'Twas the Night

by Sandra Hill

  Using only a Blue Angels brochure he’d pulled from his duffel bag and a cardboard model airplane he’d put together from a kit he’d found on the bus, Sam talked informally about airplanes, their parts, how they worked, modern technology, and how he’d first become interested in flying. It could have been boring, but it wasn’t. Sam interspersed his narration with self-deprecating humor and interesting stories, especially relating to stunts performed by the Blue Angels . . . Barrel Rolls, Loops, Splits, High Alphas. He also peppered his talk with smiles, and when Sam Merrick smiled, the world tilted on its axis. At least, Reba’s did.

  “He is some kind of hunk,” Jane remarked to her.

  Apparently, Reba’s world wasn’t the only one being rocked by Sam. She hadn’t realized that the shelter director was standing next to her. This was the third year that they’d stopped at Sammy’s; so she knew her fairly well. “Yep. Hunk about says it all.”

  “Is he yours?”

  “Huh?” Reba studied Jane, normally a ball of energy around the shelter, to see where that question had come from. No more than thirty years old, she was an attractive, no-nonsense woman with plain clothes and a clear vision of life. She was also red-faced, but unabashedly interested. “No, Sam doesn’t belong to me.” Darn it!

  No, no, no! Not “darn it.” I meant, “Thank goodness.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Absolutely.” Oh, all right. I do mean, “Darn it.’ “Why do you ask?”

  “The way you two look at each other, it’s as if you’re the only two people in the universe.”

  Pleasure rippled through Reba, despite herself.

  “And sometimes when you’re not looking, he stares at you with what can only be described as . . . well, hunger.”

  Oh, good heavens! The ripples turned to waves. Hot waves. “Of course, you look at him the same way.”

  Do not!

  “Do ya hafta be rich to become a pilot?” a little boy in front of them asked, thus jarring Reba back to Sam’s presentation. Thank goodness! The half-pint wore a faded plaid shirt rolled up at the cuffs, jeans rolled up at the hems—both probably courtesy of Goodwill—and red basketball shoes with lots of holes in them. His black hair was slicked back wetly . . . obviously from a recent bath for this special Christmas event.

  “That’s Richie Taylor. A sad case. He’s nine years old. His mother’s a cocaine addict. They live here most of the time,” Jane whispered in Reba’s ear. “God only knows where they live the rest of the time.”

  Reba’s heart about broke when she gazed at the boy. He, and children like him, were the reason the Santa Brigade worked so tirelessly. Their piddly gifts probably didn’t make that much difference in the scheme of things, but if all they showed was that someone cared . . . well, that was enough, she supposed.

  Sam shook his head. “I was an orphan. If being a pilot . . . or a Blue Angel . . . called for money, I never would have made it. Nope, I got a scholarship to the Naval Academy. That’s where I first learned to fly.”

  The little boy didn’t seem heartened by that news. He raised his hand again. “Betcha have to be super smart, then.”

  Sam laughed. “Nope, again. You don’t have to be super smart, but you do have to work hard.”

  Another child . . . a girl this time, wearing long blonde pigtails and minus two front teeth . . . asked, “Can girls be pilots, too?”

  “Of course,” Sam said, “but only if they’re as pretty as you are.” The little girl beamed.

  Someone else was waving a hand wildly. It was the Stan Santa. “Do ya get lots of girls, wearing a fancy uniform and all? Do the females, like, fall at your feet? Huh? Huh? Huh?”

  Sam flashed another of his rock-your-world smiles and pretended to visually search the floor at the base of his stool for piles of babes. “To tell the truth, sir,” he told Stan, “most of the fallen women get taken by celebrity sports heroes. Pilots and lesser beings get the leftovers.”

  Everyone craned their necks to gape at Stan at the back of the circle, some of them even examining his feet to see if there was perhaps a fallen woman or two. Stan had the grace to blush and raise a two-fingered salute to Sam in a “checkmate” fashion.

  Lots of other questions followed, many involving pilot training, the kinds of planes he’d flown, where he’d traveled, but mostly regarding the intricate, dangerous aerobatics he performed in supersonic jets.

  “Actually, we’ve been trained so well that many of the maneuvers are routine to us. Doesn’t matter if I’m doing triple loops. Doesn’t matter if I’m flying jets, upside down, at five hundred miles a minute. Doesn’t matter if my fellow Blues are flying jets which are really only an arm’s length from mine. None of these stunts seem any more dangerous to me than driving down a highway in a car.”

  “Could someone become a pilot if they . . . uh . . . didn’t go ta school everyday? Uhm . . . uh . . . like maybe they had ta stay home sometimes and . . . you know . . . take care of . . . uh . . . someone.” It was Richie again, and the boy’s eyes darted with concern, that he’d said too much, across the room to where an extremely thin, limp-haired woman in denim coveralls leaned against a wall, her eyes bloodshot, her hands trembling with the need for a fix. Richie’s mother. She was probably twenty-five but looked no more than fifteen, malnourished as she was. Shit! Fifteen was probably the age when she’d become pregnant with the boy.

  Sam’s gaze, like Reba’s, had made the connection with the young woman. Except that his expression was horrified, then angry, for a brief moment before he masked it over. Reba knew that he’d made a connection between Richie’s background and his own.

  “Son,” he said, after gulping several times, “you can do anything you want in life. Anything. If you can’t make it to school everyday . . . big deal! Study at home. If you don’t have the money for books, find a library. And ask an adult for help, if you need to. There are lots of people out there who are dying to help a bright kid like you.”

  The kid brightened on being referred to as bright.

  “And, remember, no matter how bad things are around you, you can rise above it. I did.”

  Jane started to applaud, and everyone joined in.

  Sam seemed stunned. He hadn’t realized that he was done. He glowered at Reba, as if to say, “See what you got me into?”

  Then, he stood and walked resolutely away, nodding and shaking hands as he wended his way through the crowd. One thing she noticed. Distracted and anxious to get away as he obviously was, he took the time to hand the Blue Angels brochure to Richie and patted his head as he passed by.

  It took twenty minutes for Reba to find him. He should have known she’d follow him. As much as he adored her, she could be a real pest sometimes.

  If I’d asked her to come with me, she’d have probably refused, but when I want to be alone, she suddenly becomes my shadow. Jeesh! Doesn’t she know there are times when a guy needs to lick his wounds in private?

  “Sam, are you in there?”

  Yep, a pest.

  Noticing that he was, indeed, inside the storage room, she closed the door firmly behind her, not even asking if she could come in. Pest, pest, pest! “You left in such a hurry, JD and Stan were worried about you . . . I was worried about you.”

  JD and Stan always worry about me. We worry about each other. Big deal! If I stubbed my big toe, they’d be on me like regular Floyd Nightengales.

  Because there were no chairs, he was sitting on a long oak table, where they probably sorted groceries. His legs dangled down to the floor. On both walls, he was surrounded by industrial sized cans of everything from catsup to chocolate pudding. There was a whole ten-foot shelf for toilet tissue alone . . . enough for a small army.

  “I’ll be out in a few minutes. Go away, Reba.”

  Did she listen to him? No. Just like always, she had a mind of her own. Coming closer, she questioned, “What’s the matter? Why are you hiding out in here?”

  “I’m not hiding. Go away, Reba.”
r />   She made a small sound of skepticism. “Meditating then?”

  “Don’t be a smart mouth.” He sighed deeply. Reba clearly wasn’t going to go away without an explanation. “Look, if I’d stayed out there, I probably would have strangled that woman.”

  Reba didn’t even bother to ask who he was referring to. She knew. The little boy’s mother. “You can’t blame her for—”

  “Can’t blame her? I sure can blame her, and I do. What the hell business does she have bringing a kid into the world if she doesn’t plan to care for it? She doesn’t give a damn about that boy. All she cares about is sucking more shit up her nose . . . or pumping it into her veins.”

  “Jane told me that Richie . . . that’s the boy’s name . . . is permitted to stay at the shelter anytime, but addicts are not allowed in unless they’re clean. His mother is trying. She’s been clean for several weeks.”

  “Weeks!” Sam scoffed.

  “Sam, addiction’s an illness.”

  “Bull!”

  “You have no right to say she doesn’t love her son.”

  “Yes, I do. I have every right. If she loved that boy, she would give up the drugs. The child should be more precious to her than the high.”

  Reba shimmied her fat Santa behind up onto the table beside him. Apparently, she was planning to stay. The word pest came to mind.

  “Sam, I worked with some drug addicts when I was in practice. I can’t begin to understand how it would feel to have a druggie for a Mom, but I do know this . . . drug addiction is a sickness that supplants everything else in a person’s life . . . even family ties. It’s not an excuse, but an explanation.” On and on she went trying to convince him he was wrong.

  The explanations were logical, but it was hard to take them seriously when they came from a Santa Claus. Still, he found himself listening. In the end, he wasn’t convinced. “People like that should be put in jail.”

  “Or forced to go into rehab programs,” she argued, taking his hand in hers—a first since he’d met up with her two days ago—and twining her fingers with his. “I’ll tell you one thing. Your mother must have loved you a great deal.”

  So that’s why she’d taken his hand? So he couldn’t escape her clutches. He tugged, anyhow. But she was determined to tell him something he just knew he wasn’t going to like. Dangerous territory Reba treaded here. If she was a man, he’d probably punch her in the nose for the nerve. He restrained himself, barely. “I . . . don’t . . . want . . . to . . . hear . . . this.”

  “Well, you’re going to hear it. Think about it, Sam. Your mother knew her habit was out of control. Did she o.d. on the street, uncaring of your welfare? Did she sell you to some pimp for drug money? Did she walk off and leave you to fend for yourself? No, she took you to the safest place she knew . . . a police station . . . and asked them to find a home for you. I can’t imagine how that tore her heart out. What greater love could she have shown for you than to give you up?”

  What greater love could she have shown for you than to give you up? The words repeated themselves over and over in Sam’s head. Impossible! They couldn’t be true. Could they?

  “Don’t you have any good memories of your mother?” Reba persisted.

  He squeezed his eyes shut tight, trying not to hear, trying not to remember his mother in the earlier non-drug days. “Laughing. She used to laugh a lot,” he revealed before he had a chance to curb his tongue. “And jumping rope . . . I have a vivid mind picture of her jumping rope with me. She loved jelly beans and chili hot dogs and pink lipstick. And Saturday morning cartoons. How could I have forgotten those? The two of us . . . me only three or four . . . and she . . . hell, she must have been only seventeen or so . . . lying on a tattered sofa watching marathons of Scooby Doo and Bullwinkle and Roadrunner on that old black and white TV.”

  “My God, Sam! She must have been a kid herself. A teenager with a baby. And no husband or family to help her out.

  There was a long silence between them before he spoke again. “Thank you,” he said, squeezing Reba’s hand.

  She cocked her head to the side to see him better. “For what?”

  “For making me see that maybe I’ve been wrong about my mother. Well, not wrong exactly . . . just not seeing the whole picture. I’m not saying I forgive her or anything like that. It’s too soon. I might not ever be able to go that far. But you’ve given me some things to think about.”

  “That’s a start,” Reba said softly.

  Now seemed like a good time to change the subject, in Sam’s opinion. “You look sexy in that Santa outfit.”

  “I do not. I look silly.” She ripped off her mustache, beard and hat. About a yard of silky gold strands billowed out in the process. “Oh, definitely sexy.”

  “You look pretty sexy yourself . . . in that uniform.”

  “You think?” He smiled. Man, she had to be the only woman in the world who could take him from depression to happiness in a matter of seconds. “That’s what all the girls say.”

  “I’ll bet they do.”

  “Reba, I’ve never been as promiscuous as everyone thought.”

  “I know.”

  Yep, now that he thought about it, Reba had never believed all the wild stories about him. She’d been like a pit bull to his rescue anytime accusations had been made. Always, she’d taken his side, without question. He wanted that pit bull back. He wanted Reba back.

  Glancing down, he realized that they were still holding hands. It felt so very, very good, just sitting there with Reba in companionable silence. Like old times.

  After a while, though, it wasn’t enough.

  “I’ve never made love with a Santa before,” he said tentatively. He braced himself, in case Reba decided to bop him over the head with a five-pound can of stewed tomatoes.

  Instead, a mischievous gleam entered her eyes . . . eyes which he suddenly noticed were smiling again. “Yes, you have, Sam. Remember the boat house at the point . . . and the picnic table at the beach . . . and the back seat of George’s Oldsmobile and—”

  He put the fingertips of his free hand to her lips for silence. To her he sent the silent message, Remember? Oh, baby, every male cell in my body recalls those events in testosterone-screaming detail. Then to himself he sent a different message entirely, Slow down, buddy. Take it easy. Don’t jump the gun. Just because she’s being nice doesn’t mean she wants to jump my bones. Does it?

  When he could finally speak above a gurgle, he said, “Reba, not only can I remember every single one of those times . . . twelve to be exact . . . but I can name times, places, colors, smells. Hell, I’ve been replaying them in my mind for fourteen years.”

  She waved her free hand in a halting fashion at his last words. “I don’t want to talk about the past fourteen years. Not right now.”

  He nodded. “So, what does a female Santa wear under all that padding? Frederick’s of the North Pole? Santa’s Secret? Elfin Magic Bra?”

  She looked him directly in the eye and said, “Nothing.”

  “Oh, geez! Oh, damn! Oh, man! Christmas is coming early this year . . . I think.” He remained calm, on the outside, but his heart was racing a mile a minute.

  She ignored his presumptuous remark. Instead, she came up with a presumptuous remark of her own. “So, what does a pilot wear under that fancy-pancy uniform?”

  “Yep, Christmas has arrived, and I’m about to open my present . . . I think. That is what you’re implying, isn’t it?” On the other hand, who was it who said that assumption was the mother of all screw-ups? Was he making major leaps into Assumptionville?

  “Well, that depends, Sam. What kind of boy have you been . . . what kind of man are you? Naughty or nice?”

  He thought a moment, thanking the heavens that he hadn’t assumed too much. “Definitely naughty.”

  “Bingo! Good answer,” she said. “But back to my question. What does a hot-shot flyboy wear under that babe-magnet uniform?”

  He smiled then. “Nothing, babe. Not a th
ing.”

  For several long moments, they just stared at each other.

  Somehow . . . she didn’t recall when or how . . . Sam had pushed himself off from the table. He stood in front of her now, close, between her outspread Santa legs.

  And still they just gazed at each other.

  Memories and long-suppressed emotions swirled between them, growing and growing, like a storm which churns and brews ’til it finally explodes in a rush of wind. Would they explode? Oh, surely they would, but it would be a good thing. A very good thing.

  Sam put a hand to her cheek, almost with reverence, and whispered, “Reba.”

  She leaned into his hand and could have wept with all her feelings. There was so much she wanted to say, but only one word came out, “Sam.” It was enough.

  Reba acknowledged to herself that she’d crossed over some mental line in the sand within the past five minutes or so. But, no, that wasn’t quite true. The line had been crossed gradually over the past two days, perhaps even when she’d first seen Sam skydiving down to her, but definitely when she’d heard him speak to the shelter audience and most particularly, young Richie.

  The line did not represent love because Reba, even in her most angry moments, recognized that her love for Sam had never died. Instead, the line represented surrender . . . a giving up of herself to the fates . . . or God. A willingness to be carried along with what would be. Or maybe even what might not be.

  “I am so sorry.” Four words, but so powerful, coming from Sam’s lips.

  She nodded her acceptance of the apology and looped her arms about his neck. She didn’t have to ask what he was sorry for. She knew best how much he had hurt her. But she was going to trust Sam, she decided then and there, as she always had long ago, but had regretfully stopped years ago. There was an explanation. She would hear it when the time was right.

  She had things that needed to be said, too. Explanations. Bones to pick. But not now. Not now.

  “I love you,” she said.

  He closed his eyes for a brief moment, overcome. She saw the effort he made to try swallowing. Then, he, too, said, “I love you.” His blue eyes held hers as if trying to convince her of his sincerity. “I never stopped loving you, Reba. I never did. Never.”