She turned her glare on him. "Sure. You try it. 'Your eyes are like pools. Your bottom has the roundness of a fine heifer. Your hips are lovely and broad, sure to bear many fine sons.'"
"Heifer?" I looked at the clock again. "Broad hips?"
She sneered at the clock. "I've been on a diet for five years, thanks to this clock. My therapist says I have to get rid of it now, before I go over the edge. Apparently, it gives compliments that were flattering in the 1600s."
Jack coughed, and I could tell he was seconds away from falling over laughing. I jerked my head at the door to his office, and he mumbled something about phone calls and ran away.
Coward.
"Please.Please, will you buy this clock?"
I didn't want a compliment clock any more than I wanted a haunted Christmas tree, but I couldn't resist the plaintive appeal in her eyes.
I bought the clock.
She thanked me and ran out of the shop like she was afraid I'd change my mind. I polished the lovely wooden case and determined to research its exact provenance, probably after the holidays. Then I got back to work, stopping by it every hour to hear what it had to say.
At noon, it told me my hair was beautiful.
At one, it told me I would have many fat babies.
At two, it told me my embroidery would be renowned throughout the land.
At three, it told me my husband would never beat me.
At three-ten, I put it in the vault.
When I returned to the shop from the back room, a shiny pink bicycle with a giant red bow on the handlebars sat next to the Christmas tree.
Maybe I should call Mr. Craven back. A life of leisure suddenly sounded fantastic.
12
Jack
After the clock fiasco, I did paperwork and bills for an hour and then got bored. I rounded up the stolen gifts, waited a few minutes to hear the clock tell Tess her hair was beautiful (it was), and then headed out. I felt a bit like Santa myself when I dropped off everybody else's presents at their respective houses—luckily, Tess had figured out which gifts belonged to which family.
And then I stopped by Mrs. Frost's place.
When I parked in front of her two-story Victorian, which she'd painted in authentic shades of yellow, pink, and green, I stepped out of the car.
Holding my hands in the air.
"Mrs. Frost? It's Jack. I'm here with your presents. Don't shoot!"
She toddled out onto the porch and flashed me a huge smile filled with shockingly white dentures. She definitely must have been at the dentist's since the last time I'd seen her, when her smile had been pretty normal.
"That's a beautiful smile, Mrs. Frost," I said, carrying her packages up to her door.
"I told 'em to make me look just like the weather girl on channel ten," she said proudly. "Just like her. I mean, not with that fluffy hair or brainless prattle, but the smile. I wanted the weather girl smile."
She nodded at the door, so I opened it for her and followed her in. "I'm not sure we're supposed to say weather girl anymore, are we? Where do you want these?"
"Under the tree, young man, where else? And why shouldn't I call her a weather girl? She can't be over twenty. Should I say weather woman? Weather person? Sounds ridiculous." She snorted.
I didn't know how to argue with that, so I didn't even try.
"Okay. Tess sends her apologies—"
