Somebody's Santa. Annie Jones
would have loved a reason to brave the throng and chaos this time of year to find just the right thing to express how she felt, to make someone smile, to give them…well, just to give from her heart. Instead she had work to do, and if she hoped to take her yearly sabbatical starting next week, she had to get back to it.
She flipped over a piece of paper in the file and narrowed her eyes at the long column of numbers. “I’m shopping all right. I just have a different idea of what constitutes a bargain.”
“Looking for a couple of small businesses to snatch up and use as stocking stuffers, eh?”
“Snatch up? You make me sound like a bird of prey swooping down for the kill.”
“Eat like a bird,” he said, emptying the day’s trash—an apple core, a picked-over salad in a plastic container, half a sandwich with just the crusts nibbled away. “And you’re always flitting around, never perching anyplace for long.”
“I’ve been based in this office for seven years, now, Zach.”
“Seven years, and I’m still dusting the same office chair. Ain’t ever in it long enough to wear it out and requisition a new one.”
“Point taken.” She laughed. For a moment she considered quizzing the man on what else he had concluded about her over the years, but a flashing light and a buzz from her phone system stopped her.
“Ms….” The barely audible voice cut out, followed by another buzz then, “This is…” Silence, another buzz. “…says that…” A longer silence, a buzz, then nothing, not even static.
She frowned.
Zach chuckled and gave a shrug. “Security. Brought in extra help for the holidays and made the new ones work this weekend.”
“Not like you, huh, Zach? You let your staff have the time off and came in yourself.” She admired that. It showed the character to put others before your own desires and the integrity to make sure you still meet your promised goals.
“Just the way I roll, I reckon,” Zach said matter-of-factly. Then he nodded his head toward the bin beneath her paper shredder, his way of asking if she wanted him to take the zillion cross-cut strips of paper away with the rest of the trash.
She shook her head. Nobody got a glimpse of her business, not even in bits and pieces. She glanced down at the pad on her desk and the silly little doodle of a very Zach-like elf pushing a candy-cane broom and suppressed a smile. It was only business, she admitted to herself as she tore off the page and slid it into the middle of the pile of papers waiting for the shredder. The man might come to some conclusions about her on his own, but she wouldn’t supply any confirmation. That was the way she rolled.
Never show your soft side. Never reveal all your talents, even the more whimsical ones. Never let anyone get a peek at what you think of them. Never share your dreams. Never act on anything in blind trust, not even your own feelings.
And most importantly, never let your hopes or your heart do the work that is the rightful domain of your history and your head.
She’d learned that lesson the hard way and not all that long ago.
She looked at the nest of shredded paper and blinked. Tears blurred her vision. The tip of her nose stung.
For an instant she was in South Carolina on a lovely summer day at a family barbeque. Not her family, but one in which she had thought she might one day find a place.
Dora Burdett. How many times had she doodled that name like some young girl in middle school with her first crush? Crush. What an apt word for what had happened to that dream.
She cleared her throat, spread her hands wide over the open file before her and anchored herself firmly in the present. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to my work.”
“Always wheelin’ and dealin’, huh, Ms. Hoag?”
“I head Acquisitions and Mergers, Zach.” She raised her head and stared at the massive logo for GrimEx-Cynergetic Global Com Limited on the green marble wall beyond her open door, where professional decorators had already begun hanging greenery with Global gold-and-silver ornaments. “It’s my job to find the best deals before anyone else does.”
“One step ahead of all those poor saps who took the long weekend off to get a jump on the holidays, right?”
“Yeah,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Those poor saps.”
How she so wanted to be one of them.
All her life that was what she had wanted most of all—to have somebody recognize what she had to give, and to accept it and her. Not as an obligation or duty or in hopes of currying favor but because…she mattered.
Dora had never truly felt that she mattered. She, the things she did, the things she thought, her hopes, her dreams, her. Not in that way when someone loves you despite your shortcomings. When someone not only wants the best for you but feels you are the best for them, that you bring out the best in each other. She did not grow up in a home like that.
Her mother died when she was born. Her overwhelmed father left his newborn in the care of a childless and already middle-aged aunt and uncle while he went away to “find himself” and “get his head on straight,” as people said in the seventies.
Apparently he never did either thing, because he never returned for Dora. Sometimes when Dora thought about him she imagined a man wandering about with his head facing backward, asking total strangers if they had seen his lost self.
Aunt Enid and Uncle Taylor did their best to care for her as their own. They started this by naming her Dora, which already put her at a disadvantage among peers with names like Summer, Montana and Jessica. So she kept to herself and worked hard, trying to make her foster parents proud. And for her effort she drew the attention of teachers and administrators. They called her “the little adult” and made jokes about her being “ten going on forty” and tried to get her to lighten up a little. But whenever they needed something done—from choosing a child to represent the school at a leadership conference to helping out in the office or being in charge of the cash box at the pep club bake sale—they tapped Dora.
She learned quickly that hard work and efficiency opened doors. It wasn’t the same as fitting in or mattering to someone but it came a close second. About as good as Dora thought she’d ever see.
Still, she couldn’t help wondering how different her life might be if just once someone had reached out and asked her to come through the doors her drive had created.
A small thing.
A shouted invitation to join a crowded lunch table.
A remembered birthday.
An explanation of why a certain blond-haired, South Carolina gentleman had slammed the door in her face when she had only wanted to…
“I’m dreaming of a…”
“Please, no Christmas songs, Zach.”
“Too early in the season for you?” the man asked, as he tossed his dust rag on top of his cart and began to back the cart out of the room.
“Something like that.” Especially when her mind had just flashed back to last summer and that family barbeque when she had thought that finally she had done something so caring and constructive that it would change her entire life. That the man she had offered to help, she dared hope, would change her life.
Dora Burdett.
She pressed her eyes closed.
Zach cleared his throat.
A twinge of guilt tightened her shoulders and made her sit upright, look the man in the eyes and produce a conciliatory smile. “Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of those who wants to do away with Merry Christmas or any of the wonderful trappings of the season. I just…”
She put her hand over her forehead, as