Page 38 of Single Girl Rules: HoHoHo

I squinted to try to see him through the snow. At first Ididn’t see anything either. But the glass atrium up the mountain had somelights out front that illuminated the white fur trim on Santa’s suit as hischairlift approached the top.

Then he disappeared inside. And a second later his emptychairlift came out the other side.

“Okay,” said Ash. “He’s somewhere in that building. And we’regonna find him.” She turned to me. “Any ideas about where he might be?”

“Well…” I said, picturing the layout in my mind.

“The lift will drop us off in the main atrium near the frontdesk. Something tells me that he probably won’t just be standing there checkingin for the evening. So we’ll need to go past that and down Wiener Boulevard.”

“Wiener Boulevard?” asked Ash.

“Yeah. They have like five different world class restaurants eachwith their own take on wiener schnitzel.”

“Oh wow, okay. That was not what I was picturing.”

“What were you picturing?”

“Um…uh…” She shifted in the ski lift and then pointed at theslopes below us. “Wow. I didn’t realize how high up this ski lift was.”

“Girl, don’t try to change the topic.”

“She picture glory hole street,” said Slavanka.

“Right?” I said. “She was definitely picturing tons of dicks.”I knew she’d be all horned up on Christmas!

“Can we just get back to the layout of the hotel?” asked Ash.“We’re almost there.”

If byalmost thereshe meant three feet away, then shewas correct.

Another pair of sliding doors opened and we were greeted by arefreshing blast of hot air as our ski lift slid into the dark atrium. We alljumped off.

“Should we split up?” asked Ash.

“Yeah,” I said. But then a thought hit me. Or more of animage, really. It was Isabella in a Santa suit with a butcher knife in one handand a bag full of body parts in the other. That crazy bitch probably lured us uphere so that she could chop us into tiny bits and serve us in the wienerschnitzel tomorrow. “Actually, let’s stick together for now. I don’t want youguys to get lost.”Or chopped up by Isabella.

I know, I sounded like Ash right now. But Crazy Isabella wascalled Crazy Isabella for a reason. That bitch gave me the creeps.

“So where do you think he is?” asked Ash as we walked intothe dark atrium. The snow falling on the glass roof dampened the howling wind,bathing the atrium in an eerie silence broken only by the click of Slavanka’sheels on the marble floor.

“Well...he could be at the ski shop getting his sleighrepaired.” I walked over and tried to open the glass doors of the ski shop, butthe handle wouldn’t budge.

Ash checked the snow-suit-clad mannequins by the door to makesure Santa wasn’t hiding in any of them, and then she tried to peer into thepitch-black shop. “I don’t think he’s in there. What about up there?” Shepointed up at the three stories of balconies surrounding the atrium.

“Yeah, he could be delivering presents to the soldiers stayingin those rooms. But legend has it that he has his sexy elves do that for him.” AlthoughI started that legend, so it probably wasn’t an accurate portrayal of Santa’sactions on Christmas Eve. “If I had to guess, I’d say he’s probably made a stopat his old toy factory.”

“Uh, yes. That’s definitely where he is,” said Ash. “Why didwe not run straight there?!” She started running in completely the wrongdirection and then stopped. “I don’t know where I’m going. Please lead the way.Quickly!”

“This way,” I said and we all started running down WienerBoulevard towards the giant glass doors on the far end of the atrium.

“This doesn’t look like a toy factory,” said Ash as shepushed through the glass doors. “It’s just a big empty room.”

“Look up,” I said.

“Ooooh,” her eyes got big as she looked up at the snowfalling on the glass roof.

“Not at the roof,” I said. “Look a little lower.”

She squinted to see in the dark. “Is that a conveyor beltsuspended from the ceiling? Why is it so high up? And why does it just end likethat?”

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