Free No Return: A Contemporary Phantom Tale by Christine Pope Page B

I’m delinquent in my taxes and that the property’s going to be put up for auction in ten days unless I pay all the back taxes plus some seriously major fines!”
    “Oh, my God!” I exclaimed. No wonder he was in such a foul mood. “Did somebody screw up?”
    “Of course somebody screwed up—they’ll just never admit it. I spent most of the morning on the phone with a series of dipshits—sorry—bureaucrats who all swore up and down that my taxes this spring hadn’t been paid and that I was seriously delinquent.”  
    “But don’t you have a canceled check or something to show that you paid?” I asked.
    “Not exactly. I let my stupid bank talk me into doing the whole electronic check storage thing, so now I have to go in and request my records back six months, locate the check, and get a facsimile made. No problem—except that that process is going to take fourteen business days, which is four more than I have.”
    Next to this, my recent problems seemed fairly insignificant. “So what are you going to do?”
    “I’ll keep fighting it, but in the meantime I’m probably going to have to borrow the money from my parents.” He scowled, then took another pull at his beer. “That’s going to be a real fun conversation.”
    “I am so sorry, Randall,” I said, and I meant it. Having spent the last five years of my life fighting with various financial-aid organizations, I knew that dealing with the random stupidity of government bureaucracies was about as much fun as having a root canal.
    “Yeah, so am I.”
    At that point the food arrived, and we were silent for several moments as we took a few bites.  
    Then he said, “I really didn’t mean to dump on you, Christine—”
    “If you can’t dump on me, then who can you dump on?” I replied, and was gratified to see some of the warmth return to his eyes.
    “Yes, but we were just supposed to have a fun evening together—”
    “And we can,” I said firmly. “Don’t you feel better that you told someone what’s going on?”
    “Actually, yeah, I do,” he replied, looking a little surprised at himself.  
    “Well, then,” I said, and was gratified to see him smile.  
    “Okay, next topic.” He helped himself to a bite of carnitas, then asked, “How was the Halloween gig?”
    I forced myself to swallow, even though the food seemed to stick in my throat. “It was all right. Busy. I made some good tips.” That was the understatement of the century—upon my return to the Phantom’s table, I had discovered that he had dropped five hundred-dollar bills on top of the check, giving me a tip of approximately three hundred and fifty dollars. The relief I felt at what that extra cash could do to help me out the next month was almost overwhelmed by the guilt I experienced at how little I had really done to earn that money. Still, I couldn’t exactly give it back, and I just made sure I was very generous in the percentage I had shared with the busboys and kitchen staff that evening. “How was your gig?”
    “Fine. Bunch of annoying Hollywood types. Still, there were a lot of agents and producers there, and it never hurts to get heard. I actually got a couple of business cards, so we’ll see what happens.”
    Ah, the sordid side of the business. I supposed it was all about schmoozing and who knew whom, but at the university I was still sheltered from much of that. Of course I had gone out on auditions, but they were usually for local productions and just summer stock at that, since I simply didn’t have time during the regular school year to perform in a full production unless it was something being staged on campus. I’d been lucky enough to play the role of Pamina in last spring’s production of Die Zauberflöte but had held off auditioning for the autumn opera, since they had chosen Norma , which had never been one of my favorites. Also, breaking into opera was not exactly the same as trying to break into Hollywood—not that Randall was trying