Who Needs Decaf?

“The Plan?” Oh, boy. “You don’t just mean Jonathan, do you?”

“Only if Jonathan miraculously turns out to be The One. But it’ll probably take more than one guy—”

“Meka! How many men do you and Tyler have lined up and waiting in the wings? You can’t just trot them all out and ask me to pick one.”

“Clearly you don’t watch reality TV. The networks seem to think that’s exactly how people pair up.” Her friend made a disdainful noise. “Look, I know love happens in its own time, but to fall in love with a guy, you gotta actually spend some time with a few.”

Since Sheryl wasn’t convinced she wanted to fall in love, she said nothing.

Meka wisely switched tactics. “Okay, even if you don’t find your Ty, you’ll have a selection of potential escorts for holiday parties and stuff like that. Besides, wouldn’t it be fun to double date occasionally? Between the time I spend with Ty and your working late, I hardly see you anymore. I know you want your own place, but I don’t want us to completely drift apart!”

Sighing, Sheryl conceded defeat. “Oh, all right, so I’ll agree to a few harmless double dates.” Put like that, it didn’t seem she had anything to get riled up about.

Besides, maybe there’d be some chemistry between her and one of these bachelors, a spark that would prove she could have a powerful reaction to someone besides Nathan Hall.

3

WHY DIDN’T SHE HAVE one of those headsets like the one Denise had, Sheryl wondered on Friday. It had to beat scrunching the phone between your shoulder and ear while you tried to get some work done. By eleven, Sheryl felt as if she’d already talked to a hundred people.

Of course, she’d had three calls in the past hour from Mom alone. First, she wanted to remind Sheryl about the family dinner the weekend before Christmas in addition to the actual gathering on Christmas Day, then she called back to ask if Sheryl had made any headway in her shopping, or if her mother should pick up gifts for the kids in the family and put Sheryl’s name on the tags. Feeling somewhat diminished by the suggestion she couldn’t be trusted to shop for her nieces and nephew, Sheryl had of course lied and said her holiday shopping was well under control.

Then Mom called one final time because she’d forgotten to ask what Sheryl herself wanted for Christmas. So, ha, obviously Sheryl wasn’t the only one not quite finished with shopping. Not quite finished, hadn’t bought so much as the first present or the paper to wrap it in—all depended on how you looked at it.

Too bad Mom knew her direct extension, or Sheryl could instruct Denise to run interference at the main switchboard and claim Sheryl had left for the day.

Luckily, most of the other calls had been pleasant and productive. Two years ago, with Brad’s wholehearted approval and their accountant’s assurance of tax write-offs, Sheryl had organized a community Christmas festival that helped to raise money for area families in need. Other sponsors had joined in with HGS, and the event had become an annual tradition. School counselors had been calling all morning with this year’s updated list of needy families.

So far, it looked as though the turnout for the HGS Holiday Festival on the nineteenth would be even bigger than it had been the past two years, which meant more people would be assisted. It felt great to be Santa Claus, and the festival couldn’t have come at a better time, publicity-wise. Sheryl and her assistant, Grace, had already lined up local performers and food vendors, and a volunteer committee of HGS employees was devising different contests for kids of varying ages. Brad himself would act as the final judge for all the competitions.

Pleased with her accomplishments, Sheryl consulted her to-do list of everything she wanted to achieve before lunch, and her mood took a sharp bah-humbug turn. Call Nathan Hall’s office and arrange appointment. She should do that immediately to give him the most advance notice of the Christmas party and increase his chances of being able to attend. Squirming in her seat, she admitted to herself that she should have called yesterday. But she’d just been so busy…

Her fingers reached for the phone with all the enthusiasm she usually reserved for doctors’ appointments that involved stirrups.

But the receptionist who answered was a cheerful woman who easily accommodated Sheryl with a meeting first thing Tuesday morning, so maybe Nathan’s schedule wasn’t quite as jam-packed as he’d insinuated. Which confirmed her suspicion that his refusal to talk with her had been a power move—very annoying, even if she had shown up unannounced for the same reason.

No sooner had Sheryl disconnected than the persistent red light for line one flashed again, a mere second before the distinct buzz that indicated a call was coming through. If it’s Mom again, I’m asking Brad to authorize a new extension for me. “Sheryl Dayton.”

“Ah, um, Sheryl, I hope you don’t mind, but Tameka gave me your personal ex—oh, this is Jonathan Spencer. We, ah, met last night.”

“I remember,” she assured him.

They’d sat next to each other through the two-hour movie, then joined Tyler and Meka for a late snack at a local diner. Jonathan had seemed nice enough, though to be honest, not particularly memorable, which, judging from his nervous tone, he realized. But she was sure there was more to the man than she’d glimpsed last night. He was probably a wonderful guy just waiting to be found by the right lucky woman.

He cleared his throat. “I don’t usually call women this soon after first meeting them—didn’t want you to think I was desperate or, ah, you know, a stalker—but this morning a client gave me two tickets to The Nutcracker tomorrow night. I thought if you’re not already busy, you might like to go with me?”

Well, since Meka wasn’t available for that girls’ night out this weekend, Sheryl didn’t really have plans. Besides, she needed to work on her holiday spirit this year, and she hadn’t seen the ballet since she was a little girl. Maybe Nutcracker was just what she needed.

“That sounds great Jonathan, thanks for thinking of me. What time’s the show?”

He answered promptly, as though afraid she’d change her mind if he didn’t, and volunteered to pick her up. “Would you like to have dinner beforehand?”

Sheryl did a quick mental analysis. He’d been awfully quiet last night. Maybe just because he was too polite to talk during movies, and Meka and Ty had monopolized conversation afterwards. Still, if Jonathan were as silent Saturday evening, it could make for a long dinner.

“I have a ton of shopping that I’ll be doing tomorrow,” she demurred, “and it may run into the early evening. Why don’t we just go to the show and maybe coffee afterwards?”

A good compromise, she thought. And in case of a true dating emergency, like he belched to the melody of Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy or excused himself during intermission to call his wife, she’d claim unforeseen exhaustion and ask to go straight home. Of course, she seriously doubted he’d do either of those things, but a smart single gal didn’t overlook a possible escape route on a first date.

THE DOORBELL RANG at seven sharp. Whatever else could be said about Jonathan Spencer, he was punctual. Sheryl opened the door with a welcoming smile.

“You look nice,” Jonathan said immediately, as though he’d rehearsed his greeting.

Almost as an afterthought, he ran a quick glance down the forest-green, ankle-length velvet sheath she wore under a matching mock duster of green-and-black velvet. The long jacket was edged in black satin at the cuffs and lapels. She’d be plenty warm, the outfit just wasn’t very water-resistant. Those weathermen who’d promised a clear, starry night with a record-breaking lack of precipitation had better have known what they were talking about.

“You, too,” she said, taking in his blue suit and pinstripe tie.

Jonathan was good-looking, she realized absently. Average height, he had coloring reminiscent of the beach—thick sandy hair and oceanic aquamarine eyes. So why was she only just now noticing he was attractive and even then in a detached, he’d-make-a-good-date-for-my-sister, kind of way? Here stood a reasonably handsome man with a good job, acceptable table manners and cultured enough not to feel like a sissy attending the ballet. Frankly, after a few of the bad dates she and Meka had discussed in their collective pasts, the table manners alone put him ahead of some of the men out there. But there was no sense of anticipation or attraction, no flutter of first-date nerves.

Nonetheless, she smiled brightly and grabbed her black handbag off of a hook near the front door. “Where’s the performance? I didn’t think to ask when you called yesterday. The Paramount? Mercer Arts Center?”

“Actually, it’s at a place I’m not familiar with, but I got the map off the Web.” He retrieved two tickets from his jacket pocket, studying one quizzically. She just made out the word Nutcracker before he folded the tickets back into his pocket. “The Backstage Pass?”

Sheryl could feel her eyebrows zoom up and disappear beneath her bangs. “The Backstage Pass, really?”

How many theaters in Seattle could there be by that name? She’d been there twice, once as a requirement for a college elective, and once in the pre-Ty days when Meka had been dating a would-be actor. Tameka would roll on the floor laughing when Sheryl told her she’d gone back.

The Backstage Pass specialized in bizarre, experimental performances, and while Sheryl wasn’t a regular theater buff, she also wasn’t a total neophyte to the Seattle arts scene. She’d seen a couple of truly wonderful alternative pieces in this city, but not at the Backstage Pass. The play she’d seen in college—billed as a “romance” —consisted of a man and woman standing on stage for a solid hour quoting verses from obscure poems on love while playing Ping-Pong. In the nude.

The program explained that the nudity represented men’s and women’s desire for true intimacy and no barriers, while the indoor tennis table was a metaphor for the games that people play anyway, preventing that very intimacy. Sheryl got all that, but she figured that if you had to explain the symbolism, it probably wasn’t working very well. Besides, though there was nothing at all vulgar about the tedious, vaguely pretentious one-act, some people just weren’t meant to be naked in front of an audience. Particularly if they were going to dive energetically to the left to volley an opponent’s serve.

The second time she’d gone—to support Tameka and watch the boyfriend who’d generously and inaccurately called himself an actor—the play hadn’t even aspired to something as lofty as symbolism. It had been simple shock theater, designed to offend audiences, and, if failing to raise that level of emotion, then at least gross them out.

What was a place like that doing with a traditional holiday ballet like Nutcracker?

“Anything wrong?” Jonathan asked, snapping her back to the present.

“Um…” He already seemed nervous about tonight; she didn’t want to say anything that might be construed as a complaint this early in the evening.

Maybe it won’t be so bad.

For all she knew, the place was under new management. The show’s title was at least the same, a good sign. If they were doing some sort of revisionist adaptation, didn’t they normally alter the name? The Wiz, for example, had been a jazzed-up version of The Wizard of Oz. If Jonathan had said the show was called Crackin’ The Nut, then she’d have reason to worry.

She kicked her smile up another notch, hoping she didn’t look like some phony, cheerful early-morning news anchor. “Nope, everything is just fine.”

Of course, two hours later, she wished that instead of being polite she’d advised Jonathan that they run, not walk, in the opposite direction of the theater to seek out other entertainment. Because “entertaining” certainly didn’t describe the evening she was being subjected to.

When they’d arrived, Sheryl had noticed that she and Jonathan seemed overdressed compared to most of the other patrons. But it wasn’t until they reached the ushers at the front of the auditorium that she noticed the billboard: Nutcracker! and then in much smaller print underneath, “A dark, urbanized retelling of the original tale.” Oh, good, just what Christmas needed—dark urbanization.

As Jonathan followed her gaze, he began to look nervous—even more so than before—and immediately retrieved the tickets from his pocket, squinting at the small print. “I had no idea,” he stammered. “A client gave…I saw the first word and just assumed…”