by Lisa Plumley
Chip had said they wanted her to appear in those ads, too, alongside the CEO. It was a real-time hometown advertising initiative they were trying out for the holiday sales season.
Danielle wasn’t sure yet how she felt about being the “ordinary, down-home face” of the company she worked for, but she was willing to go along for the ride. Especially given the bonus HQ had offered to pay her for her additional work efforts.
She could use that bonus to buy gifts for her kids. It wasn’t easy pulling off a memorable Christmas on her income. Last year—the first holiday since her divorce—had been a disaster. Her ex, Mark, had expected Danielle to handle everything for Zach, Karlie, and Aiden, just the way she’d done during their marriage. She’d thought they were splitting duties, now that they were living apart. After realizing they weren’t—and Mark hadn’t gotten any gifts on his own—Danielle had racked up a major last-minute credit card debt. She’d nearly bought out several parts of her own store to avoid disappointing her kids.
This year was going to be different, though. This year, they’d love Christmas. She had all kinds of special activities planned for them to share. But first . . . back to her big work news.
“Danielle! Wow! Congratulations!” Gigi hugged her, bringing with her a typically potent mixture of perfume, crayon wax, and espresso. Everyone knew that Gigi loved being girly, loved playing with the kids during toy demo time, and loved getting amped on strong black coffee . . . almost as much as she enjoyed flirting with Henry. “Lights, camera, action, right?” Gigi pantomimed aiming a camera at Danielle. “That is terrific!”
“The publicity isn’t even the best part. Wait until you—”
“Non, the best part is the CEO who is coming here.” Gigi nodded with assurance. “I saw his photo on the company intranet. He is hot! So he will be here, in our store, oui?” Eagerly, she eyed Danielle. “If you put in some effort, maybe straighten your hair, maybe put on a pretty bra for once in your life—”
“There’s nothing wrong with my hair. Or my bra!” Danielle gawked at her friend, fighting an urge to cross her arms. “Which you’ve never seen, by the way. So how could you possibly know—”
“I know.” Gigi waved. “Do not bother denying it. Americans wear ridiculous bras.” She rolled her eyes with comical disdain. “Boring nude colors. No matching undies. No mystery. No fun! Not enough lace, either. And padding way out to here.” She cupped both hands in the air at least eight exaggerated inches away from her breasts, pretending to fondle imaginary padded bra cups. “Foam and polyester belong in cheap upholstered furniture or weird cars from the future, not in a woman’s lingerie.”
“Can we just get back to my momentous news, please?”
“Mark my words, Danielle. A man wants to feel a woman when he touches her. Not a big round blob of foam and chemicals.”
“Well, nobody’s going to be—”
“Or you could always go braless. There is a good idea.”
“—touching me anytime soon. So there’s no problem.”
Gigi gave a sympathetic moue. “Still no man for you?”
“Are you kidding?” Danielle knew better. Besides, she was busy. Too busy to risk upsetting her kids by dating. It was much too soon. “My last man ran off with a high-heeled Twinkie—”
“He likes the crème-filled snack cake?”
“—and then had the gall to marry her three months ago—”
“Ah. He does like the Twinkie. Very much.”
“—so I’m not in the market for another man, believe me.”
“All men are not disappointments. You have to choose well.”
Danielle laughed. “That’s just it. I did choose well.” She’d chosen Mark Sharpe in college. They’d been inseparable all the way till graduation—after which they’d come to Kismet, gotten married, and gotten down to having children. One, two, three. “At least I thought I did. It turns out I was hideously wrong about Mark and his capacity for keeping a commitment.” To me and our kids. “So until I can trust my own judgment again—”
“One bad choice is not your destiny. Trust yourself!”
As if she could do that anytime soon.
Danielle gave up on trying to explain. This wasn’t the time. “That’s easy for you to say. Men are dying to date you.”
Solemnly, Gigi shook her head. “Francophiles? Yes. Bien sûr! But they do not count. They learn that I am from Paris and think that I am their own personal Amélie. I want a man who sees only me. I want a man like Henry. I am going to get him, too.”
Looking at Gigi amid the toy store chaos, Danielle didn’t doubt it. “Right. We’re getting sidetracked. That phone call was big, Gigi. You’ll never believe what Chip Larsen told me.”
“Hmm. If it is good news, then I will guess . . .” Gigi’s eyes brightened. “That the company is retiring those ugly hats we are supposed to wear?”
At the thought of those screaming yellow baseball caps, Danielle grimaced. In some ways, Moosby’s management was stuck in the ’90s, for sure. If they amped up the color of the aprons and turned the hats around backward, they’d all look like long-lost members of Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. When properly outfitted according to the employee handbook, Moosby’s team members looked like they’d stepped into a dorkiness amplifying machine and gotten stuck in there. It wasn’t good.
“He didn’t say anything about the hats.”
“I will go on strike before I wear one of those hats.”
“I know. Me too.” In unified protest, Danielle and Gigi glanced toward the back room, where she’d stowed all three dozen pieces of plastic-enrobed headwear. Her employees had wanted a bonfire. A stash was a compromise. “Anyway, the big deal is—”
“They are allowing us to talk normally to customers?” Gigi speculated. “Instead of making us do the stupid patter?”
Danielle hesitated. According to the official Moosby’s rule book and accompanying training video, they were supposed to begin each customer transaction with a hearty, “Welcome to Moosby’s! Welcome to fun! How can I maximize your playtime today?” They were supposed to end each transaction by yodeling, “Thank you for shopping Moosby’s! Have a fun-filled day!”
She made a face. “No, that’s not it, either. But since we don’t do that anyway, we’re in the clear, right?”
Gigi gave a Gallic shrug, obviously never having planned on participating in the “stupid patter” in the first place. It wasn’t surprising. Gigi had been hired after Edna Gresham had left—after Danielle had taken over and changed things a bit.
Belatedly, it occurred to her exactly how many rules she broke every day at work. She didn’t consider herself a rebel. Far from it. Ordinarily, Danielle was organized, efficient, and reasonably fond of predictability. But when it came to Moosby’s, a small dose of rebellion had definitely been called for.
When crunch time had come, Danielle had delivered that rebellion. She’d led the charge toward that rebellion, in fact.
How else could she have achieved such spectacular sales? She couldn’t have succeeded by toeing the line.
“You do realize,” Danielle mused to Gigi, “that you’ve already pointed out four things we don’t do by the book here?”
That wasn’t even counting the whopper—the inventory shuffling that Danielle had been engaged in when Chip called.
“Oui, I know. But you see why I did that, non?”
“Because you’re planning to rat me out to the CEO when he gets here?” Danielle gave her a mock chastising look. “Blackmail won’t work, you know. I’ve got all the dirt on you, too.”
“Because if the big cheese is coming here for a visit, he will want to see us doing everything A-OK.” Gigi rolled her eyes at Danielle. “He will want to see the aprons and the hats. He will want to experience the patter.” She sighed, then cast her beleaguered gaze toward the store’s Christmas light–bedecked ceiling. “He will want to hear the boring Christmas songs that make me want to poke out my ears with a Tinkertoy. He will!”
“No, he won’t,” Danielle assured her. “Because he’ll be too busy deciding he has to promote me to a big-deal corporate job.”
“We have to burn all those hats,” Gigi announced, obviously still preoccupied with her doomsday scenario. “I’ll get them.”
“Didn’t you hear me? I’m finally going to get promoted!”
“Oh.” Gigi blinked. “That is what the HQ boss told you?”
Hmm. Gigi’s nonchalance wasn’t quite the ebullient reception Danielle had expected to receive for her big news.
“Well . . .” Danielle hedged. “Not exactly. Not in so many words, at least. What he said was, ‘We’re all very impressed with you. We just know you’re going to come through for us with this.’” She paused. In retrospect, the things Chip Larsen had said to her on the phone had carried more promise than actual promises. She’d been so surprised; it was hard to remember all the details. “Then he said some things about ‘corporate synergy’ and ‘moving the cheese’ toward a ‘more collaborative future.’”
Gigi looked suspicious. “Sounds like corporate doublespeak to me. What is he, some kind of d-bag?”
Well . . . sort of. “Sort of,” Danielle admitted. “Yes. But he’s also the chairman of the board at Moosby’s. So when he tells me they’re contemplating ‘major changes in management’ very soon, he’s got to be hinting that I’m in the running for a top spot! You know, after I prove myself by acing this ‘model store’ visit. It must be a test or something.” Giddily, she inhaled. “He probably can’t commit yet. There are HR issues, liability details . . . Chip Larsen is a professional. He’s doing things by the book, that’s all. But I’ve made no secret about my aspirations. I’ve been applying for upper management positions for the past few months, remember? I’m totally getting promoted!”
“We should shred those foul aprons. Just to make sure.”
“Don’t you see what this means?” Danielle prodded. “I can finally get out of here, just the way I’ve always wanted to! I can take Aiden, Karlie, and Zach out of this Podunk town and give them the kinds of opportunities they really need.” She glanced beyond the toy store’s garland-draped and vividly decorated picture windows, seeing past Main Street . . . all the way to the future she’d dreamed of making happen for her children.
They couldn’t count on their flaky, irresponsible dad. They needed her to come through for them. “They can have better schools, better extracurricular activities, opportunities to see the world! I was so naïve, growing up here. I had to wait until I went away to college to find out that, in most places, everyone doesn’t know your name and your family and your whole history.”
Now Gigi looked wistful. “That sounds . . . nice to me.”
“Well . . .” Sometimes it is, honestly. “I want more. I’m going to get it, too. For all I know, the CEO is coming here to tell me about my promotion in person! Right? That must be it.”
Merry Christmas to her! This was going to be fantastic.
“I hope you are right. If anyone deserves it, you do.” Gigi hugged her again. She stepped back, waggling her eyebrows. “If you get a fat raise, you can afford sexy lingerie. So you can feel sexy when you are with the CEO. That is powerful stuff.”
Danielle scoffed. “I’m not going to work my way to the top on the strength of a balconette bra and a matching thong.”
“You are right. You will also need cute stilettos.”
“Gigi!”
“And stockings. But I am encouraged that you know what to look for, at least. A balconette bra delivers much va-va-voom.”
“I wasn’t serious.”
“I would be. If that CEO guy is half as hot as his photo looks, you will be serious, too. Right away. Mark my words.”
Danielle dismissed that idea with a shrug. “Those pictures are all Photoshopped, I’m sure.” Wasn’t every glossy publicity image airbrushed and perfected? In the case of Moosby’s movie-star-esque CEO, they had to be. “Besides, I already told you, I don’t want a man. I don’t need a man. I’m doing fine on my own.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Gigi seemed more preoccupied than convinced by that. “Do you know what? Maybe you should take off your glasses while he is here.” Earnestly, she examined Danielle’s owlish horn rims. “Unless he has a kink for the smarty-pants librarian type. If he does, you are so in there, g-friend.”
“There’s no talking seriously with you.”
“I am being serious! I am helping you to get your man.”
“I want a job, not a man,” Danielle reminded her while eyeing the giftwrap center. “The CEO of Moosby’s is not my man. He’s a respected businessman with a reputation for innovation.”
“All men are your men. If you want them to be.”
“You’re impossible.”
“You are repressed!” Gigi nudged her. “Loosen up, okay?”
That wasn’t going to happen. “I’m about to have the most critical onsite business visit of my entire life. The last thing I’m going to do is loosen up.” Struck by the sobering reality of it all—and the short time she had to prepare—Danielle felt a knot of panic tighten in her middle. Oh, boy. This was big. “I have to get started. I have planning to do, lists to make—”
“Lingerie to buy . . .”
“—rule breaking to hide.” Whoa. How was she going to conceal all the inventory shenanigans she engaged in . . . and everything else, too? How was she going to convince her staff to get on board with the Funky Bunch uniforms and the yodeling store greetings? Should she even try? Those were the rules . . .
With new purpose, Danielle examined the busy toy store and all the activity swirling around them. The Christmas carols filtered into her consciousness again, along with a clarifying realization: her store had succeeded because of her innovations. Not in spite of them. Sure, she might have to sidestep any pointed inquiries anyone made into her inventorying, but how likely was that? Moosby’s CEO was coming to snap a few photos, appear at a small-town meet-and-greet, and probably be filmed while trying to look interested in board games and Transformers.
Oh, and to tell her about her promotion. Of course.
There was a good chance, Danielle reasoned, that an out-of-touch wunderkind type like Moosby’s CEO wouldn’t even know all the rules for his own stores’ employees, much less expect them to be rigorously adhered to. After all, hadn’t some US president or other been famously awestruck by run-of-the-mill supermarket scanners years ago? Sometimes rich, successful CEO types delegated so many things to their underlings that they didn’t even known their own companies’ operations anymore.
But Danielle knew how things had to operate at Moosby’s. She knew how to satisfy customers and how to rack up big sales in the process. This December, she swore to herself as she surveyed her bustling toy store, nothing was getting between her and the most phenomenal sales season Moosby’s had ever seen.
Not even the famous CEO of Moosby’s himself . . . Jason Hamilton.
Chapter Three
Edna Gresham, the kind and grandmotherly manager of the newly designated Moosby’s “model store” in Kismet, Michigan, was about to get the most attentive, in-depth, thoughtful, and upstanding corporate visit in the history of corporate visits.
That’s what Jason swore to himself as he drove toward the small Midwestern lakeside resort town for the first time.
He’d been ready to bail on the “corporate apology” shtick the board had been panting for. Reasonably so. Even Charley’s ominous warnings about there being something Jason “ought to know” about the board’s plans hadn’t made an impact—probably because the board’s other issue with Jason had had to do with an unauthorized “tell-all” biography of him that was in the works.
“They’re fired up about it,” Charley had argued gravely. “It’s supposed to contain some heavy-duty dirt about you. About your past, your tough upbringing, your ins and outs with—”
The law, he’d undoubtedly been about to say, but Jason had cut him short. All that stuff had happene
d a long time ago.
“That biography’s been ‘on the cusp of being published’ for years now. It’ll never happen.” Charley hadn’t been around the last time its publication had seemed imminent. Neither had a few of his newer board members—Chip Larsen included. “Someone is fishing. Nobody knows enough about me to fill a book.”
Only his family came close. Because they’d been there. To some degree, Alfred Moosby knew a few things about him, too. But the real nitty-gritty? That was staying in the past where it belonged. Jason was a different man now. A better man.
“If I have to,” he’d told Charley, “I’ll bury that book.”
His past was his own business. Nobody else’s.
“It’s got new traction now that that racy picture is out,” Charley had insisted. “All the TV newsmagazine shows are covering the story of your wild weekend. They’re saying it wasn’t very family friendly. Especially for a toy store exec.”
“It’ll blow over.”
“One of the twenty-four-hour news networks is running a constant crawl of the worst tweets about you. They’re calling for Moosby’s boycotts. SNL did a skit about you, dude!”
“Was it funny?”
“Jason!”
“Well?”
Charley hesitated. “Yeah. It was funny. But—”
“See? This is no big deal. I’m not worried.”
“You’re never worried. That’s why you have us. We’re here to worry for you. Professionally and at length.”
“Aha.” At that, Jason had grinned. “I see the disconnect here. Because I don’t want anybody to worry about anything.”
“Not even your board of directors? We’re responsible for—”
“Responsible?” Jason had waved away the notion. “We run toy stores! It’s supposed to be fun.” He knew that above everything else. “Speaking of which . . . aren’t you getting married soon? Why don’t you go spend some time with your fiancée?”
