Well, maybe a little bit.
Okay, okay, I loved excitement, and whether Wiggins wanted to admit it or not, being dispatched to earth to help someone in dire need was a grand adventure.
If Wiggins was aware of my unworthy feelings, surely he understood I was only revealing the depths of my desire to be helpful.
I filled my mind with a vision of the parchment roll and the Precepts and mounted the station steps two at a time. It was only as I was passing into the station that I realized I was still in a blouse and shorts. Fortunately, a new wardrobe occurs in an instant of thought.
By the time Wiggins looked up from his desk, I was in a drab black jacket dress with white trim on the jacket and plain black leather shoes. My hair was subdued in a chignon with only a few unruly red curls. I affected a reserved expression.
Wiggins rose at once, a look of surprise on his florid round face. He was just as I remembered, stiff black cap riding high on reddish-brown hair, bristly eyebrows, spaniel-sweet brown eyes, thick muttonchop sideburns, walrus mustache, crisp white shirt, suspenders, gray flannel trousers, and shiny bootblacked shoes.
“Bailey Ruth.” Big hands enveloped mine in a warm grip. Suddenly he frowned. “You look different.”
Was he remembering the lavender velour pantsuit I’d enjoyed on my previous earthly adven-mission? If I were fortunate enough to serve on earth again, I could find out about the latest fashions and enjoy them. I was confident that pleasure in beauty, whether of nature or couture, was God-given. At this moment, I was determined to appear studious and contemplative, a role model of an emissary, the sort who popped to earth, worked unobtrusively, and left without notice.
Unlike my previous experience in Adelaide.
I gave a cool smile. “It’s the new me. I’ve been studying Zen.”
“Oh?” He blinked in surprise.
“The better to serve as an emissary.” I remembered not to even hint at the word ghost. Wiggins loathes the term. Although as far as I’m concerned, calling a spade a digging implement doesn’t make it not a spade. If you know what I mean.
“Zen.” He raised a brushy eyebrow.
“Zen.” I tried to sound authoritative.
“Zen?” His tone invited elucidation.
“Zen. Meditating on paradoxes.” I dredged that from a long-ago memory of my son Rob’s Zen phase when he was in college.
“Indeed.” His smile was kind. “Does that assist you in remaining in the moment?”
He might as well have been speaking Greek. If he had been speaking Greek, I would have understood. In Heaven we all understand each other whether we speak Cherokee, Yiddish, or Mandarin. Or Greek.
Zen in any tongue was beyond my grasp. It was manifestly unfair that Wiggins, who’d departed the earth long before I, had obviously been attending Zen classes in Heaven.
“I don’t know a thing about Zen.” In admitting defeat, I hoped to demonstrate my core honesty.
His smile was huge. “Oh, Bailey Ruth, you always manage to surprise me.”
I blinked back a tear. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? I don’t do things by the book.” I meant “by the parchment roll,” but he understood. “Is that why you haven’t summoned me for a new adven-mission?”
Wiggins tugged at his mustache, then gestured to a bench beside his desk. He settled into his chair, and after a quick glance through the bay window at the tracks he faced me, his genial face perplexed. “You have been in my thoughts.”
Was this good? I was determined to believe so. I beamed at him. “I’m glad. Perhaps my coming here today was meant to be.” I leaned forward. “Clearly there’s a problem on earth that I can solve.” That put the ball in his court. Hopefully my can-do attitude was attractive.
Instead of an answering smile, he looked thoughtful. “You do have a special qualification.”
Better and better. “Whatever the project requires, I am ready.”
“Undoubtedly you have a qualification.” His tone was reluctant, as if an admission wrung under duress. “However, you lack the calm and reserve of a Heavenly emissary. You are”—he ticked off the offenses one by one—“inquisitive, impulsive, rash—”
I completed the litany. “—forthright and daring.”
We looked at each other, I with fading hope, Wiggins sorrowfully.
I was tempted to change back into a blouse and shorts and waft to Bobby Mac and the Serendipity, riding in crystal clear blue waters for another eternal day. Yet Wiggins had thought of me for a mission. There had to be a reason. “My special qualification?”
His florid face relaxed into warmth and delight. “Bailey Ruth, you always loved Christmas.”
Christmas…Oh dear Heaven, Christmas was the most special season of the year. Cold and gray outside? When I listened to the jingle of the Salvation Army kettle, I felt warm as toast. Jammed among sharp-elbowed shoppers in a suffocatingly hot store? That cashmere sweater was perfect for Aunt Mamie. A broken oven and twenty-three expected for Christmas dinner? Bobby Mac pulled out the grill, bundled up against a forty-degree north wind, and that day’s rib eye steaks were ever after celebrated in family history.
My eyes sparkled as I recalled some of my favorite things:
Sugar cookies shaped like stars and iced in red.
Main Street ablaze with green and red lights and plenty of tinsel.
Strings of holly.
Carolers on a crisp starlit night.
Cutting down our very own Scotch pine out in the country.
Bobby Mac holding Rob in one arm, Dil in the other, and small hands reaching up to place a wobbly star atop the tree.
Presents wrapped in bright red and gold foil.
Crimson poinsettias massed behind the altar and on the ledges by the stained-glass windows and in the narthex.
The exquisite peace and hope of Mother and Child in the manger.
I was swept by that wonderful feeling of the season when workaday cares recede and we glimpse a world bright with love. “Ooh, Christmas.” Every Christmas Eve, Bobby Mac (a robust tenor) and I (an energetic soprano) entertained Rob and Dil with our duet of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” as we pulled a sled laden with gifts into the living room. A two-foot-tall stuffed reindeer with a shiny red nose was harnessed to the sled.
I came to my feet, quickly attired in my best Mrs. Claus suit and floppy red Santa hat, and belted out my most spirited version of “Rudolph.” Tap was popular when I was young, and the wooden floor of the station a perfect venue…four slap ball changes, four shuffle hop steps, a shuffle off to Buffalo…Sweeping off my Santa hat, I ended with a flap cramp roll and a graceful bow.
Flushed with success, I lifted my gaze to Wiggins.
He sat, brown eyes wide, expression bemused.
Had the man never seen a hoofer before? Had I blown any chance for adven—to be of service? Had my impetuous nature once again landed me in trouble?
His lips curved in a broad smile. His eyes shone. “That takes me back. Indeed it does. I saw Bojangles in Chicago in 1909. I never miss any of his shows.”
I made a mental note to check the jazz schedule for Bill Robinson’s next starlit performance. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a show with the Milky Way as spots.
“Only you, Bailey Ruth, would remember Christmas with a tap dance.” Wiggins’s tone was admiring.
I think.
Abruptly, he gave a decided nod. “That’s why your dossier kept reappearing.” He reached out, pulled a candy-cane-striped folder close to him, flipped it open.
I craned to see. There was my picture, a sea breeze stirring my flaming hair as the Serendipity breasted swells.
Wiggins patted the top sheet. “You have the true spirit of Christmas and that is what I need here, despite your impetuous nature.” He turned and thumbed through a stack of folders in various colors. He opened a black one.