There is a specialty butcher in the Cypress Cove Galleria, the mall where I’m currently making $6.50 an hour being Santa’s Little Helper (shut UP).
I’ve walked by it a thousand times in my lifetime, never needing to stop in until now.
I wait until I’m in my slinky green tights and satin red slip, making sure to pull the collar down low and tug the green, jingle-belled sash tight around my waist as I saunter up 15 minutes before my after-school shift is about to start.
Not to brag, but the guy behind the counter – “Rocco,” says his white and gold Greenbrier’s Gourmet Grocers nametag – has been watching me hand out candy canes intensely for the last two weeks, ever since my after-school job started the day after Thanksgiving.
I’m talking the DAY after; no time for leftovers, down with the turkey decorations, up with the giant candy canes and sugar plums dangling from the ceiling.
Santa’s Winter Wonderland (i.e. a shabby red “throne” in the middle of a few overturned cardboard boxes covered with this giant sparkly blanket of glittery fake snow) is catty-corner to the Greenbrier’s Gourmet Grocers, with its marble counters and brass fixtures and rows and rows of strange delectables I can’t imagine anyone ever eating – until right this very moment.
The jingle bells on my sash announce my presence, as if Rocco hasn’t watched me saunter over here all the way from the employee break room (a la food court).
He has deep black hair layered in soft, greasy curls and hard, frozen lines in his handsome face, but he’s way old – like, mid-30s at least – and his vibrant green, intense eyes give me the willies although I’m sure certain gals, maybe even my BFF Mindy, would call them “intense.”
(To me, though, “intense” has always just been code for “crazy.”)
“Well, well,” he says without a trace of an Italian accent, which is kind of disappointing since despite myself I’ve wondered what he might sound like these last few weeks. “The fly finally buzzes near my shimmering web.”
I groan inwardly at the obvious cheesiness of his doubly obvious come-on, but I really need those brains so, I do my best to cover it up and flirt appropriately.
“Well,” I purr, “the holidays are coming and I want to get the man in my life something special.”
He takes the bait; nothing creepy old men like better than a challenge.
“Who is this special man?” he asks with obvious disdain, pointing to Hub, my coworker in the snug green elf costume as he arranges yet another basket of miniature wrapped candy canes before our shift officially starts. “I do not think this… this… elf is man enough for you.”
I snort.
“Me neither. That’s Hub, we work together. No, my boyfriend runs on the track team, you know? At the high school? Anyway, he has to stick to a very strict diet all season long but I thought, for the holidays, I’d give him a treat, you know, something off his diet. Something… special.”
He sneers at the thought of me wasting good meat on another man, but opens his arms wide to address the two frosty meat cases he’s standing behind.
“Then, my dear, if you MUST break my heart and buy from me gifts for another suitor, then you have still come to the right place.”
I peer down to look at the top row, but not to see what he has on sale; I just want him to see my rack.
He takes the bait and ogles me openly as I scan the rows for gourmet meats.
“Ahem,” he says, clearing his throat to keep the conversation going and, perhaps, to convince me to buy meat for him instead of from him. “What does this man… and I use that term very loosely, dear… what does this man of yours enjoy?”
“Well, I’m a vegetarian, but HE is a total carnivore!”
“Ah,” Rocco says, finally smiling versus leering. “A man after my own heart. A poor excuse for a man, but a man with good taste nonetheless. Vegetarians are unnatural creatures, if you’ll pardon me saying so, and I do believe if you’d enjoy some red meat now and again your… color, shall we say… might improve.”
I ignore him, getting a little desperate now, with Hub giving me the “7 minutes to work” sign by pointing incessantly to the digital (natch) watch on his hairless (natch) wrist.
“What do you have in the form of something… exotic?” I ask, forcing a purr against my better instincts. “Like, kidneys or hearts or…”
“Ah,” he says, getting excited now. “I knew there was a reason I liked you, Lacy.”
He pronounces it “Laaaaaaaacy” and, I must say, it sounds kind of neat rolling off his tongue that way.
But back to business.
“Just in time for the holidays,” he is saying, “we have some very delectable kidney pies. I also ordered some imported calves tongue, not for the faint of heart but exquisite if your ‘man’ is actually… man… enough to acquire a taste for it.”
“Yumm,” I say, and actually mean it.
I’m absolutely serious when I say, “Yumm.”
Yes, I am a vegetarian and yes, I hate meat but man, if all this talk of internal organs and tongues isn’t getting me all, well… hot and bothered!
“Those all sound great! But what about something really over the top, like… do you ever serve… brains?”
I’m expecting his smooth tan face to drop, his hair to zoink out of his scalp like a character in some Saturday morning cartoon, his phone to automatically dial the Butcher Abuse Hotline but he merely smiles as if I’ve just figured out some ultra top-secret pass code.
“Of course we serve brains, Laaaaaaaacy, what kind of gourmet butcher would Rocco be if he neglected his brain-loving customers? If you look right here, down at the end, we have a wonderful brain pate, you see? Right next to the marinated lamb’s brains.”
“Delicious,” I say, hardly able to contain my excitement. “I’ll take both!”
“Very good, Laaaaaaaacy,” he oozes, weighing, measuring, boxing, then bagging them up. “I will have to meet this man who eats brains on Christmas, see if I approve of him dating the beautiful Laaaaaaaacy from the Christmas Village outside my store.”
“I’m sure he’d love to meet you, Rocco, so… what’s the damage?”
“$47.93, dear, and that’s with the employee diiiiiiiiiiiscount!”
* * * * *