Surrendering To His Mrs. Right (Soul Food Diner) (9 page)

Tim directed her into the large meeting room. “I can wait out here while you get changed.”

“I won’t be less covered than when in my swimsuit. We can change together unless you’re uncomfortable.” She gestured her head to invite him to join her.

“
As long as you're comfortable with it so am I.” He stepped in and closed the doors behind them. “I’m probably going to need some help with my Santa costume anyway.”

“You play Santa?”

“For the few kids that spend Christmas night here before going to the children’s hospital. We usually only have a few but the families and kids appreciate the visit. Happiness helps a tremendous amount when there’s of uncertainty,” he said.

Her heart flipped flopped in her chest.
“That’s really kind.”

He shrugged.
"It’s nothing really. When I was hired, I just thought it was something the kids would enjoy given they were away from home. "

She nodded but her throat and words failed her. There was a big red velvet bag on the table filled with wrapped gifts.

“The hospital staff collects them. What doesn’t get used here is dropped off at a women’s shelter,” Tim explained. “Here’s the elf costume,” he tapped the other garment bag then picked up a blue sheet of paper, “and this is the volunteer form. You need to sign it.”

The form held her to confidentiality and following a number of rules. She signed the sheet. Unwrapping the costume, she regained her composure.
“Thanks for asking me to take part.” Kids seemed to be as important to him as they were to her. Liam couldn’t stand kids. Nor did he want them.

H
e put a hand on her shoulder then bent over to speak into her ear. “Thank you for sharing this with me.”

When he stepped
away a shiver ran through her. Focus, Indy.

She
quickly took off her sweats and t-shirt. The red and green elf dress and hat were her size. How had he known her measurements?

“Could you help me with the belly?” Straps in hand, he smiled at her.

After she’d pulled the dress on, she went over and fastened the straps of the fat, fluffy pillow around his back. The muscle shirt hugged his body, showing the lines of his lean frame. He covered it with the big red velvet coat and black belt. In a mirror on the table, he adjusted a beard and mustache. Warmth lit his blue eyes and spread to her chest.

There were elf shoe cover
ed with bells. She slid them on.

“I usually
only see the patients when they’re unconscious or frightened and in pain before a procedure. This lets me to see them when they aren’t afraid of me.” There was vulnerability and openness in his words.

T
hinking of his work brought tears to her eyes.

“You ready, elf Indy?” He
hauled the bag onto one shoulder.

“Yes, Santa.” She hooked her arm
through his. Did Santa get naughty with his elves? Okay, that was not an appropriate thought.

They marched down the hall and their f
ootsteps echoed with silent resolve between them. She couldn’t imagine doing this was easy for him. The nurses’ at their station brightened when they saw them.

“Santa, I’m
the head-nurse. Tanisha.” The woman gestured to him.

“I remember you. In 1982 you asked for Malibu Christie. Isn’t that why you wanted to become a nurse here?”

She cocked her head. “How do you know that?”

How did he know that?

“Santa has a good memory. Ho, ho, ho.” He smiled. “We have two good kids that weren’t home last night when I did my usual rounds. Aaron Hank, age two, and Divri Scott, three years old.”

Tim reached into his bag and pulled out a piece of ripped parchment paper with the two names written on it. When had he done th
at? Last night or early this morning? Even the nurses seemed surprised that he knew this. Indy felt caught up in a fairytale.

The sun
peeked from behind the hills. Christmas had only just begun.

The bells on the bag jingled as they moved toward the room.

“Ho ho ho,” Tim said as he entered the first boy’s room.

The reddened eyes of the small pale child grew wide. “Santa
! I knew you’d come,” he whispered.

The little boy’s mother was sitting i
n a chair next to the bed, her face showing her exhaustion. When she saw Tim, her eyes filled with tears and she smiled. “Ho ho, you knew I wouldn’t miss Aaron Hank.”

“You sent me a letter
. Did your older brother Henry help you write it?”

“No,
Mom did.” The child pointed.

“If I remember correctly
, you wanted a red fire engine and a baseball bat and glove to play with Henry this summer?”

“
Yes.” Joy broadened the width of the child’s smile.

“
And the last thing you wanted was an angel for your mom?”

The boy’s eyes and mouth opened wide
as he nodded.

“I’ve brought a blown
glass one for your Christmas tree, to symbolize the one looking over her.”

“Thank you, Santa.” He reached up and hugged Tim. “
Who's she?”

“Each year
I pick the elf that’s worked hardest at the workshop and shown the true spirit of Christmas year round to come with me. This is elf Indy.”

“Nice to meet you, elf Indy.” The boy waved at her.

“It’s an honor for me to get out and meet all the good boys and girls we work so hard to get ready for all year.” Inside she was fighting not to cry.

“There
’s another child I need to visit now, Aaron, but I want you to have a very merry Christmas today.” Tim put the gifts on the table next to the bed.

“Bye, Santa.” The boy and his mother waved.

Indy followed Tim across the hall. Another small boy lay in the bed, but he was hooked up to machines.

A woman held the child’s hand with the two of hers in prayer.
She looked up, and it was the waitress from The Diner, Dot. Her face was bandaged and covered in cuts and bruises.

“What kind of man could do this to his own boy?” Tears fell from her eyes. She turned toward them, rose and shook her fist at Tim. “A boy with autism…an angel.”

Tim opened his arms and she collapsed into them, sobbing with her whole body.

"Fix my boy," she cried out over and over again.

Indy stood in the corner in silence as Tim comforted the woman.

Indy followed Tim back to the boardroom in silence. The sound of their steps echoed
in the vacant hall. There was so little that seemed worth saying.

“I need a moment.” Tim stopped in front of the men’s restroom.

She nodded. The quiver in her stomach turned on itself.

“Please go ahead and get changed.” He gestured to the boardroom.

“How did you know all that stuff? About the nurse and the little boy, Aaron?”

“When we were making arrangements for me to visit the kids, she told me the story about the doll.” He leaned on the door of the men’s restroom. “When Aaron came to the hospital the day before I picked you up, I had to administer the sedative for a biopsy. I asked him about Christmas and if he’d written to Santa. It calms the patients to think about other things.”

He turned away from her. She rushed to him and wrapped her arms around him. “Thank you.” Tears flowed freely from her eyes. She pressed her face to his back. Large warm hands covered hers.

“When I was
eight, I had best friend named Samuel. He and his family lived in your house, actually. Anyway, Samuel got very sick just before Christmas. I wrote Santa and asked him to make Samuel better but, as you can imagine, he never did. That’s when I stopped believing in Santa. I stopped having hope.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered and held him tight. “By Easter, cancer
had claimed Samuel. I watched him wither away. I stopped playing sports and withdrew from my friends. I barely ate. I hardly slept. Sometimes, I think that’s why my parents drifted apart. All they did was argue about how to fix me. I try to be a good man but I’m distant and don’t know how to leap. You’re fearless, Indy, and I admire you.”

“I’m
not fearless, Tim. I’m scared. That’s why I’m so reckless. I don’t think things through the way you do before I act. Sometimes I hurt people I care about.”

“Yet you dust yourself off and go at it again. I live with obligation and guilt. All I want is for others to have better a Christmas th
an my childhood holidays. Sometimes I wonder if I’m even living.” He pushed her hands from his body and vanished into the restroom.

There was so much more to Tim th
an she’d known. She wiped the tears from her face and changed. The view of the ocean was spectacular. Clear blue waters.

Tim entered the meeting room in dark gray slacks and
a blue dress shirt with his eyes red and avoiding hers.

If
, for a moment, he felt embarrassed about becoming emotional while he'd opened up to her she’d be hurt. The more she uncovered about him the more she wanted to know.

“I’ve left a message with one of the other doctors who
’ll pick up the rest of the gifts and have them dropped off at the shelter.”

She nodded. “Are you sure you want to go to some hole in the ground place after this? My biological mother’s family can be a bit much.”

“Are you uncomfortable about me going?”

“I’ve never brought anyone there.” She didn’t know what he’d make of her after meeting them. “It’s not pretty.”

“There are parts of my every day that aren’t pleasant.”

“I don’t want you to look at me or my father differently after.”

“Where is this all coming from?” He leaned on the window.

There was only one way for him to know. Shit
, if he wasn’t going to accept it was better to know now than later. She’d grown up in Malibu but she really wasn’t from there. It had taken her years to fit in. Time to reveal that dark part of her.

L
ily Oak Mobile Homes wasn’t a pretty place. It was a hellhole by the Bob Hope airport. Noisy and ignorant trash lived there. Like her mother’s sister, Patricia, who hated her mother for being the smart, favorite sibling. Now, her mother Vivian was the dead one. Indy was all that was left of her mother and not something they really wanted to be reminded of.

After
they’d swung home and she’d changed into something more formal, they headed out. The ride was silent but she caught Tim watching her more than once.

The tightly packed mobile
homes crammed the park. People sat outside their trailers, smoking and watching them as they drove past. Aunt Patricia’s was at the back. She’d been there longer than most--since she’d cashed in her mother’s life insurance, in fact. The place saw a lot of turnover.

Tim opened her door and grabbed gifts out of the back.
Caught so deep in her own thoughts she hadn’t even gotten out of the car.

Laughter and lo
ud voices came from the box of a house. It was a three bedroom coffin with barely enough space for a single bed in the rooms. Indy had a cousin, Misty, a year older than her who was an exotic dancer with a five year old daughter named Brianna. They were every stereotype cliché one could toss at them and proud of it. To top it all off they didn’t like black people. And that was Indy sugarcoating it. Not that they refused her gifts and money.

On
e reluctant step at a time, she drew closer to the house though Tim reached the landing first and rang the bell.

Swearing came from inside.

The door opened and Aunt Patricia put a hand on her hip. “Look what the cat dragged in. A stray.”

“Merry Christmas
, Aunty.” Indy swallowed back her usual sassiness. It only ever urged their hatred on. Things were going to be uncomfortable enough with Tim there that she didn’t need to stir the pot.

“What do we have here?” Patricia’s eyes lit up.

“This is Dr. Tim Boyd, a friend,” Indy put her hand on him possessively then retracted it, confused.

“
Ooh. A doctor. You’d better wear protection,
doctor.
You know how ’em sistas like to snag a man by getting knocked up.” Patricia put her arm around Indy.

Oh she did go there
. She’d had more husbands than Liz Taylor. Indy sighed refusing to respond.

“You should meet my daughter Misty
.”

Misty glanced over at Tim and her eyes lit up like a
kid in a candy store.

“Where do you want me to put these?” Indy asked.

“Over by the tree, girlfriend.” Shit, she hated it when white people talked like that. Aunty Patricia wasn't her girlfriend. Not even close.

Brianna was over in the playpen. Wasn’t she a little old to be in one of those? “Can I give the baby her gift?”