Santa's Playbook

“Baba brought over the meatballs, I made the sauce. There’s salad and garlic bread, too—”

“So I ran into Miss Jacobs in the parking lot, and she said you had some big news to tell me?”

The kid’s smile punched him right in the gut, like it always did. “The girl playing the Ghost of Christmas Past had to drop out of the play, so Miss Jacobs had a bunch of us read for it. Then the rest of the cast voted on who should get the part, and...I won!”

“Way to go, you!” he said, giving her a high five...even if his enthusiasm didn’t match hers. And yes, he felt bad about that, that he couldn’t get completely behind something that clearly meant so much to his daughter.

Whose eyes were sparkling more than he’d ever seen them. “I mean, I know it’s only a high school play, but I so wanted this—I even prayed about it.”

Ethan felt his mouth flatten. “Jules...”

“Oh, I didn’t ask God to give me the part! But I didn’t think it’d hurt to ask Him to help me do my best when I read. That’s okay, right? I mean, isn’t that how the guys pray before the game? To play their best?”

She had him there. Granted, the prayers were unofficial and unsanctioned—and completely voluntary—but the pregame ritual had been an open secret for years. Maple River was a town of many faiths, and a surprising number of the kids walked the walk. And if praying fired the guys up, made them more focused, Ethan was all for it. So he turned a blind eye, even if his own faith had been a little tattered around the edges for some time.

“Not that I’m any expert,” he said, “but seeing as it worked, I guess you got it right.”

“I am so excited,” she said on a blissful sigh, turning away to collect bowls from the cupboard. “Because it’s, like, another step, right?”

“Toward?”

The bowls clunked onto the table. “My acting career, what else?”

“And like you said...it’s only a high school play.”

“Dad,” she said, giving him the side eye as she clunked the bowls on the table. “Have you not been listening to anything I’ve been saying for the past three months? I love acting. It’s like...it’s like I’ve finally figured out who I am. What I’m supposed to do with my life. And yes, I know I’ve done like a million other things before now, and given up on all of them, but...but this is different.”

Ethan’s forehead knotted. “I thought your eBay business...?”

“That’s part of my plan, yeah. To help pay my way through college. But I already know I want to major in drama. And not at some Podunk local school, either. At Yale. Or Carnegie Mellon. Maybe even Julliard.”

At that, a tremor traipsed up his spine, the same tremor—or one of its many, many cousins—that had assailed him with relentless regularity ever since Merri’s death, the realization that he couldn’t protect the kids from making mistakes, from disappointment.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want Jules to be happy—of course he did. Hell, he’d sell his own soul—presuming the market value on it hadn’t tanked—to ensure all of his kids’ happiness. That was a given. But worry niggled, too, that she was only setting herself up for a fall. Not only about being one of the few stagestruck kids to actually make it as an actor, but even getting into those schools...

Then reality clunked him on the noggin, reminding him again that Jules was only fifteen, that her only brush with acting was this class, which she’d only been in for a few months. With that, the fear backed off and went looking for someone else to torment. At least for the moment. Yeah, there was stuff he still wanted to say, warnings he wanted to give. But at this point, he’d only be wasting his breath, since what was the likelihood of a strong-willed teenage girl actually heeding her father’s warnings?

So all he said was, “Those are some lofty goals,” as the other kids stormed back into the kitchen to noisily take their places at the table.

“Aim high, Mom always said. Right?”

Actually, what she’d said was, “Aim high, kick fear in the nuts and live like you’ll die tomorrow.”

“Right,” Ethan said, swallowing the baseball-size knot in his throat.

* * *

The next morning, Claire cautiously threaded through the herd of students surging to their first-period classes, the cardboard tray holding two coffees precariously clutched in her still-frozen fingers. It was ridiculous how badly her stomach was boogying, never mind that Ethan’s office door would most likely stay open and this wasn’t even remotely personal. This was about the kids, period. And surely she had the wherewithal to pull off a simple conference without sounding like someone who’d been teaching for five minutes.

Someone who, despite how far she’d come, was still far more comfortable on a stage or in the front of a classroom of rowdy students than she was one-on-one with the likes of Ethan Noble.

Gosh, she hadn’t been on this side of the building since those long-ago days of required PE in the tenth grade, a thought that did not evoke even the faintest trace of nostalgia. The bell rang, magically sucking students out of the halls and into classrooms. Claire scurried the rest of the way to Ethan’s office, through halls that smelled faintly of chlorine from the indoor pool. His office door was open, but she rapped lightly on the glass insert, anyway. He glanced up, then stood, with what he probably thought was a smile.

“Hey,” he said, looking as though he’d rather be anywhere else, with anyone else. Yeah, promised to be a great chat. “Right on time.”

“I brought coffee,” Claire said, holding aloft the tray, willing it not to wobble. “Couldn’t remember what you liked, so I got straight black. Cream and sugar optional.”

“Black’s fine. Thanks.”

Claire pried one of the cups out of its little nest, muttering a mild obscenity when a few drops squeezed out from underneath the lid and dribbled down the side. The tray clumsily lowered to his desk, she snatched a napkin from the bunch fortuitously wedged in one of the empty cutouts to wipe up her mess before handing the once-more-tidy cup to him.

“Thanks,” Ethan said again as she wadded up the soggy napkin and stuffed it into her coat pocket. Looking almost amused, he reached behind him for a metal trash can, held it out.

“Right,” she said, fishing out the napkin and dropping it into the receptacle. He replaced the can, then gestured toward the chair in front of his desk before sitting back in his, taking a long sip of the coffee. “Jules is very excited about getting that part, by the way.”

Okay, good start... “And you didn’t even hear the screech when the stage manager read her name. Like Justin Bieber had asked her out.” Claire unsnapped her coat, took a drink of her own coffee. Still warm, hallelujah. “Or whoever the hottie du jour is, I’m not really up on these things.”

“You’re not up on these things.” Ethan shook his head. “Do they change every week, or am I completely out of the loop?”

She smiled. “Both, probably,” she said, and—amazingly—he started to smile back...only to apparently remember why they were there.

“So. We have an issue. About my players not passing your class.”

“No,” Claire said carefully. “Ultimately, this is Roland’s and Zach’s issue. Not ours. But I do want them to be successful. To feel successful—”

Ethan scowled. “And you think I don’t?”

“In all areas of their lives. Not only football.” She leaned forward, her heart hammering. That scowl... One might say it was intimidating. One might also say it was dead sexy, but this was neither the time nor the place. “Look, I’m well aware how important the football program is to Hoover. And that’s fine...as far as it goes. The problem is, the guys get this idea that academics come a distant second to sports, especially that sport, that nothing trumps bringing home that dang championship trophy, that they’re far more valued for their brawn than their brains. And for what? I care about these kids, Ethan. And it kills me to see them not even try to live up to their full potential. So...” She felt her face heat. “Thought I’d put that out there.”

His silence seemed to suck the air out of the room, just as his steady gaze sucked the air from her. Then something flickered in those icy blue eyes, although his posture changed not one whit. “You like football?”

“Not particularly, no.”

His mouth might’ve twitched. “You think it’s stupid? Silly? Pointless?”

“Do I have to choose?”

“Good thing you brought coffee,” Ethan said, and this time she definitely saw a twitch. “Otherwise a person might think you were here to pick a fight.”

“Being up front isn’t the same as picking a fight. But no way am I fudging grades so the kids can still play. Which I know other teachers have done.”

At that, his brows lifted. Not a lot, but enough. “And you think I asked them to do that?”

“You tell me.”

“No. Never.”

“Oh.”