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next box in her hand, her heart thudding harder than it had when she’d first seen Nolan.
    There was a camouflage-colored box at the back.
    She dropped the Twinkletoes box and pulled out the camo box and read the label: Major MacGuffin, the Tough One! “Oh, my God.” Trudy held on to it with both hands, almost shaking.
    The box was not mint—the cellophane was torn over the opening, a corner was squashed in with a black X marked on it, and there were white scuff marks on the bottom—but the MacGuffin scowled out at her through the plastic, looking like a homicidal Cabbage Patch doll dressed in camouflage, a grenade in one hand and a gun in the other, violent and disgusting and the only thing Leroy wanted for Christmas.
    â€œI do believe in Santa,” Trudy said as Nolan came closer.
    â€œThat’s a Major MacGuffin.” He sounded stunned.
    â€œCan you believe it?” Trudy was so amazed she forgot to be mad.
    â€œNo,” Nolan said. “I can’t. I knew you were an amazing woman, but this puts you in a whole new league.”
    â€œWhat?” Trudy said.
    â€œI’ll give you two hundred bucks for it,” Nolan said.
    â€œNo.” Trudy stepped away from him, holding on to the MacGuffin box.
    Nolan smiled at her, radiating sincerity. “I know, your nephew wants a Major MacGuffin, but he doesn’t want that one. He wants the Mac Two. The one that spits toxic waste and packs a tac nuke, right?”
    Trudy thought of Leroy, waxing rhapsodic about how the ’Guffin spit green stuff when you squeezed him. “Yes.”
    â€œWhat you have there is a MacGuffin One,” Nolan said, sounding sympathetic and entirely too reasonable. “Last year’s model. No toxic waste.”
    Trudy looked back at the box. It did look different from the picture Leroy had shown her. “What does this one do?”
    â€œIt has a gun. Basically, it shoots the other dolls.”
    â€œAnd the hand grenade?”
    â€œJust a plastic ball. Doesn’t do anything.” He shrugged, unimpressed.
    â€œDamn.” Trudy looked down at the doll’s ugly face.
    â€œTwo fifty,” Nolan said.
    Trudy glared at him. “No. This is for my nephew. And I have to go now. Thanks for putting the boxes back.”
    â€œTrudy, wait, ” Nolan said, but she picked up a perfect Twinkletoes box, stepped over the rest of the pink boxes, and headed for the checkout counter, her belief in Santa restored if not her belief in the rest of male humanity.
    *   *   *
    Trudy got in the long line to the register, clutching both the Mac and the Twinkletoes boxes, stepping back as a woman in a red and green bobble hat slid in front of her at the last minute. Then Nolan got in line behind her and said, “Three hundred. It only costs forty-nine fifty new. That’s six times—”
    Trudy jerked her head up. “ No. I’ll never find another one of these tonight.”
    Nolan nodded, not arguing. “Okay. Five hundred.”
    â€œAre you nuts?” Trudy said.
    â€œNo, I told you, I’m a collector.” He stepped closer, and she remembered how nice it had been having him step closer on the three lousy dates they’d had.
    She stepped away.
    Nolan nodded to the Mac. “You are holding a doll that is actually rarer than the Mac Two. They didn’t make many Ones.”
    â€œIt’s not rarer from where I’m standing,” Trudy said. “I actually have this one, and there are no Mac Twos in sight.”
    â€œThat looks like an original box,” Nolan said. “May I?”
    â€œNo,” Trudy said, holding on to it and the Twinkletoes box, trying to put her shopping bag between them to block him, but he’d already opened the top and was reaching in. “Hey.” She elbowed his hand away as he pulled out the instruction sheet. “Give me that,” she said, and he opened it so that she could see