy for Jeff--I’ll pay you at lunch. Did he like it? And any ideas for tomorrow? ;-)”

  Jamie typed back, “No ideas yet, but I’ll work on it. Jeff actually called me over to show me the candy. He said it’s too cute to eat but when I told him there was probably fudge inside he said there was no way it would last past lunch. LOL”

  Jeff had brought the little monitor on its small ruffly paper over to show her. Jamie couldn’t resist lifting his hand lightly in hers for a closer look. Of course she paid no attention to the candy, but she took the opportunity to notice Jeff had very nice, slender fingers. When she released his hand and looked up into his face, she caught him blushing again.

  As for Jamie’s Secret Santa gift for the day, when she got in she had found a piec
e of paper on her desk imprinted with a photo of John Taylor of Duran Duran, with a speech bubble that said, “Your S.S. is watching you, lovely Jamie! Double treat coming tomorrow.”

  The illustration had been done on the computer so there was no handwriting to examine. Jamie had to wonder if it might possibly be from Jeff. “Lovely Jamie,” she thought, hmmm.

  As for Kelly, she reported by e-mail that she had gotten a very cute Irish coffee mug with a leprechaun on the handle. “Since my Irish heritage is so secret,” she wrote facetiously, “I can’t imagine who would have known about my love of leprechauns.”

  Jamie couldn’t spare the creative energy to ponder the identity of Kelly’s Secret Santa; she had to come up with ideas for her own two charges. Jeff’s reaction to the candy had only intensified her desire to see him get nice presents from his Santa. She had already figured out Maggie would love a Christmas charm for her Italian charm bracelet, and she could hit the department store at noon for that. But she had better figure out some way to glean a clue from Jeff.

  Then she had a brilliant idea.

  Jamie popped up out of her desk and walked over to Jeff’s cube, where he was at his side table, unpacking some kind of computer drive from its sheath of styrofoam. “Hey Jeff,” she called.

  He turned and his face burst into a warm grin. “Hi, Jamie.”

  “I was wondering if you’d like to come with me over to Fields during lunch. I mean, if you need to do some Santa shopping. I have to pick up something for mine.”

  At first she thought he was going to say no. But then Jamie realized the look on Jeff’s face was simply shock. Well, it wasn’t surprising, considering they had conversed more in the past two days than the entire previous six months. Jeff made a pretty impressive recovery and said happily, “Sure, I’d like that.”

  “Can you go at twelve?”

  “Yeah, no problem. But we’ll have to split up when it comes time to make the purchases. Don’t want to give away any secrets.”

  “Oh, of course. Well, twelve it is then!”

  A few minutes later, over the cubicle wall, Jamie heard Jeff humming “Winter Wonderland” along with the radio.

  The shopping trip turned out to be great fun. They took a turn around the gourmet food department and used the products for sale as inspiration to concoct a preposterous dinner menu.

  “Ah, wouldn’t the dinner be divine if we served up this beluga caviar on some of those Belgian cookies?” asked Jamie, feigning a snooty British accent.

  “Only if we accompany the meal with some of these tinned white asparagus spears festooned with some of that Bobby Flay hot sauce,” replied Jeff with his own fine accent.

  “‘Festooned,’” she asked him, back in American mode, “is that a cooking term?”

  “Oh, I use ‘festoon’ whenever I can,” replied Jeff. “As in, ‘I have to festoon all these hard drives before I can go home for the night.’”

  Jamie was sorry when their time ran short and it was time to split up. Obviously the perfect gift for Jeff would be to tie up a can of the asparagus with a bottle of the hot sauce in a big red bow, but she could hardly get away with that for his Secret Santa gift. Jamie pondered the problem as she picked out a charm for Maggie.

  Jeff had remarked on one of the cotton sweaters in the men’s department . . . too pricey. He had talked about liking Stephen King, but she wasn’t sure which books he’d already read. He had shown particular interest in a fancy penlight, but she couldn’t very well get the very object he indicated without it being a dead giveaway. Oh, this was ridiculous, she might as well be shopping for a boyfriend with as picky as she was being!

  Then Jamie remembered an offhand comment he made about liking potted plants but always killing them. Maybe she could find some nice silk plant for his desk that wasn’t too feminine, but would there be anything like that in this store?

  As fate—or divine holiday intervention—would have it, on her way out of the store she passed the clearance area. On one of the little display tables, at 50% off, there was a copper dish with a couple small artificial cacti in it. It was an odd item, but appealing in an offbeat way. Jamie had to be back at her desk in ten minutes; she snatched up the dish and headed for the nearest cashier, hoping that Jeff hadn’t noticed the cacti on his own way out of the store.

  * * *

  Jamie managed to dump off the copper cactus dish quickly at Jeff’s desk while he was down the aisle futzing with data lines in another cubicle. He wasn’t gone long before she heard through her cubicle wall a soft cry of “Awesome!”

  She grinned to herself. And Kelly had thought the idea totally loopy.

  Thirty seconds later, Jeff poked his head around the corner of Jamie’s cube wall. “Check it out!” he said, and his hand emerged brandishing the cacti.

  “That’s kind of cool,” said Jamie.

  “And it seems to be fake, so I won’t be able to kill it!” He gave her a big grin before withdrawing head and cacti.

  One more gift to go. Jamie was determined to outdo herself.

  Her own “double gift” was late in coming, and appeared while she was out to lunch. There was another note from “John Taylor” apologizing for the tardiness. It was a crazy old Duran Duran video and a book about the band. Jamie hadn’t previously owned either, and was truly tickled. She also suspected Jeff even more. So when next he walked by, she showed him the items and crowed about how pleased she was.

  “Excellent choice by your Santa,” said Jeff, with an approving nod.

  “I can’t wait until tomorrow night when the secrets are revealed,” said Jamie, unable to help hopping up and down a little bit.

  Jeff laughed at her, but in a quite affectionate way.

  “I know, I’m like a little kid about this stuff,” she told him.

  In a soft voice he said, “You’re cute.”

  In an instant he was crimson again.

  Jamie found this blushing more endearing every time. She heard herself say, “You’re cute for thinking so, Jeff.”

  It was while walking to her car that evening that she came up with the perfect plan for Jeff’s last gift. During their excursion through the gourmet section, he had mentioned liking Chinese food. There was quite nice new Chinese place a couple blocks south of the office. She’d get him a gift certificate . . . and with any luck at all, he might invite Jamie to go to lunch with him there.

  All right, so it wasn’t the most selfless gift she’d ever thought of, but it wasn’t like Jeff wouldn’t like it. And if he got up the courage to ask her, it would be really fun.

  She detoured to make the purchase, and while she waited at the counter for the clerk to prepare the certificate, she gazed into the dining room and pictured herself at a table with Jeff. He was really a quite good-looking guy, and certainly sweet, and he had figured out quickly how to make her laugh . . .

  Well, well, thought Jamie as she slipped the gift certificate into her purse. I guess this crush thing might be mutual.

  * * *

  But even the best-laid Christmas plans can come to naught, as Jamie found out later that night. She checked her e-mail just before going to bed, and a message came through from Kelly’s home computer, a reply to her own earlier e-mail about the restaurant certificate.

  “Prepare to be shocked, Jamie--I actually found Jeff’s big present myself! Sorry we got our wires crossed. If you can’t use the gift certificate I’ll buy it off you anyway, it’s my fault I didn’t communicate with you on this. I got him this really cool penlight at Fields, I figured with all the peering into computer cases he does, he could probably use it.”

  What on earth were the odds that Kelly would pick out that very penlight? This whole situation was turning into a nightmare version of O. Henry’s “Gift of the Magi”!

  Serves me right for picking out a selfish gift for him, thought Jamie. Now the Chinese restaurant scenario was down the drain, and Jeff would think Jamie had been his Secret Santa, which would be all kinds of awkward.

  Oh well, there was nothing for it now. At least she knew Maggie would like the “Carb Counters Cookbook.” Jamie tried to think about that, and all the fun that would be had at the party.