Coming To Reason (A Long Road to Love) (17 page)

For her reasonable explanation, she received her shoe back with
a cheery smile.

She returned to the seat next to Dan. “Sorry for the
interruption.”

“Did someone beneath the stage steal your shoe?”

She shushed him and then leaned in to whisper, “Yes.”

He turned his head and spoke soft
ly
in return. “But
how? I sat right here and didn’t see a thing.”

“These two will astound you. They are masters of several
arts, not just magic. Trent couldn’t explain how they did stuff when they used
him as their audience participant.”

Dan leaned so close, for a moment she feared he intended to
kiss her, which would not be good, so she pulled back and studied her
fingernails. She had a boyfriend. Besides she’d learned from her turn-around of
Lancaster Chairs ‘doing’ the boss undermined her credibility.

While far superior to the old staff, the new Lancaster employees,
especially the women, went over her head and challenged her requests with
Trent. To her frustration, he would, often as not, cater to their whims. She
gave up trying to stop him from talking to them at all, and instead made him
promise to discuss matters with her before making decisions.

Evidently sensing her need for space, Dan pulled back and,
a moment later, stood, relinquishing his seat to Destiny.

“Turns out Carrie loves hiking and fly fishing,” he
informed Destiny.

The girl squealed and hugged her. “No wonder I like you so
much.” She looked up at her father. “Can we go hiking in Maine after my test
next Wednesday?”

“Hold on. Carrie’s a new hire. She doesn’t have any vacation
time for six months.”

Destiny groaned. “That’s so unfair.”

Carrie patted her arm. “
Actually
, it is quite
reasonable. A new hire has a lot to learn, which can’t be done if he or she is hiking
in Maine.”

“Then maybe we can go somewhere close, next weekend?”

“Shouldn’t you be studying for your chemistry test?” Dan
asked.

Another groan erupted from Destiny as she grimaced and
looked at Carrie. “I’m dying in the class.”

“As I recall, it’s most
ly
memorization,” Carrie said.

Destiny rolled her eyes and nodded in agreement.

“Then it’s a great thing to study while hiking. All you
have to do is make a digital recording of all the stuff you need to memorize.
After the question, leave enough time to answer it aloud, then state the answer.
You can have a great hike and put it all to memory. Exercise improves your
ability to learn. So, hiking and learning go well together.

Her suggestion earned her another hug from Destiny and a smile
of appreciation from Dan.

As the lights dimmed, Carrie gave up her seat to Dan and waited
for the manager. He soon arrived and placed a chair in the aisle next to the front
row.

She noticed the three seats in the center if the front row
remained empty and considered moving there with Dan and Destiny, but she didn’t
dare. Tall and Tiny liked to mess with the audience at the beginning of their
shows.

She glanced about, but didn’t see either man. Last time,
Tiny had occupied Destiny’s spot.

Someone crashed into her. She almost stood up to get out of
the way, but Tiny had told her to remain seated. Without warning, her world tilted
backwards. She gripped the seat as the chair balanced on its back two legs. The
audience laughed. Carrie glanced up to see Tiny poised upside down on the
backrest in a one-handed handstand.

Dan’s reaction had been to reach out and steady her. His
eyes rounded as he stared at an upside down man. Tiny’s precarious position did
not stop the little fellow from slapping at Dan to keep him away.

Carrie didn’t dare move, less she send both her and Tiny
tumbling, so she held onto her seat, hunkered down, and held on for dear life.

A giant hand came into her view and tilted her head up. However,
to see Tall’s head she had to sit up which sent her and Tiny into a precarious
tilt backwards, resulting in some wild rocking before he settled. Well, not
exact
ly
settled. He attempted to shoo Tall away with swats of his available
appendages.

In his low, lugubrious voice, Tall said, “This is a code
violation, so I’m going to have to ask you to sit in the middle.”

“May my friends come, too?” Somewhere a microphone
amplified her voice so all could hear.

“Of course, friends are the best thing in the world. You
never want to lose them.”

Oh God! Poor Destiny and Dan will almost certain
ly
disappear at
the whim of Tall.

If not for the microphone, she would have begged him to
take her instead.

Tall pulled her from her seat with such speed, Tiny had no
chance to recover. Instead of crashing to the ground, he and the chair became a
clunky wheel traveling up the aisle.

Tall seated Carrie, Dan, and Destiny in the three empty
seats front row center and whispered something to Destiny while everyone
watched Tiny.

Then, somehow, Tiny and his piece of furniture became a
giant white inner tube and rolled down the aisle, hit the edge of the stage,
and flew into the air.

The inner tube landed on stage, while Tiny soared toward
the center front row—at Destiny, to be precise.

Dan moved to protect his daughter. Carrie gripped his arm, fearing
his good intentions would get in Tall’s way. She trusted Tall to save Destiny
from harm, but not if a protective father prevented him from doing so.

As Dan’s arm wrenched from her grip, Tall contained the protective
father with a hand to the chest while holding up a chair identical to the one
Tiny had rolled away with and caught the amazing fellow as he landed butt first
in the seat.

The crowd went crazy.

Then the stage went pitch black.

A voice boomed from above. “Ladies and Gentlemen, Tall and
Tiny present Dante’s Place of Business. If the person beside you has
disappeared, have no fear. They have gone to work.”

Squeals could be heard behind her. She reached out to touch
Dan, finding the pitch-blackness unnerving.

No Dan.

They had stolen her boss.

Again.

The last time she had come, they had taken Trent.

Worried Destiny might be frightened, she shifted to Dan’s
seat and reached to Destiny. Damn it. They’d taken her too.

She moved back to her seat not wanting either of them
dropped in her lap when the gig ended.

With no friends to worry about, she relaxed and listened to
the audience. By the tension in voices behind her she feared the pitch
blackness had people frightened.

Before anyone lost it, the stage illuminated in fiery
orange. Rocks of pulsating lava glowed against the back and side walls of Dante’s
place of business.

She couldn’t believe it. The stage resembled her office the
night Tall and Tiny helped her get the Europa turtles from her systems manager.

In fact, the furniture looked suspicious
ly
the same.
Trent had found a junk dealer who agreed to carry all their old furniture away
for a fee of a hundred dollars. Had the obliging ‘junk dealer’ worked for Tall
and Tiny?

She located Destiny and Dan amongst the ten workers. They
must have been given parts to play, because all of the abducted workers were
doing something, none of which could be classified as work.

Destiny built a tower of paper clips and Dan polished his
shoes. A young man studied a giant text book, titled
Giant Text Book
. Several
employees slept and a romantic couple’s legs wiggled beneath a desk.

A large woman sat at the desk loaded with supply boxes
labeled
Dante’s supplies, steal and die
. However, the moment she rose
and turned to the audience, Carrie recognized Tiny’s face beneath makeup and a
wig. Given the fat woman he portrayed appeared normal size, somewhere beneath
the long muumuu had to be stilts.

Tiny walked about the room selling supplies. The couple
beneath the desk bought condoms. The schoolboy bought
Cheaters’ Guide to Tests
.
Dan bought shoe polish and Destiny bought fifty more boxes of paper clips. Tiny
placed pillows under the sleepers’ heads and pulled the money from their fisted
hands.

A frightening masked creature in black appeared in the
center of the office, speaking in a deep voice. “Get back to work, you sloven
ly
beasts, or I
will use your skins for my new line of leather chairs.”

He slapped a long whip at the woman hoarding supplies. The
uncurling tip missed her by a foot, but a burst of fire flew from its end and
sent her soaring over a desk, exposing short hairy legs and the tallest high-heeled
shoes in the world.

“You dare steal from me? Me! The greatest being in the
world, the most handsome, smartest, and kindest of all creatures. I’ll rip you
apart, bone by bone, muscle by muscle, tooth by tooth.”

Tall hissed, sending a fiery flame onto Tiny. With a puff
of smoke, Tiny disappeared as if seared into oblivion.
Only
a pile of ash
remained.

The demon boss turned back to the other workers. “Now get
to work!” None of them paid him the least bit of attention.

Eyeing the wiggling legs of the lovers he tossed back the
desk as he seared the area with his flame-thrower breath. When the smoke settled,
a pile of ashes and an unraveled condom remained.

The remaining non-sleeping workers shuffled as if a bit
nervous. They knew the missing lovers had been audience participants, like them.
Dan took it upon himself to move to Destiny and polish her shoes, which made everyone
laugh, because Destiny wore white tennis shoes.

Tears rolled down Carrie’s cheeks.

Tall stormed over to Dan. “Get back to your desk!”

“We’re team-working,” Dan declared.

“Team-working?” Tall bellowed. “There’s no team-working
down here! It’s every sewer rat for itself.” He shoved Dan closer to Destiny
then reached down and somehow made all fifty boxes of clips turn into a giant
mound. With a few waves of his hands, he created a cage around the two.

“That’s what I think of team working.”

He approached the boy reading the giant textbook. The guy’s
eyes rounded with genuine fear. A huge clock on the desk rang. The face of it
said, “Time for School.”

Tall knelt so his face hovered just a bit higher than the
young man’s.

“Is it time for school?”

The kid stared at him.

His giant hand gripped the fellow’s scalp and turned his
face to the clock on the desk. “Do you have a test to take?”

The boy tentative
ly
nodded.

“An important test?”

The boy nodded again.

“Will you fail school if you don’t go now?”

Now more confident to his part in this skit, he nodded and
smiled.

Tall moved behind him and spoke in his ear. “Would you
rather die than miss it?”

The boy hesitated in answering, so Tall moved the kid’s
head up and down.

Malicious
ly
pleased with the boy’s answer, he stood and breathed in,
ready to burn the boy to a crisp. Before the boy became toast, a tiny, white-feathered
angel, holding a cell phone in one hand and an iPad in the other, appeared
center stage, floating ten feet in the air.

The iPad blinked the word
STOP!

Tiny, looking more like a fluffy chicken than an actual
angel, fluttered and flapped his stubby wings, landing hard on his butt.

For the next five minutes, Tiny amused the audience with
his acrobatic skills as he attempted the simple task of getting up.

Carrie groaned when Tiny began dancing seductive
ly
around Tall.
She hoped Dan and Destiny never realized she and Trent had inspired this
nonsense. Now mesmerized, the demon turned to the little chicken’s command and,
with each turn, his face grew less hideous, until he looked like a current
movie star, a
really
cute guy, whom she couldn’t put a name to. Eye candy, all
the same.

The improved boss strutted about, declaring himself
handsome, then materialized a mirror and frowned. “Do you think my head is too
small?”

Everyone laughed, because, in fact, a normal-size head
looked wrong on Tall’s seven-foot body.

Tiny took flight and kissed him. Tall’s head expanded.
Additional kisses caused it to grow further.

Final
ly
, Tiny noticed the surviving workers. He moved from desk to
desk, resurrecting the other people by throwing sparkles on the ashes. A second
later, a surprised employee smiled at Tiny. The fat chicken angel arrived at
the ashes of the supply hoarder. Carrie knew the thieving employee who had
tried to throw a file cabinet onto her head inspired the character.