Merry Christmas
Chapter 9
It became a routine. Every night just before Kate went to bed she would call Santa. To make it work she had to call him Santa. Not that it mattered. She believed in him again anyway so that was the easy part. The hard part was saying goodnight each time. Even harder was when she had to say it to Alexis.
Another hard part was not seeing Christmas everywhere. She had gotten so used to it that she expected to see it everywhere. It wouldn't be a good idea to get her started on having to use taxis to get around instead of transit walls or having Santa rain snow on anyone.
Her parents had managed to get her back into her old high school. She was way behind if she expected to graduate and if she was going to get into a college anywhere she needed to graduate high school.
That in turn presented another set of problems. She had gotten used to using what the elves did and her teacher did at the North Pole. They didn't have any of that stuff here.
Even worse was that her teachers, well most of them, were idiots. They were wrong, so very wrong. She had learned so much more at the North Pole and knew they were wrong. Then she had to proceed to explain to them why they were wrong.
Johanna had been called into the school yet again. "Again, Katie?"
"He was wrong, Mom. So very wrong. He's going to get someone killed if he does that." She then began to explain why right there in front of the principal.
Her mother was a registered doctor and in practice and not a know-it-all professor. "She has a point," Johanna said since Katie was right. She might not understand how but she was right.
"It doesn't matter, Mrs. Beckett. She was disrespectful to her professor in front of the entire class. I'm sorry but we can't allow that to continue. Right or wrong," the principal maintained.
It still meant Kate had to go home with Johanna for the day. She could go back to school tomorrow.
"Just where did you learn all this?" Johanna was impressed but how?
"From elves at the North Pole, of course." Kate sat there with her arms crossed in front of her chest and her mother sat next to her in the taxi on the way home. Neither of them paid any attention to the driver who was half paying attention.
oOo
Kate was still sulking but watched her mother fill out something then put it into an envelope. "What are you doing, Mom?" Her curiosity was up.
"Sending out a resume to a job opening," Johanna replied like it was obvious.
"But you and Dad have a job." She was the one that didn't have a job. But then she hadn't finished school yet either.
"Your father and I have decided to move out of the city. You were taken by someone and held captive even if the police don't care or aren't even looking for them. What if it happens again? So we've decided to apply for various positions in other places to get out of this city. We've lost you once, Katie, we're not losing you again."
"Oh." In a way it was sweet. But she was being far more careful now. She didn't walk anywhere that was over one single block. She took a taxi. She didn't even use the subway any longer. She hadn't even talked to anyone since that disastrous but nice sweet sixteen party that had gotten her into that mess.
"So where are you looking?" Kate inquired. Though she knew Santa could find her anywhere she went with ease.
"Just about anywhere with a few exceptions. The bigger the city is we won't apply so we're looking at smaller cities." Johanna was hoping that a smaller city was safer. Everyone knew everyone there. They might not make the same amount of money, but Katie's safety came first.
"Oh." Well where they went so would she. So long as it had a high school that had the proper courses to help her get into a medical college.
oOo
"Santa, please." Kate was sitting on her bed later that night after her parents had gone to bed.
"Hi, Kate." Rick was all smiles.
"Hi, Kate." Alexis had an even bigger smile.
"Hi, Alexis." Somehow just seeing her had her melting. There was something about that little girl.
"I'm six now!" Alexis held up six fingers.
"Really! I really wish I could have been there. I'm so sorry." She was trapped here and couldn't do anything about it.
"It's okay." She got to talk to Kate once in a while and so far that was good enough.
"Santa?" Kate could hear Lucy's voice. "I think you're going to want to read this one." Lucy handed over a Dear Santa letter.
It was kind of early for Dear Santa letters. Actually it was a lot early. They almost always came in a mad rush and he and the elves had to read them as fast as they could.
Kate began smiling; she was hoping it was her letter. She was even trying to get the view to look down so she could see the envelope since she had made it special. But it refused.
"Let's see what we have here."
Dear Santa,
All I want for Christmas is to spend the day with you at the North Pole.
Oh, and Alexis, and Lucy, and Victor, and Prancer, and even Rudolph.
Because I love all of you.
Kate
"KATE! What have you done!" It was her letter and he had just proved it to her by reading it to her.
"Please, Santa?" Kate cooed and even batted her eyelashes at him.
"Lucy!" Rick was sure she was behind this.
"I'll go get the hot chocolate and cookies, Santa." Lucy turned to leave.
"You stay right where you are. I'll deal with you later," Rick told her.
Lucy hung her head. "Yes, Santa."
"Lucy had nothing to do with this. I thought it up all on my own. Actually you gave me the idea." If anything it was his fault.
"I gave you the idea? When did I give you this idea?" He had no memory of doing any such thing.
"You told me you couldn't bring me to the North Pole. I pointed out that you had already done that once. And you said…"
Rick finished it for her. "Because your mother sent me a Dear Santa letter." Now he remembered.
"So, Santa?" As far as Kate was concerned he was trapped. He had to bring her to the North Pole.
"Daddy?" Alexis was following since she was six now. Besides she wanted Kate there.
"Yes, Santa, what are you going to do now?" Lucy questioned him. She tried to hide her grin and failed miserably.
Rick pointed his finger at Lucy since he couldn't scold his own daughter. He could but it wouldn't do any good.
"You tricked me." Rick looked at Kate and sighed. He relented. "Fine, you win. One second after midnight on Christmas Day I'll be there to pick you up and bring you to the North Pole so you can spend the next twenty-four hours here. But you're going right back." Rick then pointed out the flaw in her plan. "You said one day and you said Christmas Day."
Kate had been yelling at her success till she covered her mouth with her hand so she didn't wake her parents.
"RATS!" She had screwed up. She had asked for just one day. She hadn't really thought about asking to stay forever.
"I'll go get the hot chocolate and cookies now so we can celebrate that Kate's coming back," Lucy told everyone and left. Lucy made a mental note to have Kate do it again, only this time she needed to ask to stay forever while she was here. Then maybe Rick would propose and there would be a Mrs. Claus at the North Pole.
"Kate's coming!" Alexis raised her arms high which made Kate laugh.
Rick saw a problem that was all his. Alexis was six and Christmas Day was months away. Which was years so far as the six-year-old was concerned. He was in big trouble. Really big trouble.
oOo
Johanna was home after a long day at work. She wasn't afraid of work. In fact just being a female doctor had taken lots and lots of work. She was the only female doctor in the entire hospital.
There had only been one medical school that took women and it had only opened in 1930 so she counted herself lucky. But that didn't mean she could rest on her laurels. She had to work twice as hard as anyone else just to keep her job, let alone dream of advancement or even, God forbid, a raise.
Johanna found the envelope, saw the return address on it, and ripped it open immediately. Good news or bad, she would tell her husband when he got home if he wasn't there already.
Tripler Army Medical Center
1 Jarret White Road
Tripler AMC
Hawaii
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Beckett,
"Yeah, yeah, get to the point." It was all a lot of talk.
"We are at present a simple 200 bed wooden structure hospital located in Moanalua between Pearl Harbor and Honolulu.
We have read both of your resumes and contacted your references.
"Please just get on with it!" Johanna didn't have the patience for this. They had written to so many places that had either not responded back yet, if ever, or had told them they didn't have an opening or they weren't a good fit for them. They were still trapped in New York City. Even if the jobs were good with really good pay. Except it was expensive to live there already and getting worse. Though since there had been a depression they were lucky to have jobs at all.
We would like to offer both of you a position on our staff as
"YES!"Johanna didn't bother reading the rest. They could do that later. They had jobs! New jobs. She told the stupid elevator to go faster once it finally arrived and let her in.
"JIM!"She saw him in the kitchen getting out a beer. He was a surgeon so Jo had restricted him to one beer a week. Today was his day he could have a beer. Not that they ever bought very many and thankfully he didn't always drink one.
"We got a job offer!" Jo waved the letter as she walked over to him, handed it to him, and let him read it.
"What!?" Kate came out of her bedroom where she had been resting and getting ready to make her nightly call to Santa. Her mother had yelled it for all to hear.
"This is Honolulu!" Jim was a little shocked. Hawaii wasn't anywhere close to here. He wasn't even sure what it was going to take to get there.
"Hawaii?" Now Kate was equally shocked.
"Surgeon and registered nurse," Jim noted.
"WHAT!" Jo hadn't gotten that far. She just assumed a doctor's position like she had now. It was what she had applied for or at least asked for.
Jim took it back so he could finish reading. "It's for a little less money than I make now. A lot less money than you make now." Jim had it ripped out of his hands again by his wife.
"Registered nurse." Jo couldn't believe it. She was qualified but that was below her present station. "Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist." Jo read the entire offer. That meant she wasn't just any nurse, she was a surgeon's assistant nurse. "I might be in the same operating room as you are." She kind of liked the sound of that.
"Are we accepting and when does it say they want us there?" Jim questioned her since this was all her idea.
"Yes, we're accepting and we have until…" Jo had to finish reading it. "We have two months from…" She turned her head to look at the calendar on the wall. "Monday of last week." Then she looked at the envelope.
"It took them almost two weeks for it to get here." They were already in the hole and they hadn't even started packing or looking into how to get there.
"We need to telegraph back that we accept or they'll offer them to someone else," Jim informed his wife. If they sent a letter like they did, it could be another two weeks for them to get it and two weeks to reply to that.
"One of us will do it tomorrow. How do we get to Hawaii?" Jo had no idea.
"Where do we live once we get there?" Jim added. They needed time to find a place, buy the place, and get settled in before they started their new jobs. They were in big trouble.
oOo
"Santa, please," Kate told her watch. She had a lot to tell him this time.
"Hi, Kate. How's New York City?" Thankfully if she was using her watch she wasn't captured again and being forced to do unspeakable things.
Kate told him the very first thing. "Mom and Dad have new jobs. We're moving to Hawaii. They have to start their jobs on July 17."
That had Rick looking at his calendar. "A little under two months. Wow, your parents better hurry!" He used to live in New York City before he became Santa and kind of knew what it would take.
"Any suggestions? Can you help? Make it snow or something?" What good was it to know Santa if he couldn't help her?
"I'll have to get back to you on that. As for me moving them, that won't be possible."
Kate finished for him. "Rules." She had about had it with his rules.
"Sorry. How do you feel about moving to Hawaii?" That was more what he cared about.
"Okay, I guess. I'd rather move to the North Pole but Hawaii might be nice," Kate admitted.
"Where in Hawaii?" Rick had a secret that she didn't know anything about.
"Somewhere between Pearl Harbor and Honolulu, wherever that is." She hadn't had time or bothered to look it up.
"Oahu, nice place. Lots of beaches and bare chested hunks swimming and surfboarding," Rick said.
"I don't want them. I want you," Kate pouted. Then she brightened. "I'll be eighteen when you come get me for our date. I won't be underage any longer." Kate liked that idea a lot.
"Flirting with the naughty list again, I see," Rick teased her.
"It's not naughty if we both agree it isn't," Kate argued. Besides when she was eighteen she would be an adult so it wasn't naughty.
"Anything you want me to tell anyone?" Rick asked her.
That had Kate thinking. Rick already knew that she loved him. Alexis, she was pretty sure, knew that she loved her. "Yes. Tell Prancer I want another flight from him. This time I want some fancy flying."
Rick began to laugh. "I'll tell him. Let me know how your trip to Hawaii is working out. Talk to you later." Rick ended it on her.
"I love you, too," Kate told the empty space where his head used to be. Maybe he would admit that he loved her when she was eighteen and not a kid any longer.
oOo
Kate came home to find a pile of flat boxes in the living room and her dad and mom were sitting at the dining room table looking at something.
"What's with the boxes?" Even if she could guess why.
"We're planning how to get to Hawaii. We need to box up what we want to take and have it shipped by rail to somewhere in California. So far Los Angeles is the likely location. From there it will get transferred to a ship to Honolulu where we'll have to come and find it and get it transported to where we have chosen to live," Jo explained.
"Jeez." She was almost sorry she asked.
"It gets better," Jim told her. "We'll be traveling by train as well, but our belongings will be on a freight train while we're on a passenger train. And…it will take us four days by train to reach Los Angeles."
Now Kate knew she was sorry.
"It gets even better," Jo said and they both listened to Kate groan. "It'll take us four days but it will take our belongings closer to three weeks."
"Seriously?" This really sucked. She was going to give Santa a piece of her mind. They had transit walls and he had his snow. Surely he could do something!
"That's just to get to Los Angeles. From there we have two choices. By plane in something called the Hawaiian Clipper. Evidently it takes off and lands on water and can only handle less than twelve people depending on how much luggage goes with them," Jim told her.
"Don't forget the cost of that flight," Jo reminded him and Kate watched her dad roll his eyes. Apparently it was bad. "And it only flies out of San Francisco, not Los Angeles."
"Or we could go by boat which will take about a week to reach Honolulu." Now Kate was rolling her eyes.
"And when we arrive we have to find somewhere to live," Jo said wearily and that had Kate resting her head on the table. She was definitely going to be talking to Santa about this. Her parents believed in him. She certainly did so what was the big deal?
"When are we leaving?" Kate said to the table that was in front of her.
"Two weeks from last Wednesday." Johanna and Jim had worked it all out. If they could make the dates and get all the train tickets and boat tickets arranged by then. Otherwise they were in big trouble.
Kate sat bolt upright and looking around their apartment. "Seriously?" They had a lot of stuff.
"It gets better," Jim said and Kate put her head back down on the table. This was certainly going to be bad, she just knew it. "We can't take any of the furniture. We can't afford it, so we have to sell almost everything before we leave. Just clothes, some kitchen stuff, and little things. Everything else has to go. We'll have to buy it again after we get there and figure out where we're going to live."
That had Kate groaning into the table. She was most definitely going to be bending Santa's ear. This was nuts!
oOo
"Santa, please." Kate waited a moment and saw Rick's smiling face. She was going to smack that look right off his face.
"Hi, Kate, hold that thought." He disappeared and was replaced moments later by Lucy.
"Lucy?" Kate wanted to give Santa a piece of her mind, not Lucy.
"You're going to need a pencil and paper. Lots of paper. Plenty of paper at least," Lucy amended.
"Why?" Kate didn't understand. Then Lucy showed her a tablet that she had used when she was there and in her classes mostly.
"I have everything you and your parents are going to need to get from New York City to Honolulu, Hawaii, and even some houses for them to look at when you get there." Lucy had done a lot of work because Santa had asked her and she had been happy to do it. Especially if it meant her plan worked out. "Go get a pencil and paper. I'll wait."
Lucy waited and watched a grinning Santa who was looking at her. "I'll get the hot chocolate and cookies this time." Santa left her. This time it was Lucy groaning. Because unless he found the hot chocolate she had already made along with the cookies she had already made she was going to puke. She loved Santa down to her very soul, but he couldn't make a decent cup of hot chocolate if it killed him.