The Ghost of Christmas Present (5 page)

“Is there any part you don't plan on playing?” Patrick asked with a bemused smile.

“You either dream big or live small, you know what I mean?”

Patrick nodded and smiled. “Good for you. Live that stage to its fullest, soldier.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing, just something I used to teach to my students.”

The kid looked over at Patrick's newspaper, not a thing circled. “So it looks like you're dreaming on the small side today.”

“There's nothing out there: computer operators, software designers, wireless technicians. I'm a drama teacher. The most technical I get is when I plug in a reading lamp.”

“What about copywriter?” The kid reached over and circled an ad in Patrick's paper.

“I don't know a thing about patents,” Patrick said.

“Man, you really are something from out of an old book. It's writing for advertisements. You're a drama teacher. It's like writing.”

“I
don't know a thing about the ad game,” Patrick said as he peeled the top off Braden's fruit cup and set it back down on the hospital tray.

“Are you kidding me, Pop?” Braden said. “You know everything about advertising.”

“And how do you figure that?”

Braden sat up and pointed a finger high in the air. “Ladies and gentlemen. Meet Sir Christmas Mix, savior of the everyday eggnog, liberator of the mundane chocolate mousse, redeemer of the routine fruit punch.”

“You remember it word for word.”

“How could I forget it? I'm looking at the man who pulled in more business than any blender before him, and I'm willing to bet every blender since him, too.”

S
o Patrick found himself sitting quietly in the office of a junior advertising executive, wearing a blue Brooks Brothers jacket Linda had made him buy to go to a wedding years ago and watching the young man across from him peruse his résumé with a look of growing concern.

“You have no experience, as in, none.”

“I realize I would be new to advertising.”

“College grads start out where you'd be starting, and they'd have a marketing degree.”

“I have an accomplished theater background as well as teaching drama to high schoolers.”

“That's commendable, and I loved ‘Phantom,' but what in the world do stories have to do with advertising?”

“Everything,” Patrick said, his voice suddenly rising.

Patrick's quiet demeanor was gone, and now a new man sat in his place who even he himself questioned. Was Sir Christmas Mix coming to life inside him? And if his inner blender was being resurrected, maybe that wasn't such a good thing. But Patrick couldn't stop himself.

“Okay, I'm listening,” the young executive said in a challenging tone.

Patrick sat forward and readied to do battle, deciding he hadn't quite left his “soldier stage” behind him, as he sure knew he wasn't ready for the “sage stage.” “Christmas is your busiest season, yes?”

“Like April fifteenth for CPAs.”

“The Christmas you find in church, the real Christmas, well, that's God's creation.”

“Agreed.”

“But the Christmas you find everywhere else, who do you think invented that?”

The executive opened his mouth to speak.

“Not the deity of Madison Avenue, I can tell you that.”

The executive waited.

“Charles Dickens invented Christmas, at least the Christmas we know. And in the story of Scrooge he created the greatest advertisement that the holiday has ever known.”

The executive sat back and watched Patrick stand up.

“Before
A Christmas Carol
, Santa Claus was some skinny little elf who looked more like a troll coming to steal from the tots than someone who would leave goodies behind. But in the character of the Ghost of Christmas Present, the fat, jolly, bearded man, Dickens gave us Santa Claus.”

“How—”

“I'll tell you how. Because Madison Avenue stole that character for a Coca-Cola ad in the 1940s and presented the world with the fat, jolly, bearded Saint Nick. It all came from a story, just as every advertisement is a story, a tale of a magic potion to make you popular at the prom, or to make the stains on your clothes disappear. You want to sell something; you sell a story to go along with it. Dickens knew it and so do I.”

Patrick stopped and suddenly realized he was standing.

“Mr. Guthrie, you've just broken every rule of how to interview for a job on Madison Avenue.” The executive stood up, but then held out his hand. “They're gonna love you in the morning bull sessions.”

Patrick stood dumbfounded. “I have the job?”

“You have the job. You'll start first thing in the New Year.”

“But can you give me a letter officially stating that I am employed here and what my salary will be?”

“Well, no, I'm afraid I can't. You see, it won't be official until my superior comes back in January. But I give you my personal assurance that the position is yours.”

“That's not good enough,” Patrick said as his face dipped.

“Why not?”

“No, it's good enough for me. It's just that I could really use that letter before the holiday. There's no way I could get any kind of proof I'll be working here?”

“I'm sorry. Make it through the holiday, and we'll see you in the New Year.”

Chapter 6

THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PRESENT

T
he rest of that day and the next was a parade of disappointment for Patrick. He'd gotten hold of Rebecca at her Midtown office at Children's Protective Services, but she'd made it clear that the court date would not be postponed.

Could
not was more like it, Patrick thought. It was Ted Cake who was behind his being investigated; he knew that. How long had the old man been monitoring him? He must have been thrilled when he'd learned Patrick had lost his job.

Ted Cake had never forgiven Patrick for sending his beloved Linda to heaven. That, at least, was the way the old man had seemed to look at it. Linda's father had never approved of Patrick and the love for acting he'd instilled in Linda, nor the “Bohemian” lifestyle to which he'd introduced her.

When he'd met Linda, she was taking a year off between her undergraduate studies and business school at NYU. But then Patrick had entered the picture to change all that, and the old man had never forgiven him for it.

Ted turned his back on his daughter, becoming colder with every passing shoestring production in which Patrick and Linda performed. He'd sent only an obligatory gift when they were married, instead of attending himself, and when Braden was born he'd sent even less.

But then Linda had suddenly died and Ted was left with no one to blame for her death but the son-in-law who'd changed the course of her life. No matter that her heart condition was coiled up inside her for years, waiting to strike. In the old man's mind it was Patrick who had robbed him of his last years with Linda, and now it was outright war.

Ted was coming for Braden to reclaim Linda, or perhaps just plain old revenge, or maybe a bit of both. Patrick didn't need to confront him to know that.

Now the court date to determine Braden's future was just three weeks away. Patrick had a pillar of bills, no money, and only the verbal promise of employment in the New Year. He had to make it through December somehow and get together enough funds to pass the board.

But here he sat again, at Booth One in his green-checkered shirt, white bow tie, and no one sitting in his section. And again the kid was circling.

“Do you actually go to these auditions?” Patrick asked.

“Not all of them. Some of them. I went to two, a month ago.”

“But you're dreaming big?”

“I'm in the planning stages, but I've got to choose carefully. Like here.” The kid pointed to an audition he'd put an X through. “There's a production of
The Merchant of Venice
and the parts pay good money, but you need your union card to even get through the door. Now how do you get your union card if you can't get a gig in the first place? Can you tell me that?”

Patrick didn't answer the question. He took the paper and studied the audition ad. Sure enough, the production was paying, and if he'd answered the kid on how to get his union card, he would have given him a speech about being a young soldier. Because that's how Patrick had gotten his union card, and kept up the dues.

P
atrick had splurged and taken a cab. It was an expense he didn't need to incur, but the idea of riding the subway dressed in full wig and makeup as the wild-looking Shylock was going to take more courage than he could muster. He'd rather take his chances in public as a blender than the crazed-with-revenge money lender from Shakespeare's
Merchant.

It had been Patrick's style from the beginning to go in costume to auditions, and he still had his makeup and wigs from the old days stuffed in a beat-up trunk in the closet. So out they came, and into character Patrick went as he rehearsed all last night and that morning for the open audition. The pay wouldn't fill his bank account to satisfy any judge that he could take care of Braden, but it would be a beginning, and it would show that officious Rebecca that he would go to any lengths to keep his son a part of his daily life.

The taxi pulled up to the theater, where Patrick got out and made a hasty jaunt across the sidewalk amidst a few odd stares at his dark-pocketed eyes and shock of bird's-nest hair. He reached the theater's stage door, grabbed the knob, and turned. It was locked.

Patrick's eyes landed on a handwritten sign taped to the adjacent brick wall: “All Parts Filled. Thanks for coming and Happy Holidays!” He whirled around to hail back the taxi, but the cab was already taken and was riding off down the avenue.

Patrick stood there in his wild getup, now a sitting duck for the sea of stares that came his way. This was what he got for still trying to be a soldier. Maybe this awkward spot was the beginning of the wisdom he'd need to take him into his sage stage.