To Follow a Star

by Terry Carr

  But all things end, even eating dinner with giggling girls. And then Mr. Hargreave and I sat in the little parlor, waiting for the girls to—finish doing the dishes? I said, shocked, “Mr. Hargreave, do you mean they wash them?”

  “Certainly they wash them,” he boomed mildly. “How else would they get them clean, Mr. Martin?”

  “Why, dishwashers, Mr. Hargreave.” I looked at him in a different way. Business is business. I said, “After all, this is the Christmas season. At the Emporium, we put a very high emphasis on dishwashers as a Christmas gift, you know. We—”

  He interrupted good-humoredly. “I already have my gifts, Mr. Martin. Four of them, and very fine dishwashers they are.”

  “But Mr. Hargreave—”

  “Not Mister Hargreave.” The six-year-old was standing beside me, looking disapproving. “Doctor Hargreave.”

  “Corinne!” said her father. “Forgive her, Mr. Martin. But you see were not very used to the—uh, civilized way of doing things. We’ve been a long time with the Dyaks.”

  The girls were all back from the kitchen, and Lilymary was out of her apron and looking—unbelievable. “Entertainment,” she said brightly. “Mr. Martin, would you like to hear Corinne play?”

  There was a piano in the corner. I said hastily, “I’m crazy about piano music. But—”

  Lilymary laughed. “She’s good,” she told me seriously. “Even if I do have to say it to her face. But we’ll let you off that if you like. Gretchen and I sing a little bit, if you’d prefer it?” Wasn’t there any TV in this place? I felt as out of place as an Easterbunny-helper in the Santa Claus line, but Lilymary was still looking unbelievable. So I sat through Lilymary’s and the twelve-year-old’s named Gretchen singing ancient songs while the six-year-old named Corinne accompanied them on the piano. It was pretty thick. Then the ten-year-old, whose name I never did catch, did recitations; and then they all looked expectantly at me.

  I cleared my throat, slightly embarrassed. Lilymary said quickly, “Oh, you don’t have to do anything, Mr. Martin. It’s just our custom; we don’t expect strangers to conform to it!” I didn’t want that word “stranger” to stick. I said, “Oh, but I’d like to. I mean, I’m not much good at public entertaining, but—” I hesitated, because that was the truest thing I had ever said. I had no more voice than a goat, and of course the only instrument I had ever learned to play was a TV set. But then I remembered something from my childhood.

  “I’ll tell you what,” I said enthusiastically. “How would you like something appropriate to the season? ‘A Visit from Santa Claus,’ for instance?”

  Gretchen said snappishly, “What season? We don’t start celebrating—”

  Her father cut her off. “Please do, Mr. Martin,” he said politely. “We’d enjoy that very much.”

  I cleared my throat and started:

  ’Tis the season of Christmas, and all through the house

  Saint Nick and his helpers begin their carouse.

  The closets are stuffed and the drawers overflowing

  With gift-wrapped remembrances, coming and going.

  What a joyous abandon of Christmastime glow!

  What a making of lists! What a spending of dough!

  So much for—

  “Hey!” said Gretchen, looking revolted. “Daddy, that isn’t how—”

  “Hush!” said Dr. Hargreave grimly. His own expression wasn’t very delighted either, but he said, “Please go on.”

  I began to wish I’d kept my face shut. They were all looking at me very peculiarly, except for Lilymary, who was conscientiously studying the floor. But it was too late to back out; I went on:

  So much for the bedroom, so much for the bath,

  So much for the kitchen—too little by half!

  Come Westinghouse, Philco! Come Hotpoint, G.E.! Come Sunbeam!

  Come Mixmaster! Come to the Tree!

  So much for the wardrobe—how shine Daddy’s eyes

  As he reaps his Yule harvest of slippers and ties.

  So much for the family, so much for the friends,

  So much for the neighbors—the list never ends.

  A contingency fund for the givers belated

  Whose gifts must be hastily reciprocated.

  And out of—

  Gretchen stood up. “It’s our bedtime,” she said. “Good night, everybody.”

  Lilymary flared, “It is not! Now be still!” And she looked at me for the first time. “Please go on,” she said, with a burrowed brow.

  I said hoarsely:

  And out of the shops, how they spring with a clatter,

  The gifts and appliances words cannot flatter!

  The robot dishwasher, the new Frigidaire,

  The door with the didy and curlable hair!

  The electrified hairbrush, the black lingerie,

  The full-color stereoscopic TV!

  Come, Credit Department! Come, Personal Loan!

  Come, Mortgage, come Christmas Club, come—

  Lilymary turned her face away. I stopped and licked my lips.

  “That’s all I remember,” I lied. “I—I’m sorry if—”

  Dr. Hargreave shook himself like a man waking from a nightmare. “It’s getting rather late,” he said to Lilymary. “Perhaps—perhaps our guest would enjoy some coffee before he goes.”

  I declined the coffee and Lilymary walked me to the subway. We didn’t talk much.

  At the subway entrance she firmly took my hand and shook it. “It’s been a pleasant evening,” she said.

  A wandering group of carolers came by; I gave my contribution to the guitarist. Suddenly angry, I said, “Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

  “What?”

  I gestured after the carolers. “That. Christmas. The whole sentimental, lovable, warmhearted business of Christmas. Lilymary, we’ve only known each other a short time, but—”

  She interrupted: “Please, Mr. Martin. I—I know what you’re going to say.” She looked terribly appealing there in the Christmassy light of the red and green lights from the Tree that marked the subway entrance. Her pale, straight legs, hardly concealed by the shorts, picked up chromatic highlights; her eyes sparkled. She said, “You see, as Daddy says, we’ve been away from—civilization. Daddy is a missionary, and we’ve been with the Dyaks since I was a little girl. Gretchen and Marlene and Corinne were born there. We—we do differently on Borneo.” She looked up at the Tree over us, and sighed. “It’s very hard to get used to,” she said. “Sometimes I wish we had stayed with the Dyaks.”

  Then she looked at me. She smiled. “But sometimes,” she said, “I am very glad we’re here.” And she was gone.

  Ambiguous? Call it merely ladylike. At any rate, that’s what I called it; I took it to be the beginning of the kind of feeling I so desperately wanted her to have; and for the second night in a row I let Haroun’s harem beauties remain silent on their tapes.

  Calamity struck. My number-two man, Furness, turned up one morning with a dismal expression and a letter in a government-franked envelope. “Greetings!” it began. “You are summoned to serve with a jury of citizens for the term—”

  “Jury duty!” I groaned. “At a time like this! Wait a minute, Johnny, I’ll call up Mr. Heinemann. He might be able to fix it if—”

  Furness was shaking his head. “Sorry, Mr. Martin. I already asked him and he tried; but no go. It’s a big case—blindfold sampling of twelve brands of filter cigarettes—and Mr. Heinemann says it wouldn’t look right to try to evade it.”

  So there was breaking another man in, to add to my troubles.

  It meant overtime, and that meant that I didn’t have as much time as I would like for Lilymary. Lunch together, a couple of times; odd moments between runs of the gift-wrapping machines; that was about it.

  But she was never out of my thoughts. There was something about her that appealed to me. A square, yes. Unworldly, yes. Her family? A Victorian horror; but they were her family. I determined to get them on my side,
and by and by I began to see how.

  “Miss Hargreave,” I said formally, coming out of my office.

  We stepped to one side, in a corner under the delivery chutes. The rumble of goods overhead gave us privacy. I said, “Lilymary, you’re taking this Sunday off, as usual? May I come to visit you?”

  She hesitated only a second. “Why, of course,” she said firmly. “We’d be delighted. For dinner?”

  I shook my head: “I have a little surprise for you,” I whispered. She looked alarmed. “Not for you, exactly. For the kids. Trust me, Lilymary. About four o’clock in the afternoon?” I winked at her and went back to my office to make arrangements. It wasn’t the easiest thing in the world—it was our busy season, as I say—but what’s the use of being the boss if you can’t pull rank once in a while? So I made it as strong as I could, and Special Services hemmed and hawed and finally agreed that they would work in a special Visit from Santa Claus at the Hargreave home that Sunday afternoon.

  Once the kids were on my side, I plotted craftily, it would be easy enough to work the old man around, and what kid could resist a visit from Santa Claus?

  I rang the bell and walked into the queer South-Seas living room as though I belonged there. “Merry Christmas!” I said genially to the six-year-old who let me in. “I hope you kiddies are ready for a treat!”

  She looked at me incredulously, and disappeared. I heard her say something shrill and protesting in the next room, and Lilymary’s voice being firm and low-toned. Then Lilymary appeared. “Hello, Mr. Martin,” she said.

  “George.”

  “Hello, George.” She sat down and patted the sofa beside her. “Would you like some lemonade?” she asked.

  “Thank you,” I said. It was pretty hot for the end of September, and the place didn’t appear to be air-conditioned. She called, and the twelve-year-old, Gretchen, turned up with a pitcher and some cookies. I said warningly:

  “Mustn’t get too full, little girl! There’s a surprise coming.”

  Lilymary cleared her throat, as her sister set the tray down with a clatter and stamped out of the room. “I—I wish you’d tell me about this surprise, George,” she said. “You know, were a little, well, set in our ways, and I wonder—”

  “Nothing to worry about, Lilymary,” I reassured her. “What is it, a couple of minutes before four? They’ll be here any minute.”

  “They?”

  I looked around; the kids were out of sight. “Santa Claus and his helpers,” I whispered.

  She began piercingly: “Santa Cl—”

  “Ssh!” I nodded toward the door. “I want it to be a surprise for the kids. Please don’t spoil it for them, Lilymary.”

  Well, she opened her mouth; but she didn’t get a chance to say anything. The bell rang; Santa Claus and his helpers were right on time.

  “Lilymary!” shrieked the twelve-year-old, opening the door. “Look!”

  You couldn’t blame the kid for being excited. “Ho-ho-ho,” boomed Santa, rolling inside. “Oh, hello, Mr. Martin. This the place?”

  “Certainly, Santa,” I said, beaming. “Bring it in, boys.”

  The twelve-year-old cried, “Corinne! Marlene! This you got to see!” There was an odd tone to her voice, but I didn’t pay much attention. It wasn’t my party any more. I retired, smiling, to a corner of the room while the Santa Claus helpers began coming in with their sacks of gear on their shoulders. It was “Ho-ho-ho, little girl!” and “Merry Christmas, everybody!” until you couldn’t hear yourself think.

  Lilymary was biting her lip, staring at me. The Santa tapped her on the shoulder. “Where’s the kitchen, lady?” he asked. “That door? Okay, Wynken—go on in and get set up. Nod, you go down and hurry up the sound truck, then you can handle the door. The rest of you helpers”—he surveyed the room briefly—“start lining up your Christmas goodies there, and there. Now hop to it, boys! We got four more Visits to make this afternoon yet.”

  You never saw a crew of Christmas Gnomes move as fast as them. Snap, and the Tree was up, complete with its tinsel stars and gray-colored Order Forms and Credit Application Blanks. Snip, and two of the helpers were stringing the red and green lights that led from the Hargreave living room to the sound truck outside. Snip-snap, and you could hear the sound truck pealing the joyous strains of All I Want for Christmas Is Two of Everything in the street, and twos and threes of the neighborhood children were beginning to appear at the door, blinking and ready for the fun. The kitchen helpers were ladling out mugs of cocoa and colored-sugar Christmas cookies and collecting the dimes and quarters from the kids; the demonstrator helpers were showing the kids the toys and trinkets from their sacks; and Santa himself was seated on his glittering throne. “Ho-ho-ho, my boy,” he was saying. “And where does your daddy work this merry Christmas season?”

  I was proud of them. There wasn’t a helper there who couldn’t have walked into Saul & Cappell or any other store in town, and walked out a Santa with a crew of his own. But that’s the way we do things at the Emporium, skilled hands and high paychecks, and you only have to look at our sales records to see that it pays off.

  Well, I wanted to stay and watch the fun, but Sunday’s a bad day to take the afternoon off; I slipped out and headed back to the store. I put in a hard four hours, but I made it a point to be down at the Special Services division when the crews came straggling in for their checkout. The crew I was interested in was the last to report, naturally—isn’t that always the way? Santa was obviously tired; I let him shuck his uniform and turn his sales slips in to the cashier before I tackled him. “How did it go?” I asked anxiously. “Did Miss Hargreave—I mean the grown-up Miss Hargreave—did she say anything?

  He looked at me accusingly. “You,” he whined. “Mr. Martin, you shouldn’t have run out on us like that. How we supposed to keep up a schedule when you throw us that kind of a curve, Mr. Martin?”

  It was no way for a Santa to be talking to a department head, but I overlooked it. The man was obviously upset. “What are you talking about?” I demanded.

  “Those Hargreaves! Honestly, Mr. Martin, you’d think they didn’t want us there, the way they acted! The kids were bad enough. But when the old man came home—wow! I tell you, Mr. Martin, I been eleven Christmases in the Department, and I never saw a family with less Christmas spirit than those Hargreaves!”

  The cashier was yelling for the cash receipts so he could lock up his ledgers for the night, so I let the Santa go. But I had plenty to think about as I went back to my own department, wondering about what he had said.

  I didn’t have to wonder long. Just before closing, one of the office girls waved me in from where I was checking out a new Counselor, and I answered the phone call. It was Lilymary’s father. Mad? He was blazing. I could hardly make sense out of most of what he said. It was words like “perverting the Christmas festival” and “selling out the Saviour” and a lot of stuff I just couldn’t follow at all. But the part he finished up with, that I could understand. “I want you to know, Mr. Martin,” he said in clear, crisp, emphatic tones, “that you are no longer a welcome caller at our home. It pains me to have to say this, sir. As for Lilymary, you may consider this her resignation, to be effective at once!”

  “But,” I said, “but—”

  But I was talking to a dead line; he had hung up. And that was the end of that.

  Personnel called up after a couple of days and wanted to know what to do with Lilymary’s severance pay. I told them to mail her the check; then I had a second thought and asked them to send it up to me. I mailed it to her myself, with a little note apologizing for what I’d done wrong—whatever it was. But she didn’t even answer.

  October began, and the pace stepped up. Every night I crawled home, bone-weary, turned on my dreamster and slept like a log. I gave the machine a real workout; I even had the buyer in the Sleep Shoppe get me rare, out-of-print tapes on special order—Last Days of Petronius Arbiter, and Cassanova’s Diary, and The Polly Adler Story, and so on�
�until the buyer began to leer when she saw me coming. But it didn’t do any good. While I slept I was surrounded with the loveliest of them all; but when I awoke the face of Lilymary Hargreave was in my mind’s eye.

  October. The store was buzzing. National cost of living was up .00013, but our rate of sale was up .00021 over the previous year. The store bosses were beaming, and bonuses were in the air for everybody. November. The tide was at its full, and little wavelets began to ebb backward. Housewares was picked clean, and the manufacturers only laughed as we implored them for deliveries; but Home Appliances was as dead as the January lull. Our overall rate of sales slowed down microscopically, but it didn’t slow down the press of work. It made things tougher, in fact, because we were pushing twice as hard on the items we could supply, coaxing the customers off the ones that were running short.

  Bad management? No. Looking at my shipment figures, we’d actually emptied the store four times in seven weeks—better than fifty percent turnover a week. Our July purchase estimates had been off only slightly—two persons fewer out of each hundred bought air-conditioners than we had expected, one and a half persons more out of each hundred bought kitchenware. Saul & Cappell had been out of kitchenware except for spot deliveries, sold the day they arrived, ever since late September!

  Heinemann called me into his office. “George,” he said, “I just checked your backlog. The unfilled order list runs a little over eleven thousand. I want to tell you that I’m surprised at the way you and your department have—”

  “Now, Mr. Heinemann!” I burst out. “That isn’t fair! We’ve been putting in overtime every night, every blasted one of us! Eleven thousand’s pretty good, if you ask me!”

  He looked surprised. “My point exactly, George,” he said. “I was about to compliment you.”

  I felt so high. I swallowed. “Uh, thanks,” I said. “I mean, I’m sorry I—”

  “Forget it, George.” Heinemann was looking at me thoughtfully. “You’ve got something on your mind, don’t you?”