Clarice Returns

As I attempt to settle down for coffee at the campus coffee shop, a spacious, dimly lit Starbucks with sensible tables to work at, a woman quickly walks up to me and asks, "Can I talk with you?" I notice belatedly she has a toddler with her, a towhead with a wise face.

"Hi," the woman says serenely, "I'm Clarice. You wanted me to come by?"

I took a look at Clarice again. She seemed so very calm with her hands folded on the table, her pale complexion and strawberry-blonde hair, that I had trouble envisioning her as my villain. "What do you have against Brent?" I asked her abruptly.

"I have nothing against Brent -- I kinda feel sorry about him. He's the type of guy who gets used by women. He was certainly helpful to me when I lived in Denver. Treated me and the kid to lots of meals. He took it way too hard when I left." Clarice smiled the mysterious smile of the Mona Lisa. "I really don't know why he took it so hard. Poor boy had it bad for me."

"Jack, then? What do you have against Jack?"

"Santa Jack, you mean? Just that. My uncle has been Denver's epitome of Santa Claus for a couple generations. He actually gets stopped on the streets by little kids who want to know if he's Santa, even in his street clothes in the middle of March. He wasn't my Santa Claus. He didn't save me from my horrible mother and her stream of 'daddies'."

"I'm sorry to hear about that," I murmured. "So you're trying to get back at Jack?" 

"I don't know if I'm trying to get back at Uncle Jack or at Santa. If there was really a Santa Claus, wouldn't he have rescued me from my mother?"

I felt numb. I didn't know what to tell her.