Amy had already had lasagna in the oven, so after Houston and Dallas had talked, she’d asked Dallas and Cal to stay for dinner. Dallas had had a heart-to-heart with her mother, then they’d all sat together and told the children. Christmas magic was most definitely in the air.
The fireplace roared into the late evening as Dallas and Cal had sat next to the Christmas tree and the family had shared stories of their childhood and also of the times they’d missed. Dallas had held Anna Beth in her lap on the floor, Austin sitting in his dad’s lap next to her. Dallas had looked up at her mom, and LouAnn had teared up every now and then throughout most of the night. “I have my babies back with me,” she’d kept saying, as though she had still been trying to wrap her head around it. It was just too good to be true for her. For all of them.
“It’s so strange, though,” Dallas said as she buckled up.
“What?” Cal asked.
“Just how quickly everyone forgave each other. We had gone for so long, everyone in so much pain and being so stubborn. But the second the dam was broken, we just let it all go. We picked back up like all that anger was never even there.”
“That’s what forgiveness does. It can melt everything. Trust me, I know.”
“How do you know? Did something like this happen to you?”
Cal hesitated. “I, uh...I do have a little experience in the forgiveness zone, I guess.”
“What happened?” Dallas pushed.
Cal was driving north on 359, but instead of heading home, he drove over the bridge and on into downtown and parked near the old historic clock. He turned off the car and sat still for a few moments, cleared his throat, then turned to Dallas.
“I was just a kid myself when I learned about what a lack of forgiveness can do to a person. I had the best uncle in the world. He and my dad were best friends, practically inseparable. They started Callahan Enterprises together. But by the time I was a young teenager, they’d had a major falling-out. Suddenly my uncle, who I loved like another older brother, was out of the family. Up till then, I couldn’t remember a Christmas that he wasn’t the life of the party. He’d always taken a special interest in me. Uncle Calvin thought for sure I’d grow up, play a little Bama football, then join him and my dad in the C&H business.”
Dallas sat, listening intently. She could see Cal’s eyes brimming with tears. “What happened? Did they ever make up?” she asked softly.
He drew in a deep breath, his mouth contorted with emotion, “No. They didn’t have the chance. My uncle died before they reconciled. My dad tried in vain to get Calvin to forgive him and come back home before my grandmother would die of a broken heart. She hated seeing her only two kids not speaking. It went on longer than the twenty years your family didn’t speak. My uncle never trusted my dad again. Then, when I was in high school, he died suddenly of a massive heart attack. Their relationship will never be fixed now, and my family has to live with that forever.”
Dallas leaned over and kissed his cheek. “I had no idea,” she said, realizing they had much more in common than she’d thought. “No wonder you kept pushing me,” she said. “You knew firsthand the destruction all that anger can cause. I love you, Cal. I’m here for you, too, if you need me. What did your dad do that had your uncle so upset?”
“In the early years of the company my dad took a loan out against it and didn’t tell my uncle. My uncle ran the finances and when he found out, he accused my dad of embezzlement. That infuriated my dad. My dad came clean about the loan but then my uncle decided he could no longer trust my dad with any money. It got really ugly and my uncle left the business and they never spoke again. When he pulled out it caused a financial hardship for the company, but my dad worked hard to save it. He saved it all right, and then it began to thrive. I always believe he succeeded just to make his brother sorry he pulled out. Either way, they never made up and now they never will.”
Dallas sat still as she listened to all Cal had buried and felt for him. “I love you so much. I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks, baby. I love you, too,” he said. “It’s all water under the bridge. Now let’s get you home. You have a big week ahead and you’ll need to rest up after that emotional night.” Cal smiled.
“I know it. The play is Saturday night and Christmas is only a week away.”
“And don’t forget the announcement of the anchor seat, too.”
“Oh, please don’t remind me. I’m a nervous wreck,” she said as Cal started the car.
“No matter what. You’ll be fine. Tuscaloosa loves you.” Cal reached over and squeezed her thigh as he drove her home. “So do I.”
45
Dallas flew into the newsroom of WTAL on Monday morning, ready to show her stuff. This was crunch week. Even if she did believe the job had already been given away, she sure didn’t want to be one of those two reporters who would lose their jobs at the end of this. She was running late, but she managed to get there just before the nine o’clock meeting. She took her seat in the conference room just as Mike began the assignments for the day.
“Dallas, I need you to run out to see Ms. Peaches Shelby again. She has gotten what she thinks is the last of the pictures of her Baby Jesus statue. We need to try to see if we can wrap this before the end of the week.”
“Great, no problem,” she replied. Then she leaned over to Daniel and grumbled, “It’s showtime, and I get the Baby Jesus.”
“Courtney,” Mike continued, “there’s been a police chase on Skyland. You need to go out to the station and talk with the officer who handled the call.” Mike shoved the papers to her across the conference table—right under Dallas’s nose.
Though Dallas had a new attitude and a weight off her shoulders in her personal life, careerwise she was still as full of tenacity and ambition as she’d always been. She told herself that, until the anchor position was officially announced, she’d keep right on making sure her work was the best it could possibly be. She’d push ahead as if she still had a chance, even if she was only covering Ms. Peaches.
After Mike gave out the rest of the assignments and they all cleared out of the office, Dallas let Daniel know she had to quickly check her emails, but that she’d meet him out by the van. She didn’t even sit at her desk. She just leaned over and scrolled the messages, looking for anything from Callahan Enterprises. There it was. She clicked on it. It was written as a poem, just like the last one.
Notre Dame has touchdown Jesus
To help them get their kicks.
But the Crimson Tide has Baby Jesus
In the arms of our St. Nick.
Dallas hit Forward and sent the email straight to Cal’s personal email, then scribbled the clue down on a piece of paper and shoved it in her coat pocket.
“Daniel, I gotta good feeling about today,” she said as she clicked her heels across the pavement in the back parking lot to the news van.
She told him the update on the poems coming from Callahan Enterprises, and about their email system being hacked.
Dallas checked her phone. Cal had sent her a text.
I think I’ve got your answer about those emails. I’ll let ya know.
Dallas thought about the frat boys who Cal would be cornering about this. He was an alumnus, and a pretty prestigious one at that, plus he was a professor there. It wouldn’t turn out very well for those boys when they were caught. But maybe Ms. Peaches would at least have her beloved Christmas decoration back. That was the hope anyway.
They drove down Fifteenth Street and turned up Hargrove Road to Glendale Gardens and Ms. Peaches’s house. The cold air hit Dallas in the face with a slap as she stepped out of the van and touched her heels to the driveway. She glanced over to the manger scene to see the still-empty manger and no Baby Jesus.
“Hey, y’all,” Ms. Peaches called from the front door. “Come on in outta this
cold. I swear this weather keeps changing every day, and I can’t keep up with it. One day we need short sleeves, the next day we need a scarf and gloves.”
“Hey, Ms. Shelby. Good seein’ you again,” Dallas said as she stepped inside the small but well-appointed house. “I hear you have some new pictures to show us.” She followed Peaches into the dining room where all the pictures were laid out on the table in the order they’d been sent in. It was as if Peaches was trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle.
“So I am beginnin’ to think we got us a pattern here,” Ms. Peaches said. Daniel turned on the camera and began shooting.
“What do you think you can decipher from this collection of photos?” Dallas asked. She wanted to hear what Ms. Peaches had to say before she showed the poem. She had a theory about what was going on, but it would sound better if she could get Ms. Peaches to elaborate on it.
“Well, I think this all may have something to do with the fact that Alabama is going to the National Championships.”
Dallas agreed, but she continued to push Ms. Peaches in the right direction. “Why do you think that?”
“Well, look, here,” she began. “We got all these pictures here, most of them having to do with football. And yesterday, the most recent ones came in and look where they are with my Baby Jesus.” Peaches shoved a picture over to Dallas, who held it up for the camera.
“We have here the most recent photograph Ms. Peaches Shelby received in the mail just yesterday. Clearly we can see the Baby Jesus statue has recently visited the Bryant Museum on campus and had its picture taken with the National Championship trophy, the crystal football. Ms. Peaches Shelby seems to now believe that with all the pictures she has received in the mail, maybe the hoax all has something to do with the upcoming championship game.”
Dallas finished up the bridge stand-up for the middle of the story, then asked Peaches back to the living room to answer a few more questions.
“What do you think these pranksters are trying to tell us, Ms. Shelby?” she asked, holding the microphone to Ms. Shelby’s mouth.
“Well, I actually think they’re trying to say somethin’ good here, like Alabama’s got the Good Lord’s blessin’ or somethin’.”
“So, all in all, you don’t really think this is being done maliciously?”
“No, not anymore. For sure at the start I thought that—I figured they were disrespecting Jesus by prancing that statue all over town. If they were tryin’ to be mean, the pictures would all be mean-spirited. But they’re not. They all have a definite message about football, and I’m pretty sure Jesus likes football and especially our Crimson Tide.”
Dallas struggled not to laugh. That was just a pure Southern mind-set. In Tuscaloosa, everything was about football—even, according to Peaches, Baby Jesus.
“Well, that is a great attitude to have, Ms. Shelby. If this is about the championship, I guess we’ll know more the closer we get to Christmas.”
“Can I please say somethin’ to those boys, just in case they’re watchin’?”
“Absolutely, go right ahead. Daniel’s still rolling.”
“Y’all, if y’all can hear me, I know you’re running around campus with my Baby Jesus, but whatever y’all do, just make sure it’s back by Christmas Eve.” She smiled and nodded her head, as if to say, Okay, I’m done.
“Okay, Daniel, let’s wrap this outside,” Dallas said as she stood up.
“I wanted to show you this, Ms. Peaches,” Dallas said as she pulled the poem from her coat pocket. “It’s an email I got from whoever it is that has your statue. I was hoping the pictures today would correspond with it, but it’s not quite a match,” Dallas explained.
Ms. Peaches read the poem and shook her head. “Surely Santa Claus don’t have my statue.” She laughed, then stood up and thanked them both as they all headed outside to the front porch. They got outside just in time to see the mailwoman, who was putting her mail in the box for the day.
“Y’all wanna wait and make sure we don’t have somethin’ new for today?” Peaches asked.
“Sure, might as well,” Daniel said, putting down the camera. “Lemme get it for ya,” he offered.
He brought the mail back from the box at the street curb and handed it to the older lady.
“Yep, here we go,” she confirmed. “This envelope here looks just exactly like the other ones that have come. Let’s see what we get today.”
She stood in the cold under the graying skies and ripped open the manila envelope.
“Just like I thought, we got us some new pictures,” she said, pulling out the single photo from inside.
“See there, y’all! I was right!” Peaches announced triumphantly. “They got my statue over at the stadium. Y’all, let’s get a move on and maybe it’ll still be there.”
They all ran to the news van, breaking all kinds of rules to let Ms. Peaches ride with them.
“We’re getting an exclusive, Daniel,” Dallas said excitedly, her heels spiking into the damp grass as they crossed the yard.
Jumping inside, they slid the doors shut, and Daniel ripped backward out of her driveway and drove out of Glendale Gardens for the short ride over to the stadium.
“May I see the picture, Ms. Shelby?” Dallas asked, turning to the back of the van.
“Why, sure you can, honey. You’ve been here the whole time.”
Dallas took the photo and studied it. Surely Ms. Peaches could have been a detective. It certainly looked as if this prank had everything to do with Alabama’s national championship bid. The picture showed the Baby Jesus statue in the arms of another famous statue, cast in bronze right in front of Bryant-Denny stadium—the statue of coach Nick Saban. The caption in the photo read, “The Crimson Tide has the Lord’s blessing for the number one spot in the nation!”
“That’s it!” Dallas said. “Baby Jesus is in the ‘arms of St. Nick’—Nick Saban, our famous coach!”
It may not have been a police chase, but in a football city like Tuscaloosa, Dallas had the biggest exclusive in town. She might even get the live shot for the day with this—if she played her cards right.
* * *
Daniel whipped into the parking spot at the stadium, and even from the lot they could see the plastic statue still in the arms of the statue of the famous coach.
“Y’all! Look! It’s my Baby Jesus. I’ll have Him home for Christmas.” Peaches was so thrilled, she could hardly contain herself.
Daniel and Dallas jumped out of the van, Dallas helping Ms. Peaches down. Ms. Peaches took off running as best she could to the famous Walk of Champions where the statues of all of the University of Alabama’s famous coaches were standing in bronze. Daniel rolled the camera, getting the perfect shot of Ms. Peaches’s run toward her treasured nativity decoration.
Dallas had called Mike on her cell as they’d made their way over to the front of the stadium. She’d filled him in on all the details. “Mike, this is an exclusive and I believe it should be the live shot tonight.”
“I think you’re right. Get all you can for now, and we’ll send the live truck over for the shot tonight.”
Dallas hung up the phone, grinning from ear to ear. “Yes!” she shouted as she stuck the phone back into her coat pocket. She told Daniel what was going on.
“Perfect!” he said. “Right place, right time, and you knew exactly what to do with the story. I do like the way you work,” he said, giving her a high five.
“No, the way we work,” she corrected. “I couldn’t do this without you.”
That evening, they picked up Ms. Peaches and made their way back for the six o’clock shot. They had to call the fire department to climb a ladder to get the statue down. The Tuscaloosa newspaper showed up and got the photo of the year—a studly fireman climbing the bronze statue to retrieve the plastic Baby Jesus.
She caught Cal standing in a crowd that had gathered to watch the decoration being taken out of the arms of the Saban statue. He watched her do her thing with a huge smile on his face. He had his nephew Justin standing right next to him.
“Looks like Baby Jesus will be back in his manger at the home of Ms. Peaches Shelby for Christmas Eve, safe and sound. The plastic statue certainly got a grand tour of the campus and, according to the pranksters, who still remain at large, has bestowed the Lord’s blessing on our Crimson Tide. Notre Dame may have touchdown Jesus, but it looks like Alabama’s got the ultimate blessing. For WTAL, I’m Dallas Dubois.”
Cal walked over to her and hugged her and shook Daniel’s hand. Everyone was jubilant, milling around the famous Walk of Champions and chatting.
“I do love watching you work,” Cal said, giving her a squeeze.
“And I love showing off in front of you,” she shot back with her eyebrows raised. “I can show you some more of my talents later if you like.”
“I finally got to the bottom of this whole prank,” he said. “I think you need to walk over here with me and see for yourself what happened.” He led Dallas over to the parking lot where Justin was standing with Cal’s car.
“We found your fraternity boys,” Cal said looking at his nephew. “Go ahead, Justin.”
“Ms. Dubois, I’m the one that’s been sending those emails,” he said bashfully.
“You? My, my. You are quite the poet, I’ll say. Why in the world did you do it?”
“Well, it started off as just a freshman prank. The guys did it last year, but we wanted to top them—to really stand out—so this year we put the National Championship twist on it.”
“Not only a poet, but very creative,” Dallas said, teasing him. “But I still don’t understand. Why send me the emails? And why use your grandfather’s company to do it?”
“Well,” Cal interrupted, “it looks like part of the prank included an attempt at matchmaking. Apparently he thought if he could force us to spend some time together, we might actually start liking each other.”
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