My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories(77)

“That far?” she asked.

“How far?” I stood.

“Third grade.”

“What happened in third grade?” I pushed a box of halos aside to retrieve another wayward page.

“You broke all the pencils in your pencil box, and then told the teacher I did it. I had to write ‘Abraham Lincoln is on the penny’ five hundred times.”

I laughed. “I’m sorry.”

Gracie’s eyes sparkled. “So was I.”

The door opened again, and playbook sheets flew back into the air. Gracie ran to the right, lurching between the Dixie flag and a pile of scrolls. I ran to the left, onto the stage, dodging between hoop skirts and the trough that served as the manger. A horse—Confederate cap nestled between his ears—stood in the middle of the arena. He was flanked by General Robert E. Lee, who was in full Confederate regalia, down to his Smith & Wesson. There were five soldiers behind him, and they were in deep conversation with General Grant.

Pastor Robinson joined them with a smile. It melted like Frosty in the hothouse.

“Uh-oh,” I said.

“Uh-oh, what?” Gracie peeked around me, putting her hand on the small of my back. I focused on standing up straight and wondered where putting my arm around her would fall on the awkward scale.

“Why are they here?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” I leaned forward, trying to catch the tone of their conversation.

After a brief and heated discussion—during which Gracie’s delicate hand never left my back—her father climbed the stage steps. He was smiling, but it wasn’t a real smile. I sensed panic.

“The Rebel Yell has a show tonight,” he said.

Gracie handed me her pages and stepped into his line of vision. “We have a show tonight,” she disagreed.

“Mr. Baron never removed tonight’s Rebel Yell performance from the website, so people were still buying tickets online.” Pastor Robinson gestured for us to follow him, and we made a beeline for the box office. After a brief discussion with the attendant, he turned around. “Not only are we double booked, but the Rebel Yell is sold out. And every single ticket for the nativity was distributed last Sunday. I … I don’t know what to do. The show is supposed to start in two hours. What a catastrophe.” Pastor Robinson ran his hand over his face. He looked so defeated and only twenty minutes ago, he’d been laughing.

Guilt swallowed me whole. But it was followed by a chaser of hope.

“Sir?” I stepped closer to him, clutching the playbook in both hands. My voice was the pitch of a tiny, wide-eyed Disney mammal. “I think I can help.”

“Really?” he asked. “How?”

“Catastrophes are my specialty.”

*

“I can’t believe you did that.” Gracie’s awe could have powered me through a triathlon. “What now? You’re just gonna throw stuff out there and hope something takes?”

“Pretty much. It’s like that spaghetti thing—throwing it at the wall to see if it sticks.”

“I wonder if that’s real,” she mused, tapping her finger against her chin. “Like, do you think the Olive Garden has a spaghetti wall? Do you think the wait staff has to draw straws to see who has to peel it off at the end of the night?”

I grinned. “Get to work.”

Gracie made a list of the traditional media outlets, and I drafted an announcement for the social ones. “I’ll call the radio stations first,” she said. “HOTT FM is playing Christmas carols, so I’ll start with them.” She winked at me before she turned away.

They’d played nothing but Christmas carols since the day after Halloween, and I predicted most of the population had retreated to gangster rap to escape the merriment. But I didn’t contradict her. She looked so hopeful.

A voice interrupted my thoughts. “We can manage the crowd, but the parking is another story.”

Pastor Robinson was beside me, and I hadn’t even noticed. I was thankful Gracie was still wearing the purple bathrobe, or he’d have caught me checking out her departure.

“We’ll have to round up someone to direct traffic,” he said. “Maybe there are some orange cones … we could make signs for entrance and exits…” He trailed off as his eyes scoured the junk backstage, seeking solutions.

“You work all the time, don’t you, Pastor Robinson?” I asked.

“Dan. You can call me Dan,” he said.

No, I couldn’t.

Then he frowned. “I don’t have office hours on Friday or Saturday.”

“I mean … you’re always on. Things don’t filter through your brain by going in one ear and out the other. There’s always something to process.”

I could see him doing some processing right now. After a moment, he nodded thoughtfully. And then he gave me the kind of answer that adults usually avoid. An honest one. “I do quite a bit of reading, studying, counseling. Lots of speaking. I can put those things out of my mind, especially when it comes to Gracie. But you’re right. There are always people who need caring for, and I can never turn that off.”

I wanted to thank him for leaving it on for me, but I didn’t know how. “Gracie said you believe in what you do.”

“Yes, that’s true.”