“But … but …”
“It’ll be fine. I’ll play the innkeeper’s wife, and between the two of us, we’ll work it out.”
Alfred swallowed hard as he looked at the stage. “I suppose it is the least I can do.”
“Great! Go backstage and look through the Dracula costumes. That’s about all that’s left, unless nobody claimed Quasimodo.”
Alfred stood. “I feel like I’m having an out-of-body experience.”
Lois smiled. “Me too.”
Two hours until show time, and they still couldn’t find Ainsley. Sick to his stomach with worry, Wolfe could barely concentrate on what he was supposed to be doing, which was pretty unclear to begin with.
Taking the Bible, Lois had broken the story down into several simple scenes. Some of the actors were playing more than one role, which confused matters even further. And Wolfe couldn’t help thinking this was some cruel joke. Dickens was spared, but now he would be made a fool for God.
Truthfully, he didn’t care. He just wanted to see Ainsley. He’d hoped that if Lois had called upon her to play Mary, that would get her to the theater. But so far, it hadn’t worked.
Clasping his hands together, Wolfe bowed his head. He’d been so angry at all the nonsense, he’d forgotten to pray at all about any of it. He didn’t know what to say, except to ask for God’s help.
“You’re going to do fine, dude.” Wolfe looked up. Dustin stood there, dressed in white. “Isn’t this awesome? It’s an old ghost costume I had from the store. Mrs. Downey added some glitter and bam! I’m Gabriel!”
“You’re Gabriel?”
Dustin shrugged. “They thought my long, wavy hair had nice appeal.”
“Great.”
“You’re creative, man. You’re in your element, except you’re not creating on paper. You’re creating onstage, dude! This is going to be fantastic. Anything can happen out there!”
“I know,” Wolfe sighed. “That’s the problem.”
Dustin sat down. “Think of it as a book. What would the characters do? Say? That’s all this is, man! It’s like the ultimate plot twist!”
“Yes, well, it would be helpful if they could find my wife. The Christmas story can be told a lot of different ways, but not without Mary.”
“Melb Stepaphanolopolis volunteered for the role. You know, just in case Ainsley doesn’t show up.”
Wolfe rolled his eyes. “Terrific.”
Oliver suddenly burst through the curtain. “Wolfe! We found her!”
Clutching Abigail, Ainsley made her way down the aisle of the theater, escorted by two of her father’s deputies. They led her to Lois, whose tousled hair had two pencils sticking out of it. She was shouting directions and pointing this way and that with a third pencil. “Lois,” one of the deputies said, and she turned.
“Ainsley! Thank goodness!”
“I don’t understand,” Ainsley said, eyeing the … Was that a pig? “What’s happening?”
“Short on time. Will explain later. Need you to be Mary, the mother of God. Can you or can’t you?”
“But … what … I don’t …”
“Okay, that’s not how you play her. Mary needs to be serene and pulled together, do you understand? She appears frightened once, when the angel comes to see her. After that, she’s solid as a rock.”
“I thought this was a—”
“Yes, well, Dickens is overrated. We’re going with God. You know the story by heart. Here’s a basic rundown of the play,” she said, shoving a piece of paper into Ainsley’s hand. “We’ve got a costume waiting for you backstage. Ignore the bloodstain. It’s fake, but we’ll need to make reference to it sometime during the play. Maybe you cut your finger as you fell backward in awe.”
Lois gestured like she was thinking out loud, then stopped and turned toward the stage. “I know what’s missing! I’ve got it. How did I not think about this before?” She grabbed one of the deputies. “You. Go get the reverend. Now! And tell him to dress like he would for a funeral!”
He hurried off, and Lois grabbed Ainsley by the shoulder, leading her up onstage. “Mary’s here, people. And the lines are starting to form outside. We’ve got one shot at this! But do not fear! God is bringing us a helper!”
She led Ainsley backstage and took Abigail out of her arms, handing her to a woman nearby who was trying to make a star from cardboard. “Ainsley, listen to me. I know this is a little unsettling. Believe me. We’re all feeling the pressure. But you can do this. Now, let me help set the character for you. Think pure. A little naive. Definitely virgin. But she’s got gumption, okay? She’s confident, but not cocky. Beautiful, but not aware of it. Okay? Heck, Ainsley, just play yourself, all right?”
“But who is Joseph?”
“Who else? Wolfe! Perfect, huh?”
“But, no. I can’t. We’re not … we’re …”
“Lois! The sheep have arrived!”
“Excuse me for a moment. Get your costume on pronto! I’ll be back in a second.” Lois rushed off, and Ainsley looked around. She spotted Wolfe standing nearby. Tears formed in her eyes, but she couldn’t say anything. She was overwhelmed enough as it was. He started to come over, but Ainsley shook her head and turned, swiping a tear off her face. This was the last thing she needed, to be pulled into an insane production with Wolfe playing her husband. It was just a reminder that he might’ve been playing this role all along. Sniffling, she tried to compose herself.
For now, she was nobody’s wife—just a woman, alone, afraid, and with a child.
CHAPTER 21
“At this time of the rolling year,” the spectre said, “I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode! Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me!”
LOIS PEEKED THROUGH the curtain, then turned back to the actors clustered around her. “The house is packed! People are standing in the back!” She held up her hands. “Everyone stay calm. This situation is totally under control. Right, Reverend?”
Everyone looked at the reverend, who stood in stunned silence.
“Reverend?”
He just shook his head. “I don’t think I can do this. I haven’t prepared. I don’t—know what to say, and I might mess up. This could be—”
“Reverend, you know this story inside and out! You preach about it every single Christmas, don’t you?”
“Yes, but—”
“Just get up there, and pretend that’s a crowd full of people in your pews.”
Suddenly, the reverend’s entire demeanor changed. He started to smile. “This is it!” he said, with a sudden burst of enthusiasm. “This is the miracle!”
“What miracle?” someone asked.
Lois answered. “Just roll with it, people. If the rev says it’s a miracle, then it’s a miracle. It’s certainly going to take one to pull this thing off. Now, bow your heads, everyone. Beg God for His help, and let’s take our places!”
They dimmed the house lights, and the crowd grew quiet. Lois cued Ainsley and the reverend toward the stage. She turned to the reverend. “God be with you.” And then she shoved him onto the stage.
“Lights up,” Lois instructed.
The reverend was caught off guard by the glaring light in his face. He couldn’t even see the people out there as he squinted like a flashbulb had just gone off. But he could hear them, and they were starting to whisper as he stood there. He glanced back at Ainsley, who looked equally terrified. Her eyes bounced from him toward the audience, as she sat and clutched her robe, which was far too long and pooled at her feet.
The reverend turned back to the crowd and said, “She was terrified.”
The crowd murmured, but he tried a confident expression. “As anyone would be if they were visited by an angel.”
“Cue angel!” he heard Lois whisper, and suddenly, Dustin stumbled onto the stage, glancing backward and scowling, while adjusti
ng his shiny gold belt. Apparently trying to seem more angelic, he grinned widely as he approached Mary.
“The angel said to Mary, ‘Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!’ ”
Dustin nodded and looked at Mary, pitching a thumbs-up.
The reverend continued. “Mary was frightened and”—he looked back—“trembling. ‘Don’t be afraid! The Lord has decided to bless you!’ ”
Dustin’s confidence surged. “You’re going to get pregnant. This will totally freak you out because, of course, you’re a virgin. But this is the way God wants it. And He’s going to do all these cool things like—”
“You will name Him Jesus,” the reverend inserted, “and He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord will give Him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over Israel forever; His kingdom will never end!”
The reverend smiled at Ainsley. She knew this by heart; he could see it in her eyes. Rising, Ainsley looked at Dustin. “But how can I have a baby? I am a virgin.”
“That’s the cool thing—,” Dustin started.
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. This baby born to you will be holy, and He will be called the Son of God. Also, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age! People used to say she was barren, but she’s already in her sixth month! For nothing is impossible with God.”
Thankfully, Dustin looked at a loss for words.
“I am the Lord’s servant,” Ainsley said, “and I am willing to accept whatever He wants. May everything you have said come true.”
“And the angel left,” the reverend said. Dustin sighed and skulked offstage.
“Cue Elizabeth!” Lois whispered.
Melb entered from stage right. Lois had fastened a basketball underneath her robe to make her look pregnant. As she walked toward Mary, she groaned. “Oh, my! I just can’t describe to you what it’s like to be pregnant at my age! It’s killing my feet. And my back? I can’t even sleep on my side anymore. You want to talk about stretch marks? Honey, when you’re my age—”
“Suddenly, Elizabeth’s baby leaped within her, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.”
Melb bumped the ball up a little with her thumbs. She gazed at the ceiling and lifted her arms up like she might take flight.
“Um … and Elizabeth said to Mary, ‘You have been blessed by God above all other women, and your child is blessed.’ ”
Suddenly Ainsley burst into tears. “I know. I know! I want to believe it!”
The reverend cleared his throat. He was pretty sure Mary was supposed to be joyful, but he rolled with it. “And Elizabeth and Mary quickly went offstage to rejoice!”
Melb dropped her arms, looked at Ainsley, and hurried her offstage left, but not before the basketball fell out of her stomach and bounced to stage right. The lights went down, and Lois cued Joseph onstage. The reverend watched Wolfe pretend to work on a wooden table that had at one time belonged to the Cratchit family.
“Cue lights! Cue Mary!”
Ainsley slowly walked onstage, still wiping her tears. She looked at the reverend as she blotted her nose with a Kleenex.
The reverend tried to fill in the silence. “Mary didn’t know how to tell Joseph. How could he understand such a thing?”
Wolfe stood and faced Ainsley. “Hello, Mary.”
“Hello, Joseph.”
“How are you?”
“Oh, um, fine. How are you?”
“Just working on my table here.” He smiled and gestured toward it. “What do you think?”
“I’m pregnant, and the baby isn’t yours. It’s God’s. I don’t expect you to believe me or stay with me. It’s hard enough to have a baby in wedlock, as you might imagine. So I don’t expect you to deal with this mess. And that’s what this is going to be, Joseph. A real mess. Okay?” She turned and stomped off the stage. Wolfe glanced at the reverend for help.
“Uh … then an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream …”
“Cue angel!”
Wolfe laid down by his table and curled up as Dustin floated back onstage. “Joseph, wake up! Hey, wake up!”
“In a dream …” the reverend urged.
“Oh. Oops.”
“The angel said, ‘Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. The baby she carries is from God. You must name the child Jesus because He will save the people from their sins.’ ”
Wolfe pretended to wake up from this dream. But all the pondering in the world couldn’t save this scene, and just as the angel was about to say something, Lois killed the lights.
The reverend wasn’t sure what to do next, so he just stood in the dark. Soon enough, though, he heard the sounds of a donkey.
“Cue donkey, Mary, Joseph!”
Out they came, Ainsley riding on the donkey and looking absolutely terrified as she clutched its ears. Wolfe held a string that was supposed to be a rope. The donkey wore the most fascinating expression of the three of them.
“Now in those days, Caesar Augustus, the Roman ruler, decreed that a census should be taken throughout the Roman Empire. All returned to their own towns to register for this census. Because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem, in Judea. He traveled there from Nazareth, taking Mary, his pregnant fiancée, with him.”
They crossed the stage and exited without a word and the lights went down. The reverend could hear the crowd grumbling. “This is stupid!” one person said. Another growled, “What a waste of money!”
“Cue animals!”
Suddenly chickens, pigs, a miniature horse, and a few cats entered the stage, all making a racket. But to the reverend’s surprise, the audience began chuckling with delight. After two hay bales were pushed onstage, the lights came up. The reverend heard Lois whisper, “Not yet!” and the lights came back down.
A pig waddled up beside him. The reverend really hoped, at this point, he might be upstaged by an animal.
Alfred was already sweating like a pig, even before the hundreds of eyes he was responsible for bringing directed their attention to him. Lois had opted out of being the innkeepers wife, claiming she didn’t have enough good lines, which left Alfred alone in the inn.
“Um … I’m sorry …” Alfred said, gesturing toward the hay. “This is all I have. Just a stable. You should’ve gotten here earlier, but unfortunately, there’s no room in the inn.” Alfred sighed with relief. He’d managed to pull off his lines.
“Can you get us some blankets?” Joseph suddenly asked.
“Oh … uh …” Alfred tried to remember the Bible story the best he could, but nothing came to him. He was fairly certain, though, that the innkeeper was uncooperative. “Sorry. We’re out of blankets.”
“What about something to eat? My wife … fiancée—it’s a long story—anyway, we have traveled a great distance, and she is about to give birth. Please, if we could just have a tiny morsel of food.”
“Fresh out of food, I’m afraid.” The pig oinked. “Except bacon.”
“We don’t eat bacon.”
“Why?”
“Never mind,” said Joseph. “Mary is mine to look after. And I will. I will take care of her for the rest of her life and not let anything harm her. God gave her to me, and I love her very much.” Wolfe looked at Ainsley, and his eyes filled with tears.
The audience gasped with emotion, and Alfred glanced at them, then tried to get back into his character. But what more could he say? He realized he was now the antagonist of the play. He decided that instant that he would get the forthcoming child a blanket. Yes, he had something to give, though it was small.
But right as he was about to offer it, the reverend butted in. “And so the innkeeper left.” A few people actually clapped, and Alfred could do nothing but turn and walk offstage.
“Cue wise men! They’re coming from the back of the theater!”
“Lois, wait!” Alfred said. “Please. Let me go back on.
I want to give the child a blanket.”
Lois was helping hoist the star. “What are you talking about? Your part is over. You did fine. Now go help with costume changes or something.” Alfred watched her hurry toward Ainsley, who bounced Ollie around like a carnival ride, trying to keep him from crying.
“Listen to me, Ainsley,” Lois said. “This transition is tricky. We’re going to have to give the audience the illusion you’re really giving birth.”
“Can’t I just go out there carrying the baby? They’ll get the idea.”
“Ainsley, for the sake of women everywhere, we owe them this. Babies just don’t pop out. And Mary was in a stable, for crying out loud. So imagine no epidural and a bed full of hay.”
“I … I can’t. I can’t—”
The lights suddenly came up and Alfred watched Lois’s eyes grow wide with panic.
“Ahhhhh!” Lois screamed. “Ahhh! Ohhh! Ahhh!”
Alfred rushed to her. “Lois, are you okay?”
“Don’t tell me to push, you moron! You push! You try this for one second! Ohhh! The pain! The pain!” She turned to Ainsley and whispered. “Now, go out there and sit next to the hay. Put the baby in that trough and whatever you do, don’t let him cry.”
“Why?” Ainsley asked.
“It’s baby Jesus! He didn’t cry! Keep looking serene. Tilt your head a little. Glow from within. And wait for the wise men. Lights up! Go!”
Lois watched Ainsley from the side of the stage, but Alfred couldn’t shake the urge that he needed to do something more. He touched her elbow. “Lois, please. I need to give the baby something.”
Lois turned to him. “Why, Alfred?”
Alfred paused, trying to understand it himself. “Because, if God can use a mess like this,” he said, gesturing toward the stage, “then maybe He can use a mess like me.”
Lois’s eyes narrowed, and Alfred realized he’d just called this production a mess. It was fairly obvious to everyone, but nothing ever seemed obvious with Lois.
“Alfred, the wise men are already en route. There’s nothing I can do.”
Onstage, he could hear the reverend. “About that time, some wise men from eastern lands arrived in Jerusalem. Scripturally, they didn’t actually arrive at His birth. It was several years later, but for the sake of time, the traditional nativity has them coming when He was a baby …”