I would later feel terrible for daydreaming at what would be Nora and Em’s last performance onstage at the Gallows. On the night of the Santas, when I wasn’t daydreaming, I was whispering with Elliot Barlow. Em would one day write me and ask me what we’d been whispering about. Surely Nora had noticed us whispering, if Em had. Both Mr. Barlow and I would feel terrible about our whispering, but we should have done something about the Santa standing in the back of the lounge—not just whisper about him. A kind of evil magic, like a spell, seemed to emanate from the tall Santa with the long arms and the skinny sack; there was something strangely witchlike about him. “Maybe he’s a witch in a Santa suit—that’s a broomstick in the gift bag,” I whispered to the snowshoer.

“Not a witch. You don’t recognize him, do you?” the pretty Mr. Barlow whispered. Then, of course, I did—the unfocused vacancy of his multiple hatreds came back to me.

“Our marine…” I’d only started to whisper, but the snowshoer outwhispered me.

“Not a marine. I spoke to Sam—I was going to tell you. The general says our backup heavyweight was never in the Marine Corps. Emory Trowbridge didn’t serve in any other branch of the armed forces, either,” the snowshoer said. That was a sizable deceit to process in one continuous whisper, and just then the sleeping Santa sitting near us fell sideways into the lap of the woman seated next to him. This got a laugh, a small one, but it was more of a laugh than Nora had been getting. The woman grabbed hold of the sleeping Santa’s head, shoving him away from her, but his beard, wig, and stocking cap ended up in her hands. They were both indignant about their sudden contact.

“What? Why’d you do that?” the startled Santa asked the woman next to him, as if she’d assaulted him. This got a somewhat larger laugh, but the woman holding Santa’s beard, wig, and stocking cap, was clearly at a loss for words. Not Nora.

“If you’re going to go down on someone, you should take your Santa stuff off first,” Nora said to the Santa who’d been asleep. This got the biggest laugh Nora would get that night; it caused enough of a disruption for those people who’d been dying to leave to make a break for the exit or the washrooms, or at least bolt for the bar. In the chaos, or in her own harsh judgment of her less-than-riveting performance, Nora didn’t try to bring the audience back; she knew she’d lost them. Besides, Em was giving her the X sign—when Em’s index fingers were crossed, that was as clear to Nora as the no word.