Somebody's Santa

“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 if that would warm up the old thought process and help her find the right words to explain her feelings. Except, it wasn’t her brain that was frozen against all the joyous possibilities Christmas represented to so many. She loved the Lord, and observed His birth in her own way. “I love going to church for the candlelight service on Christmas Eve. I love singing the hymns and all, but….”

“But after that you don’t have no one to go home to and share it all with,” Zach said softly.

“How did you know that?” The observation left her feeling so exposed she could hardly breathe.

“You don’t dust around folks’s nicknacks and geegaws or throw out their calendar’s pages or run into them working on the day after Thanksgiving year upon year without learning a thing or two about those folks.”

The answer humbled her even if it didn’t bring her much relief. “I’ll bet.”

“Anyway, don’t think it’s my place to say—or sing—anything more, but I hate to leave without at least…” He scratched his head, worked his mouth side to side a couple of times then finally sighed. “I’ll just offer this thought.”

Dora braced herself, pressing her lips together to keep from blurting out that she didn’t need his thoughts or sympathy or songs. Because, deep down, she sort of hoped that whatever he had to say might help.

He lifted his spray bottle of disinfectant cleaner the way someone else might have raised a glass to make a toast. “Here’s to hoping this year is different.”

It didn’t help.

But Dora smiled. At least she thought she smiled. She felt her face move, but really it could have been anything from a fleeting grin to that wince she tended to make when forcing her feet into narrow-toed high heels. Just as quickly she fixed her attention on the papers in front of her and busied herself with shuffling them about. “Thanks. Now I need to get back to work. Can’t make a deal on merely hoping things will improve, can I?”

“On the contrary.” The challenge came from the tall blond man who placed himself squarely in her office doorway. “I’d say that hope is at the very core of every deal.”

Burke Burdett! Questions blew through Dora’s mind more quickly than those fictional eight tiny reindeer pulling a flying sleigh. But the words came out of her mouth fast and furious and from the very rock bottom of her own reality. “How dare you show your face to me.”

“Show my face? The view don’t get any better from the other side, Dora,” he drawled in his low, lazy Carolina accent.