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  Halfway home, she passed the small parking lot that had been converted into a Christmas tree lot for the holidays. She had dreamed about getting a small tree for her little apartment, but it just hadn’t been in the budget.

  Still, it can’t hurt to look. They might be almost giving the trees away this close to Christmas.

  She wandered through the lot, reaching out to touch the needles of the different trees, seeing how much life was left in each one. It really doesn’t matter, I guess, this close to Christmas. To go by the absence of customers, there weren’t many people desperate enough to shop for a tree at this late date. In fact, there was just her, one business man in a suit and the lot attendant. The attendant was more seedy than Christmassy, with a greasy grey cap perched on his head and a permanent sneer fixed under his bushy black mustache.

  “Excuse me,” Elizabeth said, “are you offering any specials on these trees?”

  “Everybody’s always lookin’ for a deal,” he said in a coarse unidentifiable accent. “It depends, lady. You got any money?” Scanning her old shoes, handbag and coat, his eyes spoke doubt.

  “Yes, yes, of course I do,” Elizabeth stammered, digging in her purse. She always kept an emergency $20 bill tucked behind her ID card. She found instead an emergency $10 bill, reminding her that half of it had gone to buy some milk and cat food two months ago. Her heart sank.

  “I have ten dollars,” she said, pulling out the bill. She failed to notice her ID falling out onto the snowy ground.

  Chapter Four

  Steve sat behind his desk, hands behind his head, daydreaming. After five or six inches of accumulation, the snow had become intermittent. By now he was alone in the building, with the exception of a lone security guard thirty floors below in the lobby. He'd given everyone else the day off. His secretary, Mrs. Spencer, had come in at 8:30 as always; Steve had sent her home. She had made only pro forma 'are you sure?' objections before happily bundling up and heading home to her husband. Steve might not believe in Christmas, but he saw no reason to be callous to the people who did.

  “C’mon, man, have some discipline. Let’s get back to work,” he said to himself. He spun his chair around, looked at the spreadsheet on the top of the pile and surrendered. Today, it just wasn't there. The old workhorse was out of oats.

  Five minutes later, he was turning his Mercedes onto the street in front of his office building with absolutely no idea where he was headed. He considered going to a movie, but the thought of sitting alone in a theater on Christmas Eve was too depressing. He thought of going straight home, but it was just a little after three, and spending the rest of the day alone with Suzi was also more than he could handle.

  Then inspiration struck. He tapped a button on his steering wheel. “Suzi, do you have an address for that building in the Rushton district that Jim Scott emailed me about on Thursday?”

  “Yes, Steve, I have that address.”

  “Good. Run a map to that building through the GPS, please.”

  A map of the city appeared almost instantly on the screen embedded in his dash. Suzi said, “Turn right on Pacific Avenue in one quarter mile.”

  Steve relaxed, absently following Suzi’s directives. After ten minutes of driving through light traffic, he looked around at the neighborhood. The buildings were old and more than a little run down.

  Jim, what the hell are you thinking, recommending a building in this area?

  “In one quarter mile, you will have reached your destination on the right.”

  I don’t think my destination is anywhere around here.

  He pulled off to the side and saw a brick four-story building, a little better maintained than the neighboring structures. That wasn’t a positive. He knew real estate, and owning the best building in the area was a great way to raise everyone else’s values while lowering your own.

  “Suzi, home.”

  New directions appeared on the screen. Suzi said, “Go straight three blocks and turn left on Second Avenue.”

  The Mercedes accelerated smoothly away from the curb, but just as he was about to merge back into traffic, he felt a jolt from the front passenger side and heard a bang. The whole car shuddered and veered to the right.

  “Goddamn it,” Steve said, gritting his teeth.

  He pulled to a stop and jumped out. When he ran around the front of the car to the passenger side, he was relieved to see it was just a blown tire. Overall, Steve wasn’t attached to things, but he did love this Mercedes and didn’t want to see it damaged. He felt the bitter wind tug at his collar and looked at his trunk. Surely it had a spare in there somewhere, but he had no earthly idea how to get it out. Not to mention, he was getting cold, and situations like this were why he had Auto Club.

  He got back in the car and said “Suzi, call the Auto Club.”

  After listening to eight or nine rings on the other end of the line, a deep male voice answered, “Auto Club. Can I help you?”

  “Yes, this is Steve Larson, Membership Number 8394736.” Steve had a knack for remembering numbers. He still remembered his student ID number from college two decades before.

  “Yes, Mr. Larson. How can we assist you?”

  “I’ve had a little mishap and I need a truck to come to me. I’ve run over something and I have a blowout.”

  “Yes sir. We can certainly be there, but we’re running a skeleton crew tonight…” Steve tensed a little, anticipating what was coming. “…we try to let as many of our drivers as we can spend Christmas Eve at home with their families. I’m afraid it might be an hour before we can get a truck out to you.”

  “Just do what you can. I’m not going anywhere,” Steve said, pushing “End Call” a little more vigorously than he needed to. It didn’t give anywhere near the satisfaction that slamming a phone down in its cradle used to offer.

  He turned the heater up a few degrees and drummed his fingers against the steering wheel while taking stock of the neighborhood. Nothing he saw dispelled his first impression. It was a mixed-use neighborhood with small businesses right next to brownstone apartments. The sidewalk was cracked. Litter spilled from city trash cans that couldn’t keep up with demand. Just ahead, on the same side of the street, was an empty parking lot in temporary use as a Christmas tree lot. It would be getting dark soon, but the lot had white Christmas lights strung on wires running around it. The intended cheerful effect was overcome by the skimpiness of the remaining inventory, all the trees rejected by everyone to date.

  As he looked at the lot, the strangest thing happened. Steve felt a sensation in his stomach like he was on a rollercoaster, just getting ready to go over that first big plunge. He felt an overwhelming urge to leave behind the warmth of the car and go to that Christmas tree lot.

  He shook his head, clearing away the memories of Christmases long since past, forcing real estate and practical matters upon his faculties. He pondered what Jim Scott had been drinking when he recommended this building. He considered whether a couple of his lower-rent apartment buildings had run their profitable course. He thought about what he was going to have for dinner when he got home. He wondered when the mechanic would come to fix his tire. An hour would be miraculous; two was likely.

  His eyes and thoughts always returned to the little tree lot. Several times he felt his hand on the door handle, ready to open it, before he caught himself. “Oh, this is ridiculous,” he said, climbing from the warm comfort of the Mercedes into the biting late-afternoon wind. His grandmother had always called this a lazy wind. “Too lazy to go around you, so it goes right through you instead.” He pulled his wool coat tighter around his throat and walked toward the sign that read “Xmas Trees, $25 and Up.”

  Once within the lot, he felt a little silly. He reached out and touched the branches of a few trees, looking at prices for trees he would not buy. The thought of cramming a tree of any size into the Mercedes’ leather interior or minimalist trunk was ridiculous enough to make him chuckle a bit.

  As he got ready to leave, he saw a woman talking to the scruffy guy in charge of the lot. Something about her tugged at the far edge of his memory. He edged closer and listened.

  “Excuse me,” she was saying, “are you offering any specials on these trees?”

  Steve didn’t hear the lot attendant’s response, because something about her voice resonated inside him. Eavesdropping without appearing to eavesdrop was one of Steve’s business survival skills.

  He couldn’t hear whatever question the man had asked her, but it had flustered her. He saw her digging in her wallet.

  He looked at her more closely.

  She was tall, with shoulder-length brown hair that stuck out from under a wool stocking cap. She didn’t seem to be wearing much makeup, but hers was the kind of face that was lovely without it. He moved a little toward his left, feigning interest in a pathetic Douglas fir. When the light caught her face in just the right way, he saw her piercing blue eyes and felt his heart thump hard against his ribcage.

  “Lizzie? Oh my God, is that really you?” Steve blurted.

  Whatever drama had been playing out in front of him stopped. Both the woman and the lot attendant turned to look at him.

  “Eh… excuse me?” she stammered.

  “Lizzie Coleman. That is you.” His voice conveyed at least a small part of the wonder he felt.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t think I know you,” she said, ducking her head and putting her wallet back in her purse. “Excuse me, won’t you?” She pushed quickly past both the men, hurried to the sidewalk and turned to the right.

  Steve stood still for a few moments, unsure what to do next. By the time he got his feet moving again and made it to the sidewalk, she was gone from sight. He strode back to the attendant.

  “Do you know that woman?”

  “Never seen her before in my life, Mac, but thanks a heap for chasing my customer away.”

  “Dammit. Dammit!”

  He kicked at the ground in frustration and turned up the ID card that Elizabeth had dropped. His heart leaped and he knelt down to pick it up. The card said “COLEMAN, ELIZABETH LYNN” and had her address. He gripped it hard. “I knew that was you, Lizzie.”

  The attendant eyed him with cynical resignation.

  “Please,” Steve said, “wait here for just a moment. I’ve got to run back to my car. Then I’ve got a business proposition for you.”

  “I ain’t goin’ anywhere, Mac.”

  Steve ran the block back to his car and climbed quickly behind the wheel. He reached into his briefcase and grabbed the memo-sized notebook he always kept near. The briefcase included two Tiffany pens, one of which he pulled out. He paused, sucking on the end of the pen for a few moments, looking for the right words, when they came to him in a rush. He filled the front and back of the small page, then folded it and stuck it in his inside jacket pocket.

  When he got back to the Christmas tree lot, the attendant was leaning against a light post, smoking a cigarette. Steve said, “I have a proposition for you. I’ll pay you $200 to take one of your trees to this address.” He looked around the lot at the pathetic remaining inventory and pointed to the one that looked the least lamentable of the bunch, then handed him a piece of paper with the address from the ID he had found. “When you get there, I want you to give her this note,” he said, handing it over.

  The attendant’s bushy eyebrows reacted, but his voice did not. “I dunno, Mac, I can’t leave the lot unattended, y’know.” His glittering eyes revealed that he felt he might have just found his own Christmas miracle.

  “Okay, here’s the deal,” Steve said, looking around at the remaining twenty or so trees. “You and I both know that you’re not going to sell many more trees tonight. But, if you’ll deliver the tree and the note like I asked you, I’ll give you $200 now. When you get back here and tell me you delivered it like I asked, I’ll give you $200 more. That would pay you more than every tree left on this lot is worth, so even if the public just steals them all, you’re paid. Deal?”

  ”Okay, deal,” said the lot attendant, accepting the envelope and address.

  Chapter Five

  Elizabeth hadn’t run anywhere in a very long time, but she ran away from that Christmas tree lot, nearly slipping in the snow when she made a fast right turn. She only had one thought in her head: Steve. Oh my God, Steve. She hadn’t seen him in twenty years, and had never expected to see him again. That pain was buried under emotional scar tissue that had turned to rawhide. Opening herself up to it again was not thinkable.

  She glanced over her shoulder as she climbed the steps to her apartment building, in case someone had followed her home. No one was in sight. She hurried up the stairs to her apartment on the third floor. Sebastian met her, rubbing his face against her legs and purring. She picked him up and cradled him to her chest as she sat down on the edge of her couch, oblivious for once to the chill in her apartment.

  Happy kitty purring may be calming, but does not always help sort out shocks and complex feelings. What does it mean, running into Steve again? Anything? Nothing? When the cat-calm had her thoughts slowed down from chaos to confusion, Elizabeth got on with her usual after-work routine. She lit the fire she had laid out that morning, put down a bowl of food for Sebastian, and put the tea kettle on to boil. There is nothing to worry about. I wasn't followed. He won’t be able to call me because I don’t have a phone. The kettle began to whistle, and she got up to make some tea.

  A loud, rude rapping at her door made Elizabeth jump and gasp.

  She put her hand to her breast as if it could calm the sudden pounding of her heart, then took the teapot off the flame and crept across her living room to the front door. She stopped a few inches away and looked around the apartment. It was dark outside and she hadn’t turned on any lights, so it seemed safe to look out the peephole. Just as she started to put her eye against it, three sharp raps came again, so nearby. She jumped and couldn’t quite stifle an “Oh!”

  From outside, a loud, gruff voice said, “C’mon lady, I’ve got a delivery I have to make so I can get back to my family. It’s Christmas for Christ’s sake. Don’t leave me standin’ out in the hallway like this.”

  The voice was as brusque as it was familiar. Anger boiled up as she put her eye against the peephole. Sure enough, it was the rude man from the tree lot. How in the world did he find me, and what could he possibly want?

  “C’mon, lady, I ain’t got all night here. Gimme a break!”

  She gathered her courage and opened the door as far as the chain would allow. “Yes?”

  “Like I said, I got a delivery for you.” He lifted up the tree as proof, dropping pine needles like dandruff on the hallway carpet. “If you’ll open up, I’ll deliver it and be on my way.”

  Elizabeth didn’t want this man inside her apartment at all, but neither did she want him standing in her hallway banging on her door and making a fuss. She sighed, closed the door, unlatched the chain and opened it halfway.

  He didn’t even bother to take a step forward, just held out the tree to her. “Here.”

  “I don’t understand. You said I didn’t have enough money for a tree. Why did you come all the way here just to bring me one?”

  The man shrugged and started to walk away when he stopped, turned and reached into his coat pocket. “Oh yeah,” he said, “I almost forgot. I’m supposed to give you this, too.” He handed her a folded piece of notebook paper.

  In a daze, she reached out and accepted it.

  He started to walk away again, then stopped. He turned to her. “Uh… Merry Christmas, lady.” He smiled at her. It was not an expression that fit nicely on his face.

  “Merry Christmas,” she said automatically, but it was to his back as he disappeared down the hall to the stairs.

  She leaned the tree against the wall by the door and sat again on the edge of the couch. She turned on the lamp, remembered the tea kettle and put it back on the burner, then returned to the couch and unfolded the note.

  She instantly recognized the handwriting: Steve.

  Hello, Lizzie. I can’t believe my luck in running into you like this. I’ve tried to find you so many times over the years. I thought maybe you’d moved out of state. When we lost track of each other, I didn’t know what to do. That night, I felt like I was stuck between two impossible choices, but I know now that I chose the wrong one. You were my best friend, Lizzie. Really, you were my only friend.

  There was something I wanted to tell you that night, but instead I ended up telling you good-bye. Will you meet me tomorrow? I know that’s crazy. Tomorrow is Christmas and I’m sure you have plans, but…

  If you ran away just now because you never want to see me again, I understand. If you’re willing to hear me out, though, meet me at Moe’s Café on 1st Avenue at noon. It’s just a few blocks away from where I ran into you. I’ll be there waiting and I hope you’ll come.

  As you wish.

  Steve

  She had felt a lump forming in her throat as she saw the slants and swirls of his handwriting, still familiar to her after so long, but when she saw the last line, tears spilled down her cheek.

  As you wish.

  The Princess Bride had been their favorite movie. Whenever she had asked him to do something, it was what he always said to her. Her heart ached, seeing it there on the page and knowing he remembered too.

  Chapter Six

  The digital clock beside his bed glowed 11:49, but Steve was still rolling things around in his mind. Twenty years earlier to the day, he had left Elizabeth. It had become his habit to block out thoughts and memories of her. Now, lying in his lonely bed, he let the memories overtake him.