Luther slowly made his way to the kitchen, where his wife was sitting at the table, lists already under way. "Can we talk about this?" he pleaded.
"Talk about what, Luther?" she snapped.
"Let's tell her the truth."
"Another dumb idea."
"The truth is always better."
She stopped writing and glared at him. "Here's the truth, Luther. We have less than seven hours to get this place ready for Christmas."
"She should've called earlier."
"No, she assumed we'd be here with a tree and gifts and a party, same as always. Who would ever dream that two otherwise sensible adults would skip Christmas and go on a cruise?"
"Maybe we can still go."
"Another dumb idea, Luther. She's coming home with her fiancé. Is this registering with you? I'm sure they'll be here for at least a week. I hope so anyway. Forget the cruise. You have bigger problems right now."
"I'm not doing Frosty."
"Yes you are. And I'll tell you something else. Blair will never know about the cruise, understand? She'd be crushed if she knew we'd planned it, and that she'd interfered. Do you understand me, Luther?"
"Yes ma'am."
She thrust a sheet of paper at him. "Here's the plan, bozo. You go buy a tree. I'll get down the lights and ornaments. While you're decorating it, I'll hit the stores and see if there's any food left for a party."
"Who's coming to the party?"
"I haven't got that far yet. Now move. And change clothes, you look ridiculous."
"Don't Peruvians have dark skin?" he asked. Nora froze for a second. They stared at each other, then both looked away. "I guess it doesn't matter now," she said.
"She's not really getting married, is she?" Luther said, in disbelief.
"We'll worry about the wedding if we survive Christmas."

Luther darted to his car, cranked it, backed down the drive quickly, and sped away. Leaving was easy. Returning would be painful.
Traffic got thick in a hurry, and as he sat still he stewed, and fumed, and cursed. A thousand thoughts raced through his overworked brain. An hour earlier he'd been enjoying a restful morning, sipping his third cup of coffee, etc., etc. Now look at him-just another loser lost in traffic while the clock ticked away.
The Boy Scouts sold trees in a Kroger parking lot. Luther skidded to a stop and jumped from his car. There was one Boy Scout, one scoutmaster, one tree. Business was winding down for the season.
"Merry Christmas, Mr. Krank," said the scoutmaster, who looked vaguely familiar. "I'm Joe Scanlon, same guy who brought a tree to your house a few weeks ago."
Luther was listening but he was also staring at the last tree, a crooked spindly dwarf of a pine shrub that had been passed over for good reasons. I'll take it," he said, pointing.
"Really?"
"Sure, how much?"
A handmade sign leaning against a pickup truck listed various prices, beginning with $75 and falling all the way to $15 as the days had passed. All prices, including the $15, had been scratched through.
Scanlon hesitated, then said, "Seventy-five bucks."
"Why not fifteen?"
"Supply and demand."
"It's a rip-off."
"It's for the Boy Scouts."
"I'll give you fifty."
"Seventy-five, take it or leave it."
Luther handed over the cash and the Boy Scout placed a flattened cardboard box on top of Luther's Lexus. They wrestled the tree up and onto the car, then secured it with rope. Luther watched them carefully, glancing at his watch every two minutes.
When the tree was in place, the hood and trunk were already accumulating dead pine needles, lots of them. "It needs water," said the Scout.
"I thought you weren't doing Christmas," Scanlon said.
"Merry Christmas," Luther said gruffly, getting in his car.
"I wouldn't drive too fast."
"Why not?"
"Those pine needles are awfully brittle."
Back in traffic, Luther sat low behind the wheel and stared straight ahead as he crept along. At a traffic light, a soft drink delivery truck eased next to him and stopped. He heard someone yell, looked up to his left, then cracked his window. A couple of rednecks were staring down, grinning.
"Hey buddy, that's the ugliest tree I've ever seen!" yelled one.
"It's Christmas, come on, spend some money!" yelled the other, and they roared with laughter.
"That tree's shedding faster than a dog with mange," yelled one of them, and Luther raised his window. Still, he could hear them laughing.
As he neared Hemlock, his pulse quickened. With a little luck, maybe he could make it home without being seen. Luck? How could he hope for good luck?
But it happened. He roared past his neighbors' homes, hit his driveway on two wheels, and came to a sliding stop in the garage, All this without seeing a soul. He jumped from the car and was pulling at the ropes when he stopped, and stared, in disbelief. The tree was completely bare-nothing but crooked limbs and branches, no greenery whatsoever. The brittle pine needles Scanlon had warned him about were still blowing in the wind between the Kroger and Hemlock Street.
The tree was a pitiful sight lying there on the flattened cardboard, dead as driftwood.
Luther looked around, scanned the street, then yanked the tree off the car and pulled it through the garage door and into the backyard where no one could see it. He t............