Blessings of the Season (6 page)

T
he next day Addie arrived dressed in black pencil-thin slacks and a pale blue angora sweater to find her way to the front door of Goodwin's blocked by a media circus—or what passed for a media circus in Star City. There was even a van with Mountain Aspect Productions painted on the side. Addie stood on the sidewalk and stared at the seemingly endless stream of young men and women emerging from that van carrying cameras, cords and sound and computer equipment into the store.

The little bit of breakfast Addie had managed to choke down this morning practically soured in her stomach at all the excitement, knowing she hadn't generated any of it. For weeks she had called and sent press releases and done all that Web work, and nobody had shown up. Maimie Goodwin told a few kids to tell their parents, and what happened? Of course she knew that Maimie had done more than make a passing remark to the kids yesterday. In fact, she had been a very busy woman.

The instant she saw the top of an elegantly styled silver hairdo, Addie knew she had to confront the woman or admit she couldn't do the job. “Mrs. Goodwin, can I have a word with you about all this…this…”

“It's digital, dear. Or hi-def? Oh, I don't really know what it's called, exactly.” She waved off her confusion, then pointed toward the stairway to direct a young man with a camera on his shoulder that way. “The upshot is, we're making a commercial!”

“A commercial?” Addie followed along a few steps behind the older woman, suddenly feeling as though she would never fully catch up. “When I suggested a commercial early on, you said it wasn't necessary. I wish you'd have let me know that you changed your mind. I would have—”

“Don't worry, dear. You don't have to do a thing. Doc and I are just going to invite people to see how good the Goodwin's life can be. It's only a thirty-second spot.”

“But as the one in charge of marketing for—”

“Once again, Addie, not to worry.” Maimie held her hand up. “You will have plenty to do when the Web experts get here.”

That made her pull up short. “Web experts?”

“Oh, yes. Your Web site and everything you've done on the Internet has opened our eyes to all the opportunities we've missed by not having an online presence.” Maimie kept breezing right on through the store, leaving Addie behind.

“Online presence?” she murmured, trying to figure out how this whole project had gotten so out of her control and how she, who had proposed it in an effort
to create a long-term job for herself, had gotten lost in it all. She started walking after Mrs. Goodwin again, raising her voice to ask, “You…you replaced me?”

“Not so much replaced you as hired someone to do the work you might have done if you weren't already busy playing Mrs. Goodlife.” She stopped, looked around, spotted Doc and waved to him. Then, when he started in her direction, she hurried off to meet him, calling behind her, “I know we can't really get much done by Christmas, but we're thinking of having a few specialty items up for people to order, our commercial, a link to your Web cam and pages.”

“But I'm the one who is supposed to do all this, to coordinate and come up with marketing plans and…” And no one was listening to her.

Except Nate, who came up behind her, standing so close that his casual collegiate cardigan rasped against the fuzzy knit of her sweater when he folded his arms and said, “Now you know how I felt that day I said I'd postpone my trip back home a few days to take care of Jesse and ended up as—”

“My holiday husband,” she whispered. “I don't suppose you have any clue what she has planned for us today?”

“Big plans! Oh, she has big plans for today,” Doc said as he hustled past. “Big announcement!”

Addie shut her eyes. “All of this should have come through me. I thought this was my job.”

“It is your job. Go fight for it.” Nate had leaned in so close, she could feel his breath against her ear.

She resisted the urge to shiver by concentrating on
what the man had said, not how he had said it or where he was standing when he said it. She lifted her chin, trying to convince herself more than him as she said, “Me? Stand up to Maimie Goodwin? You really think that's going to work?”

He laughed. “She hired you because you brought her something she believed in.”

“The publicty stunt.”

“You,” he corrected. “Addie McCoy. That hasn't changed. You are still as valuable to her as you were a couple of weeks ago. More so, actually, because you've contributed plenty to this business since then and, unless I miss my guess, learned plenty.”

“You know, I have.”

“It wouldn't do any harm to remind her of that. It also wouldn't hurt your cause if you have a solid concept to offer her.”

“I do! Webisodes!” She clutched his arm, barely able to keep her excitement in check. “My mom's Web site is up all night long, but then during the day she runs little ‘How to Deck the Halls' videos she's done so she still gets hits. I had this idea that we could do a few short pieces that are actually advertisements for Goodwin's where Mrs. Goodlife has a dream that she is transported to the future and sees that even fifty years from now a Goodwin's life is still the good life!”

“That's great. Way to use your head, Mrs. Goodlife.” He tapped her black velveteen headband, making her cherished snowflake pin, which she had attached to the band to keep from making a hole in her vintage sweater, bobble. “Did I knock your snowflake loose?”

She reached up to test it. “No, it's fine. I always make sure it's pretty secure. I wouldn't want to lose it for the world. It was a gift from my father that last Christmas.”

“Ah. I knew there was a story behind it.”

“When he gave it to me, my dad said that since he couldn't always be with me, it was his way to remind me that I was a special and unique individual, that there was nobody out there just like me.”

“Like a snowflake.”

“Exactly. But he also wanted me to remember that even though every snowflake is beautiful on its own, many of them working together can totally change the way people see their whole world.”

“I like that.”

She met his warm, sincere gaze. “Of course, my mom really played up the ‘beauty of the individual' angle.”

“And you liked the ‘everyone working together' bit?”

“Yeah. That is, I did, but now…” She looked toward Mrs. Goodwin, who had finally gotten the production team sent off to prepare for their commercial and was now talking to Doc in the living-room setting, probably going over last-minute details of her big announcement.

“To everything there is a season,” Nate said quietly, clearly reading a pending shift of her feelings in her wistful hesitation. “And a time to every purpose under the heavens.”

Addie skimmed her fingers over the snowflake again. Even with all the chaos around them she had a sense of the whole world being no bigger than the space where she and Nate now stood. “I love that part of Ecclesiastes.”

He adjusted his vintage harvest-gold V-neck sweater
over his broad shoulders. “Just a little something to think about.”

“At one point in your life it's good to work together with others, and at other times you just have to work up your nerve and…” She gestured with both hands as she tried to find the right way to put it.

“Be a flake?” he quipped.

She smiled. “I was going to say to go out there and stand out.”

“Even better.” He put his hands on her shoulders, fixed his eyes on hers and then, just before he let go, leaned down and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Go. Let Maimie know that Mrs. Goodlife isn't the only one with her sights on the future.”

She didn't think her feet touched the ground after that kiss and Nate's show of faith in her. She floated along to the living-room set, imagined herself practically hovering as she shared her proposal for the webisodes and drifted even higher emotionally when the older woman told her she thought they were brilliant.

When Nate came to her side to hear the big announcement, she wondered if, in the still photos being snapped by the photographer of the
Star City Satellite
, it would show she was over the moon. Or if, minutes later, when Mrs. Goodwin took the floor to command the attention of the group, everyone standing there noticed that before the older woman finished her exciting proclamation, Addie wished she could crawl in a hole and hide.

N
ate had to remind himself to keep smiling as Maimie launched into a spiel welcoming the curious and the customers and singing the praises of Goodwin's Department Store. Though smiling wasn't so difficult when he glanced at Addie standing to his right.

“Psst.” She jerked her head slightly to the side and shifted her eyes to get his attention and ask him to get close enough to hear her. When he obliged, she whispered, “No matter what she says…”

“I know, keep smiling.”

“Stay cool,” she finished for him.

“I am cool.” He didn't even sound convincing to himself.

“You are so jumpy you have been finishing my sentences all day.” She looked up at him from the corners of her eyes. “And getting them wrong.”

He cleared his throat and tugged at his sweater collar, then pushed back his hair.

“So just follow my lead. I had to agree to a little something with Mrs. Goodwin in order to get her to stop talking and listen to me.”

“Just what did you agree to? Where am I following your lead to?”

She raised her finger to her lips as if to shush him and whispered, “Cool.”

“You got it. I'm as cool as you, my little snowflake,” he muttered. Then, catching what he had said, he held out his hand in a ‘hold it right there' kind of gesture and said distinctly, “Not that you're
mine
. I'm not trying to stake a claim on you.”

The gathering crowd fell silent, and he realized that Mrs. Goodwin had just finished speaking and everyone had heard him tell Addie she was not his.

She squirmed.

He fell back on the old reliable smile. It had no impact on Maimie, who gave him a shake of her head before she turned back to the group, held up her hands and said, “And now for our big announcement. There are going to be some big changes for our promotional couple, the Goodlifes.”

Nate looked at Addie, who stared straight ahead.

“In response to those who rightfully pointed out that our gentleman's work life is decidedly un-fifties-like in comparison to our lady's, starting Monday, Mr. Goodlife will have a secretary.”

He looked to Addie, but her wide eyes were fixed on a woman in a towering beehive hairdo with a pencil stuck in it, cat eye glasses and an orange tweed suit.

“Mom!”

Bivvy McCoy wiggle-walked her way onto the scene to the delight of the entire store full of people. “Ain't it a hoot, Addie-baby? When I told 'em this was for charity, I got time off from work to come by a couple times a day.”

Addie's face went nearly white.

“Cool,” Nate murmured in Addie's ear, then added, “I take it this is not the little something you agreed to?”

The answer came not from Addie but from Maimie, who thanked Bivvy with a poised head nod, then commanded everyone's attention again by saying, “And Mr. Goodlife is not the only one with big changes in store.”

All eyes moved to Addie, and she tensed.

He put his hand on her shoulder and stepped up close behind her. “It's all for charity. Plus, the end result will get you what you've always wanted.”

“Mrs. Goodlife is going to become a mother!”

Nate curved his fingers around Addie's upper arm and got a good grip, fearing she might faint. Of course, she didn't faint. Addie was made of stronger stuff than that.
Keep cool
, he reminded himself as he grinned and, trying to take the attention off Addie, said, “I guess that means I'm going to be a dad.”

The crowd broke into wild applause.

Addie shot him a panicked look. “Nate! How could you?”

Nate tried to quiet the group, but Maimie took things in hand when she laughed and explained. “Our grandson, Jesse, will be filling in as Jesse Goodlife a few hours a day while on Christmas break from school.”

“Jesse.” Addie relaxed and whispered, “Oh, that's so perfect.”

This time he didn't have to remind himself to smile. The way Addie had taken to Jesse got to him on a gut level. He'd always been a kid person. He had taken enough courses in psychology to know that stemmed from his own feelings of vulnerability and loneliness in childhood. He also knew that identifying it wouldn't change who he was or lessen the way he felt when he saw how open and loving Addie was to this kid who needed a little kindness and warmth in his life.

“Finally, I want to issue an invitation.” Maimie launched into her concluding remarks.

Addie's spine went rigid. She whipped her head around and angled her shoulders back so that she could say, unnoticed by those around them, “This is it. Don't panic. I know just what to do.”

In Nate's experience a sentence like that never led to anything good.

“Next Saturday the Goodlifes are holding a Christmas Open House.”

Addie cocked her head, and Nate figured that wasn't what she had expected to hear. Once again Maimie had gone off on her own, he guessed, leaving Addie feeling foolish and frustrated.

“Please feel free to drop by anytime, all day. There will be door prizes, and everyone who comes in 1950s-style costume will be entered in a drawing for a grand prize. I hope to see you all there.”

“Whew. Got through the whole thing and not even a hint of panic,” he teased her.

“She's got so much going she even glosses over her
own ideas.” She folded her arms. “How can I ever expect her to listen to me and take me seriously?”

“Oh, I almost forgot.” Maimie turned back toward the group for just a moment. “One last change that involves our couple that you all might find interesting.” She looked right at Addie, winked, then nailed Nate with a steely glare. “Mr. Goodlife is going to get a haircut.”

“A what?” Nate asked.

The crowd applauded again.

“And Mrs. Goodlife is the one who is going to give it to him,” Maimie added. “Ten minutes from now, front of the store. Have a good day!”

“Mrs. Goodlife? Front of the store?” No wonder Addie had told him to stay cool. She knew this was just the kind of thing that would get him hot under the collar. He turned to her.

“Trust me,” she pleaded before he could get his protest out.

He hadn't planned on getting his hair cut until his job interview. But then he hadn't planned any of this so far, and he'd been having a pretty good time. A much better time than he'd have had alone in L.A., he realized, looking into Addie's sweet face as her expression told him how much this meant to her and the future she had always dreamed of. “I didn't plan on getting my hair cut until someone as lovely as Mrs. Goodlife could do it for me.”

She smiled and mouthed a silent thank-you.

He offered her his arm. “My display case or yours?”

With a good many of the people who had stopped to listen to Maimie's announcements watching, Nate took a seat at the kitchen table and awaited his fate.

“This won't hurt a bit,” Addie teased as she pulled a green and pink and white 1950s-style Christmas tablecloth from a drawer.

He clenched his jaw and tried not to sound too concerned as he asked, “You
do
have some experience giving haircuts, don't you, dear?”

“Of course I do, darling.” She gave the tablecloth a flick, and it unfurled with a pop. As she began to drape it around his upper body like a barber's cape, she mugged to the crowd and said, “I've been practicing on the neighbor's poodle!”

The crowd laughed.

He started to get up out of the chair, but she pushed him down again, and as she tied the tablecloth around his neck, she nonchalantly put her lips near his ear and whispered, “I've got this all figured out. I'll cut some of the curly part that hangs over your ears and collar, then slick it back with water so it looks fifties-ish.”

“If you use water on my hair, when it dries it will be even curlier,” he warned.

“Then I'll use something else I have in the kitchen. How about shortening?” She gave his shoulder a pat, then made a show of going to the drawers again, saying things like, “Now where are my kitchen shears? I don't want to use my good sewing scissors for a messy job like this.”

“Messy?” He sat up and gave the crowd a worried look that was not far from how he felt. “Maybe I ought to go to a real barber, dear.”

“Nonsense. I can do this. You do have faith in me, don't you, Nathan?” She stood over him, kitchen shears
in hand. She snipped them in the air a few times and raised her eyebrows, trying to look sinister.

He chuckled softly at the attempt but not at the question. “Adelaide, my dear, I have more faith in you than I have had in anyone in a long time.”

And he meant it.

She knew he meant it, too, because all the playfulness of her pretense fell away and she looked at him as if…as if what he said and did really mattered to her.

That was something, outside of his interactions with Jesse, that he hadn't had in a long time, either: to feel as if he mattered. Up until this moment, he hadn't realized how much he liked that feeling. Now he understood it was probably behind his initial decision to stay on in Star City. It was good to be valued, especially at Christmastime.

“Are you going to cut his hair or not?” a man in the group around them called out.

Addie shook her head as if to bring herself back to the task at hand. She held up the shears again and plopped a can of shortening down on the table. “You ready, Mr. Goodlife?”

“For anything, Mrs. Goodlife,” he said with a smile. Then he added, “But I do have one last request.”

She paused with the shears above his head. “I guess every man in your position deserves that. Ask away.”

“If I do end up looking like the poodle next door, promise me you'll get me a really nice hat for Christmas.”

She paused for only a moment. Then she smiled, a bit sadly, and said, “I promise. I'll do whatever I can to make sure you get what you really want for Christmas.”