Chapter 6 #2
Caroline let go of her and turned around.
The dollhouse display took up the whole back corner of the toy floor.
It was Caroline’s favorite thing in the store, and had been since she was a girl.
It had twenty dollhouses, from little plastic ones to a huge Victorian mansion three feet tall.
And behind the Victorian mansion, set against the wall, was the big one.
It was the play house, the one the kids were allowed inside.
It was a real little cottage made of painted wood, with a green door and a window box and a chimney, and it was just big enough for two children or one tired grown-up.
Caroline crossed the floor, walked around the Victorian mansion, got down on her knees in her black dress, and looked in through the little green door.
Lily was inside.
She was lying on the tiny rug on her side, in her pink coat, with her brown pigtails spread out and her thumb in her mouth. She was sound asleep.
Caroline put her hand over her heart for one second. Then she keyed her radio, low.
“Found her,” she said. “Play house. She’s asleep. Cancel Code Candy Cane. Thank you, everybody.”
She heard the sound of the whole store breathing out through the radio.
Kayla came around the Victorian mansion running.
She saw her daughter, and she made a noise Caroline would remember for a long time, and she dropped to her knees and crawled halfway into the little house and scooped Lily out against her chest. The girl woke up, grumpy, and said, “Mommy, I was home,” and her mother cried and laughed at the same time.
Caroline stood up and brushed off her knees.
The woman in the camel coat was standing by the train table ten feet away, watching all of it.
* * *
The light outside had gone blue, and the atrium tree was at its brightest, when the woman came up the mezzanine stairs at four-thirty.
The guard at the rope let her through. Caroline found out later that the woman had simply told him Mrs. Bradshaw was expecting her, and said it in a way that made him believe it.
Caroline was at her usual place at the rail, going over the Snow Ball seating chart one more time.
The children’s hospital had called at three to say that two of the big sponsors were getting nervous about tomorrow night, and would Caroline call them back.
She had not called them back yet. She looked up and saw the camel coat and the silver hair and the gold glasses, and the woman held out a hand.
“Mrs. Bradshaw,” the woman said. “I’m Joyce Bannerman. I’m sorry I’ve been following you around your store all day like a stalker. It’s a bad habit of mine. I’d like to buy you a coffee and apologize for it. And then I’d like to talk to you about a job.”
Caroline shook the hand. It was a strong, dry hand.
She knew the name. Everybody in the business knew the name.
Joyce Bannerman was the president of Everly’s in Boston.
Everly’s was older than Hadley’s by thirty years and three times the size.
Its windows on Tremont Street were the most famous holiday windows in New England.
Its Christmas season was the one that other stores flew people in to study.
“I know who you are,” Caroline said.
“Good. That saves time.”
They sat at the little table outside Caroline’s office, the one where Brittany had set down the coffees a week ago. Luz, who had seen them from across the mezzanine, brought two cups from the café herself and set them down and went away without a word, looking back once over her shoulder.
Joyce took off her gloves and wrapped her hands around her cup.
“I saw you on television on Monday,” she said.
“My daughter sent me the clip. She said, ‘Mom, this is the kind of person you’re always complaining you can’t find.
’ So I watched it. And then I watched the whole segment, all six windows.
” She tipped her head. “Window six is the best holiday window I’ve seen in ten years. You know that?”
“Thank you.”
“I didn’t come for the window, though. Windows I can buy. There are ten designers in New York who can build me a pretty window.” Joyce took a sip of coffee. “I came to see if you could run a floor. So I got on the six-fifteen train this morning. And I’ve been watching you do it since nine-thirty.”
Caroline didn’t say anything.
“You had an escalator full of people stop dead at Christmas,” Joyce said, “and in fifteen minutes the whole store was singing. You had a Santa walk off the job at noon in front of a hundred and fifty children, and you sat down on the step and read them the Grinch. And you found a lost four-year-old in twenty minutes with every door in the building covered. I timed it.” She smiled a little.
“You’re not the only one who times things. ”
Caroline’s face went warm.
“I’ve run stores for thirty-five years,” Joyce said.
“I’ve never seen anybody do what you did today on one floor in one day.
And you did it a week after your husband—” she waved a hand, “—after all that. With the whole city watching you. Nobody would have blamed you for going upstairs and shutting the door. You didn’t. ”
“It’s my floor,” Caroline said.
“No,” Joyce said. “It isn’t. And that’s why I’m here.”
She set down her cup.
“My holiday director is retiring in March. I want someone to run the Everly’s Christmas.
All of it. The windows, the floor, the lighting on the Common, the season from planning in January to the last return in February.
Your title would be vice president. You’d report to me and nobody else.
You’d have a budget that would make your father sit down.
” She named a salary. Caroline blinked. “And you’d start in January, so you have a year to learn the building before your first season. ”
Caroline sat very still.