The Twelve Days of Christmas - Day 2

The Twelve Days of Christmas By Tiffany B. Quinn I wonder again if my parents aren’t truly communicating with me from the grave. I go to bed with more questions than answers.

Tuesday Dec 27, Day 2

After a restless night, filled with nonsensical dreams, I actually wake up a few minutes before my alarm goes off wondering what mystical treat is awaiting me this morning.

What I find is the soap missing from my shower. In its place are three bottles of Le Petit Marseillais body wash. One in Almond scent just the same as my mother used to use, the others being Lait (milk) and Peche Blanche et Nectarine (White Peach and Nectarine). There is a funny puff ball thing hanging in the shower. I had seen one in my parent’s shower when I cleaned it out. There is also some feminine deodorant on the counter. A quick search for my usual deodorant comes up empty. It is gone.

Of course, there is a note with the deodorant on the counter.

Dearest Karl,

You probably have many questions. We can’t really answer them at this point. Sorry! As we mentioned before, it will all come clear on the day of the Epiphany.

In the meantime, we are still set on helping you prepare to find the love of your life. Women love nice scents, so we have provided you with three different ones to choose from. The body wash will help you in your quest. Just add a little to the Loofah body wash scrubber to spread it over your body. It is much better than using a washcloth.

You should go to the coffee shop today. Your old high school girlfriends, Anita and Jane, will be there. You should join them for lunch.

Wear the topaz necklace again. It will help us to feel close to you and you to us.

Jim is right, you are due for a trim. I suggest that you go see Caroline at the salon today and have her tidy your hair up a little.

Love always, Mom and Dad.

Another interesting note to add to my growing collection.

So, I am supposed to have lunch with Anita and Jane today. I briefly dated each of them in high school. I know that Jane is now married with a child but Anita is still single. I haven’t visited with either of them in ages. I am not sure that I really have an excuse to do so now.

About the haircut, I think that I’ll just go see my barber instead of Caroline.

I am not so pressed for time this morning, so I wander downstairs to check my tells and find that nothing has been disturbed. No one has been through any of the exterior doorways or windows. Interesting. How did the note and gifts find their way into my house?

Feeling my chin, I realize that I still don’t need to shave which will take a few minutes off my prep time this morning. I do a double take when I look into the mirror. Not only are my cheeks as smooth as a baby’s bum, but I swear that my hair has grown at least another inch overnight.

That’s impossible, like everything else.

It is definitely time for a haircut.

When dressing for the day, I find the topaz necklace on my nightstand - not where I had left it last night. With a shrug I put it on, noticing that it fits a little better today. I also observe that my shirt collar is pretty loose as I knot my tie. Am I shrinking? I don’t think that I’ve lost any height, but my neck is definitely slimmer. If this is a trend, I will need to buy some new dress shirts soon.

I snap a quick selfie before leaving for work.

----<0>----

“Getting a bit shaggy aren’t we?” Celeste gives me a look of disapproval when I walk in the office. She sniffs a little and asks with a frown, “Is that some kind of body wash scent that I smell?”

I roll my eyes at her, “Yes, Mrs. Jenkins, I intend to get a haircut today and my mother told me that a body wash scent would be good for my love life.”

“Honey,” she retorts, “the best thing you can do for your love life is to get out of your office and meet some nice women your age. When was the last time you went on a date? Say the word and I can introduce you to some very nice young ladies."

“Thanks for your concern, Mrs. Jenkins,” I reply, “but I really should be getting some work done.”

“That’s the problem, dear.” She huffs at me.

I manage to slip out of the office late in the morning to visit my usual barber. He is not too busy this time of day and seats me immediately.

“Boy,” he observes, “you’ve been letting your hair get away from you.”

As he restores my hair to its professional looking short cut, we talk about all the things you chat about in a barber shop. The state of the weather, the best place for ice fishing this year, how the football season is wrapping up, who is going to win the college football bowl games. You know, the usual stuff. There is a surprising amount of hair on the floor when he is done.

Walking back to the office with my newly shorn head, I pass the local coffee shop just as Anita and Jane approach the door along with a very cute little girl who is hanging onto Jane’s hand. There has to be some cosmic force in action here. Getting there just ahead of the women, I hold the door for them.

“Hello ladies,” I smile at them. They look a little surprised.

“Well, if it isn’t Karl,” Anita says with a smile. “We haven’t seen you in a long time, why don’t you join us and tell us what you’ve been up to.”

“Please do,” Jane added. “We were all devastated by the loss of your parents, and we haven’t seen you since the funeral.”

“I don’t want to intrude,” I make my apologies.

“Come now Karl,” Jane encourages me. “We are old friends and we’d love to catch up with what you've been up to.”

“If you insist,” I relent, “I will join you on the condition that I pick up the tab.”

The women look at each other and shrug. “Sure, that would be nice,” Anita agrees.

We spent an hour together chatting like the old friends that we once were. I learn that Jane has just the one daughter, Amy age three, and she just recently found out that she is expecting another child. Both Jane and Anita teach at the local high school, but Jane will quit at the end of the year to become a full-time mom.

With the cost of daycare, it is about break even to work to pay for it or to stay home and focus on raising the children.

Anita, it turns out, is between relationships. Her last boyfriend was in the early stages of getting mentally and physically abusive. Not that he had done anything serious yet, but Anita could see where it was going having lived next door to an abusive household while growing up. When she found out that he was cheating on her to boot, he got the boot. Apparently, the breakup wasn’t pretty. There were restraining orders involved.

They ask about how my life was going, and I tell them about quitting my big city job and moving home to settle the estate and work my way into my father’s engineering firm. They question my decision to be involved in the management of the firm when I have so little experience. I explain our plan for me to work under the direction of the other partner until I earn my professional license, hopefully in the coming spring. Even then, I will work as one of the staff engineers, getting my hands dirty for a few more years, until everyone feels that I have earned the right to help manage the firm. Until then, my father’s longtime partner is the managing partner but we consult often on management issues and business development. I can sell out my father’s interest at any time to his partner, but I think that this is a great opportunity for me to get a leg up in the industry. The ladies seem to agree that the plan sounds reasonable.

“How was your Christmas?” Jane asks with sympathy in her voice. “I imagine it was lonely with your parents gone.”

“It was, but I had Christmas dinner with Jake and Sarah. Joanna was there too. It was a nice evening.”

“Joanna was there?” Anita raised an eyebrow. "I hadn't heard that you were dating her."

“I am not,” I quickly respond. “Sarah invited her. Let’s just say that Joanna has pretty high standards for the guys she might date. I doubt that I meet them.”

Anita snorts, “That’s a diplomatic way to say that she really doesn’t think too much of men in general. I know what you mean, she helped me with my restraining order. After all the cases of domestic abuse she’s handled, her opinion of the male of the species is rather low.”

“Hey,” I defend my gender, “it works both ways. There are abusers out there that are female.”

“I imagine that there are ten male abusers out there for every female one.” Jane points out. “But there are still a lot of good men around, like my Bryan. Unfortunately, it is the nature of Joanna’s business to see the scumbags and not the good guys.”

“A professional hazard I suppose,” Anita agrees, “but I am starting to think she might be right. Finding a good man is tough.”

“I wouldn’t know,” I cough.

“Sorry, Karl,” Jane apologizes. “We know that you are one of the good guys.”

“Yes,” Anita agrees, "Do you remember going to the Homecoming dance with me our Junior year?"

I nod, indicating that I do.

"Well," she continued, "That night you were impeccably polite and gentlemanly. You kept your distance and seemed to be afraid to touch me. You also seemed more interested in how the disco ball worked than in me."

"You were that way when we attended the Junior prom together later that year," Jane added.

“Karl, all the girls respected you in school because you so sweet and respectful," Anita continues, "but you were always distracted. There were a number of girls that had crushes on you but I don’t think that you ever noticed.”

“Maybe we should change the topic,” Jane kindly suggests, noticing my discomfort with where this line of discussion is going, “Did you decorate for Christmas?”

“Funny you should ask,” I reply, grateful for the change in topic. “No, I didn’t but I found a nicely decorated tree in my living room on Christmas morning.”

“A secret Santa!” Anita announced with a clap of her hands.

“I love secret Santas,” Jane agreed. “Did he leave a present?”

“Mommy, Mommy,” Jane's daughter interrupts the conversation, “I need to go potty.”

Perfect timing. The little girl has been very well behaved but seems to be reaching the end of her patience with grown-up talk.

“Excuse us,” Jane apologizes, “We’ll be right back.”

As the mother-daughter team head for the toilets, Anita picks up the line of questioning.

“Did you get a present?”

“It’s a little complicated, but yes,” I answered. At this point my cell phone rings. It is the office calling to see when I’ll be back. Apparently, my presence is required, and I’ve been gone for a long time already.

“Listen, Anita, I need to get back to the office.” I apologize. “And the question about the gift would take some time to explain.”

Recalling that Anita had been into mystic stuff in high school, I decide to seek her assistance.

“You would have to see this to believe it.” I inform her. “You used to be into mystic stuff, maybe you can help me figure out what the gift is all about. Are you available to come by the house tonight? I could order some dinner. I’m afraid that my culinary skills mostly involve take out.”

She laughs, “I must admit that I am intrigued. How about I pick up some Chinese on my way over?”

“It’s a date,” I agree.

I settle the lunch bill and leave before Jane and her daughter reappeared.

----<0>----

The afternoon passes slowly. I participate in a couple of rather boring design progress meetings but, with half the office on holiday, I am not sure how effective the meetings are.

My haircut earns approving nods from Jim and Celeste, but I can almost feel it growing out again as the end of the workday approaches.

When I have a free minute, I call the jeweler who bought mom’s collection. I tell him that I am curious to know if he still had any of the pieces left. He informs me that he has already sold all the pieces to various customers. He asks if there was a particular piece that I was interested in. I tell him that I am interested in the topaz pendent necklace. He said that the necklace had been one of the first pieces sold. At least I can rest easy that they were not stolen from him.

But how did the collection get reassembled? And how did it get back into the house?

----<0>----

As I pull into my driveway, I notice that Anita is already out front waiting in her car. She gets out of her car with a big bag of food from a local Chinese restaurant while I park my car in the garage. I manage get to the front door just in time to open it for her. Before opening the door, I check my tell. The door has not been opened since I left home.

I take the bag from her and carry it to the dining room table before disappearing into the kitchen to get plates and drinks.

“Do you want chopsticks?” I call out to her from the kitchen as she hangs her coat on the coat tree.

“No,” she calls back, “I prefer real utensils. Nice tree. Have you figured out who put it up?”

“I’ll tell you what I know over dinner,” I reply.

After getting the dinner stuff out, I run upstairs quickly to shed my tie and grab the notes. I unbutton the top two buttons of my shirt, revealing the necklace. Once I am down the stairs, I check all the tells and every one of them is still in place.

“Nice necklace,” Anita observes as we sit down to the meal.

“That’s part of story,” I inform her as we dig in.

As I hand her the first note to read, I tell her of coming down Christmas morning to find the tree, card and gift package.

“This is creepy,” she comments after reading the note. “It looks like your mother wants you to find your soul mate.”

“She has always wanted that,” I sigh. “The creepy thing is how did this get here? We had a foot of snow Christmas morning and there were no tracks in it. How did someone bring in a freshly cut tree without leaving tracks? All the ornaments on the tree were stored in the garage and I would have heard someone bringing them into the house. Mom’s been gone for almost a year. Who would write such a note? The necklace was sold to a jeweler along with the rest of mom’s jewelry. How did it come back?”

Anita looked at the card again. “Do you recognize the handwriting?”

“It looks exactly like my mom’s,” I answer.

“Who was Judy?” she asks.

“A girl I knew in college that I thought I was in love with. It didn’t work out.” I sigh.

“What went wrong?” she asks with curiosity.

“She says that I did not spend enough time with her,” I shrug. “Engineering school was pretty time consuming so I was studying all the time. One day I came home to find that she ran off with a theater major. I hear that that relationship did not last long either.”

“A girl likes some attention,” she declares, “You were never one to do that. Tell me about the necklace.”

“It is one that my father bought her about ten years ago, or so. It was her favorite. When I opened the present, I recognized it immediately and got an urge to put it on. So I did and forgot about it. I’ve worn it most of the time since then.”

“Has anything strange happened since you started wearing it?”

“There have been so many strange things happening," I admit. "For example, I haven’t had to shave since I started wearing the necklace. It also seems that my neck has become more slender. Oh, and when I went into the master bedroom, I found the rest of mom’s jewelry collection and her jewelry box right where it had been when she died. I called the jeweler who bought the collection, and he informed me that he has resold every piece to various customers. Whoever brought it all back must have had a heck of a time getting the collection back together. And I’m not sure how they got it in the house with all the doors and windows locked.”

“This is a real mystery,” she thoughtfully observes. “She talks about daily changes. Have other things happened?”

I hand her the second day’s note.

“What’s this shampoo and conditioner?” she asked after reading mom’s instructions.

“It’s nothing special that I can see,” I tell her. “It is just commercially available stuff. In fact, it is the same stuff that mom used to use.”

“You’ve been using it?” she inquired.

“Yes,” I admit. “For the past two mornings. I haven't had much choice since my old shampoo disappeared when this stuff showed up.”

“Anything strange happen after you washed your hair?” she asked.

I reach up to feel my hair. I am sure that it’s grown at least two inches since my haircut this morning.

“My hair seems to growing at a phenomenal rate.” I say. “I had my hair cut just before lunch today and it’s already grown quite a bit since then.”

“I remember your hair from lunch,” she says, “It looked pretty professional then. Now it looks more than a little shaggy. What did Caroline have to say about it?”

I blush when I admit that I went to see my barber instead. I then go on to tell her that about the same time as the appearance of this note, all my mother’s hair accessories reappeared.

She asks if I received a note today, so I show her the latest one.

“How did she know that Jane and I were going to lunch together today?” she asks with a puzzled expression. “We didn’t even think of going before 10 AM this morning. It was a spontaneous decision. We are both off work for the holiday and thought it would be nice to have lunch together before things get crazy again next week. This is seriously weird.”

“I know,” I agree with her.

“Somebody must be pulling your chain,” Anita concludes. “Who else has a key to your house? An old family friend or neighbor? How does this person know these details?”

“That’s just it,” I point out. “No one that I know has a key. I’ve put tells on all the doors and windows. None of my tells have been breached. I really don’t think that anyone has been here.”

We spend time discussing how all this could be happening. Regardless of how we look at the evidence, there is no rational explanation for the events of the past three days. Anita gets visibly excited as we keep circling back to the idea that this might be an actual supernatural event.

“Let me guess,” she looks at me with sparkling eyes, “your regular soap wasn’t there this morning.”

“You are right,” I confirm her guess. “And my usual deodorant was gone and a new one on the counter.”

"Feminine deodorant?" she questions.

I nod in the affirmative. "The same kind that mom used to use."

“What else appeared in your parent’s room today?” she asks.

“I haven’t checked yet,” I shrug my shoulders.

“Well,” she says with determination, “what are we waiting for! I really need to see this. Lead the way.”

Walking into the master bedroom, I don’t immediately see anything new. Poking my head in the bathroom, I don’t see any obvious changes here either.

“Is there anything in the drawers?” she asks.

“There wasn’t yesterday,” I tell her.

Anita pulls open the drawers in the bathroom cabinet. They are all empty except one which has some pink disposable razors, shaving cream and more feminine deodorant.

“These weren’t here before today?” she asks examining the contents.

“They weren’t there yesterday,” I emphasize defensively.

We go back into the bedroom, where she starts pulling open the dresser drawers as I had done yesterday. She closely examines the drawers in the walk-in closet as well.

They are all empty.

Anita asks to see the other upstairs bathroom that I use.

She examines the shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, and body washes. While she is doing her examination, I open the sink vanity drawers and show her that my shaving supplies are gone. When I mention this latest development, she reaches up and strokes my cheek.

“Well,” she says with a smile, “It doesn’t look like you need it anymore!”

Running her hand down my arm, she comments, “You have mighty fine body hair for a man. This looks more like the hair on my arm.” She puts her arm against mine. While mine is definitely a man’s arm, the hair on it is fine just like hers. My skin is pretty smooth too.

“What about the rest of your body? Can I see?” she asks with an inquisitive look on her face.

“I am not getting undressed,” I blush furiously.

“Just unbutton your shirt and raise your pant leg.” She suggests.

After a little more cajoling I relent only to find that my legs and chest are also free of masculine hair. While never a hairy guy, this morning I had definitely had chest hair. My legs have a very fine hair as opposed to the coarse hair that I am used to seeing.

Anita runs her hands over my chest with a bit of a dreamy look on her face.

“Definitely a manly chest,” she observes with a coy smile, “just without all the hair.”

I quickly step away and self-consciously close up my shirt.

Great, I think to myself. The first time in years that I’m alone with a woman who wants to run her hands over my body and I am seriously creeped out.

She gives a good-natured laugh. “You should get away from your desk a little more often. You are getting a little pudgy.”

We spend another hour discussing every angle of my situation and finally conclude that there is definitely something supernatural going on.

“This is so cool,” she says enthusiastically. “I’ve spent a lot of time studying supernatural phenomena, but this is the first time that I have actually encountered it!”

“Yeah,” I agree, “It kind of makes you think that there really is life after death.”

“I have no problem with that,” she says. “Let me share this with a couple of my friends who know more about supernatural phenomena, and we will see what they have to say about it.”

We also conclude that I’m likely to get more notes and “gifts”. There is also evidence that I am being feminized, making us wonder how this fits in with the finding true love part of the messages. I shudder to think that my true love might actually be much different than I was thinking.

Eventually it gets late, so I see Anita out to her car with a promise to let her know what surprises tomorrow brings.

Undressing for bed, I stand in front of the full-length mirror in my parent’s room. I still see me, but without the masculine body, arm and leg hair. There is still copious hair in my pubic area and arm pits. My new haircut is a thing of the past. My hair looks as shaggy as it did before this morning’s trip to the barber. It is probably even longer than it was this morning. In fact, it has probably grown another inch just while Anita was here.

The necklace is the only thing I am wearing. It hangs a little lower on my chest and I don’t think the chain is getting any longer. It is slight, but I am sure that my neck is more slender than it was when I first put on the necklace. At least, I am still fully male where it really counts.

Pulling on my normal nightwear of boxers and a t-shirt, I wonder what tomorrow will bring. I am not sure that I am looking forward to it.

Becoming paranoid, I close every door inside the house with tells in place before going to bed.

After turning out the light, I notice a very faint glow from the topaz necklace laying on my nightstand.