Two Tickets to the Christmas Ball

by Donita K. Paul

  No ticket. Not in the book. Not on the coffee table. Not under the cushions of the couch.

  Cora went to the bathroom to brush her teeth, and the ticket was on the floor next to her plush rug. Obviously Skippy had carried it in. She picked it up and threw it in the trash.

  Gratefully, she went to bed. Her warm covers provided a cozy haven against odd, old men, socially inept executives, tickets to balls, and phantoms in her computer.

  Morning brought sunshine, but Cora struggled with heaviness in her spirit. That wasn’t surprising. She just didn’t know what to do with Christmas. And Skippy was in hiding. Cora had no company at breakfast, and the cat refused to come out, even as she grabbed her purse and dug out her keys.

  As she headed toward the door, Cora noticed that the ball ticket sat on the counter in the kitchen, next to the coffeepot. Unsettling, but not the end of the world. The cat playing tricks. Nothing more than that.

  Then, on the way into work, her car slid on a patch of ice and tried to level a curb. The curb did not yield, but her tire did. Rather, something connecting the tire to the axle yielded.

  Her car had to be towed.

  When she finally made it into the office, Cora grabbed her stack of files and hightailed it to the meeting that had started an hour before. With the files clenched to her chest, she knocked softly and entered the conference room.

  Mrs. Hudson jumped up. “Are you all right, dear? Did you get a jolt?” Cora had called in while she was waiting for the tow truck, so Mrs. Hudson, her supervisor, knew why she was late. “Sometimes the pain shows up in your neck and shoulders the day after the accident.”

  “I’m fine.” Cora laid her files on the table.

  “Your car?” asked the department head, Jeff Stockton.

  “Insured.”

  “Deductible?”

  “Five hundred.”

  Harry, the accountant, scrunched up his face. “Ouch.”

  “Right before Christmas. What a bummer,” said Lisa, the statistics queen.

  Mrs. Hudson patted Cora’s arm. “We’ll talk after the meeting.”

  Cora took her seat. Jeff pushed a paper-clipped stack of documents at her, and the team went back on task. Cora said a prayer. She needed to concentrate. The accident had rattled her, but the real problem was her missing cat. Skippy played her hide-and-seek game daily, but she always came to say good-bye as Cora left for work. Where was that cat?

  3

  Simon Derrick smacked the steering wheel with his hand. He turned the corner and cruised the street one more time. Sage Street had disappeared. He looked at his watch. He didn’t have any more time to drive around the same nine blocks in a three-by-three grid, looking for a side street that didn’t want to be found.

  He turned at the next light to hit the freeway. He’d try again after his lunch. He didn’t want to keep Pastor Greg Spencer waiting.

  Three cars sat in the restaurant parking lot. Spence picked their weekly rendezvous point from a coupon book the youth group sold every year. Sometimes they lucked out and the food was actually edible.

  Simon parked his car, strolled into Little Leland’s Tex-Mex Diner, and sniffed. The restaurant passed the first and second tests. He hated places where dim lights hid grimy floors. Leland’s lights shone over polished tabletops and sparkling-clean water glasses. And the fragrance of the place indicated spices, not heavy fried grease. A plus.

  Spence sat in a booth, talking to a blond waitress. He spotted Simon and waved him over. The waitress held her pencil poised above a pad of paper.

  His friend pointed to the menu. “I ordered nachos for an appetizer.”

  Simon nodded. “Sounds good. I’ll have a bean and beef burrito, a quesadilla, and two beef tacos, please. And hot tea.”

  “You don’t want to see a menu?” asked the blonde.

  “No time, I’m late. And that’s what I would end up ordering anyway. That’s what I like.”

  “Okay.” She turned toward the kitchen. “I’ll be back with your drinks and the nachos.”

  “So why is my Johnny-on-the-spot friend late?” asked the pastor. “Traffic?”

  “Trying to find a bookstore—no, a whole street—that I walked down yesterday. Today, it’s gone.”

  “What street? Where?”

  Simon shrugged out of his coat and hung it on a hook. “Sage.”

  “Sage runs right in front of the old railroad station.”

  “I found that part. This store was about five blocks west of the station.”

  Spence shook his head. “Sage stops at Bessell. Dead-ends.”

  “No, it jogs.”

  “It’s not a part of town I’m familiar with, but I’m pretty sure that section of Sage perished when they built Corporate Square—fifteen, twenty years ago.”

  “It was there yesterday.” Simon shook his head. “I bought a book at Warner, Werner, and Wizbotterdad. Actually, I bought two.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out the ticket. “And they gave me this ticket.”

  Spence took it. “The Wizards’ Christmas Ball? Where are you supposed to go for this ball? When? Who sponsors it? Why give away tickets?”

  He flipped the paper in the air. Simon snatched it before it fell to the table.

  “Exactly. But Sandy saw it, and she wants to go.”

  Spence’s eyebrows rose. “I see.”

  “Yeah, I know you do.”

  The server brought a hot tea and a coffee, a basket of chips, and a small bowl of salsa.

  “Nachos will be here in a sec.” She swirled away to take orders from another table.

  Spence prayed. Then Simon scooped up a blob of hot red sauce to shove in his mouth. “Mmm-mmm.” He spoke around crunching corn chips. “This may be one of your better finds, my man.”

  They devoured the food when it came and, between bites, discussed church business, their families, and Christmas.

  As Simon waited for his credit card, he looked at his old friend. “Her heart’s not strong, you know. That pneumonia last year nearly killed her.”

  Spence easily picked up the original thread of conversation—Simon’s concern for his sister. He nodded and looked at his hands cupped around his almost-empty coffee mug. “Sandy may outlive you.”

  “Yeah. Well, I like to make her happy, but there was no information on where to buy another ticket. I thought I’d go back to the bookstore.” He glanced at his watch. “But I have to get back to the office. The division meetings were this morning, and by now files are stacking up on my desk.”

  The men stood and shook hands. Pastor Spencer’s eyebrows shot up again, and he snapped his fingers. “I remember hearing something about Sage Street and a ball.”

  “What?”

  “A crazy story from when I was in seminary.”

  The men walked toward the door.

  “Give it to me quick,” said Simon.

  “Two people who ended up being a husband-wife missionary team met at a Christmas ball. Seems to me they got their costumes at a shop on Sage. But I was in seminary twenty years ago. The whole street was still there back then.”

  Simon shoved the door open and let his friend pass. “Very helpful, Spence. And the street is still there. I’ll find it.”

  Simon wrote instructions neatly in the margin of the fifth report. He put the pencil down and pinched the bridge of his nose. Leaning back in his office chair, he stretched his arms out to the side, then above his head. He stretched his shoulder muscles, loosening tension, then brought his arms down. He glanced out the sixth-floor office window and saw that full night had descended upon the city. His clock said a quarter after six.

  He’d missed dinner at home, but Sandy would have a plate waiting to stick in the microwave. She learned such tricks from watching old TV show DVDs. His mother had been domestic while his father lived, but now she and Aunt Mae were entrepreneurs, selling crocheted doll clothes and jewelry.

  The telephone rang. It was probably Sandy. He looked at caller ID and didn’t recognize the num
ber.

  He picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

  “Benjy here. I’m looking for Cora Crowder. I’ve got her—”

  “No, wait,” Simon interrupted, reaching for a phone list on a battered card in a vertical slot file on his desk. “You have the wrong extension. Miss Crowder is 4546.”

  “That’s what I dialed.”

  “Must have been a crossed wire then.” Simon shook his head. The possibility of crossed telephone wires disappeared into history long ago. The man just misdialed.

  “Okay. Sorry to bother you. I’ll try again.”

  Simon hung up.

  Was Cora Crowder still in the building? Almost everyone left early on the night of the office party. This year it was at the grill across the street. He looked out of his glassed-in cubicle and saw a light at a desk down the hall. A coat hung over the back of her chair, but he didn’t see Miss Crowder.

  The phone rang again. The number looked similar to the one that came through only moments before. Simon grabbed the phone before it rang a second time.

  “Yes?”

  “Uh-oh. You’re still not Miss Crowder.”

  “You have the same wrong extension again.”

  The guy gave a sigh of exasperation, but persisted without getting angry. “Look, I dialed 4546. Do you know her? I want to go eat my supper with my kids.”

  “I do.”

  “This is Benjy at Benjy’s Repair Shop. She slid her car into a curb this morning, and I got her a new tie rod. Can you tell her she can come get the car? No hurry. Now that I know she’ll get the message, I’m going to eat.”

  “Okay, I’ll tell her.”

  “Thanks. Merry Christmas.”

  The phone went dead. Simon stepped out into the semidark office pool. Eight of the nine cubicles were empty, and the lights were off. Only one light was still lit, the one in Miss Crowder’s cubicle. But she wasn’t at her desk.

  He looked in the shadows of the room and spotted Cora gazing out the window. With her arms crossed over her chest, she looked like she was either warming or protecting herself. But her shoulders slumped. Not enough tension in her body language to be in a defensive mode, so she must be chilly. The janitors had turned down the heat.

  “Miss Crowder. I have a message for you.”

  She jumped, put her hand to her chest, and sighed. “Mr. Derrick. I thought everyone had gone to the party.”

  He came to stand beside her and looked down at the street below and the lights of the restaurant. “Are you wishing you were there?”

  She shrugged. “A little.”

  “Benjy’s Repair Shop called, and your car is ready.”

  She frowned and looked over her shoulder at her desk. “My phone didn’t ring. I’ve been waiting for the call.”

  “Somehow the call came through to my desk. Twice.” He puzzled over that for a moment, but the oddity really wasn’t worth a concerted effort to track down the cause. If the problem persisted, he’d put someone on it. “He said you slid into a curb this morning. And he already has the car fixed for you tonight? Sounds like someone I’d like to do business with.”

  She laughed. “He’s a friend from church. He had the part he needed in his garage under a pile of junk. He said he didn’t even remember how he got it and was just fortunate to see it before he made a trip to the junkyard.”

  “It’s a commercial garage?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think I’ll write down his number.”

  She started for her desk. “Right now I’m going to call a cab.”

  “Why don’t you go to the party first? Benjy said there was no hurry.”

  She looked over her shoulder and smiled. “I usually only stay for the first hour. I’m there for the food and the gift exchange, but I don’t think I’m in the mood tonight.”

  He nodded and turned toward his office. Before he’d passed her desk, she opened a drawer and pulled out the phone book. She placed it on the top, shoved the drawer shut with her knee, and gasped.

  He stopped. “Did you hurt yourself?”

  “No, I just remembered your gift. It’s on the backseat of my car. I forgot all about it until just now.”

  “No problem.”

  “I’ll bring it in tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow is Saturday.”

  “Monday.” She shifted from one foot to the other.

  Simon ran his hand through his hair. He wanted to go home, and two more reports sat on his desk. He never took work home. But he wanted out of there, and here stood a good excuse, one that he could label as helping a neighbor.

  He stuck a hand in his pocket and jingled his keys. “I’m ready to go home. Don’t call the cab. I’ll give you a lift to Benjy’s.”

  Cora peeked at Simon as they took the elevator to the parking garage below the building. Serious Simon carried his briefcase. No small talk. He looked absorbed in his thoughts.

  She tried to think of something to say to engage him in conversation, but then thought, Why bother? Simon Derrick was a nice man, but every one of the young women in the office gave him a wide berth. Mrs. Hudson said he talked about his family once in a blue moon, usually as an excuse not to do something, like go on a business trip. Cora couldn’t remember ever hearing him talk about his life outside the office. Cora wondered if he chatted with his wife. Or did he stroll past their living room couch like he strolled through the office, obviously deep in thought?

  Once in the bowels of the building, they walked through a maze of cement columns to the place where her car would ordinarily be sitting. Cora stopped and stared as Mr. Derrick pulled out his keys and unlocked the car in the next slot. He glanced over to where she stood, frozen.

  “Something wrong?” he asked.

  She pointed to her spot, number eighty-eight. “This is my parking space. Have we parked next to each other for five years?”

  “No, not that long. When I renewed my lease, I lost the slot I’d had since I started here through a clerical error. That was in October.”

  “So you’ve been parking here since October?”

  “Yes.”

  She shrugged and opened the passenger door. She didn’t believe in coincidences.

  They left the parking garage, and Simon turned right onto the street.

  Cora frowned. “I thought I mentioned Benjy’s was off the Blackton Bridge.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I should have said something, but this just popped into my mind again. I tried at noon to find Sage Street and the bookstore, but I kept making wrong turns. I thought maybe with the streets emptier, I’d have more luck.”

  “Do you want to return your purchase?”

  “No, I want to get another of the ball tickets they’re giving away. Or find out where to buy one. Did you get a ticket?”

  “Yes.” She thought about the pictures she’d seen on the Web site. The intriguing images couldn’t lure her to attend alone. “You can have mine. I’m not interested in going.”

  Simon Derrick smiled, actually smiled. “Really?”

  She nodded.

  “Thanks. I’ll take it. You wouldn’t happen to be unloading kittens, would you?”

  “No, I have one grown cat, but she has less of a social life than I do.”

  Mr. Derrick sighed. “I don’t know where to find one. I called the animal shelter, but they said the older ones are all taken. The kittens they have are too young for adoption and already spoken for. Puppies too. But I don’t think my household is ready for a puppy.”

  “How many children do you have?”

  “Children?”

  Did his voice squeak?

  “No children. I’m not married.”

  “You have a family?”

  “Yes. Granddad, Mom, Aunt Mae, and my sister, Sandy.”

  Cora’s cell phone rang. She fished it out of her purse, looked at caller ID, and silenced the ringer. She poked it back in her purse with a little more force than necessary.

  Mr. Derrick turned, pointing his car to the on ramp of
the freeway. “Not Benjy with bad news, I hope.”

  “No, just one of the cast of Tomorrow’s Sorrows.”

  He frowned. “Sounds like a soap opera.”

  “It is.”

  “You have friends who are TV actors?”

  “No, my family.” She sighed. She never talked about her family. “They live their own soap opera. I call it Tomorrow’s Sorrows because whatever they choose today inevitably ends up being something they regret tomorrow.”

  “Do you live with them?”

  “No. God rescued me from their influence. Then He rescued me from the life by giving me a job at Sorenby’s. I’m three wide states away from constant chaos, frenzy, and fights.”

  Simon didn’t say anything. She didn’t blame him. She sounded judgmental, complaining about her family. She was judgmental. Why had she opened her big mouth?

  He drove efficiently, without any macho derring-do, the rest of the way to Benjy’s. The mechanic came down and handed her the keys. She gave Benjy a check and Mr. Derrick his gift. Benjy gave her a jaunty salute, loped over to the side of the garage, and climbed the stairs that led to his home. Serious Simon Derrick held the red package with green, silver, and gold curlicues sprouting from the top.

  He stared at it as if he didn’t know what to do with it.

  Cora took pity on him. Someone should have taught this man some social graces.

  “Mrs. Hudson liked her book,” she said, trying to start a conversation.

  Simon looked up from the dilemma he held in his hand. “She opened it?”

  “Yes, she said there was no need to wait until the party, since you weren’t going to be there.”

  He nodded and looked down at the present again. He wiggled it just enough to make the curls bob.

  “You can open it now,” she suggested.

  “What did you get in the gift exchange?”

  “A plastic moose-head pencil holder for my desk.”

  His head jerked up, and he looked her in the eye. “Really?”

  She affirmed her sincerity with a very serious nod of the head.

  He grinned.

  She grinned back.