Santa and the Siren

 

Everyone at the holiday ball noticed Rhonda.

While most women drank champagne in elegant, black gowns or shimmied to Jingle Bell Rock in red velvet, Rhonda wore yellow.

Hair color was not mentioned, but they talked.

Her face was not seen, but they stared.

No one left the party that night without having glimpsed the woman in yellow. Yellow and nothing else.

One kind-hearted woman said the dress was “sheer”. Rhonda heard snippets of conversation—some crude, some accusatory.

She smiled, thinking of her senior prom ten years ago.

Ignored, unnoticed, invisible. Not even worthy of a sneer or snide comment. An overlooked young girl in a yellow dress.

 

Sitting on Santa’s lap, putting her lips next to his fur-trimmed hat, she whispered to the man in the suit, “Not a wallflower anymore, eh, Jim?”