Null Pointer

CWE20: Part II :: December Dances

Mart headed for Mrs. Stevens’ office as soon as he could the following day. He’d seen the tears in Diana’s eyes, as soon as she resigned herself to him not coming to the dance she’d been working so hard on. He needed scholarships, but he also needed Diana. He’d have to find some other way to improve his scholarship application. Di needed him at the dance. Prior commitment.

As he neared the office, he could hear Mrs. Stevens’ voice. “…It’s only five days before the auction! You said you would do this, but now you’re just going to back out?” She sounded distraught.

“Alright, well. I don’t know what we’ll do, but I guess you’ll do what you have to do.”

Mart knocked on the doorframe of her office when she hung up. She lifted her head from her hands and plastered a fake smile on. “Martin, come in.”

“What was that about, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“The decorator who was going to transform the hospital cafeteria for the auction just backed out. He was going to do it at cost, so that more of the proceeds from the auction went to the cause and not to putting on the fundraiser, but now… we’ll have to pay a decorator, if we can even get one this late, and they’re bound to include rush fees, and holiday premiums, but what can we do? The only alternative would be to cancel the whole thing!”

The words flew out of Mart’s mouth before he had fully considered them. “My girlfriend, Diana Lynch, she wants to be a decorator when she grows up, and we were just talking about the auction yesterday, and agreeing that it’s such a worthy cause, I could ask her… I mean she and my sister and Honey—Wheeler, you know?—have been planning the school’s Christmas dance since September.”

“Which is the same night, as you pointed out yesterday, and four days is hardly long enough for a professional decorator, let alone a student who still has to attend classes during the day. And, anyway, I was just at the Lynches’, discussing the items they’ll be donating the auction, and, well…”

Mart smiled knowingly when Mrs. Stevens trailed off. “The pink, blue, and purple, are pretty, but not very festive?”

Mrs. Stevens schooled her features. “I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s not my place to judge.”

“I only mention it because Di said the same. It was the Lynches’ designer who chose that color scheme. Obviously, with the short timeline, and the dance the same night, and everything, it probably won’t work out, but shouldn’t I at least ask Diana if she’d be interested? Like you said, it’s that or cancel.” Which would solve his dilemma, but at what cost?

“I’m open to anything at this point, but this really isn’t your problem to solve, Martin. So enough of that. What did you come here to speak to me about?”

Mart had come to turn down the auction, but he knew Dan and Tad would follow suit and he couldn’t pile that on to the fundraiser’s woes this late. “You know what, I’m actually rethinking my position on the matter I’d come to discuss with you. I’d like to give it further thought, rather than speaking now.”

“Words left unspoken need never be unsaid,” Mrs. Stevens commended him. She glanced at the clock. “You’d best hurry along to your next class. The bell’s about to ring.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Stevens.”

“Mart! What were you thinking?” Di hissed when he told her about the conversation.

“Honestly, I wasn’t. I went there to tell her I wouldn’t be able to be a waiter at the fundraiser, because I need to be at the dance, because I could tell it mattered to you, because I want to support you and all the work you’ve done since September. Then she was all freaked out about the decorator bailing last minute, and I just… you’d do better than blue, pink, and purple for Christmas!”

Di giggled in spite of herself. “We did, for the dance. I mean, maybe if I had a couple weeks, but it’s a couple days out now.”

“I know, I know,” Mart admitted. “I just…I didn’t know what else to say. I didn’t promise you’d do it, just that I’d ask. You can say no.”

“The same way you can say no to waiting tables for the event.”

Mart tipped his head to the side in acknowledgement.

“I don’t know if I can do this.”

Mart nodded. “I’ll recruit Dan, Tad, and the basketball team to help setup for the dance Friday after school. We’ll help setting up for the event, too, if you take it on.”

“I know. It’s just not as simple as red and green glitter and a Santa hat.”

“I know, but if anyone could pull off a Christmas miracle, I’ll put my money on you every time, Diana Lynch.”

“I appreciate that,” she said, hugging him impulsively. “I just hope it’s not misplaced.”

“…the fire chief asked Mother if she might donate the leftover wrapping paper, to wrap all the toys, and I wondered if your family might do the same, Di, since the designers always want us to use paper that matches their ‘vision’ every year.” Honey peered at her best friend, who was tapping a pencil against her sketchbook and not responding. “Di, are you hearing a word I say? Di!”

“Hmm?” Di visibly gathered herself. “I’m sorry, Honey. What did you say?”

Honey repeated herself.

“Oh, thank goodness, a decent use for all that frosted paper! I’m sure Mummy will agree.”

“I bet a lot of students at the dance would help wrap gifts when they need a break from dancing, or their date doesn’t work out,” Trixie said excitedly. “Honey, will you confirm with the fire chief that we can get all the donated toys to the school by the time of the dance? Except the ones the students are bringing to the dance instead of a ticket fee, of course.”

“Certainly,” Honey confirmed, “but first I want to know what’s really on your mind, Di.”

So Di explained, and tried not to feel like she was caught in a game of telephone, what with Mrs. Stevens telling Mart about the decorator pulling out and Mart telling her, and now she was telling Honey and Trixie, who would tell Dan and Tad….

“Dan’s in the same boat,” Honey admitted sympathetically.

They both turned to Trixie when she remained suspiciously silent. She shrugged. “Tad’s going to the auction. He needs every dollar of scholarship he can get; I can’t stand in the way of that, not when neither of us thinks this is forever. Anyway, I only go to the dances because I know you two would drag me, kicking and screaming, if I didn’t. I usually have a good time, and I’ve really enjoyed planning this one, but it’s not…” Trixie trailed off, lifting one shoulder in an eloquent shrug. “Tad’s going to the auction,” she repeated. “He committed weeks ago.”

“You didn’t say anything!”

“I didn’t want you to worry about Dan and Mart’s decisions until they invited you to worry about them. And I didn’t want you to get any ideas about setting me up with someone just for the dance. I was half-considering going over to help Tad anyway, once we had everything squared away for the dance and you two didn’t need me anymore.”

Di smiled at her friend, wondering if Trixie would have been so untroubled by Tad’s decision—or the decision they’d made together—if Jim’s fear of abandonment hadn’t kept him from asking Trixie out before he graduated. Di was fairly certain Trixie couldn’t see forever with Tad because she already saw it with the red-headed Bob-White.

Diana tossed and turned all night, unable to sleep, torn between the dance and the fundraiser, between not having enough time to possibly take on decorations for both and not wanting to leave the auction high and dry, between not wanting Mart to give up his future for her and wanting him to make a romantic sacrifice for her.

Her first class of the morning was art, and she was allowed to free sketch. An hour with her sketchpad somehow resulted in a simple sketch of a transformed hospital cafeteria and the realization that being able to say she never went to a school dance without Mart was more important to her than being able to say she never missed a school dance.

Honey was in her second period Classical Lit, and, fortunately, arrived early. Di showed her a sketch of big cloth poinsettias for the centers of the dining tables, to dress up plain green tablecloths. “Could you make those by the weekend?”

“It depends on how many we need, but they shouldn’t take that long, especially if I can coax your sisters into cutting for me.”

“Bribe them with the scraps,” Di advised. Over the summer, her sisters had picked up quilting and were constantly asking Di and Honey for cloth scraps and sewing machine time for their new creations. Di was fairly certain she was getting a few new throw pillows for her bed this Christmas.

Honey nodded. “So you are going to decorate for the auction?”

“Maybe. I have one wild and crazy idea how I could make it work on such short notice. I want to run it by Mrs. Stevens first. If she says no, then so be it. If she agrees, I’ll tell you and Trixie about it at lunch time.”

The bell rang before Honey could ask for any further details.

“And Mrs. Stevens and the fundraiser people are okay with that?” Trixie asked, surprised, when Di laid out her plan.

Di shrugged slim shoulders. “I mean, it’s Sleepyside, not New York City. Everyone at the event is going to know everyone anyway. Plus it means the chaperones for the dance are there, potentially spending money on the cause. And well-tended-to guests are happy guests, so more servers is more money raised. Plus, no one can start from scratch and decorate for an event like that in half a week, so it’s this or cancel.”

Honey smiled. “If we can pull it all together in time, it’ll be perfectly perfect. You showed me the table toppers earlier, but what else don’t we have? I’ll need to stop at Crimpers after school to buy fabric.”

“The hospital already has the evergreen tablecloths, and we already have the streamers for the ‘tree’. Between your house and mine, we’ll have plenty of giftwrap for the donated toys, and the fire department said they’d donate the scissors and tape. Can you see if you can find some tinsel or something for the edges of the auction tables? Mrs. Stevens has the town Sewing Circle working on the Santa hats and vests for the waiters and waitresses. The Gardening Club is donating the poinsettias and holly arrangements.” Di tapped her pencil against the sketch as she ticked items off. “I mean, that’s everything, right? Hospital’s handling food and refreshments; we already had music set for the dance.”

“Have I told you how much I love you for taking on decorating for the auction?” Mart asked Diana on Saturday morning as the Bob-Whites who weren’t in college yet and Tad finished breakfast at Crabapple Farm and prepared to gather the decorations Di, Honey, and Trixie had prepared, or recruited others to prepare, for the dance and fundraiser.

“Not this hour,” Trixie snickered.

“I appreciate you, too, Squaw,” Mart admitted honestly.

Tad wrapped an arm around her shoulders and squeezed her to his side. “Me, too,” he told her. “I wasn’t looking forward to missing an opportunity to dance with you.”

“I’m not a very good dancer,” Trixie countered self-consciously.

“That’s not the point,” Dan and Tad said at the same time.

When they arrived at the hospital, the largest cafeteria—typically closed for food service on the weekends anyway—had been rearranged as Diana and Mrs. Stevens had agreed to with the hospital’s fundraising committee.

Long tables stood against the walls of the large room on three sides (the fourth having the large serving windows from the kitchen, which would be in use to provide refreshments for the guests), already draped in evergreen tablecloths. The right half of the room had a number of small round tables, also covered in the same dark green, and the podium from which the larger-ticket items would be auctioned, while smaller items would be displayed and sold through a silent auction on the long tables in that half of the room. The hospital’s fundraising committee would begin to arrive to setup that portion of the fundraiser in an hour and a half.

So we should decorate that half of the room first, Di reminded herself. “Okay,” she said out loud when she realized everyone was looking at her for direction. “Dan, I want you to put out those poinsettia table mats Honey made, one on each of the round tables. I think she also made a banner for the podium, which you can hang. It looks like the Gardening Club and Sewing Circle have delivered their items. Honey, if you can find the vests and Santa hats for all our press-ganged waiters and waitresses and make sure everything is ready for them in the kitchen, and then help Dan put the arrangements from the Gardening Club out on the tables?” Honey nodded. Dan had already started his task. “Mart, my sisters cut down the green, red, and silver cord to the right lengths, but they didn’t get a chance to braid them. So we’re going to do that and then use them as borders on all of the long tables’ edges and legs.”

Mart nodded. As much as braiding was something he’d tease his sister was “women’s work”, it was definitely something he could do.

“Trixie, Tad, you can start hanging the snowflakes.”

The art class had made them for the dance, big cardboard cutouts dipped in red, green, silver, gold, blue, purple, or white glitter. The idea had been to make the senior high gym look like less of a basketball court, but they would also make the cafeteria look a little more welcoming for a party.

“What about the ornaments?” Trixie asked.

There were some smaller circle ornament-shaped cardboard cutouts, also liberally coated in a variety of colors of glitter.

Di shook her head, her black hair flipping over her shoulder. “I think we should hang those on the tree for every hundred or thousand dollars raised – whatever the hospital thinks will result in the tree looking well-decorated by the end of the night.”

“Ooh,” Honey murmured, overhearing. “I love that idea! But what if we run out?”

“Well, that’s why I think we want to talk to the committee about what’s a reasonable expectation for a final dollar amount and make sure we’ll use most but not all of our ornaments at that amount. But if the fundraiser is wildly successful, far beyond expectations, we’ll make some more from the scrap wrapping paper.”

Honey nodded. “Yeah, that’ll work.”

“Want me to work on the tree?” Dan asked, having finished his original task.

Di nodded. “The tree” was a collection of red and green cloth streamers that they had meant to hang from the ceiling of the gym over center court and fix the bottoms around a hula-hoop. With the slight change of plans, they would instead fix the bottoms of the streamers to two of the long tables that stood near the corner of the room to Di’s left.

Di’s gaze swept that half of the room, empty save for the long tables along the walls. That’s where the dancing would take place. “Do you think our classmates are going to hate it that we moved the dance here and kind of co-opted everyone to be part of both the hospital’s fundraiser and the fire department’s toy drive?” She asked worriedly.

Trixie shook her head, her curls bouncing wildly. “They were already co-opted for the toy drive when we said we’d accept toys instead of charging for tickets. Wrapping the toys for the fire department will be a great thing to do when we need a break from dancing, or to get away from a date that’s not working out,” Trixie reassured Diana again.

“I hope that’s not directed at me,” Tad teased, pulling a chair over from one of the round tables so he could hang a snowflake higher on the back wall.

“Not you,” Trixie said affectionately. “I meant in general. I’ve been to enough of our school dances to know regrets when I see them. Anyway, Di, as far as moving the dance, it makes sense. This was never going to be a well-attended dance, since it’s on the 23^rd. Anyone travelling—even just up-state—for Christmas is gone. With the six of us—at least—torn between the two events, it had to be done. Besides, the chaperones for the dance will probably bid on some of the silent auction stuff, at least, which is more money for the hospital.”

“And adults always get nostalgic about school dances and ‘the good old days’. That means the auction guests will bid higher,” Honey added. “Plus we were always planning to play holiday music at the dance, so we don’t have to worry about the auction folks hating the ‘kids’’ taste in music or us hating being stuck without any of the modern music we like.”

Several hours later—after the committee members had arrived, the Bob-Whites and Tad had helped them set up the silent auction items and regular auction items, explained their plan for the ornaments, and promised the wait staff to help run the ornaments from the podium in the front of the room to the tree in the back—the six friends looked around the room to be sure everything was ready. Honey and Di had placed their families’ extra wrapping paper on the long tables around the dance floor, along with ribbons, bows, tags, scissors, and tape. The fire department had brought all the donated toys and distributed them to the bins under each of those tables to be wrapped. “I think we’re ready,” Trixie announced.

Di nodded. It looked good. Great, considering she’d had four days’ notice to convert their vision for the basketball court in the gymnasium to something that would work in a cafeteria for both a dance and fundraiser.

“Yes; all with enough time to go home and get dressed and pick up the toys we’re donating. Thanks for helping with the setup,” she said to the guys.

“It’s the least we could do for you figuring out a way for us not to miss either the scholarship boost or the dance,” Dan replied, giving her a hug. “See you all in two hours. Is that early enough, for us to be ready when the guests arrive?”

Di nodded again. “I think that’s fine. There’s nothing we need to do when we arrive, except put on the vests and hats. Everything’s ready.”

Mart laced his fingers through Di’s, standing between two of the silent auction tables.

“Welcome everyone to the Sleepyside Hospital. We hope you’re prepared to enjoy yourself this evening and give generously to our ‘Under the Tree’ fundraiser. Especially at this time of year, we’d be remiss if we didn’t express some gratitude right at the start of our festivities tonight. We’d like to thank everyone who donated toys to the Sleepyside Fire Department’s toy drive.” When the polite applause died down, the chair of the hospital’s fundraising committee, who would be the auctioneer, continued, “Throughout the night, our guests, especially the students from Sleepyside Junior-Senior High School, will wrap these donated gifts and place them ‘under the tree’,” she explained with a gesture toward the “tree”.

“I personally need to thank Mrs. Stevens for her efforts coordinating various groups who donated time, labor, and goods to make this event a success. Nicole, would you like to come say a few words?”

Mrs. Stevens hesitated and then rose and went to the podium. “It has been an absolute joy to work with the hospital on this fundraiser, and this town has some of the most generous residents I have ever met, so I know this event will be wildly successful. I can’t take credit for coordinating anything, without thanking Sheryl Robbins, the whole Sewing Circle, and Helen Belden, and the Gardening Club, for their contributions.” She paused for applause and then said, “I especially need to thank Diana Lynch for taking over complete responsibility for the decorations, while attending classes full-time, and with only four days’ notice.”

Di blushed as Mart spun her out like they were already dancing and the room burst into wild applause. “And the rest of the dance committee!” Di called out, embarrassed, because it hadn’t been all her!

Mrs. Stevens had taken her seat again while the room applauded Diana’s decorating talent. The chair of the fundraising committee resumed her spot at the podium and continued, thanking those who had donated items for the auction, and those who had already donated toward the new cancer wing.

From there, the auction commenced, and the dancing. Three hours later, there was a pile of wrapped gifts under the streamer tree, which was decorated as fully as any other tree in Sleepyside with glittery ornaments. High school students were dancing slowly, tiring out from so much dancing. Patrons of the auction sipped their drinks as bidding on the final item commenced.

Mart pulled Di into a warm hug. “You’re amazing. This is amazing.”

“It was all your idea,” she whispered. “You believed I could do it.”