NEWSLETTER
by Connie Willis

Later examination of weather reports and newspapers showed that it may have started as early as October nineteenth, but the first indication I had that something unusual was going on was at Thanksgiving.
I went to Mom's for dinner (as usual), and was feeding cranberries and cut-up oranges into Mom's old-fashioned meat grinder for the cranberry relish and listening to my sister-in-law Allison talk about her Christmas newsletter (also as usual).
"Which of Cheyenne's accomplishments do you think I should write about first, Nan?" she said, spreading cheese on celery sticks. "Her playing lead snowflake in The Nutcracker or her hitting a home run in PeeWee Soccer?"
"I'd list the Nobel Peace Prize first," I murmured, under cover of the crunch of an apple being put through the grinder.
"There just isn't room to put in all the girls' accomplishments," she said, oblivious. "Mitch insists I keep it to one page."
"That's because of Aunt Lydia's newsletters," I said. "Eight pages single-spaced."
"I know," she said. "And in that tiny print you can barely read." She waved a celery stick thoughtfully. "That's an idea."
"Eight pages single-spaced?"
"No. I could get the computer to do a smaller font. That way I'd have room for Dakota's Sunshine Scout merit badges. I got the cutest paper for my newsletters this year. Little angels holding bunches of mistletoe."
Christmas newsletters are very big in my family, in case you couldn't tell. Everybody-uncles, grandparents, second cousins, my sister Sueann-sends the Xeroxed monstrosities to family, coworkers, old friends from high school, and people they met on their cruise to the Caribbean (which they wrote about at length in their newsletter the year before). Even my Aunt Irene, who writes a handwritten letter on every one of her Christmas cards, sticks a newsletter in with it.
My second cousin Lucille's are the worst, although there are a lot of contenders. Last year hers started:
"Another year has hurried past
And, here I am, asking, 'Where did the time go so fast?'
A trip in February, a bladder operation in July,
Too many activities, not enough time, no matter how hard I try."
At least Allison doesn't put Dakota and Cheyenne's accomplishments into verse.
"I don't think I'm going to send a Christmas newsletter this year," I said.
Allison stopped, cheese-filled knife in hand. "Why not?" "Because I don't have any news. I don't have a new job, I didn't go on a vacation to the Bahamas, I didn't win any awards. I don't have anything to tell."
"Don't be ridiculous," my mother said, sweeping in carrying a foil-covered casserole dish. "Of course you do, Nan. What about that skydiving class you took?"
"That was last year, Mom," I said. And I had only taken it so I'd have something to write about in my Christmas newsletter.
"Well, then, tell about your social life. Have you met anybody lately at work?"
Mom asks me this every Thanksgiving. Also Christmas, the Fourth of July, and every time I see her.
"There's nobody to meet," I said, grinding cranberries. "Nobody new ever gets hired, because nobody ever quits. Everybody who works there's been there for years. Nobody even gets fired. Bob Hunziger hasn't been to work on time in eight years, and he's still there."
"What about . . . what was his name?" Allison said, arranging the celery sticks in a cut-glass dish. "The guy you liked who had just gotten divorced?"
"Gary," I said. "He's still hung up on his ex-wife."
"I thought you said she was a real shrew."
"She is," I said. "Marcie the Menace. She calls him twice a week complaining about how unfair the divorce settlement is, even though she got virtually everything. Last week it was the house. She claimed she'd been too upset by the divorce to get the mortgage refinanced and he owed her twenty thousand dollars because now interest rates have gone up. But it doesn't matter. Gary still keeps hoping they'll get back together. He almost didn't fly to Connecticut to his parents' for Thanksgiving because he thought she might change her mind about a reconciliation."
"You could write about Sueann's new boyfriend," Mom said, sticking marshmallows on the sweet potatoes. "She's bringing him today."
This was as usual, too. Sueann always brings a new boyfriend to Thanksgiving dinner. Last year it was a biker. And no, I don't mean one of those nice guys who wear a beard and black Harley T-shirt on weekends and work as accountants between trips to Sturgis. I mean a Hell's Angel.
My sister Sueann has the worst taste in men of anyone I have ever known. Before the biker, she dated a member of a militia group and, after the ATF arrested him, a bigamist wanted in three states.
"If this boyfriend spits on the floor, I'm leaving," Allison said, counting out silverware. "Have you met him?" she asked Mom.
"No," Mom said, "but Sueann says he used to work where you do, Nan. So somebody must quit once in a while."
I racked my brain, trying to think of any criminal types who'd worked in my company. "What's his name?"
"David something," Mom said, and Cheyenne and Dakota raced into the kitchen, screaming, "Aunt Sueann's here, Aunt Sueann's here! Can we eat now?"
Allison leaned over the sink and pulled the curtains back to look out the window.
"What does he look like?" I asked, sprinkling sugar on the cranberry relish.
"Clean-cut," she said, sounding surprised. "Short blond hair, slacks, white shirt, tie."
Oh, no, that meant he was a neo-Nazi. Or married and planning to get a divorce as soon as the kids graduated from college- which would turn out to be in twenty-three years, since he'd just gotten his wife pregnant again.
"Is he handsome?" I asked, sticking a spoon into the cranberry relish.
"No," Allison said, even more surprised. "He's actually kind of ordinary-looking."
I came over to the window to look. He was helping Sueann out of the car. She was dressed up, too, in a dress and a denim slouch hat. "Good heavens," I said. "It's David Carrington. He worked up on fifth in Computing."
"Was he a womanizer?" Allison asked.
"No," I said, bewildered. "He's a very nice guy. He's unmarried, he doesn't drink, and he left to go get a degree in medicine."
"Why didn't you ever meet him?" Mom said.
David shook hands with Mitch, regaled Cheyenne and Dakota with a knock-knock joke, and told Mom his favorite kind of sweet potatoes were the ones with the marshmallows on top.
"He must be a serial killer," I whispered to Allison.
"Come on, everybody, let's sit down," Mom said. "Cheyenne and Dakota, you sit here by Grandma. David, you sit here, next to Sueann. Sueann, take off your hat. You know hats aren't allowed at the table."
"Hats for men aren't allowed at the table," Sueann said, patting her denim hat. "Women's hats are." She sat down. "Hats are coming back in style, did you know that? Cosmopolitan's latest issue said this is the Year of the Hat."
"I don't care what it is," Mom said. "Your father would never have allowed hats at the table."
"I'll take it off if you'll turn off the TV," Sueann said, complacently opening out her napkin.
They had reached an impasse. Mom always has the TV on during meals. "I like to have it on in case something happens," she said stubbornly.
"Like what?" Mitch said. "Aliens landing from outer space?"
"For your information, there was a UFO sighting two weeks ago. It was on CNN."
"Everything looks delicious," David said. "Is that homemade cranberry relish? I love that. My grandmother used to make it."
He had to be a serial killer.
For half an hour, we concentrated on turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green-bean casserole, scalloped corn casserole, marsh-mallow-topped sweet potatoes, cranberry relish, pumpkin pie, and the news on CNN.
"Can't you at least turn it down, Mom?" Mitch said. "We can't even hear to talk."
"I want to see the weather in Washington," Mom said. "For your flight."
"You're leaving tonight?" Sueann said. "But you just got here. I haven't even seen Cheyenne and Dakota."
"Mitch has to fly back tonight," Allison said. "But the girls and I are staying till Wednesday."
"I don't see why you can't stay at least until tomorrow," Mom said.
"Don't tell me this is homemade whipped cream on the pumpkin pie," David said. "I haven't had homemade whipped cream in years."
"You used to work in computers, didn't you?" I asked him. "There's a lot of computer crime around these days, isn't there?"
"Computers!" Allison said. "I forgot all the awards Cheyenne won at computer camp." She turned to Mitch. "The newsletter's going to have to be at least two pages. The girls just have too many awards-T-ball, tadpole swimming, Bible-school attendance."
"Do you send Christmas newsletters in your family?" my mother asked David.
He nodded. "I love hearing from everybody."
"You see?" Mom said to me. "People like getting newsletters at Christmas."
"I don't have anything against Christmas newsletters," I said. "I just don't think they should be deadly dull. Mary had a root canal, Bootsy seems to be getting over her ringworm, we got new gutters on the house. Why doesn't anyone ever write about anything interesting in their newsletters?"
"Like what?" Sueann said.
"I don't know. An alligator biting their arm off. A meteor falling on their house. A murder. Something interesting to read."
"Probably because they didn't happen," Sueann said.
"Then they should make something up," I said, "so we don't have to hear about their trip to Nebraska and their gallbladder operation."
"You'd do that?" Allison said, appalled. "You'd make something up?"
"People make things up in their newsletters all the time, and you know it," I said. "Look at the way Aunt Laura and Uncle Phil brag about their vacations and their stock options and their cars. If you're going to lie, they might as well be lies that are interesting for other people to read."
"You have plenty of things to tell without making up lies, Nan," Mom said reprovingly. "Maybe you should do something like your cousin Celia. She writes her newsletter all year long, day by day," she explained to David. "Nan, you might have more news than you think if you kept track of it day by day like Celia. She always has a lot to tell."
Yes, indeed. Her newsletters were nearly as long as Aunt Lydia's. They read like a diary, except she wasn't in junior high, where at least there were pop quizzes and zits and your locker combination to give it a little zing. Celia's newsletters had no zing whatsoever:
"Wed. Jan. 1. Froze to death going out to get the paper. Snow got in the plastic bag thing the paper comes in. Editorial section all wet. Had to dry it out on the radiator. Bran flakes for breakfast. Watched Good Morning America.
"Thurs. Jan. 2. Cleaned closets. Cold and cloudy."
"If you'd write a little every day," Mom said, "you'd be surprised at how much you'd have to tell by Christmas."
Sure. With my life, I wouldn't even have to write it every day. I could do Monday's right now. "Mon. Nov. 28. Froze to death on the way to work. Bob Hunziger not in yet. Penny putting up Christmas decorations. Solveig told me she's sure the baby is going to be a boy. Asked me which name I liked, Albuquerque or Dallas. Said hi to Gary, but he was too depressed to talk to me. Thanksgiving reminds him of ex-wife's giblets. Cold and cloudy."
I was wrong. It was snowing, and Solveig's ultrasound had showed the baby was a girl. "What do you think of Trinidad as a name?" she asked me. Penny wasn't putting up Christmas decorations either. She was passing out slips of paper with our Secret Santas' names on them. "The decorations aren't here yet," she said excitedly. "I'm getting something special from a farmer upstate."
"Does it involve feathers?" I asked her. Last year the decorations had been angels with thousands of chicken feathers glued onto cardboard for their wings. We were still picking them out of our computers.
"No," she said happily. "It's a surprise. I love Christmas, don't you?"
"Is Hunziger in?" I asked her, brushing snow out of my hair. Hats always mash my hair down, so I hadn't worn one.
"Are you kidding?" she said. She handed me a Secret Santa slip. "It's the Monday after Thanksgiving. He probably won't be in till sometime Wednesday."
Gary came in, his ears bright red from the cold and a harried expression on his face. His ex-wife must not have wanted a reconciliation.
"Hi, Gary," I said, and turned to hang up my coat without waiting for him to answer.
And he didn't, but when I turned back around, he was still standing there, staring at me. I put a hand up to my hair, wishing I'd worn a hat.
"Can I talk to you a minute?" he said, looking anxiously at Penny.
"Sure," I said, trying not to get my hopes up. He probably wanted to ask me something about the Secret Santas.
He leaned farther over my desk. "Did anything unusual happen to you over Thanksgiving?"
"My sister didn't bring home a biker to Thanksgiving dinner," I said.
He waved that away dismissively. "No, I mean anything odd, peculiar, out of the ordinary."
"That is out of the ordinary."
He leaned even closer. "I flew out to my parents' for Thanksgiving, and on the flight home-you know how people always carry on luggage that won't fit in the overhead compartments and then try to cram it in?"
"Yes," I said, thinking of a bridesmaid's bouquet I had made the mistake of putting in the overhead compartment one time.
"Well, nobody did that on my flight. They didn't carry on hanging bags or enormous shopping bags full of Christmas presents. Some people didn't even have a carry-on. And that isn't all. Our flight was half an hour late, and the flight attendant said, 'Those of you who do not have connecting flights, please remain seated until those with connections have deplaned.' And they did." He looked at me expectantly.
"Maybe everybody was just in the Christmas spirit."
He shook his head. "All four babies on the flight slept the whole way, and the toddler behind me didn't kick the seat."
That was unusual.
"Not only that, the guy next to me was reading The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler. When's the last time you saw anybody on an airplane reading anything but John Grisham or Danielle Steele? I tell you, there's something funny going on."
"What?" I asked curiously.
"I don't know," he said. "You're sure you haven't noticed anything?"
"Nothing except for my sister. She always dates these losers, but the guy she brought to Thanksgiving was really nice. He even helped with the dishes."
"You didn't notice anything else?"
"No," I said, wishing I had. This was the longest he'd ever talked to me about anything besides his ex-wife. "Maybe it's something in the air at DIA. I have to take my sister-in-law and her little girls to the airport Wednesday. I'll keep an eye out."
He nodded. "Don't say anything about this, okay?" he said, and hurried off to Accounting.
"What was that all about?" Penny asked, coming over.
"His ex-wife," I said. "When do we have to exchange Secret Santa gifts?"
"Every Friday, and Christmas Eve."
I opened up my slip. Good, I'd gotten Hunziger. With luck I wouldn't have to buy any Secret Santa gifts at all.
Tuesday I got Aunt Laura and Uncle Phil's Christmas newsletter. It was in gold ink on cream-colored paper, with large gold bells in the corners. "Joyeux Noel," it began. "That's French for Merry Christmas. We're sending our newsletter out early this year because we're spending Christmas in Cannes to celebrate Phil's promotion to assistant CEO and my wonderful new career! Yes, I'm starting my own business-Laura's Floral Creations-and orders are pouring in! It's already been written up in House Beautiful, and you will never guess who called last week-Martha Stewart!" Et cetera.
I didn't see Gary. Or anything unusual, although the waiter who took my lunch order actually got it right for a change. But he got Tonya's (who works up on third) wrong.
"I told him tomato and lettuce only," she said, picking pickles off her sandwich. "I heard Gary talked to you yesterday. Did he ask you out?"
"What's that?" I said, pointing to the folder Tonya'd brought with her to change the subject. "The Harbrace file?"
"No," she said. "Do you want my pickles? It's our Christmas schedule. Never marry anybody who has kids from a previous marriage. Especially when you have kids from a previous marriage. Tom's ex-wife, Janine, my ex-husband, John, and four sets of grandparents all want the kids, and they all want them on Christmas morning. It's like trying to schedule the D-Day invasion."
"At least your husband isn't still hung up on his ex-wife," I said glumly.
"So Gary didn't ask you out, huh?" She bit into her sandwich, frowned, and extracted another pickle. "I'm sure he will. Okay, if we take the kids to Tom's parents at four on Christmas Eve, Janine could pick them up at eight. . . . No, that won't work." She switched her sandwich to her other hand and began erasing. "Janine's not speaking to Tom's parents."
She sighed. "At least John's being reasonable. He called yesterday and said he'd be willing to wait till New Year's to have the kids. I don't know what got into him."
When I got back to work, there was a folded copy of the morning newspaper on my desk.
I opened it up. The headline read "City Hall Christmas Display to Be Turned On," which wasn't unusual. And neither was tomorrow's headline, which would be "City Hall Christmas Display Protested."
Either the Freedom Against Faith people protest the Nativity scene or the fundamentalists protest the elves or the environmental people protest cutting down Christmas trees or all of them protest the whole thing. It happens every year.
I turned to the inside pages. Several articles were circled in red, and there was a note next to them which read "See what I mean? Gary."
I looked at the circled articles. "Christmas Shoplifting Down," the first one read. "Mall stores report incidences of shoplifting are down for the first week of the Christmas season. Usually prevalent this time of-"
"What are you doing?" Penny said, looking over my shoulder.
I shut the paper with a rustle. "Nothing," I said. I folded it back up and stuck it into a drawer. "Did you need something?"
"Here," she said, handing me a slip of paper.
"I already got my Secret Santa name," I said.
"This is for Holiday Goodies," she said. "Everybody takes turns bringing in coffee cake or tarts or cake."
I opened up my slip. It read "Friday Dec. 20. Four dozen cookies."
"I saw you and Gary talking yesterday," Penny said. "What about?"
"His ex-wife," I said. "What kind of cookies do you want me to bring?"
"Chocolate chip," she said. "Everybody loves chocolate."
As soon as she was gone, I got the newspaper out again and took it into Hunziger's office to read. "Legislature Passes Balanced Budget," the other articles read. "Escaped Convict Turns Self In," "Christmas Food Bank Donations Up."
I read through them and then threw the paper into the waste-basket. Halfway out the door I thought better of it and took it out, folded it up, and took it back to my desk with me.
While I was putting it into my purse, Hunziger wandered in. "If anybody asks where I am, tell them I'm in the men's room," he said, and wandered out again.
Wednesday afternoon I took the girls and Allison to the airport. She was still fretting over her newsletter.
"Do you think a greeting is absolutely necessary?" she said in the baggage check-in line. "You know, like 'Dear Friends and Family'?"
"Probably not," I said absently. I was watching the people in line ahead of us, trying to spot this unusual behavior Gary had talked about, but so far I hadn't seen any. People were looking at their watches and complaining about the length of the line, the ticket agents were calling, "Next. Next!" to the person at the head of the line, who, after having stood impatiently in line for forty-five minutes waiting for this moment, was now staring blankly into space, and an unattended toddler was methodically pulling the elastic strings off a stack of luggage tags.
"They'll still know it's a Christmas newsletter, won't they?" Allison said. "Even without a greeting at the beginning of it?"
With a border of angels holding bunches of mistletoe, what else could it be? I thought.
"Next!" the ticket agent shouted.
The man in front of us had forgotten his photo ID, the girl in front of us in line for the security check was wearing heavy metal, and on the train out to the concourse a woman stepped on my foot and then glared at me as if it were my fault. Apparently all the nice people had traveled the day Gary came home.
And that was probably what it was-some kind of statistical clump where all the considerate, intelligent people had ended up on the same flight.
I knew they existed. My sister Sueann had had an insurance actuary for a boyfriend once (he was also an embezzler, which is why Sueann was dating him) and he had said events weren't evenly distributed, that there were peaks and valleys. Gary must just have hit a peak.
Which was too bad, I thought, lugging Cheyenne, who had demanded to be carried the minute we got off the train, down the concourse. Because the only reason he had approached me was because he thought there was something strange going on.
"Here's Gate 55," Allison said, setting Dakota down and getting out French-language tapes for the girls. "If I left off the 'Dear Friends and Family,'  I'd have room to include Dakota's violin recital. She played 'The Gypsy Dance.'"
She settled the girls in adjoining chairs and put on their headphones. "But Mitch says it's a letter, so it has to have a greeting."
"What if you used something short?" I said. "Like 'Greetings' or something. Then you'd have room to start the letter on the same line."
"Not 'Greetings'" She made a face. "Uncle Frank started his letter that way last year, and it scared me half to death. I thought Mitch had been drafted."
I had been alarmed when I'd gotten mine, too, but at least it had given me a temporary rush of adrenaline, which was more than Uncle Frank's letters usually did, concerned as they were with prostate problems and disputes over property taxes.
"I suppose I could use 'Holiday Greetings,' "Allison said. "Or 'Christmas Greetings,' but that's almost as long as 'Dear Friends and Family.' If only there were something shorter."
"How about 'hi'?"
"That might work." She got out paper and a pen and started writing. "How do you spell 'outstanding'?"
"O-u-t-s-t-a-n-d-i-n-g," I said absently. I was watching the moving sidewalks in the middle of the concourse. People were standing on the right, like they were supposed to, and walking on the left. No people were standing four abreast or blocking the entire sidewalk with their luggage. No kids were running in the opposite direction of the sidewalk's movement, screaming and running their hands along the rubber railing.
"How do you spell 'fabulous'?" Allison asked.
"Flight 2216 to Spokane is now ready for boarding," the flight attendant at the desk said. "Those passengers traveling with small children or those who require additional time for boarding may now board."
A single old lady with a walker stood up and got in line. Allison unhooked the girls' headphones, and we began the ritual of hugging and gathering up belongings.
"We'll see you at Christmas," she said.
"Good luck with your newsletter," I said, handing Dakota her teddy bear, "and don't worry about the heading. It doesn't need one."
They started down the passageway. I stood there, waving, till they were out of sight, and then turned to go.
"We are now ready for regular boarding of rows 25 through 33," the flight attendant said, and everybody in the gate area stood up. Nothing unusual here, I thought, and started for the concourse.
"What rows did she call?" a woman in a red beret asked a teenaged boy.
"25 through 33," he said.
"Oh, I'm Row 14," the woman said, and sat back down.
So did I.
"We are now ready to board rows 15 through 24," the flight attendant said, and a dozen people looked carefully at their tickets and then stepped back from the door, patiently waiting their turn. One of them pulled a paperback out of her tote bag and began to read. It was Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson. Only when the flight attendant said, "We are now boarding all rows," did the rest of them stand up and get in line.
Which didn't prove anything, and neither did the standing on the right of the moving sidewalk. Maybe people were just being nice because it was Christmas.
Don't be ridiculous, I told myself. People aren't nicer at Christmas. They're ruder and pushier and crabbier than ever. You've seen them at the mall, and in line for the post office. They act worse at Christmas than any other time.
"This is your final boarding call for Flight 2216 to Spokane," the flight attendant said to the empty waiting area. She called to me, "Are you flying to Spokane, ma'am?"
"No." I stood up. "I was seeing friends off."
"I just wanted to make sure you didn't miss your flight," she said, and turned to shut the door.
I started for the moving sidewalk, and nearly collided with a young man running for the gate. He raced up to the desk and flung his ticket down.
"I'm sorry, sir," the flight attendant said, leaning slightly away from the young man as if expecting an explosion. "Your flight has already left. I'm really terribly sor-"
"Oh, it's okay," he said. "It serves me right. I didn't allow enough time for parking and everything, that's all. I should have started for the airport earlier."
The flight attendant was tapping busily on the computer. "I'm afraid the only other open flight to Spokane for today isn't until 11:05 this evening."
"Oh, well," he said, smiling. "It'll give me a chance to catch up on my reading." He reached down into his attache case and pulled out a paperback. It was W. Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage.
"Well?" Gary said as soon as I got back to work Thursday morning. He was standing by my desk, waiting for me.
"There's definitely something going on," I said, and told him about the moving sidewalks and the guy who'd missed his plane. "But what?"
"Is there somewhere we can talk?" he said, looking anxiously around.
"Hunziger's office," I said, "but I don't know if he's in yet."
"He's not," he said, led me into the office, and shut the door behind him.
"Sit down," he said, indicating Hunziger's chair. "Now, I know this is going to sound crazy, but I think all these people have been possessed by some kind of alien intelligence. Have you ever seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers~?"
"What?" I said.
"Invasion of the Body Snatchers," he said. "It's about these parasites from outer space who take over people's bodies and-"
"I know what it's about," I said, "and it's science fiction. You think the man who missed his plane was some kind of pod-person? You're right," I said, reaching for the doorknob. "I do think you're crazy."
"That's what Donald Sutherland said in Leech-men from Mars. Nobody ever believes it's happening, until it's too late."
He pulled a folded newspaper out of his back pocket. "Look at this," he said, waving it in front of me. "Holiday credit-card fraud down twenty percent. Holiday suicides down thirty percent. Charitable giving up sixty percent."
"They're coincidences." I explained about the statistical peaks and valleys. "Look," I said, taking the paper from him and turning to the front page. "People Against Cruelty to Our Furry Friends Protests City Hall Christmas Display. Animal Rights Group Objects to Exploitation of Reindeer."
"What about your sister?" he said. "You said she only dates losers. Why would she suddenly start dating a nice guy? Why would an escaped convict suddenly turn himself in? Why would people suddenly start reading the classics? Because they've been taken over."
"By aliens from outer space?" I said incredulously. "Did he have a hat?"
"Who?" I said, wondering if he really was crazy. Could his being hung up on his horrible ex-wife have finally made him crack?
"The man who missed his plane," he said. "Was he wearing a hat?"
"I don't remember," I said, and felt suddenly cold. Sueann had worn a hat to Thanksgiving dinner. She'd refused to take it off at the table. And the woman whose ticket said Row 14 had been wearing a beret.
"What do hats have to do with it?" I asked.
"The man on the plane next to me was wearing a hat. So were most of the other people on the flight. Did you ever see The Puppet Masters? The parasites attached themselves to the spinal cord and took over the nervous system," he said. "This morning here at work I counted nineteen people wearing hats. Les Sawtelle, Rodney Jones, Jim Bridgeman-"
"Jim Bridgeman always wears a hat," I said. "It's to hide his bald spot. Besides, he's a computer programmer. All the computer people wear baseball caps."
"DeeDee Crawford," he said. "Vera McDermott, Janet Hall-"
"Women's hats are supposed to be making a comeback," I said.
"George Frazelli, the entire Documentation section-"
"I'm sure there's a logical explanation," I said. "It's been freezing in here all week. There's probably something wrong with the heating system."
"The thermostat's turned down to fifty," he said, "which is something else peculiar. The thermostat's been turned down on all floors."
"Well, that's probably Management. You know how they're always trying to cut costs-"
"They're giving us a Christmas bonus. And they fired Hunziger."
"They fired Hunziger?" I said. Management never fires anybody.
"This morning. That's how I knew he wouldn't be in his office."
"They actually fired Hunziger?"
"And one of the janitors. The one who drank. How do you explain that?"
"I-I don't know," I stammered. "But there has to be some other explanation than aliens. Maybe they took a management course or got the Christmas spirit or their therapists told them to do good deeds or something. Something besides leechmen. Aliens coming from outer space and taking over our brains is impossible!"
"That's what Dana Wynter said in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. But it's not impossible. It's happening right here, and we've got to stop it before they take over everybody and we're the only ones left. They-"
There was a knock on the door. "Sorry to bother you, Gary," Carol Zaliski said, leaning in the door, "but you've got an urgent phone call. It's your ex-wife."
"Coming," he said, looking at me. "Think about what I said, okay?" He went out.
I stood looking after him and frowning.
"What was that all about?" Carol said, coming into the office. She was wearing a white fur hat.
"He wanted to know what to buy his Secret Santa person," I said.
Friday Gary wasn't there. "He had to go talk to his ex-wife this morning," Tonya told me at lunch, picking pickles off her sandwich. "He'll be back this afternoon. Marcie's demanding he pay for her therapy. She's seeing this psychiatrist, and she claims Gary's the one who made her crazy, so he should pick up the bill for her Prozac. Why is he still hung up on her?"
"I don't know," I said, scraping mustard off my burger.
"Carol Zaliski said the two of you were talking in Hunziger's office yesterday. What about? Did he ask you out? Nan?"
"Tonya, has Gary talked to you since Thanksgiving? Did he ask you about whether you'd noticed anything unusual happening?"
"He asked me if I'd noticed anything bizarre or abnormal about my family. I told him, in my family bizarre is normal. You won't believe what's happened now. Tom's parents are getting a divorce, which means five sets of parents. Why couldn't they have waited till after Christmas to do this? It's throwing my whole schedule off."
She bit into her sandwich. "I'm sure Gary's going to ask you out. He's probably just working up to it."
If he was, he had the strangest line I'd ever heard. Aliens from outer space. Hiding under hats!
Though, now that he'd mentioned it, there were an awful lot of people wearing hats. Nearly all the men in Data Analysis had baseball caps on, Jerrilyn Wells was wearing a wool stocking cap, and Ms. Jacobson's secretary looked like she was dressed for a wedding in a white thing with a veil. But Sueann had said this was the Year of the Hat.
Sueann, who dated only gigolos and Mafia dons. But she had been bound to hit a nice boyfriend sooner or later, she dated so many guys.
And there weren't any signs of alien possession when I tried to get somebody in the steno pool to make some copies for me. "We re busy," Paula Grandy snapped. "It's Christmas, you know!"
I went back to my desk, feeling better. There was an enormous dish made of pine cones on it, filled with candy canes and red and green foil-wrapped chocolate kisses. "Is this part of the Christmas decorations?" I asked Penny.
"No. They aren't ready yet," she said. "This is just a little something to brighten the holidays. I made one for everyone's desk."
I felt even better. I pushed the dish over to one side and started through my mail. There was a green envelope from Allison and Mitch. She must have mailed her newsletters as soon as she got off the plane. I wonder if she decided to forgo the heading or Dakota's Most Improved Practicing Piano Award, I thought, slicing it open with the letter opener.
"Dear Nan," it began, several spaces down from the angels-and-mistletoe border. "Nothing much new this year. We're all okay, though Mitch is worried about downsizing, and I always seem to be running from behind. The girls are growing like weeds and doing okay in school, though Cheyenne's been having some problems with her reading and Dakota's still wetting the bed. Mitch and I decided we've been pushing them too hard, and we're working on trying not to overschedule them for activities and just letting them be normal, average little girls."
I jammed the letter back into the envelope and ran up to fourth to look for Gary.
"All right," I said when I found him. "I believe you. What do we do now?"
We rented movies. Actually, we rented only some of the movies. Attack of the Soul-Killers and Invasion from Betelgeuse were both checked out.
"Which means somebody else has figured it out, too," Gary said. "If only we knew who."
"We could ask the clerk," I suggested.
He shook his head violently. "We can't do anything to make them suspicious. For all we know, they may have taken them off the shelves themselves, in which case we're on the right track. What else shall we rent?"
"What?" I said blankly.
"So it won't look like we're just renting alien invasion movies."
"Oh," I said, and picked up Ordinary People and a black-and-white version of A Christmas Carol.
It didn't work. "The Puppet Masters," the kid at the rental desk, wearing a blue-and-yellow Blockbuster hat, said inquiringly. "Is that a good movie?"
"I haven't seen it," Gary said nervously.
"We're renting it because it has Donald Sutherland in it," I said. "We're having a Donald Sutherland film festival. The Puppet Masters, Ordinary People, Invasion of the Body Snatchers-"
"Is Donald Sutherland in this?" he asked, holding up A Christmas Carol."
"He plays Tiny Tim," I said. "It was his first screen appearance."
"You were great in there," Gary said, leading me down to the other end of the mall to Suncoast to buy Attack of the Soul Killers. "You're a very good liar."
"Thanks," I said, pulling my coat closer and looking around the mall. It was freezing in here, and there were hats everywhere, on people and in window displays, Panamas and porkpies and picture hats.
"We're surrounded. Look at that," he said, nodding in the direction of Santa Claus's North Pole.
"Santa Claus has always worn a hat," I said.
"I meant the line," he said.
He was right. The kids in line were waiting patiently, cheerfully. Not a single one was screaming or announcing she had to go to the bathroom. "I want a Masters of Earth," a little boy in a felt beanie was saying eagerly to his mother.
"Well, we'll ask Santa," the mother said, "but he may not be able to get it for you. All the stores are sold out."
"Okay," he said. "Then I want a wagon."
Suncoast was sold out of Attack of the Soul Killers, but we bought Invasion from Betelgeuse and Infiltrators from Space and went back to his apartment to screen them.
"Well?" Gary said after we'd watched three of them. "Did you notice how they start slowly and then spread through the population?"
Actually, what I'd noticed was how dumb all the people in these movies were. "The brain-suckers attack when we're asleep," the hero would say, and promptly lie down for a nap. Or the hero's girlfriend would say, "They're on to us. We've got to get out of here. Right now," and then go back to her apartment to pack.
And, just like in every horror movie, they were always splitting up instead of sticking together. And going down dark alleys. They deserved to be turned into pod-people.
"Our first order of business is to pool what we know about the aliens," Gary said. "It's obvious the purpose of the hats is to conceal the parasites' presence from those who haven't been taken over yet," he said, "and that they're attached to the brain."
"Or the spinal column," I said, "like in The Puppet Masters."
He shook his head. "If that were the case, they could attach themselves to the neck or the back, which would be much less conspicuous. Why would they take the risk of hiding under hats, which are so noticeable, if they aren't attached to the top of the head?"
"Maybe the hats serve some other purpose."
The phone rang.
"Yes?" Gary answered it. His face lit up and then fell.
His ex-wife, I thought, and started watching Infiltrators from Space.
"You've got to believe me," the hero's girlfriend said to the psychiatrist. "There are aliens here among us. They look just like you or me. You have to believe me."
"I do believe you," the psychiatrist said, and raised his finger to point at her. "Ahhhggghhh!" he screeched, his eyes glowing bright green.
"Marcie," Gary said. There was a long pause. "A friend." Longer pause. "No."
The hero's girlfriend ran down a dark alley, wearing high heels. Halfway through, she twisted her ankle and fell.
"You know that isn't true," Gary said.
I fast-forwarded. The hero was in his apartment, on the phone. "Hello, Police Department?" he said. "You have to help me. We've been invaded by aliens who take over your body!"
"We'll be right there, Mr. Daly," the voice on the phone said. "Stay there."
"How do you know my name?" the hero shouted. "I didn't tell you my address."
"We're on our way," the voice said.
"We'll talk about it tomorrow," Gary said, and hung up.
"Sorry," he said, coming over to the couch. "Okay, I downloaded a bunch of stuff about parasites and aliens from the Internet," he said, handing me a sheaf of stapled papers. "We need to discover what it is they're doing to the people they take over, what their weaknesses are, and how we can fight them. We need to know when and where it started," Gary went on, "how and where it's spreading, and what it's doing to people. We need to find out as much as we can about the nature of the aliens so we can figure out a way to eliminate them. How do they communicate with each other? Are they telepathic, like in Village of the Damned, or do they use some other form of communication? If they're telepathic, can they read our minds as well as each other's?"
"If they could, wouldn't they know we're on to them?" I said.
The phone rang again.
"It's probably my ex-wife again," he said.
I picked up the remote and flicked on Infiltrators from Space again.
Gary answered the phone. "Yes?" he said, and then warily, "How did you get my number?"
The hero slammed down the phone and ran to the window. Dozens of police cars were pulling up, lights flashing.
"Sure," Gary said. He grinned. "No, I won't forget."
He hung up. "That was Penny. She forgot to give me my Holiday Goodies slip. I'm supposed to take in four dozen sugar cookies next Monday." He shook his head wonderingly. "Now, there's somebody I'd like to see taken over by the aliens."
He sat down on the couch and started making a list. "Okay, methods of fighting them. Diseases. Poison. Dynamite. Nuclear weapons. What else?"
I didn't answer. I was thinking about what he'd said about wishing Penny would be taken over.
"The problem with all of those solutions is that they kill the people, too," Gary said. What we need is something like the virus they used in Invasion. Or the ultrasonic pulses only the aliens could hear in War with the Slugmen. If we're going to stop them, we've got to find something that kills the parasite but not the host."
"Do we have to stop them?"
"What?" he said. "Of course we have to stop them. What do you mean?"
"All the aliens in these movies turn people into zombies or monsters," I said. "They shuffle around, attacking people and killing them and trying to take over the world. Nobody's done anything like that. People are standing on the right and walking on the left, the suicide rate's down, my sister's dating a very nice guy. Everybody who's been taken over is nicer, happier, more polite. Maybe the parasites are a good influence, and we shouldn't interfere."
"And maybe that's what they want us to think. What if they're acting nice to trick us, to keep us from trying to stop them? Remember Attack of the Soul Killers'? What if it's all an act, and they're only acting nice till the takeover's complete?"
If it was an act, it was a great one. Over the next few days, Solveig, in a red straw hat, announced she was naming her baby Jane, Jim Bridgeman nodded at me in the elevator, my cousin Celia's newsletter/diary was short and funny, and the waiter, sporting a soda-jerk's hat, got both Tonya's and my orders right.
"No pickles!" Tonya said delightedly, picking up her sandwich. "Ow! Can you get carpal tunnel syndrome from wrapping Christmas presents? My hand's been hurting all morning."
She opened her file folder. There was a new diagram inside, a rectangle with names written all around the sides. "Is that your Christmas schedule?" I asked. "No," she said, showing it to me. "It's a seating arrangement for Christmas dinner. It was crazy, running the kids from house to house like that, so we decided to just have everybody at our house."
I took a startled look at her, but she was still hatless.
"I thought Tom's ex-wife couldn't stand his parents."
"Everybody's agreed we all need to get along for the kids' sake. After all, it's Christmas."
I was still staring at her.
She put her hand up to her hair. "Do you like it? It's a wig. Eric got it for me for Christmas. For being such a great mother to the boys through the divorce. I couldn't believe it." She patted her hair. "Isn't it great?"
"They're hiding their aliens under wigs," I told Gary.
"I know," he said. "Paul Gunden got a new toupee. We can't trust anyone." He handed me a folder full of clippings.
Employment rates were up. Thefts of packages from cars, usually prevalent at this time of year, were down. A woman in Minnesota had brought back a library book that was twenty-two years overdue. "Groups Praise City Hall Christmas Display," one of the clippings read, and the accompanying picture showed the People for a Non-Commercial Christmas, the Holy Spirit Southern Baptists, and the Equal Rights for Ethnics activists holding hands and singing Christmas carols around the creche.
On the ninth, Mom called. "Have you written your newsletter yet?"
"I've been busy," I said, and waited for her to ask me if I'd met anyone lately at work.
"I got Jackie Peterson's newsletter this morning," she said.
"So did I." The invasion apparently hadn't reached Miami. Jackie's newsletter, which is usually terminally cute, had reached new heights:

		"M is for our trip to Mexico 
		 E is for Every place else we'd like to go 
		 R is for the RV that takes us there. ..."
And straight through MERRY CHRISTMAS, A HAPPY NEW YEAR, and both her first and last names.
"I do wish she wouldn't try to put her letters in verse," Mom said. "They never scan."
"Mom," I said. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," she said. "My arthritis has been kicking up the last couple of days, but otherwise I've never felt better. I've been thinking, there's no reason for you to send out newsletters if you don't want to."
"Mom," I said, "did Sueann give you a hat for Christmas?" "Oh, she told you," Mom said. "You know, I don't usually like hats, but I'm going to need one for the wedding, and-" "Wedding?"
"Oh, didn't she tell you? She and David are getting married right after Christmas. I am so relieved. I thought she was never going to meet anyone decent."
I reported that to Gary. "I know," he said glumly. "I just got a raise."
"I haven't found a single bad effect," I said. "No signs of violence or antisocial behavior. Not even any irritability."
"There you are," Penny said crabbily, coming up with a huge poinsettia under each arm. "Can you help me put these on everybody's desks?"
"Are these the Christmas decorations?" I asked. "No, I'm still waiting on that farmer," she said, handing me one of the poinsettias. "This is just a little something to brighten up everyone's desk." She reached down to move the pine-cone dish on Gary's desk. "You didn't eat your candy canes," she said. "I don't like peppermint."
"Nobody ate their candy canes," she said disgustedly. "They all ate the chocolate kisses and left the candy canes."
"People like chocolate," Gary said, and whispered to me, "When is she going to be taken over?"
"Meet me in Hunziger's office right away," I whispered back, and said to Penny, "Where does this poinsettia go?" "Jim Bridgeman's desk." I took the poinsettia up to Computing on fifth. Jim was wearing his baseball cap backward. "A little something to brighten your desk," I said, handing it to him, and started back toward the stairs.
"Can I talk to you a minute?" he said, following me out into the stairwell.
"Sure," I said, trying to sound calm. "What about?"
He leaned toward me. "Have you noticed anything unusual going on?"
"You mean the poinsettia?" I said. "Penny does tend to go a little overboard for Christmas, but-"
"No," he said, putting his hand awkwardly to his cap, "people who are acting funny, people who aren't themselves?"
"No," I said, smiling. "I haven't noticed a thing."
I waited for Gary in Hunziger's office for nearly half an hour. "Sorry I took so long," he said when he finally got there. "My ex-wife called. What were you saying?"
"I was saying that even you have to admit it would be a good thing if Penny was taken over," I said. "What if the parasites aren't evil? What if they're those-what are those parasites that benefit the host called? You know, like the bacteria that help cows produce milk? Or those birds that pick insects off of rhinoceroses?"
"You mean symbiotes?" Gary said.
"Yes," I said eagerly. "What if this is some kind of symbiotic relationship? What if they're raising everyone's IQ or enhancing their emotional maturity, and it's having a good effect on us?"
"Things that sound too good to be true usually are. No," he said, shaking his head. "They're up to something, I know it. And we've got to find out what it is."

On the tenth when I came to work, Penny was putting up the Christmas decorations. They were, as she had promised, something special: wide swags of red velvet ribbons running all around the walls, with red velvet bows and large bunches of mistletoe every few feet. In between were gold-calligraphic scrolls reading "And kiss me 'neath the mistletoe, For Christmas comes but once a year."
"What do you think?" Penny said, climbing down from her stepladder. "Every floor has a different quotation." She reached into a large cardboard box. "Accounting's is 'Sweetest the kiss that's stolen under the mistletoe.' "
I came over and looked into the box. "Where did you get all the mistletoe?" I asked.
"This apple farmer I know," she said, moving the ladder.
I picked up a big branch of the green leaves and white berries. "It must have cost a fortune." I had bought a sprig of it last year that had cost six dollars.
Penny, climbing the ladder, shook her head. "It didn't cost anything. He was glad to get rid of it." She tied the bunch of mistletoe to the red velvet ribbon. "It's a parasite, you know. It kills the trees."
"Kills the trees?" I said blankly, staring at the white berries.
"Or deforms them," she said. "It steals nutrients from the tree's sap, and the tree gets these swellings and galls and things. The farmer told me all about it."
As soon as I had the chance, I took the material Gary had downloaded on parasites into Hunziger's office and read through it.
Mistletoe caused grotesque swellings wherever its rootlets attached themselves to the tree. Anthracnose caused cracks and then spots of dead bark called cankers. Blight wilted trees' leaves. Witches'broom weakened limbs. Bacteria caused tumor-like growths on the trunk, called galls.
We had been focusing on the mental and psychological effects when we should have been looking at the physical ones. The heightened intelligence, the increase in civility and common sense, must simply be side effects of the parasites' stealing nutrients. And damaging the host.
I stuck the papers back into the file folder, went back to my desk, and called Sueann.
"Sueann, hi," I said. "I'm working on my Christmas newsletter, and I wanted to make sure I spelled David's name right. Is Carrington spelled C-A-R-R or C-E-R-R?"
"C-A-R-R. Oh, Nan, he's so wonderful! So different from the losers I usually date! He's considerate and sensitive and-"
"And how are you?" I said. "Everybody at work's been down with the flu."
"Really?" she said. "No, I'm fine."
What did I do now? I couldn't ask "Are you sure?" without making her suspicious. "C-A-R-R," I said, trying to think of another way to approach the subject.
Sueann saved me the trouble. "You won't believe what he did yesterday. Showed up at work to take me home. He knew my ankles had been hurting, and he brought me a tube of Ben-Gay and a dozen pink roses. He is so thoughtful."
"Your ankles have been hurting?" I said, trying not to sound anxious.
"Like crazy. It's this weather or something. I could hardly walk on them this morning."
I jammed the parasite papers back into the file folder, made sure I hadn't left any on the desk like the hero in Parasite People from Planet X, and went up to see Gary.
He was on the phone.
"I've got to talk to you," I whispered.
"I'd like that," he said into the phone, an odd look on his face.
"What is it?" I said. "Have they found out we're on to them?"
"Shh," he said. "You know I do," he said into the phone.
"You don't understand," I said. "I've figured out what it's doing to people."
He held up a finger, motioning me to wait. "Can you hang on a minute?" he said into the phone, and put his hand over the receiver. "I'll meet you in Hunziger's office in five minutes," he said.
"No," I said. "It's not safe. Meet me at the post office."
He nodded, and went back to his conversation, still with that odd look on his face.
I ran back down to second for my purse and went to the post office. I had intended to wait on the corner, but it was crowded with people jockeying to drop money into the Salvation Army Santa Claus's kettle.
I looked down the sidewalk. Where was Gary? I went up the steps and scanned the street. There was no sign of him.
"Merry Christmas!" a man said, half-tipping a fedora and holding the door for me.
"Oh, no, I'm-" I began, and saw Tonya coming down the street. "Thank you," I said, and ducked inside.
It was freezing inside, and the line for the postal clerks wound out into the lobby. I got in it. It would take an hour at least to work my way to the front, which meant I could wait for Gary without looking suspicious.
Except that I was the only one not wearing a hat. Every single person in line had one on, and the clerks behind the counter were wearing mail carriers' caps. And broad smiles.
"Packages going overseas should really have been mailed by November fifteenth," the middle clerk was saying, not at all disgruntledly, to a little Japanese woman in a red cap, "but don't worry, we'll figure out a way to get your presents there on time."
"The line's only about forty-five minutes long," the woman in front of me confided cheerfully. She was wearing a small black hat with a feather and carrying four enormous packages. I wondered if they were full of pods. "Which isn't bad at all, considering it's Christmas."
I nodded, looking toward the door. Where was he?
"Why are you here?" the woman said, smiling.
"What?" I said, whirling back around, my heart pounding.
"What are you here to mail?" she said. "I see you don't have any packages."
"S-stamps," I stammered.
"You can go ahead of me," she said. "If all you're buying is stamps. I've got all these packages to send. You don't want to wait for that."
I do want to wait, I thought. "No, that's all right. I'm buying a lot of stamps," I said. "I'm buying several sheets. For my Christmas newsletter."
She shook her head, balancing the packages. "Don't be silly. You don't want to wait while they weigh all these." She tapped the man in front of her. "This young lady's only buying stamps," she said. "Why don't we let her go ahead of us?"
"Certainly," the man, who was wearing a Russian karakul hat, said, and bowed slightly, stepping back.
"No, really," I began, but it was too late. The line had parted like the Red Sea.
"Thank you," I said, and walked up to the counter. "Merry Christmas."
The line closed behind me. They know, I thought. They know I was looking up plant parasites. I glanced desperately toward the door.
"Holly and ivy?" the clerk said, beaming at me.
"What?" I said.
"Your stamps." He held up two sheets. "Holly and ivy or Madonna and Child?"
"Holly and ivy," I said weakly. "Three sheets, please." I paid for the sheets, thanked the mob again, and went back out into the freezing-cold lobby. And now what? Pretend I had a box and fiddle with the combination? Where was he?
I went over to the bulletin board, trying not to seem suspicious, and looked at the Wanted posters. They had probably all turned themselves in by now and were being model prisoners. And it really was a pity the parasites were going to have to be stopped, If they could be stopped.
It had been easy in the movies (in the movies, that is, in which they had managed to defeat them, which wasn't all that many. Over half the movies had ended with the whole world being turned into glowing green eyes). And in the ones where they did defeat them, there had been an awful lot of explosions and hanging precariously from helicopters. I hoped whatever we came up with didn't involve skydiving.
Or a virus or ultrasonic sound, because even if I knew a doctor or scientist to ask, I couldn't confide in them. "We can't trust anybody," Gary had said, and he was right. We couldn't risk it. There was too much at stake. And we couldn't call the police. "It's all in your imagination, Miss Johnson," they would say. "Stay right there. We're on our way."
We would have to do this on our own. And where was Gary? I looked at the Wanted posters some more. I was sure the one in the middle looked like one of Sueann's old boyfriends. He-
"I'm sorry I'm late," Gary said breathlessly. His ears were red from the cold, and his hair was ruffled from running. "I had this phone call and-"
"Come on," I said, and hustled him out of the post office, down the steps, and past the Santa and his mob of donors.
"Keep walking," I said. "You were right about the parasites, but not because they turn people into zombies."
I hurriedly told him about the galls and Tonya's carpal tunnel syndrome. "My sister was infected at Thanksgiving, and now she can hardly walk," I said. "You were right. We've got to stop them."
"But you don't have any proof of this," he said. "It could be arthritis or something, couldn't it?"
I stopped walking. "What?"
"You don't have any proof that it's the aliens that are causing it. It's cold. People's arthritis always acts up when it's cold out. And even if the aliens are causing it, a few aches and pains is a small price to pay for all the benefits. You said yourself-"
I stared at his hair.
"Don't look at me like that," he said. "I haven't been taken over. I've just been thinking about what you said about your sister's engagement and-"
"Who was on the phone?"
He looked uncomfortable. "The thing is-"
"It was your ex-wife," I said. "She's been taken over, and now she's nice, and you want to get back together with her. That's it, isn't it?"
"You know how I've always felt about Marcie," he said guiltily. "She says she never stopped loving me."
When something sounds too good to be true, it probably is, I thought.
"She thinks I should move back in and see if we can't work things out. But that isn't the only reason," he said, grabbing my arm. "I've been looking at all those clippings-dropouts going back to school, escaped convicts turning themselves in-"
"People returning overdue library books," I said.
"Are we willing to be responsible for ruining all that? I think we should think about this before we do anything."
I pulled my arm away from him.
"I just think we should consider all the factors before we decide what to do. Waiting a few days can't hurt."
"You're right," I said, and started walking. "There's a lot we don't know about them."
"I just think we should do a little more research," he said, opening the door of our building.
"You're right," I said, and started up the stairs.
"I'll talk to you tomorrow, okay?" he said when we got to second.
I nodded and went back to my desk and put my head in my hands.
He was willing to let parasites take over the planet so he could get his ex-wife back, but were my motives any better than his? Why had I believed in an alien invasion in the first place, and spent all that time watching science-fiction movies and having huddled conversations? So I could spend time with him.
He was right. A few aches and pains were worth it to have Sueann married to someone nice and postal workers nondisgrun-tled and passengers remaining seated till those people with connecting flights had deplaned.
"Are you okay?" Tonya said, leaning over my desk.
"I'm fine," I said. "How's your arm?"
"Fine," she said, rotating the elbow to show me. "It must have been a cramp or something."
I didn't know these parasites were like mistletoe. They might cause only temporary aches and pains. Gary was right. We needed to do more research. Waiting a few days couldn't hurt.
The phone rang. "I've been trying to get hold of you," Mom said. "Dakota's in the hospital. They don't know what it is. It's something wrong with her legs. You need to call Allison." "I will," I said, and hung up the phone.
I logged on to my computer, called up the file I'd been working on, and scrolled halfway through it so it would look like I was away from my desk for just a minute, took off my high heels and changed into my sneakers, stuck the high heels into my desk drawer, grabbed my purse and coat, and took off.
The best place to look for information on how to get rid of the parasites was the library, but the card file was on-line, and you had to use your library card to get access. The next best was a bookstore. Not the independent on Sixteenth. Their clerks were far too helpful. And knowledgeable.
I went to the Barnes & Noble on Eighth, taking the back way (but no alleys). It was jammed, and there was some kind of book signing going on up front, but nobody paid any attention to me. Even so, I didn't go straight to the gardening section. I wandered casually through the aisles, looking at T-shirts and mugs and stopping to thumb through a copy of How Irrational Fears Can Ruin Your Life, gradually working my way back to the gardening section.
They had only two books on parasites: Common Garden Parasites and Diseases and Organic Weed and Pest Control. I grabbed them both, retreated to the literature section, and began to read.
"Fungicides such as Benomyl and Ferbam are effective against certain rusts," Common Garden Parasites said. "Streptomycin is effective against some viruses."
But which was this, if either? "Spraying with Diazinon or Malathion can be effective in most cases. Note: These are dangerous chemicals. Avoid all contact with skin. Do not breathe fumes."
That was out. I put down Common Garden Parasites and picked up Organic Weed and Pest Control. At least it didn't recommend spraying with deadly chemicals, but what it did recommend wasn't much more useful. Prune affected limbs. Remove and destroy berries. Cover branches with black plastic.
Too often it said simply: Destroy all infected plants. "The main difficulty in the case of parasites is to destroy the parasite without also destroying the host." That sounded more like it. "It is therefore necessary to find a substance that the host can tolerate that is intolerable to the parasite. Some rusts, for instance, cannot tolerate a vinegar and ginger solution, which can be sprayed on the leaves of the host plant. Red mites, which infest honeybees, are allergic to peppermint. Frosting made with oil of peppermint can be fed to the bees. As it permeates the bees' systems, the red mites drop off harmlessly. Other parasites respond variously to spearmint, citrus oil, oil of garlic, and powdered aloe vera."
But which? And how could I find out? Wear a garlic necklace? Stick an orange under Tonya's nose? There was no way to find out without their figuring out what I was doing.
I kept reading. "Some parasites can be destroyed by rendering the environment unfavorable. For moisture-dependent rusts, draining the soil can be beneficial. For temperature-susceptible pests, freezing and/or use of smudge pots can kill the invader. For light-sensitive parasites, exposure to light can kill the parasite."
Temperature-sensitive. I thought about the hats. Were they to hide the parasites or to protect them from the cold? No, that couldn't be it. The temperature in the building had been turned down to freezing for two weeks, and if they needed heat, why hadn't they landed in Florida?
I thought about Jackie Peterson's newsletter. She hadn't been affected. And neither had Uncle Marty whose newsletter had come this morning. Or, rather, Uncle Marty's dog, who ostensibly dictated them. "Woof, woof!" the newsletter had said. "I'm lying here under a Christmas saguaro out on the desert, chewing on a bone and hoping Santa brings me a nice new flea collar." So they hadn't landed in Arizona or Miami, and none of the newspaper articles Gary had circled had been from Mexico or California. They had all been datelined Minnesota and Michigan and Illinois. Places where it was cold. Cold and cloudy, I thought, thinking of Cousin Celia's Christmas newsletter. Cold and cloudy.
I flipped back through the pages, looking for the reference to light-sensitive parasites.
"It's right back here," a voice said.
I shut the book, jammed it in among Shakespeare's plays, and snatched up a copy of Hamlet.
"It's for my daughter," the customer, who was, thankfully, hat-less, said, appearing at the end of the aisle. "That's what she said she wanted for Christmas when I called her. I was so surprised. She hardly ever reads."
The clerk was right behind her, wearing a mobcap with red and green ribbons. "Everybody's reading Shakespeare right now," she said, smiling. "We can hardly keep it on the shelves."
I ducked my head and pretended to read the Hamlet. "O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!" Hamlet said. "I set it down, that one may smile, and smile, and be a villain."
The clerk started along the shelves, looking for the book. "King Lear, King Lear. . . let's see."
"Here it is," I said, handing it to her before she reached Common Garden Parasites.
"Thankyou," she said, smiling. She handed it to the customer. "Have you been to our book signing yet? Darla Sheridan, the fashion designer, is in the store today, signing her new book, In Your Easter Bonnet. Hats are coming back, you know."
"Really?" the customer said.
"She's giving away a free hat with every copy of the book," the clerk said.
"Really?" the customer said. "Where, did you say?"
"I'll show you," the clerk said, still smiling, and led the customer away like a lamb to the slaughter.
As soon as they were gone, I pulled out Organic Gardening and looked up "light-sensitive" in the index. Page 264. "Pruning branches above the infection and cutting away surrounding leaves to expose the source to sunlight or artificial light will usually kill light-sensitive parasites."
I closed the book and hid it behind the Shakespeare plays, laying it on its side so it wouldn't show, and pulled out Common Garden Pests.
"Hi," Gary said, and I nearly dropped the book. "What are you doing here?"
"What are you doing here?" I said, cautiously closing the book. He was looking at the title. I stuck it on the shelf between Othello and The Riddle of Shakespeare's Identity.
"I realized you were right." He looked cautiously around. "We've got to destroy them."
"I thought you said they were symbiotes, that they were beneficial," I said, watching him warily.
"You think I've been taken over by the aliens, don't you?" he said. He ran his hand through his hair. "See? No hat, no toupee." But in The Puppet Masters the parasites had been able to attach themselves anywhere along the spine.
"I thought you said the benefits outweighed a few aches and pains," I said.
"I wanted to believe that," he said ruefully. "I guess what I really wanted to believe was that my ex-wife and I would get back together."
"What changed your mind?" I said, trying not to look at the bookshelf.
"You did," he said. "I realized somewhere along the way what a dope I'd been, mooning over her when you were right there in front of me. I was standing there, listening to her talk about how great it was going to be to get back together, and all of a sudden I realized that I didn't want to, that I'd found somebody nicer, prettier, someone I could trust. And that someone was you, Nan." He smiled at me. "So what have you found out? Something we can use to destroy them?"
I took a long, deep breath, and looked at him, deciding.
"Yes," I said, and pulled out the book. I handed it to him. "The section on bees. It says in here that introducing allergens into the bloodstream of the host can kill the parasite."
"Like in Infiltrators from Space."
"Yes." I told him about the red mites and the honeybees. "Oil of wintergreen, citrus oil, garlic, and powdered aloe vera are all used on various pests. So if we can introduce peppermint into the food of the affected people, it-"
" Peppermint?" he said blankly.
"Yes. Remember how Penny said nobody ate any of the candy canes she put out? I think it's because they're allergic to peppermint," I said, watching him.
"Peppermint," he said thoughtfully. "They didn't eat any of the ribbon candy Jan Gundell had on her desk either. I think you've hit it. So how are you going to get them to ingest it? Put it in the water cooler?"
"No," I said. "In cookies. Chocolate chip cookies. Everybody loves chocolate." I pushed the books into place on the shelf and started for the front. "It's my turn to bring Holiday Goodies tomorrow. I'll go to the grocery store and get the cookie ingredients-"
"I'll go with you," he said.
"No," I said. "I need you to buy the oil of peppermint. They should have it at a drugstore or a health food store. Buy the most concentrated form you can get, and make sure you buy it from somebody who hasn't been taken over. I'll meet you back at my apartment, and we'll make the cookies there."
"Great," he said.
"We'd better leave separately," I said. I handed him the Othello. "Here. Go buy this. It'll give you a bag to carry the oil of peppermint in."
He nodded and started for the checkout line. I walked out of Barnes & Noble, went down Eighth to the grocery store, ducked out the side door, and went back to the office. I stopped at my desk for a metal ruler, and ran up to fifth. Jim Bridgeman, in his backward baseball cap, glanced up at me and then back down at his keyboard.
I went over to the thermostat.
And this was the moment when everyone surrounded you, pointing and squawking an unearthly screech at you. Or turned and stared at you with their glowing green eyes. I twisted the thermostat dial as far up as it would go, to ninety-five. Nothing happened.
Nobody even looked up from their computers. Jim Bridgeman was typing intently.
I pried the dial and casing off with the metal ruler and stuck them into my coat pocket, bent the metal nub back so it couldn't be moved, and walked back out to the stairwell.
And now, please let it warm up fast enough to work before everybody goes home, I thought, clattering down the stairs to fourth. Let everybody start sweating and take off their hats. Let the aliens be light-sensitive. Let them not be telepathic.
I jammed the thermostats on fourth and third, and clattered down to second. Our thermostat was on the far side, next to Hunziger's office. I grabbed up a stack of memos from my desk, walked purposefully across the floor, dismantled the thermostat, and started back toward the stairs.
"Where do you think you're going?" Solveig said, planting herself firmly in front of me.
"To a meeting," I said, trying not to look as lame and frightened as the hero's girlfriend in the movies always did. She looked down at my sneakers. "Across town."
"You're not going anywhere," she said.
"Why not?" I said weakly.
"Because I've got to show you what I bought Jane for Christmas."
She reached for a shopping bag under her desk. "I know I'm not due till May, but I couldn't resist this," she said, rummaging in the bag. "It is so cute!"
She pulled out a tiny pink bonnet with white daisies on it. "Isn't it adorable?" she said. "It's newborn size. She can wear it home from the hospital. Oh, and I got her the cutest-"
"I lied," I said, and Solveig looked up alertly. "Don't tell anybody, but I completely forgot to buy a Secret Santa gift. Penny'll kill me if she finds out. If anybody asks where I've gone, tell them the ladies' room," I said, and took off down to first.
The thermostat was right by the door. I disabled it and the one in the basement, got my car (looking in the backseat first, unlike the people in the movies) and drove to the courthouse and the hospital and McDonald's, and then called my mother and invited myself to dinner. "I'll bring dessert," I said, drove out to the mall, and hit the bakery, the Gap, the video-rental place, and the theater multiplex on the way.
Mom didn't have the TV on. She did have the hat on that Sueann had given her. "Don't you think it's adorable?" she said.
"I brought cheesecake," I said. "Have you heard from Allison and Mitch? How's Dakota?"
"Worse," she said. "She has these swellings on her knees and ankles. The doctors don't know what's causing them." She took the cheesecake into the kitchen, limping slightly. "I'm so worried."
I turned up the thermostats in the living room and the bedroom and was plugging the space heater in when she brought in the soup. "I got chilled on the way over," I said, turning the space heater up to high. "It's freezing out. I think it's going to snow."
We ate our soup, and Mom told me about Sueann's wedding. "She wants you to be her maid of honor," she said, fanning herself. "Aren't you warm yet?"
"No," I said, rubbing my arms.
"I'll get you a sweater," she said, and went into the bedroom, turning the space heater off as she went.
I turned it back on and went into the living room to build a fire in the fireplace.
"Have you met anyone at work lately?" she called in from the bedroom.
"What?" I said, sitting back on my knees.
She came back in without the sweater. Her hat was gone, and her hair was mussed up, as if something had thrashed around in it. "I hope you're not still refusing to write a Christmas newsletter," she said, going into the kitchen and coming out again with two plates of cheesecake. "Come sit down and eat your dessert," she said.
I did, still watching her warily.
"Making up things!" she said. "What an idea! Aunt Margaret wrote me just the other day to tell me how much she loves hearing from you girls and how interesting your newsletters always are." She cleared the table. "You can stay for a while, can't you? I hate waiting here alone for news about Dakota."
"No, I've got to go," I said, and stood up. "I've got to . . ."
I've got to ... what? I thought, feeling suddenly overwhelmed. Fly to Spokane? And then, as soon as Dakota was okay, fly back and run wildly around town turning up thermostats until I fell over from exhaustion? And then what? It was when people fell asleep in the movies that the aliens took them over. And there was no way I could stay awake until every parasite was exposed to the light, even if they didn't catch me and turn me into one of them. Even if I didn't turn my ankle.
The phone rang.
"Tell them I'm not here," I said.
"Who?" Mom asked, picking it up. "Oh, dear, I hope it's not Mitch with bad news. Hello?" Pause. "It's Sueann," she said, putting her hand over the receiver, and listened for a long interval. "She broke up with her boyfriend."
"With David?" I said. "Give me the phone."
"I thought you said you weren't here," she said, handing the phone over.
"Sueann?" I said. "Why did you break up with David?"
"Because he's so deadly dull," she said. "He's always calling me and sending me flowers and being nice. He even wants to get married. And tonight at dinner, I just thought, 'Why am I dating him?' and we broke up."
Mom went over and turned on the TV. "In local news," the CNN guy said, "special-interest groups banded together to donate fifteen thousand dollars to City Hall's Christmas display."
"Where were you having dinner?" I asked Sueann. "At McDonald's?"
"No, at this pizza place, which is another thing. All he ever wants is to go to dinner or the movies. We never do anything interesting."
"Did you go to a movie tonight?" She might have been in the multiplex at the mall.
"No. I told you, I broke up with him."
This made no sense. I hadn't hit any pizza places.
"Weather is next," the guy on CNN said.
"Mom, can you turn that down?" I said. "Sueann, this is important. Tell me what you're wearing."
"Jeans and my blue top and my zodiac necklace. What does that have to do with my breaking up with David?"
"Are you wearing a hat?"
"In our forecast just ahead," the CNN guy said, "great weather for all you people trying to get your Christmas shopping d-"
Mom turned the TV down.
"Mom, turn it back up," I said, motioning wildly.
"No, I'm not wearing a hat," Sueann said. "What does that have to do with whether I broke up with David or not?"
The weather map behind the CNN guy was covered with 62, 65, 70, 68. "Mow," I said.
She fumbled with the remote.
"You won't believe what he did the other day," Sueann said, outraged. "Gave me an engagement ring! Can you imag-"
"-unseasonably warm temperatures and lots of sunshine," the weather guy blared out. "Continuing right through Christmas."
"I mean, what was I thinking?" Sueann said.
"Shh," I said. "I'm trying to listen to the weather."
"It's supposed to be nice all next week," Mom said.
It was nice all the next week. Allison called to tell me Dakota was back home. "The doctors don't know what it was, some kind of bug or something, but whatever it was, it's completely gone. She's back taking ice skating and tap-dancing lessons, and next week I'm signing both girls up for Junior Band."
"You did the right thing," Gary said grudgingly. "Marcie told me her knee was really hurting. When she was still talking to me, that is."
"The reconciliation's off, huh?"
"Yeah," he said, "but I haven't given up. The way she acted proves to me that her love for me is still there, if I can only reach it."
All it proved to me was that it took an invasion from outer space to make her seem even marginally human, but I didn't say so.
"I've talked her into going into marriage counseling with me," he said. "You were right not to trust me either. That's the mistake they always make in those body-snatcher movies, trusting people."
Well, yes and no. If I'd trusted Jim Bridgeman, I wouldn't have had to do all those thermostats alone.
"You were the one who turned the heat up at the pizza place where Sueann and her fiance were having dinner," I said after he told me he'd figured out what the aliens' weakness was after seeing me turn up the thermostat on fifth. "You were the one who'd checked out Attack of the Soul Killers."
"I tried to talk to you," he said. "I don't blame you for not trusting me. I should have taken my hat off, but I didn't want you to see my bald spot."
"You can't go by appearances," I said.
By December fifteenth, hat sales were down, the mall was jammed with ill-tempered shoppers, at City Hall an animal-rights group was protesting Santa Claus's wearing fur, and Gary's wife had skipped their first marriage-counseling session and then blamed it on him. It's now four days till Christmas, and things are completely back to normal. Nobody at work's wearing a hat except Jim, Sol-veig's naming her baby Durango, Hunziger's suing management for firing him, antidepressant sales are up, and my mother called just now to tell me Sueann has a new boyfriend who's a terrorist, and to ask me if I'd sent out my Christmas newsletters yet. And had I met anyone lately at work.
"Yes," I said. "I'm bringing him to Christmas dinner."
Yesterday Betty Holland filed a sexual harassment suit against Nathan Steinberg for kissing her under the mistletoe, and I was nearly run over on my way home from work. But the world has been made safe from cankers, leaf wilt, and galls.
And it makes an interesting Christmas Newsletter.
Whether it's true or not.
Wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,
Nan Johnson