Christmas Bliss

by Mary Kay Andrews

I picked up one of the cardboard cartons he’d discarded on the floor and pointed to the label I’d written in one-inch-high letters: GUEST BATH FLOOR. Then I walked over to the stack of tile boxes that had been delivered earlier in the week.

  KITCHEN BACKSPLASH was labeled on the side of the box. I took out one of the tiles and showed it to him.

  “Two-by-four white subway tile. This is what’s supposed to be on the backsplash.”

  He took the tile and turned it over and over, like it was the first time he’d ever seen one.

  “The penny tile looks right nice, though, don’t it?”

  “Subway tile for the backsplash, please, Benny. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to take the penny tile down, and you’d better do it fast before that grout sets up. In the meantime, I’ll call the tile place and reorder more tile for the guest bathroom floor. Do we have enough thin-set?”

  “I reckon so.” He turned abruptly and began mounting an attack on the backsplash with a crowbar, his feelings obviously hurt.

  I walked away, shaking my head, to check on progress in the nursery. Finally I had reason to smile. The walls had been painted the soft seafoam green Weezie and I had picked out. The hardwood floors had been stained and given a soft matte finish. Morning sunlight splashed on the floors, and I could feel the tension knot in my stomach begin to relax.

  Tomorrow morning I’d get Harry to start moving in the furniture. I was itching to put the crib in place and dress it in all the bedding Marian had sewn for it. I wanted to put the rag rug with its pastel stripes of butter yellow, green, and coral on the floor, and I wanted to fill the wooden bookcase with all the picture books I’d been collecting for our little sprout.

  In short, I was ready to nest. The painters had left a ladder in the corner. I had the curtain rods in a box out in the hall. I even had my own cordless drill. It wouldn’t take me more than half an hour to hang those rods. I eyed the ladder and pictured myself teetering on the top rung. Maybe I’d just wait for Harry to get home. If he ever came home.

  As if he knew I’d been thinking about him, the cell phone in my pocket buzzed. Speak of the devil.

  “How’s it going?” Harry asked.

  “About the way it usually goes,” I said. “The tile guy installed the kitchen backsplash—using the tile that’s supposed to go on the floor of the guest bath.”

  “Damn.”

  “But on the other hand, the baby’s room is ready for furniture and drapes. I hope you don’t have any plans for tomorrow morning.”

  “I’m all yours,” Harry said. “But I do have a little bad news. I can’t meet you for your doctor’s appointment this morning after all. Remember Wayne Templeton? The thoracic surgeon from Syracuse? He’s in town and he’s insisting I take him fishing. I’d really rather not, with everything else going on, but I just can’t see turning down the kind of money he’s offering to pay for one fishing trip. If I go, I’ll cut out of work around lunchtime.”

  “Go catch your fish,” I said. “I’m a big girl. I can go to the doctor all by myself.”

  “I like going with you.”

  “It’s strictly routine. All they’re going to do is take my blood pressure and weigh me. And that’s not a number I want to share with anybody. Especially you.”

  “If you’re sure you don’t mind. This is absolutely my last charter. I’m not crazy about going with Weezie still out of town…”

  “I’ll call you after I leave the doctor’s office,” I said, cutting him off. “All I ask is that you make sure your phone is charged.”

  * * *

  Michael Garbutt wheeled himself away from the exam table, washed his hands, and made a note on the laptop computer open on the desk.

  I clutched at the cotton sheet draped over my mostly naked torso and struggled to sit up again.

  “Your blood pressure is up,” he said, running down the notes on my chart.

  “No wonder, after I had issues with my contractor this morning. It’ll probably come back down after I make sure he gets the right tile for my bathroom floor,” I said.

  “Harry’s not your contractor, I hope,” Michael said. He and Harry had been long-ago high school classmates at Benedictine Military School in Savannah, and had somehow survived their wild teen years. Michael had surprised everybody in town when he came home from his freshman year of college and announced his intention of becoming a doctor.

  “I wish Harry was my contractor. But no, he’s too busy with the new job. I’m kind of overseeing things on the new house, and it’s not going very smoothly.”

  Michael brushed a lock of graying blond hair off his forehead, looked over the top of his horn-rimmed glasses at me, and frowned. “Tell Harry I said he needs to fire you from being a supervisor. Your blood pressure is up, and that’s not good. Bebe, I’d really like you off your feet, if possible.”

  “Not possible,” I said, cutting him short. “I’ve got the inn to run, plus the new house to finish. And my best friend is getting married Sunday. Honestly, Michael, the blood pressure is just temporary. It’ll probably go right back down after I leave here.”

  He made some more notes on the laptop and turned back to me. “Also? The baby’s started to drop a little.”

  “Already? But I’m not supposed to be due till next month.”

  “First babies come when they want to come,” Michael said. He pointed his pen at me. “I want to see you back here Monday morning. If your blood pressure’s still elevated, I’m putting you to bed.”

  “Fine.” I stuck my tongue out at him and began to gather my clothing.

  “Harry’s not doing any fishing since he took the new job, is he?” Michael asked.

  “He was taking a charter client out today, but he claims it’s his last run,” I said.

  Michael made some more notes on my chart. “It better be. He’s gonna be a daddy again pretty soon here.” He laughed at the very idea. “You know, some of the guys in our BC class are having grandbabies right about now.”

  “And some of the guys in your class are also totally bald with hip replacements and bad hearts,” I reminded him. “Harry’s young at heart.”

  He patted my shoulder. “More importantly, he’s got a good heart. You guys will be great parents. Just remember—take it easy for the next couple weeks.”

  Chapter 25

  Weezie

  I stood on the top step of the town house and looked out at the street. The previous day’s snow had turned to slush and the sky was the color of a dirty dishrag. But I buttoned my coat, slung a huge plastic tote bag over my shoulder, and donned my gloves, scarf, and hat. Today was my last day in the city and I was determined to do some New York–style junking, weather be damned.

  I’d done an Internet search for nearby vintage and antique shops, and I had a list of likely addresses, along with directions to get where I was going. More important, I’d finally broken down and bought a pair of inexpensive boots—and heavy woolen socks.

  Eight blocks away from the town house, I found what should have been my street of dreams. Both sides of the street were lined with antique shops. My pulse raced at the concentration of vintage goodness.

  The first storefront I stopped at had a window filled with artistically stacked old wooden packing crates. Spilling out of the crates, amid shreds of brown paper excelsior, were more pieces of old Jadeite than I’d ever seen in one place.

  There were green Jadeite divided dinner plates, chop platters, coffee mugs, and soup bowls. There were nesting sets of mixing bowls, cups and saucers, cream pitchers, and sugar bowls. Hundreds and hundreds of pieces. There were rare Jadeite pieces I’d only ever seen on eBay listings or in Martha Stewart’s magazine, pieces like canister sets and spice jars. The shop was called Miscellanea.

  I pushed through the heavy plate-glass door and was hit with a telltale odor. Not the scent of mildew or mothballs I always hope for in a junk shop. No, this was an expensive-smelling lavender-scented aromatherapy candle. I turned toward the window display, snaked my
hand behind the burlap coffee sack backdrop, and brought out a sugar bowl. One glance at the laser-printed price tag told me I was in the wrong place. The price for the sugar bowl? A hundred and fifteen dollars. I quickly tucked the bowl back in the window and turned to go.

  And bumped into the salesclerk. She had on a white lab coat like the clerks at the Clinique counter at Macy’s, and a name tag identifying her as Esme. “Do you do Jadeite?” she asked.

  “Um, I sometimes buy Jadeite when it’s affordable. I’m a dealer,” I added apologetically.

  “Then you know how amazing these pieces are,” she said, gesturing toward the window. “It’s dead stock, from an old warehouse in Indiana. Those are even the original packing crates. I can sell you one of those for three hundred fifty dollars—but I’m warning you, they won’t last at that price.”

  “Well, I’d love one, but I’m flying home tomorrow, and that’s not exactly a carry-on piece.”

  “We ship all over the world,” she offered.

  “Thanks, it’s all lovely, but I don’t usually do crates.” Then I fled the premises.

  * * *

  I window-shopped the rest of the block and quickly discovered that New York junk was priced from five to ten times higher than what I could sell things for at Maisy’s Daisy.

  It was fun to look, and I got great ideas from the artistic displays in all these high-end shops, but after a couple hours of the look-but-don’t-buy routine, I was getting nostalgic for good old rusty, crusty Southern junk prices. Wasn’t there anything here that I could afford?

  I wandered for what seemed like miles. The cheap boots were rubbing blisters on my heels, and the sky was looking threatening. I was about to wave the white flag and splurge on a cab ride back to the apartment when I spotted a cobblestoned lane so narrow I wondered if it was an alley rather than a street. I stood in the entrance to the lane and peeked down it. There were storefronts, but most of them were darkened.

  In the middle of the block, though, I saw a large old neon sign in the shape of a lady’s high-button boot. The name LaFarge & Sons blinked on and off, beckoning me to investigate.

  The shop window was caked with what looked like Reagan-era dust. The display was a haphazard jumble of stuff from a cavalcade of decades—1980s-era mannequins dressed in polyester disco stacked on top of shiny 1930s-era mahogany sideboards, shoved up against 1950s metal high school chemistry lab tables on top of which were stacked 1920s oak pressed back kitchen chairs.

  A set of tarnished brass sleigh bells attached to the door jingled merrily as I stepped inside and into another era—and zip code.

  The interior was dim, lit only by a scattering of vintage chandeliers hanging from the high pressed tin tile ceiling. Furniture had been shoved into random corners, and everything was stacked four and five items high. Dust filmed every surface, cobwebs festooned every corner.

  I smiled. No pomegranate-scented candles flickered, no chic salesclerks hovered. I flipped over an ugly 1960s florist vase and saw a yellowing masking-tape price tag. Fifty cents!

  The echo of my footsteps was the only sound in the high-ceilinged room. I wandered around, touching battered dressers and rickety chairs. My general impression was that the phantom shopkeeper had been pillaging garage sales for the past fifty years and then dumping his finds into this space.

  Wandering in circles, I came to a turquoise Formica-topped dinette table in a 1950s-era boomerang shape. The price? Ten bucks. I could have wept. Back in Savannah, I could easily sell a table like this for $250. But there was no way to get it home.

  An old army-green footlocker sat atop the table. Idly, I opened the lid and began to paw through the contents. I’d half expected to find some old soldier’s war memorabilia—maybe an army blanket or canteen, or some yellowing newspapers announcing VICTORY IN JAPAN.

  But these looked like the peacetime souvenirs of a well-traveled civilian. I opened a dusty cardboard shirt box and found dozens of sheets of unused vintage hotel stationery. The kitschy logos and letterheads looked to be from the forties and fifties, gathered from hotels and motor courts ranging from Cheyenne to Omaha to Poughkeepsie to Montpelier to Clearwater. The box would fit easily into my suitcase. I set it aside and kept digging. Another shirt box held hotel “Do Not Disturb” door hangers from eight different hotels, all with fabulous old graphics. I added the box to my pile.

  Peeling back the layers of the box I found half a hatbox. Careful not to tear the brittle old floral-printed cardboard, I heard a clink of glass as I removed the box from the trunk.

  Lifting the lid, I saw folds of the palest pink tissue, which revealed a cluster of old mercury-glass Christmas ornaments. I exhaled slowly as I set each one on the tabletop. There were four little Christmas cottages, each in a different tarnished pastel color—pink, blue, green, and a dusty rose. Four more ornaments turned out to be mercury glass churches, complete with tiny steeples. Beneath the next layer of tissue were a baker’s dozen of mercury glass clip-on bird ornaments with hand-painted detailing and real feathers applied as wings and tails. Tiny bits of the feathers floated into the air, even as I added them to the pile of other ornaments.

  More tissue layers revealed a whole forest of vintage bottle-brush Christmas trees. Each had a wire base screwed into a tiny red wooden pot. On the underside of one was the original McCrory’s price tag. Nineteen cents. Some of the trees were green, but others were tinted in pastel colors, with globs of snow dusted all over them. Others had the teeniest glass ornaments glued on, or fine coatings of silver, gold, or green glass glitter. There were fourteen trees, the largest ten inches tall, the smallest less than an inch.

  Jackpot.

  I examined the footlocker lid for a price, finally spying $5 scrawled in black grease pencil on the underside of the lid. But there were no prices on any of the contents, and I guessed that the trunk had probably never been opened since it had been purchased.

  “Hello?” I walked toward the back of the shop, hoping to find a salescounter.

  A set of old wooden shutters cordoned off the rear of the shop from what looked like a back office. A grungy glass display case sat in front of the shutters, and behind that was an old black vinyl sofa. Stretched out on the sofa, softly snoring, was a very tall, very slender old gentleman with a scruffy white beard.

  “Hello?” I called softly again. And then louder, “Sir?”

  He sat bolt upright and stared right at me.

  “What’s that?” His voice was hoarse, phlegmy. He rubbed his eyes. “Who are you?”

  “Uh, I’m a customer. The door was unlocked, so I’ve been doing a little shopping. You are open for business, aren’t you?”

  “Of course.” He walked around the counter and shook my hand. I saw that he was wearing a tattered red sweatshirt, red corduroy pants, and black boots.

  “Frances LaFarge. What can I do you for?”

  “I found some things in an old footlocker and was wondering about prices.”

  He followed me through the maze of furniture until we’d reached the boomerang table.

  He pointed at the footlocker. “You’re not talking about that, right? Because that’s not for sale. Definitely not.”

  “Well, I don’t want the trunk.” I pointed out the hatbox and the cardboard boxes beside it. “I really just want these things.”

  I’d hoped he’d glance at the pile and make me one price. In my dreams!

  Instead he opened each box, rifling the contents. He pulled on his beard, coughed five or six times. Rifled through the boxes again and sighed.

  “This trunk came from a very dear lady I met out in Connecticut,” he said. “She’d been an actress in her youth, with a traveling theatrical troupe. I cleaned out her house shortly before she died. These were her special treasures, you know.”

  I nodded gravely. “I love old things like this. These sweet vintage ornaments and the old hotel stationery—they just speak to me.”

  “And what do they say?” he asked.

  “Buy me
!” I answered, with what I hoped was a winning smile.

  “For how much?” he countered.

  I did some quick math in my head. If I offered too much I’d never get my investment back, too little and I risked insulting him.

  “How much were you thinking?” I asked.

  “Hmm.” He ran his hands over the hatbox. “How’s $12.38? Cash.”

  It was an odd number and a crazy cheap price. I reached for my billfold. “That sounds like a very fair price.” I handed him a ten and a five. “Please keep the change.”

  “Merry Christmas,” he said, giving me a wink. I winked right back.

  With my plastic tote bag bulging with my newfound bargains, I stepped out of the shop, directly back into reality.

  Snow was falling. Not just falling, sheeting down. The sidewalk was already coated, and the cobblestones in the lane were blanketed.

  I heard a ding coming from my phone, dug it out of my purse, and read the text message. It was from Daniel.

  “U busy?”

  I had to remove my gloves to tap out a reply.

  “What’s up?”

  He texted back. “Meet @768 Fifth Ave. Take cab.”

  Chapter 26

  I had to walk several blocks through near white-out snow before I could finally get a cab. The city seemed eerily quiet, with snow muffling the usual Manhattan street racket.

  The taxi’s heater was blasting and the noisy wipers were mostly ineffective at keeping the windshield clear. The cab crept along the streets with the driver hunched forward, trying to see through the curtain of snow.

  It wasn’t until we’d pulled over at the curb and I stepped out of the cab that I realized where I’d arrived. It was the Plaza Hotel.

  * * *

  Daniel stood in the lobby, leaning against one of the marble columns, trying to look nonchalant.

  I rushed over and threw my arms around his neck. “You remembered!”

  We worked our way through the throng of fur-coated women and little girls dressed in their Christmas best red velvet frocks and patent leather Mary Janes, all of them waiting to enter the fairyland-looking Palm Court.