Page 37 of The Santa Claus Con

Scarlett snorts. “True. Oh! The series is about to be released to streaming. It all makes sense now. Smart for them to do this collab.”

“You all have a long day ahead of you and much to do,” Todd says, “so let’s get this Christmas party started!” He and the four judges wave goodbye and skate off the ice.

As music starts back up and cameramen reset and prepare for the games to begin, a Santa Wannabe in a deep maroon leather trench coat with black faux fur steps up next to me.

“Huh,” he says out loud to no one in particular. “Thought it was supposed to be the Radio City people.” He looks over at me and strokes his groomed black beard. “Nice beard, Curly.” His sarcasm rings loud and clear.

No one insults my hideous fake beard but me. Goth Santa’s going down.

“That’s Clifford Everett,” Scarlett says. “Thirty-seven years old. Lives in Baltimore and works as a critical care nurse. This is his seventh Con. He’s quite active on social media. You should see his food photography.”

More like time to see if Clifford makes our suspect list.

“Nice… fur,” I respond with a fake smile. “Hey, would you mind signing this?” I pull out a holiday card from my pocket and hand it to him. “It’s a thank-you card for Nelly and Todd for this wonderful event.”

“Thoughtful,” he says.

“Make sure to use the Tombow Fudenosuke pen,” Scarlett says, reminding me about the brush pen she gave me this morning.

She goes over—again—her card-signing plan to collect handwriting samples and identify left-handers since the release form signatures were a bunch of ballpoint scribbles.

I wait for her to finish, knowing she’s not rambling because she’s nervous but because it helps her to think out loud. To turn over the various angles in her head and to share it with others in case they hear something useful. As she talks, I feel my cheeks lift. Whatever it is she’s talking about, I could listen to her all day.

“So, yeah. It looks like any other hard-tip pen, but you can use it for calligraphy,” she says. “It dries fast, and we’ll see if people know how to write with it. This one’s got a tracker in it, too, just in case. Don’t lose it.”

I hand him the pen. “Here. Trying to keep it consistent. Aesthetically.”

Clifford uncaps the pen and scrawls Santa Claus with his right hand. Great. There’s going to be forty-nine Santa Claus signatures on this by the end of today.

“Thanks,” I say as Clifford hands the card back to me. Before he walks away, a couple of women sneak past security to get selfies with each of us.

“Look at you starting your own fan club,” Scarlett says.

“The security here isn’t strong enough,” I analyze.

“I need to take a picture of the card. We’ll have to note which signature belongs to each person,” she says. I angle the card in front of my button camera. “This man knows not a thing about the art of calligraphy. Clifford’s fingerprints weren’t in our system, either. We can rule him out for now.”

I look for more Santa Wannabes to get signatures from. “Did you hear what he said about the judges and the Radio City people?”

Papers rustle on her end. “Already let the off-site team know. We’re supposed to be focusing on the Santa Wannabes, remember? We’ve got our hands full as it is.”

“If something’s suspicious, I’m calling it out.”

“Apparently, a Radio City person was going to be the judge before… Holly Winter got added?” She makes a surprised sound. “This must’ve been a last-minute switch. Maybe the other person got sick?”

Or someone purposely wanted the Radio City judge out and Holly in.

Con organizers hold up paddles with colors on them, signifying which line we need to go to based on the color of the wristband they assigned to us at check-in. Having spent hours yesterday watching footage of past Cons, I now know that these competitions are different from past years. This year’s Con has also been condensed from three days into one. I wonder why that is. Is the hotel too expensive? Did the streamer know people would tune out after a certain number of hours? And why didn’t Nelly or Todd mention anything about this change-up in our meeting?

The Red group goes first. Clifford and Cameron lead the pack, pulling their ornaments by the hook steadily behind them. Cameron must be somewhat used to this—last year’s competition involved dragging Christmas trees across the rink. As for everyone else, it’s a case study in what not to do. Such as, don’t take a running start or lean too far forward pushing the ornament.

“What a shitshow,” I mumble.

“Santa language!” Scarlett says.

I clear my throat. “I said what a hit show. Because this game is such a… hit.”

“This isn’t a game. It’s a mission.”