Excerpt from:
Hot Toy, by Jennifer Crusie, found in the collection Santa, Baby

Why you should buy a copy of your very own:
Because Jennifer Crusie's Christmas novella (if not the other two entries in the collection) is the most fun you'll have this season for $7.99. Crusie has a gift for screwball-comedy patter that you have to see to believe.

In this scene...
Trudy is really not enjoying her Christmas Eve. She's been sent out on a wild goose chase for this year's most hard-to-get toy (it's been out of stock since Thanksgiving), her sister is at home guzzling the gin, and she's just discovered that she accidentally picked up the wrong kind of wrapping paper.


"'Oh, hell.'

'What?' Courtney said.

'I got birthday paper', Trudy said. 'I need Christmas paper, and this is birthday--'

'Trudy', Courtney wailed.

'Maybe you can fake it', Reese said, with badly concealed exasperation. 'If it's just a bunch of animals, it could be anything.'

Trudy held up the paper. It said Happy Birthday over and over and over. 'No animals. Just 'Happy Birthday' in red.'

'Well, then you're screwed', Reese said, sounding bored with the whole thing.

'No, she's not.' Nolan held out his hand. 'Give it here.'

'You're going to fix this?' Trudy said. 'How are you going to fix this?'

Nolan wiggled his fingers. 'Gimme.'

She handed the paper over and watched while he took out his pen again and wrote Jesus under every Happy Birthday."

©Jennifer Crusie, 2006

Labels: Jenny Crusie, Snippet