Catching Christmas

by Terri Blackstock

  There’s a TV on in the upper corner of the room and I try to watch it, but it’s a soap opera, and anyway the sound is off. I think of asking if they can change the channel to a sports network and crank up the sound a little, but the receptionist still glares at me every time our eyes meet.

  Incompetent.

  Callie probably won’t be back here for a while, so I go to move my still-running cab to a parking space. While I’m in the car, I radio LuAnn. “Listen, this two-hundred-year-old woman you sent me to drive this morning? I’m having to wait for her at the hospital because she isn’t in her right mind and probably can’t call me to save her life.”

  “But I was about to give you another fare.”

  “Can’t do it. It’s a long story. Listen, did she call this in herself, or did someone else book the cab?”

  “I think somebody else did. A woman, I think.”

  “Did she leave her name or phone number?”

  “No. Why?”

  “I’m just thinking she needs to understand that this lady can’t do this alone. I don’t know what anyone is thinking to send her off with a cab driver when she can’t hold a thought for more than two seconds.”

  “Sounds bad. You’re a good man, Finn.”

  “Shut up,” I say and click off the phone. Sometimes I hate LuAnn.

  I lock my cab and go back in. She still hasn’t reemerged. I sit down, shaking my head at my own stupidity in waiting for her. I’m losing money by the minute.

  Rubbing my jaw, I mentally add the amount in my head. I need that money, since it’s almost the end of the month. It isn’t likely she’s a tipper. I’ll be lucky if she pays me at all, and what am I going to do about that? Wrestle her purse out of her arthritic grip and pull out her wallet?

  Yeah, that isn’t going to happen.

  The door to the examining room opens, and I see Callie being wheeled out by a more pleasant-looking nurse whose thighs haven’t been maligned. But there could be other slights I don’t know about, because Callie is chatting her up.

  I step toward her.

  “Sir, the doctor would like to speak to you, if you could come back.”

  “No, no way. I’m not her son. I’m her cab driver.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Well, the doctor needs to speak to her family. And she has a prescription that was called into Walgreens.”

  I groan. “Walgreens?”

  “Yes. The one closest to her address. She needs it. Can you get it for her?”

  My temples are so tight I can feel my veins protruding. “I guess so.”

  Callie says a heartfelt good-bye to the woman, then looks up at me as I push her out the door. “I’m Finn, the cab driver,” I say before she can ask me. “How are you, ma’am?”

  “Have I eaten today?” she asks. “My stomach feels a little queasy.”

  Wonderful. Now I’ll have to feed her.

  I get her into the cab and hit the drive-through lane at Walgreens. Thankfully, there isn’t much of a wait. There’s no charge for the meds, which must mean her insurance covers it. At least I don’t have to put that on her tab. I keep the meter running, but something tells me it won’t matter. It isn’t like I’m going to be paid.

  When we have the prescription—which is covered by her insurance—I reach over the back seat to hand her the bag, but she’s nodded off again. I raise up, lean over the seat, and stuff it into her purse without looking at it. The medication is none of my business.

  I drive Callie back to her house and wake her gently, then get her into her wheelchair. She manages to dig out her keys, so I wheel her to the door. As we go in, she looks around like she doesn’t recognize the place.

  “Ma’am, can I get you anything before I leave?” I ask.

  She looks up at me. “No, thank you.”

  “I could . . . I’ll get you something to eat.”

  “No, that’s all right,” she says.

  “You have to eat. You were there for hours and it’s dinnertime, and I don’t know if you had lunch.”

  “You’re a sweet boy,” she says.

  A knot forms in my throat as I go into her kitchen and look in the refrigerator. Someone has stocked it with a few dishes of Tupperware. I pull out one and open it, take a whiff. It’s a casserole, and it actually smells recent. I spoon it into a bowl and nuke it.

  I set the table, then go get her and roll her chair up to it. She has a pleasant look on her face as I do, as though she enjoys being pampered, even if she doesn’t have a clue who’s doing it. For all she knows I’m an ax murderer warming up her food before I decapitate her. I get the food out and check to see if it’s too hot.

  “Do you know who made this?” I ask as I put it in front of her.

  “Made what?”

  “The casserole. That you’re eating.”

  “It’s very tasty,” she says. “Thank you so much.”

  Sighing, I go to the TV and turn it on so she can see it. It’s already turned up to bullhorn level.

  “Okay, I’ll be going now. If you’d like me to get you your purse, you could just . . . pay me.”

  She looks confused. “Pay you?”

  “I’m the cab driver,” I repeat for the five thousandth time.

  “Of course. Yes. How much do I owe you?”

  “Forty-three dollars,” I say weakly. “That includes the trip to the drugstore.”

  She’s looking around, so I get her purse and hand it to her. She digs out her checkbook and a pen. She’s going to write me a check? I want to tell her I don’t take checks, but it doesn’t seem worth it. I’ll just take it and get out of here.

  As she hands me the check, I point out the bag I’ve stuffed into her purse. “Don’t forget your medication.”

  “My what?”

  I sigh again and snatch the paper sack out of her purse, pull the bottle out. “It says to take it three times a day with food.” I open it and shake one into my hand, get her some water in a glass, and hand it to her. “Take this.”

  She does as she’s told.

  “Okay, I’ve got to go now.” I jot a note onto a Post-it pad beside her wall phone, telling whoever cares for her to call the doctor. I add that she’s had one dose of medication. I leave a business card next to it. “Miss Callie, if your family wants to talk to me, they can call me at this number. There is family, isn’t there?”

  “Of course,” she says, beaming.

  “Okay, I’m putting it right here.” I point to the counter. “Are you going to be okay now?”

  “Yes, thank you,” she says. “You’re such a charming young man.”

  I almost laugh, but I don’t want to get pulled into banter with her. My mother used to say that about me when I was four. I demonstrated that charm in spades when she was dying and I didn’t even go to visit.

  I suddenly have to get out of here. “Thank you, ma’am. I’m going now.”

  I try not to look back as I pull her locked door shut behind me and return to my cab.

  CHAPTER 4

  Sydney

  The news is good, or I think it is, until the partners tell me they’ll revisit my employment after my ridiculous case is over.

  No pressure.

  “I’m totally committed to the firm,” I tell them. “It’s just that . . . I wish this weren’t the case I was being judged on. I’d rather be judged on the other work I’ve done so far, like the Krielig case.”

  Jacoby speaks in that accent that hits just south of British and just north of Bostonian. He’s lived in St. Louis his whole life, so one has to wonder . . .

  “There is no unimportant case,” he says. “We’re quite aware that the Darco case is challenging, but Steve Darco’s father is one of our biggest clients, billing in the millions each year, and as small as this is, it’s important. If we were to upset him and lose his business, well . . . all of our jobs would be in jeopardy.”

  “Yes, of course.” I don’t mention that it’s odd that they didn’t assign a single partner to this case since it’
s so important. But it’s probably because none of them wants to become a laughingstock.

  Southerby shoves his unlit cigarette into his mouth and talks around it. I wonder if he sucked a pacifier until he was in middle school.

  “Meanwhile, you need to absorb some of the cases the other associates are working on after we notify them that they’re leaving.”

  I narrow my eyes. “Can you tell me how many you’re letting go?”

  “Nope,” he says. “You’ll know by day’s end.”

  “I’m very committed, Mr. Southerby. I will stay long hours and work weekends, even during the Christmas holidays. You’ll see that I have the stamina of ten people.” I can see right away from their expressions that I’ve oversold myself.

  “You’ll have to,” Southerby says. “We all will.”

  My hands are shaking as I leave the room. I can’t regulate the adrenaline surging through my body now. Coffee will make it worse, but I’m so tired that I need it, so I stop by the break room that is a ghost town right now. I guess everyone is trying to look committed as they wait to be called.

  As I get back to my office, Joanie rushes in, her arms full of files. “We’re still here,” she whispers. “I can’t believe it. Imagine being let go because you worked second chair to the worst lawyer in the firm and he messed up the case.”

  “Craig was let go?”

  “Yes. They escorted him out. It was brutal.”

  “Life’s not fair.”

  “No, but right now it seems fair to us. I got the Boliver case and the Hilton case, which is interesting because they both have court dates on the same day. I’ll have to get a stay on one of them if I can’t get them to settle.”

  I sip my coffee, though the cup trembles in my hand. “I’m only here until they see how I do on the worst case this firm has ever taken to court.”

  Joanie covers her mouth and breathes a horrified laugh. “I know it’s not funny.”

  “No, my friend, it is not.” My phone vibrates again. “The doctor! I have to take this!” I click it on. “This is Sydney Clifton.”

  “This is Dr. Patrick,” the man says.

  “Dr. Patrick! Your voice is the most wonderful sound in the world. I want to kiss you!”

  He chuckles. “Well, not what I expected.”

  “I’ve been calling about my grandmother, Callie Beecher. I wanted to bring her, but we had a huge meeting at my law firm today in which they told us that they’re downsizing some of us, and we’ve been working like dogs to appear committed, so I sent her in a cab and I don’t know if she got there or not, but—”

  I guess I’m going on too long, because he interrupts me. “Your grandmother was here.”

  “She’s not herself,” I blurt. “I wrote her symptoms on a piece of paper in her purse, but she may have forgotten to give them to you.”

  “She didn’t give them to us, but we observed some of the problems, and we ran some blood work and a few other tests. She has a UTI so I’ve prescribed her some antibiotics. UTIs do cause confusion sometimes.”

  “Have you gotten results from any of the other tests yet?”

  “Not yet. I’m concerned about some of the other symptoms we’re seeing, but I need all the results before I can conclude anything.”

  I look down at the stack of files, then my gaze drifts toward the glass wall, where the partners have clustered in the hallway and are talking in hushed tones. Joanie has already slipped back out.

  “I’ll call you when I get the results,” he says. “We may need to do more tests.”

  “Okay, sure. Do you think she’ll be all right?”

  “We’ll talk later, when I know more.”

  I’m a little disturbed as I hang up, but I have to push it out of my mind. I have to focus on the court case that starts tomorrow. My opening statement isn’t finished. What I want to say is that the plaintiff brought a boatload of alcohol to a dorm party, got drunk, then crashed into the BK. End of story.

  That probably won’t help with my job security. I really need to change my attitude by morning.

  CHAPTER 5

  Finn

  I wake up in the wee hours of morning, covered in sweat. The dream I’ve just had is of my mother lying in a hospital bed, weighing eighty pounds, with tubes to keep her breathing until I could get there. In the dream, I stepped into the doorway, but that thing—that horrible thing I couldn’t escape— came over me, and I backed into the hall and left the building.

  The problem with the dream is that it really happened. I’m a coward.

  She died that night. She gave up on waiting for me.

  It’s only two a.m., and I need to sleep. Driving without sleep is miserable, not to mention dangerous, and I have to work today. I have to make my rent money or I’ll be evicted right after Christmas.

  The robbery a couple of weeks ago—in which some thug pointed a gun at my head and took every dollar I had—really set me back. I haven’t made it up yet. Emotionally, it helped a little that they caught the guy a few days later, and I had the privilege of identifying him in a lineup. But the money was long gone.

  I turn on the TV, the volume turned down low, and try to sleep in my recliner, but it still evades me. Finally, I give up. It’s now five a.m., so I put on a pot of coffee and take a shower.

  When I get into my cab and sign in with dispatch, I’m feeling the fatigue.

  “I’ve got a call for you already,” LuAnn says in a much too upbeat voice. “They called and asked for you specifically.”

  “Great.” I like repeat customers. “What’s the name?”

  “Callie Beecher.”

  I groan. “No! Not her again. I can’t afford this!”

  “She paid you last night, didn’t she?”

  “She wrote a check.”

  “Well, cash it.”

  “I will, but odds are it’ll bounce, meaning I can’t pay you your share, meaning I’m wasting all this time. Seriously, I can’t drive her again today. Where does she need to go, anyway?”

  “She didn’t say.”

  “So did a family member call again?”

  “No, she called herself and asked for ‘that nice young man.’ I thought she was talking about Lamar, but no, it was you. Who knew?”

  I brush the hair back off my forehead. “You’re killing me.”

  “I told her you’d come.”

  “Of course you did.”

  I drive to Callie’s, feeling sorry for myself. If this goes anything like it did yesterday, I’ll have to feign a headache and tell her I’ll get her a replacement cabbie.

  How did she even remember me? She must have gotten the number off my card.

  I don’t bother to honk my horn. Instead, I cut off my ignition and go right to her door.

  “Hello,” Callie says through the screen before I can even knock. “Come in, sweet boy.”

  Surprised, I open the door and step inside. “Ms. Beecher? You called for me?”

  “Please, call me Callie.”

  “Okay, Miss Callie.”

  She looks much more awake, and she has makeup on. Powder, blush, and a little lipstick. “You look like you’re feeling better today,” I say. “Where did you want me to take you?”

  She seems suddenly confused, and looks around for something.

  “Are you looking for your purse?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “It’s in your lap.”

  She laughs as though embarrassed, then digs through it.

  “You were going to tell me where we’re going?”

  “Yes, that’s right.” She pulls out a sheet of paper. “I try to write things down, but then I forget where I put the list. Here . . . this is it.”

  I take the list and see a bunch of words that have no meaning to me. “Uh . . . there are several things here.”

  “Yes, I want to hire you for the whole day.”

  “Ma’am, that would cost a lot of money.”

  “I’ll pay you,” she assures me. “Can you ta
ke me?”

  I hate to say no to a woman who’s three hundred years old. “Okay, fine.” I do a quick calculation in my head. If I can keep the meter running all day, I can earn enough to pay the rest of my rent. Which means I don’t really have the luxury of saying no. I clap my hands together. “Okay, let’s go.”

  I get her out to the car, hook her in, and put her wheelchair in the trunk. “So what’s first on the list, ma’am?”

  “Macy’s Department Store. I have to pick up a few more things for Christmas.”

  This isn’t going to turn out well. She’s planning to wheel around the store in her chair when she can’t even move herself? I have a bad feeling as I drive the few miles to the mall. I pull in front of the store. “I have to keep the meter running,” I say.

  “Of course you do. Where are we now?”

  “Macy’s. Christmas shopping.” I get out and get her wheelchair. When I open the back seat and help her into the wheelchair, I ask, “How are you going to get around?”

  “Well, I . . . I don’t know. I suppose I . . .”

  I can’t believe this. “See, I don’t go in with people and help them shop. I drive. That’s it.”

  She gives me a vacant look.

  “I can’t keep my meter running if I turn my car off.”

  She smiles as if she’s just noticed me. This isn’t going well. “Miss Callie, do you need me to go in with you and push you?”

  “Would you mind?” she asks, beaming. “You’re such a delightful young man.”

  “That’s me. Delightful. You’re going to have to wait here while I find a parking space.”

  “I won’t go anywhere.”

  “Tell me about it,” I mumble under my breath. Biting my bottom lip, I move the cab and turn the car—and the meter—off. How am I going to log these minutes?

  Shaking my head, I go back to Callie and roll her into the store.

  CHAPTER 6

  Sydney