The Mistletoad

The last time Julie stood underneath a sprig of mistletoe, her boyfriend broke up with her.

Well, that's not entirely true.

Her lying, cheating, worst-thing-that-ever-happened-to-me troll of a boyfriend told her he'd suddenly grown a conscious and he couldn't do this anymore. He couldn't see Diana in private. She didn't deserve to be sneaking around.

Under the mistletoe, surrounded by dozens of happy children eating pancakes with Santa for charity, (while an apparently not-so-single Diana poured them juice) Julie twirled a lock of Ryan's blonde hair around her fingers. She thought about how Ryan was her first. First boyfriend, first kiss (hey, some shy girls don't get kissed in high school), first ...Everything.

And a couple weeks ago she'd called her parents to tell them that that he was going to be the first boyfriend she ever brought home.

In the moment, confused and angry and indigent, her mouth opened.

"Guess you won't be showing up to my house Christmas eve," she whispered, fidgeting with the hem of the green skirt all Santa's female elves (aka crying, syrupy child magnets) wore.

Ryan cupped her face, staring deep into her eyes. "Babe, you live out of state."

Taking a deep breath, Julie looked at all the happy children sitting around the decorated cafeteria tables.

Then she rolled back her arm and punched Ryan square in the jaw. For what he'd done to her, for what he'd taken, and for the terrible Christmas she was going to have when everyone asked her where the handsome man was Mom had been telling everyone about since Thanksgiving.

Ryan didn't see it coming.

Neither did this year's volunteer Santa, whom he landed on. Santa's face smashed into his half-eaten stack of pancakes.

The children were silent, round, owlish eyes all around. The cup of orange juice Diana was pouring overflowed. Then Ryan sat up, spitting blood into a little girl's plate. The little girl screamed into his ear and squirted maple syrup into his face. For just a moment Ryan sat motionless on the table, red nose covered in syrup.

"You toad. You ugly little toad!" he screamed, and lunged across the table for Julie.

*

Needless to say, Julie had been forced to retire her snow-studded stockings and elf hat.

To make matters worse, Ryan was a king as far as college society went. He led the university's nationally ranked soccer team in scoring. He was the first invited to parties, was both the Homecoming King and one of the wholesome models in all the "welcome, new college student!" brochures.

He'd recovered from his busted lip and wounded pride by spreading rumors about Julie the Mistletoad.

That was easy to do, when your target had a knack for being as noticeable around campus as a tuna fish sandwich at lunch.

Julie Givens was a Medium. Medium sized shirts. Medium sized pants. Medium length, medium-brown hair and brown eyes. She was a perfectly medium height, had a perfectly medium complexion and maintained perfectly medium grades. And no one ever seemed to know who she was except for her lab partners, and they usually forgot after the semester ended, too.

Julie the Mistletoad had a tramp stamp buried underneath her chunky cable-knit sweaters. She wore her stringy hair in double buns that looked like frog's eyes. Her lips were cold and always moist, and her breath reeked of swamp water. She sprinkled dried crickets on her pizza and croaked curses under her breath. She worked all day in an amphibian bio lab.