She had been to so many of these things that she had tuned out before she had even arrived. She had to pay attention, at least a little, because the only way she could write a story different from every other low-level reporter’s was to find an angle all her own.
And it couldn’t be the new angle presented at the conference, because TV reporters would be here too. Mansions like this one, all decorated for the holidays, and press conferences from corporations like Claus & Company made for great evening news visuals. The reporters who had a brain would often pull the one new thing from the half-hour-long conference, and blare it on every half hour iteration of their newscast.
If she wrote the same thing as the evening news blare, the morning paper would look like a repeat of whatever it was that the local stations had covered the night before.
And her editor would be very, very unhappy.
He had already rejected the first angle she had proposed: How the holiday gifts for needy children never went far enough—how those kids needed the basics year-round, not just at the holidays.
Hey, Scrooge McDuck, he said to her. That’s also an evergreen story. We all know impoverished kids lack everything. We run that story sometime in the middle of December. But events like this one are happy-feely stories that put the smile in the holiday season.
She didn’t feel like smiling. She felt grumpy. She hoped an angle would suggest itself once the stupid press conference was over.
She parked on the grounds of the mansion this time—there was no real security now, and there wasn’t a glut of cars. Even though the sun was out, creating slush where there had been snow and ice the night before, her feet were dry because she wore the boots Niko had bought her.
They fit perfectly, almost as if they had been made for her. She had never had boots (or even shoes) that fit so well. The interiors were warm and soft, and her feet felt good inside them.
And true to the realization she’d had as she left the coffee bar, she thought of Niko as she pulled the boots out of the box.
She half-hoped he had run away like he said he would. She didn’t want to see him. She was vaguely embarrassed by her behavior the night before, even though, if she were presented with the same circumstance right at this very moment, she would respond in the exact same way.
That didn’t block the guilt she was feeling at keeping the boots—and at treating him like he had done something sneaky, when he was probably just being kind.
It was the “probably” that concerned her.
So it would be best if he weren’t here. If he was, she would simply ignore him.
Although she hadn’t ignored him even in her own mind. She thought of him long before she put the boots on. She thought of him when she dressed in her pale pink work sweater (sparkly and trim), black pants that would tuck into the boots and accent her legs, and her very best coat, the one that made her look like she had stepped out of some 1940s holiday movie.
She walked up the stairs to the double oak doors, which stood open. She double-checked, like she always did before walking into a press conference, to make sure she had her microcassette recorder as well as the notebook she always used to scrawl bits of information.
Because this conference had been designed with TV people in mind, a well-dressed flunky greeted her at the door and took her coat, handing her a ticket and telling her the coat check was gratis. Raine had done this enough to know it was also required, so that everyone, even the print reporters, looked good on camera.
She watched her coat disappear into the bowels of a huge closet and then she walked past two large Scotch pines. Their fresh scent made her think of Christmas. Despite her holiday history, she always found that scent to be full of hope.
White and gold-gilded signs on brass floor stands pointed the way to the press conference. She had to thread past several portraits of people she did not know, evergreen boughs looping over everything, and an antique grandfather clock that was probably worth more than the building she lived in.
By the time she reached the large hall where someone had set up a stage with a podium, she was already sick of the holiday excess. She wanted to turn around and leave, but knew she didn’t dare. Two doors, behind the podium, were closed. A worker had just finished putting up a backdrop with the tasteful Santa logo of Claus & Company (which suggested but didn’t copy the Coca-Cola Santa of fifty years ago). About fifty chairs stood near the stage, some with reporters already seated in them.
She passed a table laden with a dozen different kind of Christmas cookies, some candied fruit, sliced quick breads, and finger sandwiches. Behind the food, beautiful silver urns sparkled, labeled coffee, decaf, tea, and water. This spread didn’t have the usual bottled waters and soft drinks visible on the table. She suspected that they weren’t being provided because they weren’t attractive and because they were a little bit déclassé.
Then she shook her head at her own thoughts. She was snobby in the reverse. The mansion itself put her on edge. Maybe that was why she had been so cold to Niko the night before; she had been deeply uncomfortable. There were two parts to her: the part that envied every single person who had danced in the mansion the night before, and the part that thought those people were heartless souls who did nothing of value to help others in need.
Oh, she was in quite a mood going into this press conference.
Before she found a chair, she walked up to the podium and put her voice-activated recorder on it. When she was in college, she’d always had to search for her recorder at the end of a press conference. The reporters from the “big” newspapers would continually move her recorder farther and farther away.
Now, her recorder was labeled with the Courier’s name, and no one dared touch it. She always arrived a little early so that no one would know that the Courier had sent a fresh-faced cub, who looked more inexperienced than everyone else in the room.
She chose a chair in the back, partly because she was grumpy, and partly because she knew better than to fight with the TV people for the plum seats.
Some flunky had placed a folder on every chair. The folder contained a press release inside, along with some still photos of Claus & Company’s headquarters, Christmas trees with piles of gifts beneath the lowest branches, and some headshots of corporate staffers that she didn’t bother to look at.
Other reporters were filing in. The TV people were already setting up, adding their mikes to the taped pile of mikes on the podium, and finding a place to stand that wouldn’t block the camera angles of their competitors.
Raine pulled out her notebook and pretended to be writing about the ambience as the rest of the reporters found their seats. Around her, everyone complained softly about the lack of bottled water and the worthless nature of the press conference.
Precisely at 11:00 a.m., a nervous little woman wearing a red-and-green suit bounded up the two steps leading to the temporary stage. She stepped behind the podium, but only the top of her head was visible over it. So she stepped to one side, making every reporter on the opposite side of the podium groan a little. They couldn’t see her anymore.
The camera operators, standing in the back, shifted as a unit, but without a lot of energy. Everyone knew that the people who introduced usually didn’t provide the important information in the press conference (if there was important information, which Raine doubted there would be).
The woman had bright green eyes, and a pointed chin that made her face seem quite narrow. She tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear, then turned to see someone just outside of Raine’s line of vision. Raine stared at the ear. How did they find someone with tastefully pointed ears to introduce the press conference’s Important Personage?
Obviously, no one at Claus & Company was leaving this press conference to chance.
“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen,” said the woman in a voice as tiny as she was.
Or perhaps the folks at Claus & Company liked visuals better than anything, since the little woman’s voice was getting
softer as she spoke. She looked like an elf, and while that would play well on television, it didn’t help everyone else in the room.
“Use the mike!” one of the radio reporters yelled.
The woman beside Raine muttered, “Don’t bother,” as if she were talking to the radio guy, even though he was two rows up.
That little kerfuffle made Raine miss most of what the tiny woman said. Her voice got lost in the shuffling and the muttering. Her face had turned as red as Raine’s had the night before. The little woman looked terrified.
She glanced to the side again, and then said something inaudible, and extended her hand to one side.
The TV reporters in the front row sat at attention. Apparently, the little woman had finished her introduction. She looked at the reporters as if surprised that they hadn’t applauded.
Raine actually felt sorry for her, and wanted to tell her that reporters only applauded for the president of the United States, and then, only out of politeness (and fear) when they were inside the White House briefing room.
A man walked out of one of the doors in the back. He wore a chambray shirt and dark blue jeans, along with tennis shoes. Raine expected him to adjust the microphone or move the podium. Instead, he stood behind it.
Her breath caught. It was Niko.
He looked older and more polished. The comfortable jeans and shirt gave him an authority that the tuxedo hadn’t.
Some of the TV people frowned, craning their necks to look for the person who had just been introduced. In Chicago, no one who spoke at a high-level press conference ever dressed in jeans. Suits, ties, maybe shirtsleeves in the deepest, hottest summer, but never looking like he had just set down a wrench in the back room to come out and make a point.
Niko smiled softly as he watched them. He knew what they were looking for, and he knew they didn’t see it in him.
“Thank you for coming,” he said, without leaning into the mike. His rich voice was perfectly suited for speaking to a crowd.
Raine felt a shiver run through her. She wanted to bend her head over the notepad she had brought, but she also didn’t want to look away from him. She wasn’t sure why he looked better every single time she saw him, but he did. Which meant she had to be really careful when she dealt with him.
“Every year,” he was saying, “Claus & Company sponsors charity events in major cities around the world. For the past decade or more, these events have been managed through our charitable arm. In that, this year is no different. What is different—as should seem evident to all of you who are still looking for the Niko North that Falda introduced—is me.”
The heads of the reporters who had still been looking past him snapped into place. A few of the cameras moved sharply toward him as well.
His smile remained, but his eyes twinkled.
Raine frowned. That twinkle almost seemed like something fake, as if it had been produced by a flare of light behind him or an effect someone had designed on the podium.
No one’s eyes twinkled like that, not in a way that would be visible several rows back.
He paused for a moment. “Now that you realize I’m the person you’ve come to see, let me explain who I am.”
Raine was gripping the pen as hard as she could. When she realized the pen was bending, she set it down, stretched out her hand, and then picked the pen back up again, all without looking directly at it.
“I am, as Falda said, Niko North. My family has owned Claus & Company for more years than I care to think about, certainly as long as the company has done business inside the United States.”
She let out a small breath. He owned Claus & Company? No wonder he thought the boots were a small token. Their cost represented pocket change to him.
“My father, who is in charge of the company, is beginning to make noises about stepping down. He wants a family member to take his place. Throughout the history of the company, that family member has been the oldest son. My mother has finally convinced my father that’s no way to run a business in this modern era. She believes the business should be run by a family member, but the family member best suited to the business, not the family member who was born first.”
Everyone was staring at him now. A few of the TV reporters had signaled their camera operators to move slightly closer. A couple of print reporters were scrawling as fast as they could.
Raine glanced at what she had written which was only one word. Owns?
She let out a breath. Already this was less of a fluffy press conference than she had expected. She hoped the microcassette recorder was getting most of this, because she had been too busy staring. And processing. And wondering why the hell he had wanted to run away the night before.
“I have five siblings. All older.” Niko tucked his thumbs in the back pockets of his jeans.
Raine realized suddenly that the casualness was a pose, as much of a costume as the one he had worn the night before. He was pretending to be comfortable. His posture said he was being open.
But his posture lied. He was deeply uncomfortable. He was just hiding it well.
“Two brothers, three sisters,” he was saying. “And all of us have received an assignment this holiday season.”
Then he inclined his head to the right, as if someone had contradicted him. His smile became self-deprecating.
“Well, to be accurate,” he said, “we have had assignments during the holiday season throughout our lives. This year, the assignments are large and designed to reveal our strengths and weaknesses.”
The room was silent. Everyone seemed riveted. Raine knew she was.
“Clearly, one of my weaknesses is the ability to prevaricate. I don’t, if I can avoid it. Which is why I am telling you all of this now. It is, believe it or not, an introduction into the remarks the marketing department at Claus & Company has prepared for me. The remarks that I’m sure someone in the back is shaking at me right now, as if I were the most dense person on the planet.”
Then he turned slightly, and grinned to someone off-stage. Everyone else looked too.
Raine couldn’t see anyone, but she didn’t know if that was because of where she sat or because that person remained just inside one of the doors behind the stage.
Niko turned his attention back to the reporters, removed his hands from his pockets, and gripped the podium. The radio journalist one row ahead of Raine winced. That sound would have boomed into every single mike in the place.
“With our corporate mandate comes freedom,” Niko said. “We can run our little fiefdom anyway we want.”
Fiefdom. That was an interesting word. Raine wrote it down.
“I am in charge of Claus & Company’s charitable efforts in the City of Chicago this holiday season. Each of my siblings will handle holiday charities in five other large cities, each in a different country, and each with different holiday traditions. We are allowed to run the charitable efforts any way we see fit. For example, we can continue to follow past procedures.”
His smile softened as he made eye contact with the reporters in the front row. Someone had trained him to speak in front of a crowd, and how to use it for good effect.
“I’m sure,” Niko said, “my father would prefer that approach. One of his favorite sayings is one you’re all familiar with: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Of course, being my father, he would say: If it’s not broken, leave it alone. He is a stickler for rules, even grammatical ones.”
For a moment, Raine saw the man she had seen the night before, the one who felt constricted by the circumstances. Raised among people who followed rules, Niko probably wanted to escape, if only for one evening.
Maybe he had been afraid of what lay ahead. Even though he was trying to put a good face on all of this, he seemed uncomfortable with what he was facing. Or perhaps he was just thinking aloud about the challenge.
She wished she could see the marketing department representative in the back. She had a hunch that person had his face in his hands right about now, silently cursi
ng Niko for causing problems within the “fiefdom.”
Even using that word probably would cause a lot of problems. She smiled, and then leaned back, not wanting him to see her.
“However,” Niko said, “I think Claus & Company is stuck in the past. We’ve been a very successful company for a long time, but a lot of our success came in the middle of the twentieth century, and, quite frankly, we’re coasting.”
She started scrawling. She had to keep this. There were too many sound bites for the TV people. She would be able to write her own piece—maybe an “uneasy lay the crown” kinda thing.
She felt an itch behind her shoulder blades, which she often got when she was considering something she shouldn’t. Niko hadn’t known she was a reporter last night. But they had had an experience together. She was wearing the proof. And she could mention how uncomfortable he had been with the corporate shindig that he was supposed to attend—the one he had run away from.
She could write about that moment. She could mention that he was seen leaving the party, and heading into downtown Chicago. Because he was seen, and not just by her. She was certain clerks at Bloomingdales would remember him as well, especially when he had come in wearing that tux.
Her cheeks heated. What she was considering was journalistically ethical, but personally suspect. He had been kind to her.
But, of course, she had been kind to him as well. She had driven him away from the party in an untraceable way. She had helped him run away, if only for an evening.
“Speaking for me, and me only,” Niko was saying, “our charitable works are the most important part of our business. The charity work doesn’t bring in revenue like the licensing and the endorsements. It’s not as flashy as the movies and the pop-up books. But charity is at the heart of our business. We started with charitable acts, back in the dark ages of our business, and we have continued those acts. I want to change them from a pro forma way that our company behaves to something proactive.”
Santa Series: Three Stories of Magical Holiday Romance Page 21
