Hideous Faces, Beautiful Skulls. Mark McLaughlin

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      Santa’s Elves Meet Painsettia Plont

      Arla stepped up to the cosmetics counter and examined the lipsticks. Spring Strawberry? Caribbean Coral? Jungle Pink? Anything would be better than—

      “Sorry, Miss Plont, but we’re all out of green,” said the clerk, a plump, fortyish woman with frosted hair and a toothy smile. “I bought your show on video for my youngest, Debbie. She just loves it. She goes around the house singing that song, ‘Painsettia Plont eats teddy bears and dollies…’” She thought for a moment. “‘Rubber ducky pies’? Is that how it goes?”

      “Well, no,” Arla sighed. “I’ll take the Spring Strawberry. I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

      “Certainly, Ms. Plont.” The clerk began to ring up the sale. “Or can I call you Painsettia?”

      “My real name is Arla. Arla Merrick.”

      On her way out of the department store, Arla noticed a sales display for the video of her old Christmas special, Santa’s Elves Meet Painsettia Plont. The cover of the box depicted her in full Painsettia array: green lipstick, white face powder, red fright-wig, sequined ornament earrings, white fur robe and silver curly-toed boots. The special, first aired in 1977, was broadcast each year during the holiday season. It had been released on video a few weeks ago, in time for Christmas shopping.

      Above the display, the video played on a monitor. On the screen, Painsettia Plont was menacing her kindhearted younger sister, Mrs. Claus, in the Secret Christmas Cave.

      “Ashamed of me?” hissed Painsettia, raising a bright red eyebrow. “You silly, mindless fool! I am very much a part of your life, and you cannot silence me! Now I have you, my sweet—and soon, you shall know the terror and the chill of my wintery vengeance!”

      Arla crossed the mall corridor to a toy store. She needed to buy gifts for a niece and two nephews. She saw a few Painsettia dolls on a shelf next to some plush elves.

      A red-haired girl in a quilted jacket pointed at Arla. “Look, Mommy! It’s the mean toy-eater lady!”

      The girl’s mother looked up. “Oh my God!” She hurried to Arla’s side. “You’re Poin—Painsettia, yeah, Painsettia Plont! The kids watch your show every year. I love the scene where the elves roll you into that big snowball—”

      Arla cleared her throat. “That was a part I played fifteen years ago. My real name is Arla.”

      The girl moved closer, but remained half-hidden by an enormous stuffed panda. “You’re not gonna eat all these toys, are you?” she said. Her mother laughed.

      “You’ll have to excuse me,” Arla said. “I have shopping to do.”

      As she browsed the shop, children gaped and pointed. She used to be proud of her patrician good looks: high brow, full lips, noble curved nose. Now she hated her face—or more to the point, she hated having to share it with Painsettia Plont.

      “Wanna eat this?” shouted a stout blond boy, holding out a baby doll.

      “Leave her alone,” another boy whispered, “or she’ll eat all the toys.” The chubby boy looked from Arla to the doll to the shelves and shelves of toys. Then he started to cry.

      An elderly woman poked her in the ribs with a bony finger. “Just look what you did. You’ve got a lot of nerve, scaring kids in a toy store.”

      A thin housewife with horn-rimmed glasses stared at Arla. “The next time your show is on, I’m going to cheer when you go down the bottomless pit in that snowball.” She looked the actress from head to toe. “Bitch.”

      “I’m just trying to buy some gifts,” Arla said.

      A girl in an oversized pink sweatshirt hurried up to her and kicked her in the shin. Arla cried out as she fell into a display of toy fire engines. The pain brought tears to her eyes.

      “She’s gonna eat all the fire engines!” screamed the girl in the sweatshirt. “She’s gonna eat everything!”

      Arla pulled herself out of the pile. “I’m an actress, for Christ’s sake!” she moaned. She wiped the tears from her eyes and her hands came away streaked with mascara. She glared at the elderly woman. “Because of idiots like you, I can hardly even get a job in dinner theatre! Directors won’t take me seriously because people think I’m that damned Christmas witch! Painsettia Plont is a character from a TV program. I am not Painsettia Plont!”

      Several children backed away from Arla. Many of them were crying.

      Arla shouldered her way past the thin housewife and rushed out of the store. Out in the mall, she realized that she had dropped the small sack containing her lipstick. The hell with it. There was no way she was going to return to that damned toy store.

      She found a restroom and cleaned the mascara from her face. She then left the mall, searched out her car in the packed parking lot, and drove until she found a restaurant. She parked and checked her reflection in the rearview mirror. Her eyes were red and she looked pale. She decided to visit a tanning salon soon. A pale complexion only emphasized her resemblance to bone-white Painsettia.

      The walls of the restaurant were lined with bookshelves and mirrors. The hostess showed her to a table in the no-smoking section.

      “You look familiar,” the hostess said. “Oh, you look like my old landlady, Mrs. Prescott. Any relation?”

      Arla shook her head tiredly.

      “My roommate and I used to call her the Snow Queen,” the hostess continued, handing her a menu. “She looked like that weirdo lady on that Christmas show. You know—what’s her name?”

      Arla stared at her reflection in a mirror near her table. “Painsettia Plont. Painsettia Plont. Tell the waitress to bring me a Manhattan.”

      Soon the drink arrived, and Arla downed it in three swallows. For dinner she ordered the Surf & Turf Special. She felt that she needed to pamper herself after the day’s ordeal.

      A slim, black-haired woman waved to her from a booth at the far side of the room. She looked vaguely familiar. The woman left her seat and approached Arla.

      “Well if it isn’t Painsettia Plont!” the woman said. “I’m Maggie Carlson.”

      With the name, Arla now recognized the face. Maggie Carlson was the host of DayBreak, a local morning program.

      “I never miss your Christmas show,” Maggie said, taking a seat across from Arla. “Do you live in town or are you just visiting?”

      “I’ve lived here in Detroit for about ten years. And I watch DayBreak. I’m a morning person.” Arla wondered if her breath smelled too boozy. Then she decided that she really didn’t care.

      “I bet my viewers would just love to see what Painsettia Plont is up to these days,” Maggie said.

      “She’s up to her knees in monkey-doo.” Arla found the statement wonderfully liberating. “It’s hell trying to find work when everyone still thinks of me as Painsettia. My last job was as an extra in some penny-ante production of Oklahoma. Before that, I played a burn victim on a cop show. They covered my СКАЧАТЬ