The Office Christmas Decorations

Loretta stood at her vanity table brushing a final sweep of “Sweet Peach” blush on presently flushed cheeks. Today, instead of feeling like a piece of sweet fruit, she felt more like a strategic mean girl with sabotage in mind.

It was nearing Christmas season; the dental office where she worked as staff administrator, held its annual tradition of drawing straws to establish which “victim” would go retrieve the Christmas decorations from what everyone jokingly – or not – called “The Decayed Tooth Crypt.”

The decorating ‘team’ pulling straws this year was just Loretta and the new hire, Bethany. Ophelia, the dental technician was out on maternity leave; Janice, the temporary help could not be asked; and Doc Murphy just liked to learn against the file cabinet grinning to see who the prey would be.
 
Located on the first floor of a beautiful 1899 Victorian mansion, the building sprouted various tales of who, or what, inhabited the house after business hours. Daylight hours noticed no blurry phantoms swishing through the rooms – after dark, another story was said to unfold.

It was true, the steps leading to the cellar were spooky due to dripping maroon paint splatting down the treads; but no menacing remnants of actual teeth were lying about down there; Loretta knew the eerie designation came from boxes and boxes of cobwebbed old, wooden boxes filled with ancient glass dental plates, a few had slipped out shattering on the cellar floor – leaving ghostly images of wandering roots with white ends.

Victorian buildings were notorious for providing rich histories and tales of lingering spirits of those humans passing through; nooks and crannies could produce further evidence it was a super idea to be nice – just in case – to ghosts you don’t believe exist.

Thinking back to her first office holiday as a new hire, she bravely volunteered to go down the next morning to get Christmas deco from the cellar. She was anxious to be part of the three-team office and show she could assist where needed; ghostly beings she could handle with one hand tied behind her back.

Loretta recalled the next workday was going to be long and trying; the appointment book had filled up with holiday dental divas claiming “emergencies”; better defined as – it’s the Season – I need unnaturally white teeth – the better to smile with, my dear.

She wouldn’t have had time for food shopping and preparing any meals – that would employe the use of dishes to wash; so Chinese take-away  it was. Loretta could still bring to mind the earthy, sweet and sour tang of Sichuan peppercorns with ginger scenting the air.

The office waiting room back then was a lovely room dressed in splendid Victorian style; soft Tiffany lighting buffered large gilded framed mirrors, tall to the ceiling shuttered windows with soft padded benches to perhaps take a cat nap.

Loretta remembered she had been really tired, but had not dared take a short snooze – for she would be found in the morning with bench hair and drool sliding down the side of her face.

But she had noticed one of the cushions on the window storage bench was up. That was odd. Clients usually waited on the plush chairs – and how had she not noticed before the window bench could be opened?

Salivating, waiting for Kung-Pow Shrimp with brown rice; she had pried open the top…

Empty, except for cobwebs, and what looked like a note at the bottom. Oh, joy. Curiosity versus loathing for reaching into spaces covered with stick- to-your-skin spider webs, and perhaps spiders that laid them.

Being Loretta, curiosity had won out.

She recalled chuckling to herself, and the squeak of “oh, yuck,” when the spider webbing stuck to her hand. That turned to a loud laugh echoing around the empty room when she read the note; a patient waiting to be called to the chair, with a sense of humor, had written:

“Hello!”

This note is for anyone that finds it! How are you? I am fine, even though I’m getting a root canal. – Love Dentus

How Loretta had wished the witty man included a date to complete her imagination. The note paper felt old to her fingers – but could have been weathered by the sun shining hot on the bench for many years.

 No matter, it had been a momentary pleasure to share in the jest.

When the Kung-Pow had arrived, she buttoned down the office and headed home.

That night, as her bedside clock stroked the midnight hour, Loretta remembered she began wildly tossing and turning; twisting herself in the sheets, images of a humorous man replaced by non-human entities leaving the note came unbidden, swirling through her dreams.

Tales she had heard of Harriet and George – the phantom couple who died tragically together in the house, but never really left their home, they visited her sleeping mind too.

Was it Harriet or George who had a sense of humor and able to write notes?

Did her unconscious mind believe ghosts exist now?

Funny, what silly notions the sleeping mind can conjure…

“Rise and Shine Rhinestone Cowgirl,” blared a deep baritone voice from Loretta’s cell phone alarm; dispersing dreams and announcing a new day – a Machiavellian mean girl day.

Brushing her teeth with the electric brush tabbed to super shine, Loretta comforted herself with invented ‘mind-binkies;’ confirming to her id that at heart – she had been basically, for several stretches of time this year – a nice person.

Good enough.

Clutching the hastily foil-paper-wrapped – ‘Chose Your Fate’ – box of “adjusted” straws, she loaded up her purse, slipped in her “Loups”; red sole guiding her way – and left the house. 

Loretta started to chant; “Four short, no long. Bethany chooses first. Four short, no long. Bethany chooses first.”

What was that saying? Doing the wrong thing for wrong reason? No, that wasn’t it.

Loretta was not proud of her maneuver, but goose bump memories of descending down the cellar stairs remained vivid. The visceral sensation of pulse racing, sweat forming on her upper lip, when she placed her foot on the first step leading down steep creaking wooden stairs dripping with latex blood no one could remove.

It had been the scent striking her first that raised the hair on her arms – moldy damp smells of decay wafted up to settle in your nose, clicking and cranking from the old cast-iron beast of a heater made your ears aware – of what, she had not known.

Loretta had heard stories of underground cellars, and conceivable inhabitants of old Victorian mansions; she wanted no introductions or associations with entities of a shimmering spectral sort.

Harriet and George, the waiting room specters, sounded pleasant enough, but they inhabited the upstairs, with sunlight and fresh air, it was bound to produce amiable spirits – slimy dank crypts – not so much.   

Brought out of reminiscing again, Loretta heard Bethany’s Tinkerbell laugh approaching her office; a tiny, less than five-foot bundle of joy with twinkling blue eyes; chattering to the Doc like a caffeinated chipmunk on just how fun Xmas sweaters were – did he want her to make him one?

Bethany had an earnest and contagious affection for Christmas time decking the halls – and she giggled when stories of spooky tales told to what lurked below her reception desk down in the deep basement.

Loretta pondered her cowardly stunt; would it turn birdlike twitters to fearful tears, would pulling the short-straw determine Bethany’s emotional fate?

Washing down guilt with scalding black coffee, Loretta grinned a Grinch smile, as Bethany excitedly plucked out a short straw.  

Her eyes popped open wide with excitement of winning and childish joy; she quickly swiped the key to the cellar door out of Loretta’s hand, spinning around to go downstairs.

 “Be back in the wink of an eye with Christmas trimmings, Loretta,” the Xmas elf said.

And quite a return vision she made.

Bethany’s small shoulders draped in red, green, and silver tinsel, holly berries and cobwebs strung in her hair; a tangled-blonde haired tree top Angel missing an arm, peeking out from her smock pocket – not a tear of fright on her happy pixie face.  

Hanging the Xmas decorations together with thoughtfulness around the office, Loretta listened to Bethany babble on how enchantingly wonderful the cellar was; she saw the magic of history recapping past lives lived in the old house, not terrifying apparitions out to do her harm.

Yes, of course there were a few disturbing features, what dank deep crypt of any repute would not have the rare amount; but if she closed her eyes tight – and made a Christmas wish, visions of Sugar Plum Fairies and Gingerbread men would protect her from anything disagreeable or alarming.  

-Leika