120 Blind Dates... And Other Short Stories

A Totally Unbelievable Christmas Story

Although she was already 17 years old, Allison Simpson felt like Kevin from Home Alone this year. Yet one could have argued that her this was nobody's but Allison's own fault: Her parents had gone off on a holiday cruise and had certainly asked her to come to the Carribean with them. But back in July, when the cruise had been booked, Allison had still been together with her ex-boyfriend, and the prospect of being separated over the Christmas holidays hadn't seemed all that inviting.

So here she was with no parents or boyfriend to celebrate the holidays with. Most of her girlfriends from school had gone skiing with their families, and two or three of them had even tried to convince Allison to join them. But Allison hated nothing more than skiing after she had tried it once and had ended up in the ER after half an hour. On the bright side, she had a lot of time on her hands to clean her room, which her mother was constantly nagging her to do. When her room was squeaky clean two days later, she decided she should learn French as she was currently failing that class at school and had midterms coming up in January.

When Christmas Eve came around, she was so depressed that she didn't even bother to get out of her pyjamas anymore, and all she ate was basically frozen pizza for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

That night she lay in her bed and was watching Netflix when something extraordinary happened. No, there was no burglary as in Home Alone. And Santa Claus wasn't real, so he didn't come by for a visit either.

Around 11 o'clock, the bell rang. Allison was not stupid and had received clear instructions from her parents not to open the door to anyone at night. But she was bored, so she went to the window to see who was at the door.

At first, she thought she was dreaming. It was just not possible! But when she looked down at the door for a second time, she realised this was real: John Tattler, the latest singing sensation from Canada to top the charts, was at her door. She even saw his car, a red Ferrari, parked in the street, and there was a lady, presumably his mother, in the car.

Of course, she went down and opened the door, cursing the fact that she was in her pyjamas. "Yes?" she asked upon opening the door and tried not to swoon as soon as she saw that his eyes were really as aquamarine blue in reality as they were in his music videos.

"Hi there and sorry, I was wondering whether You could call a tow truck. My ride just died on me, and I've never been in this area before, so I don't know who to call," he said.

"Oh," was all she could say before she managed to collect herself. "We should give Ben Summers a call. He is a friend of my Dad's runs the best garage in town..."

"Do you think he's ever dealt with a car like this before? It's just that it's brand new and all," John said and sounded a bit worried.

Even though Allison doubted that old Ben had ever seen a Ferrari before, except maybe in pictures, she nodded. The truth was that she didn't know who else she could call on Christmas Eve to help her with a problem like that. "He's very good at his job. Why don't you and your companion come into the house in the meantime? It's pretty cold outside."

John took Allison up on that offer. But the lady in the car wasn't really his mother, but his manager and maybe his lover, too. She couldn't help but notice that the two of them were holding hands.

Ben Summers turned up about twenty minutes later sans tow truck as he wanted to find out what was wrong with the car first. Since he had no family, he was happy to help someone on Christmas Eve. In this case, he couldn't help but whistle when he saw the Ferrari. "Nice car! What's wrong with it?"

"I don't know. It just stopped in the middle of the street," John admitted.

"It's possible that it has just run out of gas, but Johnny here refused to listen to me when we passed the last gas station," his manager inserted.

"I've had the car for two weeks," John said defensively.

Ben checked the car and came to a similar conclusion. After a quick drive to the nearest gas station, the Ferrari was running again.

Instead of a payment, Ben asked John if he'd take Allison and him for a spin around the block to see what the car could do.

"But there are only two seats in the car," John objected.

"Well, if you don't want Allison here to sit on my lap, you have to go twice around the block," Ben said. "And she has sat on my lap since she was a baby!"

"We're not doing that! There could be photographers! Remember what they did to Britney Spears?" John's manager objected.

John nodded, but he obediently took Ben and then Allison for rides in his Ferrari.

Allison had never sat in a car like this before. It was truly an animal. "This is so great! It feels just like that scene in Scent of a Woman!" she exclaimed.

"Except that Al Pacino played a blind man in that movie," John objected. "I guess I have to thank you for helping me out tonight!"

"No problem," Allison replied. "No one's going to believe me that this happened tonight anyway! That John Tattler came by to save me from the worst Christmas ever!"

And she meant it like that.