A Krissmas Karole

© 2022 Duleigh Lawrence-Townshend. All rights reserved. The author asserts the right to be identified as the author of this story for all portions. This story or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the expressed written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a review or commentary.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens was first published 180 years ago in 1843. Since it was published it has been retold over and over in a myriad of forms. Many of the retellings are merely an attempt to reshape Victorian sensibilities and inject them into a modern setting and label it as a whole new take on the timeless classic when it is merely a Hallmark channel Christmas movie. I've had enough of that.

For my entry in the 2022 Winter Holiday Contest, I wanted to return a Christmas Carol to its roots, a ghost story that was meant to scare people. Instead of reviewing the haunted person's life, in my telling the spirits review somebody else's life, because these spirits have an ulterior motive for haunting our hapless heroine.

_________________________

A KRISSMAS KAROLE

In Prose.

Being

A Ghost Story of Christmas .

Stave 1

It was a dark, cold, and wet Christmas Eve in Northern Colorado and Karole Krigbaum was fuming as she waited for her Uber. Incredibly tall with a beautiful face, natural platinum blond hair and a figure that drew stares from wherever she goes, large breasts, narrow waist, and sexy round hips and a southern accent as thick as sausage gravy. She has a body that any man would kill for, but she refuses to let any man near her, except for one. Her smile and her heart were saved for him, and his wife.

The weather was as undecided and as bleak as her future, it was cold, dark, and dreary with no sign of improving. The rain began to turn to light snow, and all that did was highlight her hatred of this holiday. She looked back at the warm dry lobby of Torgeson and Briggs Financial Consulting, bedecked in Yuletide decorations, there were garlands, ornaments, and tinsel hanging from every conceivable portion of the lobby filling the air with a false holiday cheer, bringing a faux joyeux Noël to the office of an accounting agency whose only claim to being a business was a phone bank. Torgeson and Briggs Financial Consulting was just a nasty, angry contract bill collecting agency and Karole just spent the day before Christmas harassing people to the brink of tears.

Fuck Christmas.

Tired of being cold and wet she went back inside to wait for her Uber, which was now ten minutes late. She stepped through the doors and turned around looking out onto the bleak Loveland Colorado parking lot, soon to be covered with a fine layer of ice. She was almost glad that the bank repossessed her pickup truck. It would get her home safely in this weather, but she couldn't afford gas for that beast. What about an electric car? Karole scoffed, why not just get a Rolls Royce? She couldn't afford an electric car let alone the extensive wiring job on the house needed to build a charging station.

As she looked out on the bleak, cold world a deep voice rumbled behind her. "Come on Miss Krigbaum, you know that no one is allowed to loiter in the lobby." She looked over her shoulder and there was Marly, the huge, as black as the night security guard. He was bearing down on her like a battleship charging toward an errant rowboat. His name was John Wilson, but he was called Marly by the bill collectors of Torgeson and Briggs Financial Consulting because of the unlit Marlboro hanging from his lips from the hour of 4:30 PM when management left, till whatever hour Marly left. They knew he had secret locations where he would light that smoke, the peons just never figured out where they were.

"Marly, it's raining outside, ah'm just waiting for my Uber, it will be here any time now."

"I can't let you do that Karole. You know that" he implored. Then he recited his script, "the lobby is for customer use only."

Karole looked around the lobby, bedecked in holiday cheer, resplendent in yuletide joy. All that there was for a customer to use was a couch, a chair, a coffee table, and a cashier's window where overdue bills with unreasonable interest fees were collected. A pair of people from the custodial staff appeared with a stack of plastic totes and began removing the Christmas decorations. "Ok, ah'm goin'," she groaned.

"Why don't you go across the lot to Don Pollo's for the office party?" asked Marly.

"Slam back a bunch of tequila in a room full of people ah detest working with? Not a brilliant career move."

"I hear ya." A smile crossed Marly's normally impassive face. Of the dozens of people that work here, Marly is the only person that Karole likes. "Karole, I have to ask you to step outside, it means both of our jobs."

"Sorry Marly. Hey, can ah bum a smoke offa you?" Marly eased a pack of Marlboro Red from his pocket and with an expert flick of the wrist he extended a cigarette halfway from the pack a offered it to Karole. "Thanks Marly," she said as she took the proffered smoke, "Got a light?"

Marly extended to her a small butane lighter, but he refused to release it when she tried to take it. The waiting room around them faded to black, the only thing she could see now was Marly who implored, "Karole, you have to let go of the hate, it will become an anchor chain around your neck."

"It's all ah have left," she responded, suddenly scared of the one man she has ever met that was taller than her. "Why are you bothering me?"

"It is required of every man," Marley replied, "that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes no forth in life..."

"Yeah, yeah, ah know the rest," sneered Karole, "Every English teacher ah ever had required me to do a report on a Christmas Carol because of my name." Her southern accent began to copy a British accent as she said, "And if that spirit goes not forth in life it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world - oh, woe is me! Yadda yadda yadda, ah heard it all before. What cha gonna do, sic a buncha ghosts on me?"

His eyes narrowed as he softly growled, "You will be visited by two spirits and a ghost, their visit means more to you and your son than you could believe..."

"Screw that!" demanded Karole, "Scrooge was right "What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books..." well, ah balanced my books and ah got jack shit! Ah got nuttin for my daughter, and next week ah won't have a roof over ma haid!"

The intensity faded from his eyes and the color returned to the room. "Karole, please..." he said softly.

Panicked by his sudden change of personality without explanation Karole was finally able to pluck the lighter from his huge fingers and she put distance between herself and the guard as fast as possible. She flicked the lighter then lit her cigarette as she walked to the exit. The doors opened automatically, and she turned and tossed the lighter back to Marly. "There's no smoking in the lobby," he called out, shaking his head as if to clear the cobwebs.

"I don't smoke," said Karole, emitting a cloud of smoke. That was mostly true, she doesn't smoke, unless she needs a quick buzz and then a rare coffin nail works wonders. "And ah don't got no son."

Across the parking lot they were whoopin' it up at Don Pollo's Margarita Bar, a semi-successful Mexican restaurant for people who have never eaten Mexican food, it's food that looks Mexican. Don and Lanh Campbell opened Karole up to a whole world of food, including Mexican and Karole discovered that there's nothing like good Mexican food. And Don Pollo's is nothing like good Mexican food.

There's no sign of her Uber and she's freezing. What was up with Marly? He doesn't even know the script, it was three ghosts, not two spirits and a ghost. She muttered and complained to herself about Marly's strange revelation, in the end Scrooge was right, Marly must have had something for lunch that didn't agree with him, "...an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you..."

Karole realized that a drop of rain almost put her cigarette out, she's not a smoker so she didn't know to cup the stogie in her hand to keep it dry. She puffed it back to life and muttered, "I only lie to myself," a rule she tries to live by.

Why is a good South Georgia cracker standing in the Colorado sleet? After graduating from the University of Georgia Karole moved here for a good job as a Respiratory Therapist at Mountain Sports Medicine where she met and fell in love with Jayce Taylor and soon, they were engaged.

Karole and her fiancé had moved out into the open countryside where they could raise a family. Things were looking good for Karole, until the day not long after they moved into their new home, that she came home from the doctor's office with exciting news and found him gone. He took all of his clothing and disappeared. Not long after the birth of his daughter he showed up and cleaned out all their accounts. All of their money was gone. He had taken their paid off car, leaving her with the new pickup and the payment book, so he could enjoy a life with a pimply skank hoe and all the meth he could want. Karole's perfect life was destroyed by a junkie. At least he went and got his stupid ass addicted to meth before they got married.

Almost a year later and Karole was still picking up the pieces, the money he cleaned out of their account shattered her financially but that was nothing compared to what he did next. She came home from work not long after the birth of her daughter to find her house surrounded by DEA, FBI and every local cop they could roust out of the donut shops. Jayce was arrested by the RCMP in Toronto for dealing in meth and he told them and the DEA that his meth lab was in Karole's garage. The investigation killed her license to practice which destroyed her medical career, they even arrested her next-door neighbor, the one man she loved in silence. Now here it is Christmas Eve, working a schlep job at a bill collector's office, and any extra money she had went to her daughter Krissy's few Christmas presents. Karole had one good Christmas in her life, and she hates herself for giving up the chance for another. She puffed her cigarette hating herself, hating the taste of the tobacco, and hating the nicotine rush.

Fuck Christmas.

Krissy is the center of Karole's universe and as far as she knows, her only living relative. Karole's mom was long gone, she drowned in a drunken boating accident while Karole was in college. All of Karole's childhood Christmas mornings were spent picking up the beer bottles emptied by Karole's mother and whatever redneck she was fucking at the time. She would spend every Christmas day fetching beer and aspirin for hung over human trash and if she was lucky, she would have a dollar store Barbi knock off and a pair of socks to unwrap. When she was ten, she got what she most desired for Christmas: Ignored. She spent Christmas day locked in her house while her mother and her current "Uncle" went to St. Augustine for three days leaving her behind with a box of cereal, half a gallon of milk, and a dozen cans of Chicken Noodle Soup. Bonus joy: the cable was working.

Fuck Christmas

This is not an example of life in South Georgia, it is an example of Karole's alcoholic mother, most of Karole's friends had warm loving Christmas holidays and they used those memories to taunt Karole at school. Last year was the best Christmas Karole ever had, she spent it with friends who waited on her hand and foot. She was pregnant with Krissy and received more gifts for Krissy than she believed possible from people she barely knew. Now with her certification to practice at the hospital was revoked, she lost her job, her truck, and she's going to lose her house. Here it is on Christmas Eve, and she has nothing to give to her daughter. Karole's greatest fear is coming true - she's turning into her mother.

It is 5:00 PM on Christmas eve, and in Karole's house Christmas will be over in 24 hours. As soon as Krissy goes down for her Christmas afternoon nap the tree gets put back in its box and everything gets put away. Karole has no desire to be reminded of Christmas and all the pain it brings to her.

If Krissy wants more Christmas, she will have it over at Mr. Don's house. Don and Lanh Campbell are her next-door neighbors, and they are the only thing besides Krissy that has made this entire shit-show of what is now Karole's life any form of bearable. Don is the only father that Krissy has ever known, and his Asian wife Lanh dotes on Krissy like a second mom. Hell, Lanh was Karole's birth coach holding her hand while her husband Don was right there mopping her brow as Krissy came into the world.

Don and Lanh opened their home to Karole and Krissy, feeding them when money was scarce, housing them for weeks at a time when the power was shut off, babysitting every time Karole needed a babysitter. In return, all they asked for was the opportunity to help even more. They would take her home to their family farm on holidays where their entire family adopted Karole and Krissy and doted on them like they were family. They were showered with love and acceptance and Don and Lanh's family begged Karole to stay in Minnesota, and Karole kicked herself every time they returned to Colorado, but she wanted to stay close to Lanh... and Don.

Don and Lanh had no children and Lanh told her that she couldn't bear children. When Karole asked, "Why don't you adopt?" Lanh's eyes teared up and after several long moments she said, "That won't happen," and dashed out of the room.

Although Karole is absolutely in love with Don and Lanh, one small part of their lifestyle drives her nuts, Don and Lanh are Christmas crazy. Their decorations go up on the day after Thanksgiving and don't come down until January 5^th, which Don informed Karole is "The twelfth day of Christmas." (Counting on her fingers showed that he was right) The Campbell home becomes a romance channel Christmas movie set; it is always festooned with lights and garlands and pine boughs and trees, a Christmas railroad threads its way through a Christmas village at the base of their perfectly decorated Christmas tree, their mantle over the fireplace is an explosion of holiday spirit with candles and pine boughs and holly and ornaments and stockings for Mr. Don, Miss Lanh, Marissa (Lanh's goldfish), Maxwell (Don's beta fish), and of course Krissy and Karole. Every doorsill in the house was adorned with holly garland and red ornaments, illuminated with the tiniest white lights that Karole had ever seen. Even the paintings and photographs on the walls were removed and replaced with Christmas themed artwork, the frames of which were hand carved by a German wood carver that overdosed on peppermint schnapps, egg nog, and holiday cheer.

It looked like Santa Claus and all eight reindeer had puked on their house, and they liked the effect, so they kept it.

Lanh is a speech pathologist and works at the Children's Hospital and teaches at Northern Colorado University. Don does not work; he says he's retired but neither of them looks old enough for that. Don would be a great stay-at-home dad if they had kids. Instead, he and Lanh shower Krissy with love and little Krissy just loves her "Uncle Don." Karole never pried into his past but the way he acts, dresses, and cuts his hair shows that he was in the military. On occasion he complains about his back and Karole has seen him walking with a cane, and on a couple of occasions on crutches. In their hot tub Karole saw scars on his body that he said were from surgery.

His wife Lanh is the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants, she's a tiny, highly intelligent, and incredibly beautiful woman with a delightful lilt in her voice that came from learning Vietnamese before she learned English. She once confided in Karole that Don had a terminal case of "Yellow Fever" when she met him, and now after being married to her for years and working in her family's restaurant and being teased by her five brothers and sisters, she was sure that he was completely cured.

Karole and Lanh became best friends immediately after Karole moved in, which shocked Karole. Karole is a self-described "Hot Mess" whose list of lifetime best friends begins and ends with Norma, her college roommate, and now includes Lanh, and that's it, no one else. Karole doesn't make friends easily, being raised by a drunken single mother who terrified anyone that got near their trailer ensured that Karole grew up depending on herself and no one else.

Often Lanh and Karole hang out or go shopping together and they make an interesting looking pair, Lanh is short and slim with light skin, jet-black hair, and coal black eyes, while Karole is over six feet tall (if asked she'll say she's five foot fourteen inches tall), curvy, with skin that will go to a deep tan in the summer, light green eyes, and natural platinum-blond hair. They can spend a day shopping together, buy nothing, and come home to a sleeping Krissy whose face is covered in any sort of sweet mess, and Mr. Don cleaning the kitchen from his baking extravaganza with Krissy. Then later that evening Karole will spend the night yacking on the phone with Lanh, or Lanh's sister Kim-ly with whom Karole found herself close to.

The only men on Karole's radar were married, they were Lanh's brother Trung who has a thing for busty blonds, and Don. Both Karole and Kim-ly have a crush on Don, and both have promised to keep it to themselves, but Karole knows that if anything happens to Lanh, it will be a race between her and Kim-ly to see who gets to Don. Could this be the reason why Karole refuses to take up the offers she's received to move to Minnesota? To remain close to Don?

One day while looking at purses that neither Lanh nor Karole had the money or inclination to buy, Lanh broached a question that had been sitting on her mind since Karole moved in next door. "Don tell me you hate, but do you really hate being call Christmas Karole?" Her light accent was now highly pronounced. Tell came out 'taew,' and call came out 'caw.'

"Your husband is a wise man," snarled Karole. This was early in their relationship, so at this time Karole wasn't aware of the fact that Lanh was fully aware of word tenses, "called" rather than "call" and "told" rather than "tell" and a hundred grammatical errors that a speech therapist would concentrate on. She normally has perfect diction but all of that goes out the window when she is feeling emotional pressure. Karole continued, "I despise being called Christmas Karole, especially when singing is involved."

"Oh," but Lanh continued fearlessly, "then I should not ask you about Krissy-mas Karole?" Lanh actually patted Karole's pregnant belly which contained her daughter Krissy. "Kriss-mas Karole?" Lanh grinned and waggled her eyebrows.

"No, you should not." But it was so silly that Karole broke up laughing, and when Lanh realized that she wasn't going to be pummeled by the buxom blond amazon, she began laughing also. It was probably the only time in recent memory when someone called her "Christmas Karole" that Karole didn't respond with a vehement "Fuck you."

And now here she is, standing in the freezing rain waiting for a tardy Uber driver. Karole pulled out her cell phone to call Don and tell him that she was running a bit late. Karole refused to admit her feelings about Don, they were wrong, she couldn't endanger her friendship with Lanh, she couldn't anger the family, and she couldn't embarrass Don, but she couldn't be separated from him. She was even willing to put up with intravenous egg nogg and gingerbread at Don and Lanh's house if it means getting out of this cold wet weather and being near him.