Red Herring ✔️

1. Christmas at Halloween

3 Weeks to Halloween

"Mazie. Mazie."

Her hat was itchy. 

"Earth to Mazie."

She forced her gaze to focus on her father. "What?"

"Is this one okay?"

Despite their strikingly familiar looks, father and daughter couldn't present themselves more different. Him, in his thousand dollar navy power suit and red tie, slicked back hair, and jet black framed glasses. Her, in her ripped black jeans, faded Adidas shoes that had seen better days, an oversized jean jacket with a fur collar, and a black winter hat to stave off the approaching autumn chill. The aforementioned itchy hat.

She didn't drink enough coffee for this.

"Do you like it?" Her father prompted when she didn't answer his first question.

She shrugged. "I guess."

"Is this the one?"

The salesman bundled up in his jacket looked annoyed that they couldn't finish up this conversation inside. 

Did she have to make this decision? "It's up to you, Dad. You're buying."

"I want you to be happy. And safe."

Happy because her parents divorced less than a year ago in the middle of her junior year in high school. They both acted like their separation had been terribly hard for her, but really she was thankful that she didn't have to listen to them screaming at each other anymore. Safe because last week she totaled her trusty dependable car in a freak accident that wasn't her fault.

When her dad said things like that, Mazie felt like hurling. So she said something to appease him. "It's...nice."

"Do you like the color? Black or white?" He turned to her with his hands in his pockets and smiled his most charming smile that he reserved for perspective clients. And her. When he wanted her to pick out a car a little faster so that he could get back to her busy schedule. 

Did he even have to ask?

"We offer interior and exterior customization, of course," the salesman found his voice again. He was merely seeing dollar signs if he landed this safe.

Of course.

"Black," she answered hastily so they would all stop talking. 

Grateful that she finally coalesced, her dad grinned like the man who always got his way. Right now, he was getting his way. "We'll take it." 

Dollar signs indeed. Their middle aged paunchy salesman finally smiled in return,  suddenly forgetting the cold. As far as salesmen go, this one wasn't doing a very convincing job. The only ting he was selling was exercise and the need for a professional hairdresser that knew how to properly style a comb over.How did he get this job? "Wonderful! Right this ways, Mr. Oliver. Let's take this inside and get that paperwork started?"

That's how she drove off the lot in a brand new black Range Rover Sport with less than fifty miles on the engine. It still had that real new car smell not the wannabe new car smell that comes from those palm sized scented pine trees people obnoxiously hang from their rearview mirror. Mazie barely adjusted the seat before she revved the engine and disappeared down the road in the opposite direction of her father.

The whole "blending in" thing wasn't going to work very well for her in this swanky new ride. It's not that other kids didn't drive nice cars or wear expensive clothes or spritz themselves in rich cologne. The problem was that they cared entirely too much about those things. And her new car. They would care a lot about that for a generation that supposedly didn't GAF about anything.