The knock
on my door was mildly insistent. Each knock loud enough to be heard, and
quickly repeated, but not hard enough to be urgent. I staggered towards the
door in my pajamas, barely having any presence of mind because the sun hadn’t
even come up.
I had the
presence of mind to look through the peephole and stare into darkness. Then I
flipped on the front light and saw Nikki out there, parasol folded, but ready
to deploy to shield her from the sun on the off-chance the earth would suddenly
speed up its rotation. It was raining, as usual, but Nikki would never risk her
parasol in the rain.
I threw
open the door. “Nikki?” I wanted to say something biting or witty, but that
part of my brain was still asleep.
“Happy
Boxing Day, Matthew.”
“Wha?” I
managed. “You want me to go shopping?”
She gave me
a slight shake of her head and amused smile as she pushed past me. The
consecration on the house was still gone from last night. She sat on the couch
and patted the cushion next to her while I stood like an idiot with the door
open.
I shut the
door and joined her, yawning into the back of my hand.
She pushed
a small box at me.
I looked at
her questioningly, and then popped off the lid of the box to see a stack of
bills staring back at me.
My
questioning look deepened.
“The old
custom was to give a small amount of money to those who perform services for
us.”
“This isn’t
a small amount of money. It’s gotta be at least two Gs.”
She smiled
and gave a toss of her hand. “A pittance, really. But if it helps to think
about it as a down payment for services you are about to perform.”
“Like
what?”
“I know you
have more stories about how you got that hat.”
I sighed.
“You know, it’s not like Nick gave me a list of the ones that made his
decision.”
“Nonetheless,
I believe you have something more in-depth than what you have let on.”
“I can’t
think without coffee.”
“I can
wait.”
I sighed
again.