Second Chance

"It would never happen in a million years," Nancy said as she carefully wrapped her apple core inside the plastic wrap from her vanished sandwich. "I mean I'd like to see her better off too—she's a sweet old gal—but Jim Norton signing off on that? Not a chance."

"Well, he's coming this way now; shall we just test it out?" Cliff Clayton retrieved his can of Ginger ale from the machine and turned toward the break room door in time to give a nod to Jim Norton, the Norton of Norton and Associates before looking back at Nancy."

"So, what do you think of that?" Cliff directed the question at Nancy who was sitting at a nearby table, but he had gauged his voice so that he'd be heard by the approaching company CEO.

"About what?" Nancy asked, genuinely confused by this abrupt and confusing change in the conversation.

"About Clarice being snatched from the firm?"

"Oh that," Nancy said, catching on immediately. One of Nancy's real attributes for the firm; she was a phenomenally quick study.

"Clarice? Clarice?" Jim Norton couldn't place the name among his employees, but he knew what "snatched from the firm" implied—Sylvester and Sons had just made off with two of his best sales people—and right during the Christmas sales—so Jim Norton was quick to arms at the mere mention of the phrase "snatched from the firm." "What do you mean by that . . . that someone is being snatched from the firm, Cliff?"

"Oh, hi, Jim," Cliff said. "I didn't see you coming in. It's just a rumor, but I've heard that Sylvester and Sons has offered Clarice Walker a full-time job—at twice what we pay her."

"Oh no they don't," Jim Norton snorted as he poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down at one of the tables—not the one that Nancy was at, of course. She wasn't in management. He would have sat at Cliff's table, of course—Cliff was the firm's chief financial officer—but then Cliff was still standing at the drinks machine. Luckily Cliff wasn't sitting at Nancy's table or Jim would have had to remain standing.

"We don't want to let this . . . let Clarice go, do we?" This was as much a question as a statement. Jim Norton still didn't have the vaguest notion who the hell Clarice Walker was.

"We certainly do not," Cliff said emphatically. "Why, you know what happened to Singleton's when they let someone as good as Clarice go, don't you? It certainly wasn't a pretty sight. They couldn't find anyone suitable to take that person's place, and the place fell into a shambles. The clients noticed, and they started going elsewhere. And we all saw where that led. No it wasn't a pretty sight."

Jim Norton still didn't know what Clarice did for the firm, but he was painfully aware that Singleton's had been forced to file for bankruptcy—and right before the Christmas sales season.

"Well, we're not going to lose Clarice, Cliff. Do what you have to do—full staff and triple the salary, if that's what it takes. But just get it done. No more defections from this firm to Sylvester and Sons. Not on my watch."

"I hear you, Jim," Cliff said. "I'll get it done, Sir. Don't worry."

Jim Norton moved back by Cliff en route to the break room door, full cup of steaming coffee in his hand. Thumping Cliff on the back with the other hand, he said, "Good man, Cliff. Hope you have a great time on that Christmas cruise to Bermuda."

"Oh, Susan and I decided not to go on the cruise, Jim. But thanks. And I'll see what I can do about Clarice right away."

Jim Norton smiled beatifically at his chief financial officer and sailed out the door, having once again averted the disaster of shoals and pirates for the ship he captained. Management was an art; you either had a talent for it or you didn't.

Nancy still sat at the table, her jaw dropped nearly into her lap. "God, you're good," she sputtered. I was positive you couldn't get Jim Norton to do that.

"It's all in the wrist action," Cliff said with a smile.

"But do you think he has any idea that Clarice is the office cleaner?"

"Not a chance," Cliff said. "But I don't regret it a bit. Clarice is, indeed, worth full benefits and three times what we're paying her now. I'm just sorry that, like so many others, I've just been looking through her and taking her for granted all these years."

* * *

Clarice Walker had to sit down and try to catch her breath. Luckily there was a rush-bottomed chair next to the table by the front door, even though it was barely substantial enough to hold Clarice, let alone any of her healthy-appetite sons.

The hand she was holding the letter in was shaking so hard that she had trouble rereading what it said. Ever since she had been cleaning the offices of the Norton company last Saturday and had stumbled on that nice Mr. Clayton working in his office, she had believed there really was a Santa Claus. Mr. Clayton had actually talked with her. She was so used to people just looking through her in her work life—the few who were actually around when she was working—that it had been a shock he'd asked her how she was doing. Then she thought she'd spoiled it all by telling him the truth—how she had lost her second job baking cakes at Hot Cakes; how rough it was working Saturdays when her eldest boy, Maurice, was playing in those football games that a parent should be going to; how they didn't have the wherewithal to even have a Christmas tree this year—and thus why it was just as well that she'd be working the Christmas Day Saturday.

Lord knew she had not been angling for that young Mr. Clayton to play Santa—not in the least—but he had launched right into that role. Before she'd finished cleaning that day, he'd called out and had a trimmed tree and enough holiday food to choke a whole passel of horses sent over to her house—her sister Chanel had called her all excited about that—but he also had given her vouchers for three tickets to the Redskins Christmas Eve pro football exhibition game. He said that something should be done for her son Maurice to make up for the inconvenience the firm had laid on them all this time that kept his mother from seeing his games.

That was a real bonanza in itself. But now here was this letter from the Norton firm. Signed by that old scowling Mr. Norton himself—offering her a full-time position with Norton and Associates, with full benefits and all—to be their exclusive cleaning staff. And three times what she had been making with them as a casual vendor as well as time worked to be at her discretion as long as it was outside normal business hours. She could work Saturdays if she wanted—but she could arrange to go to Maurice's football games on Saturdays if that suited her too. Just as long as she got the work done.

Clarice had never had a Christmas like this. No one had given her a second glance before this, let alone all of these truly good things. Not least those Redskins tickets. Clarice's thoughts went back to those tickets.

Miracle that it was, those three tickets put Clarice in a dilemma. She guessed that Mr. Clayton had assumed there was a Mr. Walker in the picture. But there hadn't been a Mr. Walker for a good many years, and there now wasn't even a Leroy, who was the last man Clarice had let into her bed, anywhere around. Leroy had lost his job in the summer and, after a few weeks of moping around the house, had just walked out on her and the boys. Clarice couldn't say she had gotten over that; she'd thought Leroy was "the one," and the boys seemed to have taken to him real well too.

What to do with that third ticket? Maurice had to go, of course. He was the reason she had the tickets. And she couldn't not go herself. It had been clear that Mr. Clayton gave these tickets to her so that she and Maurice would take in a game together. She certainly couldn't take one of the younger boys and not the other. And although her sister Chanel deserved to go as big a help she'd been with the boys while Clarice tried to hold down two jobs, if the younger boys couldn't go, Chanel would have to stay back and take care of them.

So, Santa had brought Clarice a real problem. A problem most folks would love to have, of course, but Clarice wasn't accustomed to having nice problems. Cleaning up after folks usually brought only the other kinds of problems. She was sort of lost on handling good choices.

Clarice thought long and hard about how to dispense those tickets. She was saved by a knock at the door, however.

She went to the door, and suddenly all of those not-so-nice problems came rushing back in.

"Leroy," she said with a gasp. And suddenly she was flooded with all those fighting emotions—anger and fear and pique and desire and relief that he was still alive.

"Howdy, Clarice," Leroy said. He was holding his baseball cap in his hands, as if it meant something to Clarice that he had taken it off in her presence, and he was staring at the ground, not being able to look at her eyes.

They just stood there, Leroy's eyes concentrating on a loose board on the step up to the porch and Clarice digging hard into the top of his head with her intent gaze.

Leroy cleared his throat. "Nice day, tain't it?"

"Yes, yes it is, considering it's a mite cold for December and drizzling," Clarice responded in as even a tone as she could manage.

"Kind of a day that makes a man thirsty, though," Leroy observed.

"You can come in for a cup of coffee to warm yerself, Leroy. But don't plan on puttin' down any roots."

They were at the kitchen table when Clarice finally calmed down enough to ask him.

"I see you're still alive and kickin'. So, where'd you go and why'd you suppose that was what you wanted to do?"

"It wasn't what I wanted to do, Clarice. But it's what I thought I had to do at the time. Me without a job and you workin' so hard and supportin' me as well as the boys. Well, I wasn't pullin' my weight here and it was gittin' to me."

"So you left us, without a word." Clarice said.

"Would it have been all right if I'd said I was goin', Clarice. Would you have waved your hanky and sung toodaloo to me?"

Clarice didn't answer that. She had no idea what she would have done. Begged him to stay? Screamed obscenities at him the whole neighborhood could hear? What she did know, however, was that she was robbed of expressing any opinion on his going at all.

"It was only for a while, Clarice. I went down to Louisiana and helped put up new houses to replace those taken down by the hurricane. Just until I had enough money to keep up my end here—and until I could find another job up here. Which I've done now. I start down at Home Depot next week."

"So you jist up and went off without a word of why or what?" Clarice continued to dig.

"I wrote. I did write. But I sent the letters to Maurice at his friend Sean's house. I couldn't write direct. I couldn't stand it if you didn't write back if I wrote direct. It was better if I was writing through Maurice. And you didn't write back. If you hadn't written back, I don't think I'd have had the courage of comin' here today. But maybe that's what you'd have preferred."

"There's a good reason I didn't answer none of them letters," Clarice said. And then she turned her head and called out, "Maurice. Maurice Walker, get your behind in here. Right now."

When Maurice arrived, his eyes got big at the sight of Leroy Jefferson sitting in his mother's kitchen again, and he completely failed to conceal his excitement and relief—and, especially that telltale glimmer of hope that betrayed how he felt toward this man who had taken his dead daddy's place for nearly a year.

The look was not lost on Clarice.

"Maurice, what's this that Leroy tells me about you gettin' letters from him and not passin' anything on to me?"

"I was afraid, I'm sorry, Momma," Maurice mumbled into his chest—he, like Leroy, not being able to maintain eye contact with his mother.

"Afraid? Afraid of what, boy?" Clarice asked sharply.

"Afraid you'd tell me I had to stop gettin' the letters," Maurice muttered. And then in a stronger voice, "And afraid you'd get hurt again, Momma. If Leroy wasn't comin' back, I didn't want you to have the disappointment of the possibility he would. I know how you took it when Daddy died."

Things were so quiet in that kitchen for the next couple of minutes that all three found themselves concentrating on the snoring the youngest, Dansel, was doing in the next room.

"Well. Well," Clarice said eventually. "Look at the two of you. Maurice has a football practice today, and I've got to get off to work. Do you think you can stick around long enough to get him to that, Leroy?"

"Yes, ma'm," Leroy answered, all smiles, and looking up into Clarice's face for the first time since he'd arrived.

"But that's it for now, Leroy Jefferson," Clarice continued. "Don't think you're gettin' your shoes back under my bed this soon. You go find yourself someplace to live—at least for a while—and then we'll see what we have to see."

"Yes, ma'm," Leroy answered.

"And do you have anything goin' already for Christmas Eve?" Clarice asked.

"No, ma'm," Leroy answered.

"That's good. Because we're having people for dinner—a nice young couple from Norton's; I think you'll like them—and I have tickets for Maurice, me—and you, if you're interested—to the Redskins game earlier that afternoon."

"Yes, M'AM," Leroy answered—all smiles, hugging Maurice close to keep both of them from jumping out of their skins for joy.

It didn't escape Clarice that Maurice was hugging Leroy close too. Yes, she thought, trying not to show too broad a smile to her two wayward men, this was certainly shaping up to be a much better Christmas than she had imagined it would be. But Clarice had learned not to ask too many questions of life; she was more than happy to give life a second chance.