Chapter 13 #2
She had not taken his calls for six days.
He came up the mezzanine stairs slowly. The guard at the rope let him through without being asked. When he reached the top, he stopped a few feet away from her, as though he were not sure he was allowed any closer.
“Sweetheart,” he said.
“Dad.”
“I won’t stay long. I know you’re busy.” He held his hat in both hands. “I only came to tell you something. And then I’ll go.”
Caroline waited.
“Last night,” her father said, “I called every member of the Hadley’s board. All seven of them. At home. On a Friday night, the week before Christmas.” A little color came into his cheeks. “Some of them were not pleased to hear from me.”
“Dad, you didn’t have to—”
“I told them,” Richard said, “that I was a fool in November. I told them that I let myself be frightened into signing something that I should have torn up with my own two hands. And I told them that if anybody on that board ever tries to move my daughter off this floor again, for any reason, I will vote against them. And I will sell them nothing. And I will call the Inquirer myself, and I will tell them exactly who it was.” He lifted his chin.
“And then I told them that if they didn’t like it, they could have my seat, and I’d see them in court. ”
Caroline stared at him.
Her father, who had never had an argument with anyone in his life. Her father, who said sweetheart four times when he was afraid. Her father, who had shaken Connor’s hand for so long three years ago it had gotten awkward.
“I found my spine, Caroline,” Richard said quietly. “It took me sixty-eight years. It was under forty years of being polite.” His eyes filled. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I didn’t find it in November.”
Caroline crossed the few feet between them and put her arms around her father.
He dropped his hat. He held on to her so hard it hurt, and he smelled like his aftershave and the cold, and he was shaking, and Caroline held on to him in the middle of the mezzanine while the gift-wrap ladies very carefully looked the other way.
She did not tell him it was all right. It was not all right yet. But she held him.
When he let go, he wiped his eyes with a handkerchief and bent down stiffly for his hat before she could get it for him.
“There’s something else,” he said. “I don’t know if I should tell you.”
“Tell me.”
“Connor came to the house yesterday.”
Caroline went still.
“He didn’t ask me for anything,” her father said.
“He didn’t ask me to talk to you. He didn’t ask me to take his side.
” Richard turned his hat around in his hands.
“He sat at the kitchen table. And he asked me what you’d needed, all these years, that he didn’t see.
And then he sat there, and he listened. For an hour.
” He looked at her. “He didn’t interrupt me once.
I’ve known him ten years. I didn’t know he could do that. ”
Caroline could not speak.
“I told him things,” her father said. “Things I should have told him a long time ago. I’m not going to tell you what. That was between me and him.” He put on his hat. “I just thought you should know he asked.”
* * *
It was the busiest day of the year, and the store did not break.
The DeLuca’s truck came at seven and was empty by seven-forty.
The ornament truck came at eight. The gift wrap came at ten-thirty.
Every pallet went straight to the right floor.
Upstairs, nobody spent the morning sorting boxes in the stockroom.
The toy department had its back stock on the shelves before the doors even opened.
The two new floor managers were very, very good. At two o’clock, the woman from King of Prussia broke up a fight between two grown men over the last robot dog in the building, and she did it in about forty seconds, and neither man ever figured out how.
At four o’clock, Caroline realized she had eaten lunch sitting down.
At six o’clock, she realized she had not run anywhere since the morning.
At nine-thirty, Luz came and found her in her office and took her coat off the hook and held it out.
“Go home,” Luz said.
“It’s nine-thirty.”
“I know what time it is. The managers have close. I have close. The store is fine.” Luz shook the coat at her. “Go home and sleep, Caroline, or I’ll call Stephanie.”
Caroline went home.
* * *
Stephanie was on the couch in her pajamas, watching a Christmas movie with a bowl of popcorn. When Caroline came through the door at ten-fifteen, she sat up so fast the popcorn went everywhere.
“What happened? Who died? Why are you home?”
“Nobody died.” Caroline took off her boots. “The store’s fine. Luz sent me home.”
“It’s the Saturday before Christmas. You’ve never been home before one in the morning on the Saturday before Christmas in your entire life.”
“I know.”
Stephanie looked at her very closely. “You look different.”
“I’m not different.”
“You look like you slept.”
Caroline sat down on the pull-out bed, which was not pulled out tonight, because Stephanie had pushed it back in for once.
And she realized that Stephanie was right.
She had slept last night. She had slept six hours.
She had come home at eleven on Friday night, because the store had been quiet, and she had lain down on the metal bar and closed her eyes, and she hadn’t woken up until the alarm at five.
It was the first time in a month she had slept more than four hours in a row.
She thought about why.
She thought about the dock, and the chalkboard, and the taillights at the end of the alley. The two managers. L. Ortega. Her father at the top of the mezzanine stairs in the red holly bow tie. He asked me what you’d needed.
“He hasn’t sent me anything,” Caroline said.
Stephanie picked a piece of popcorn off the couch cushion. “Connor?”
“Nothing. Not flowers. Not a note. Not a text since Thursday.” Caroline pulled her knees up. “He was on the loading dock at four o’clock this morning, Steph. In a work jacket. Unloading a toy truck. And he told Jamal not to tell me.”
Stephanie stopped picking up popcorn.
“And he asked Luz what I needed,” Caroline said.
“And he went to my dad’s house and asked him too.
And then he listened. And he didn’t pay for anything.
And he didn’t sign anything. So there’s nothing to send back.
” She laughed, a little helplessly. “There’s nothing I can refuse.
He didn’t give me one single thing I can refuse. ”
Stephanie was quiet for a long time.
“Okay,” she said finally. “I hate this. I want it on the record that I hate this.”
“Noted.”
“It’s annoying,” Stephanie said. “It’s so annoying. It’s annoyingly correct. That’s exactly what he should have been doing for a year.” She pointed a piece of popcorn at Caroline. “It doesn’t fix anything. It doesn’t undo the lighting. Or the plan.”
“I know.”
“But it’s correct.”
“I know,” Caroline said.
Her phone rang.
They both looked at it on the coffee table. For one second, Caroline’s heart jumped, and she hated that it did.
It wasn’t Connor. It was a Boston number.
Caroline picked up.
“Caroline! It’s Joyce. I’m sorry to call so late on a Saturday.
I told you I don’t sleep.” Joyce sounded bright and brisk and very awake.
“I wanted to catch you before Christmas, so you’d have something nice to think about.
Everything’s done on our end. The board approved your offer this afternoon. HR is sending the paperwork Monday.”
“That’s wonderful,” Caroline said. “Thank you, Joyce.”
“We’ve got you an apartment in Back Bay for the first three months, until you find your own place. It’s small, but it’s got a fireplace and it’s a five-minute walk from the store.” Joyce paused. “And your start date is January fifth. A Monday. Does that work for you?”
January fifth.
Caroline looked across the room at nothing.
January fifth was the date in the plan. It was the day Brittany was supposed to become holiday director of Hadley’s. Caroline had read it in her office on Sunday morning, typed in black on the board letterhead, effective January 5.
It was two weeks from Monday.
“Caroline?” Joyce said. “Are you still there?”
“Yes. Sorry. Yes.” Caroline closed her eyes. “January fifth works.”
“Wonderful. I’ll let you go. Merry Christmas, Caroline. We’re going to do extraordinary things.”
“Merry Christmas, Joyce.”
She hung up.
She sat very still on Stephanie’s couch with the phone in her lap. On the TV, a woman in a red coat was running through an airport. Stephanie had muted it.
“January fifth,” Stephanie said softly. “That’s so soon.”
“Yes.”
“Caro.” Stephanie put down the popcorn. “Does he know?”
Caroline thought about the chalkboard on the dock. TAG EVERY PALLET BY FLOOR. She thought about taillights turning the corner onto Twelfth Street in the snow. He asked me what you’d needed. And then he listened.
She thought about the stockroom on Monday night, and his face when she’d said, you didn’t ask me.
She had not told him either.
She had stood in that stockroom, and she had said you never ask, you just decide, and all the time, she had already said yes to Boston.
She had decided her whole life. She had decided it on her father’s front step.
And she had not told him. She had told Joyce, and she had told Stephanie.
She had not told her father or Luz, who had walked three miles in the snow for her. And she had not told her husband.
“No,” Caroline said. “He doesn’t know.”