“Just by five minutes or so.” Cassie lowered her voice so that the children around them wouldn’t hear. “But you do realize you’ve got an eight-hour shift ahead? You’ll be on your feet quite a while.”
Agate’s dark eyes gleamed with a warm light as she nodded. “I’ve been looking forward to it. You said this job changed your life, and I’ve been in a rut for at least the last hundred years. Well, I’m ready to shake things up a little.”
“Good luck, Mrs. Claus.” Cassie gestured toward the line of children and Agate hustled toward them, greeting them with laughter and cheer.
That’s the difference between us, Cassie thought. Agate met change head-on, while it was Cassie’s nature to fight it all the way. Until Buchman. Now she was learning to choose her battles.
“Merry Christmas, little ones!” Agate welcomed a new group of children with open arms. “May all your Christmases be bright!”
And to think that before this job came along, her mother didn’t even believe in Christmas…
Incognito.
It was one of the things that made Meredith Rossman so comfortable in New York City. You might walk past Ben Stiller on the street or hear Jessica Simpson talking at the table beside yours at lunch, but no one made a big deal. No one cared that the woman who’d just bought vitamins and a pregnancy testing kit was heiress to the Rossman’s department store dynasty, the “poor little rich girl” who’d found love at last with an eccentric sociologist.
Tipping back the brim of her hat, Meredith glanced at the tall “Santa’s Village” sign that seemed to beckon as soon as she stepped off the escalator. Nice placement. And it was surrounded by tiny white glimmering lights which seemed to be…yes, they were the white miniature toys she’d adored last Christmas in the Chicago store.
Beside the entrance to Santa’s Village was a tall Christmas tree decorated with gold foil and paper ornaments—the wish tree. She picked through the ornaments and pulled off a toy request for a six-month-old boy whose parents were disabled. Shopping for this little one would brighten her afternoon.
As she circled Santa’s Village she thought of the wish tree in Chicago, of her own goals and wishes last year at this time. She’d thought CEO of Rossman’s was the ultimate prize. What was that expression? Watch what you wish for?
In the end the position had gone to the best candidate. Uncle Leonard had supervised operations his entire life, and the board thought he was ready to oversee “the big picture.” Meredith agreed, and she was pleased that the board recognized Daniel’s weaknesses as a leader. He’d been given a place in assistant management at the Magnificent Mile store, and Meredith hoped that the position would help Daniel learn the real nuts and bolts of retail or help him realize that he needed to steer his career in another direction.
For all her achievements and hard work Meredith was offered a seat on the board—a sweet reward—but she’d turned it down. Although she wanted to stay with Rossman’s, she knew it was time to take a break from Chicago, the city of her parents’ dreams. Time to move on. And since Nick needed to return to U of Penn at the end of his sabbatical, Philadelphia was the most likely choice. Meredith had packed her bags and headed to Philly as the new director of East Coast operations, which gave her Boston, New York, Baltimore, D.C., Philly, Baltimore, and West Palm. “Let Daniel have the Chicago store,” Nick had joked, “you’ve got the whole East Coast.”
Meredith let the shopping bags slide down her arm as she stood to the side of the candy-cane lane entrance to Santa’s Village and silently timed the queue. Today was her first visit to the New York store. Taking a tip from Nick, she’d begun visiting the East Coast stores under the radar. Keep a low profile; observe. Better not to let the employees know they’re being checked until it’s absolutely necessary.
She surveyed the elves, who merrily moved through the line, engaging children and taking them for a ride on the miniature train. The costume design looked familiar and she wondered…Wasn’t the Mrs. Claus costume sent to this store at the start of the season? Where was it?
One of the Santas stepped out of his gingerbread home and waved to the crowd. He was a thin, Hispanic man, but Meredith saw Nick there, her Nick with his real silver hair and his spark of enthusiasm as he spun one of his hundreds of Christmas tales.
Funny, but when she’d seen him at Penn he seemed equally at ease in a lecture hall, walking the aisles, jumping down from behind the podium to reach out to students.
Meredith couldn’t imagine his wild reaction if the test in her bag proved positive. She hadn’t mentioned anything yet, wanted to be sure first, because it was something they both wanted so much—a family of their own.
Her family life had stopped abruptly when her parents died, but now Meredith was ready to go on, ready to squeeze every ounce of satisfaction from each day, ready to bring a new life into the world.
She placed her packages on the floor and suddenly a lovely woman with long silver hair and sparkling gray eyes stood before her, smiling. Dressed in the rich, red velvet Mrs. Claus costume, this woman seemed to embody the legendary Lady Santa in a magical way.
“Hello.” Meredith smiled, startled.
“Merry Christmas, Mom,” the woman said. “Are you waiting on a little one?”
Meredith pressed one palm against her tummy, sensing that it all was about to come true. “Yes. Yes, I am.”
“It won’t take too long,” Mrs. Claus said, reaching across the candy-cane rail to squeeze her arm. “And I’m sure you’ll find it’s worth the wait.”
Meredith nodded, her throat thick with emotion as the woman moved on down the line and bent down to lend an ear to a small girl.
Yes, Meredith thought, the new Mrs. Claus is perfect.
“Oh, look!” A thin woman with long, red curls squeezed into the rail next to Meredith. “They do have a Mrs. Claus, and she looks so real.” Olivia pressed her lips together to stave off the tears—happy tears—but tears that would worry Woody nonetheless. The year she’d played Mrs. Claus was a pivotal time in her life, and sometimes, thinking back, she realized she was so close to dancing her life away on a chorus line in a strange city. “I loved that suit,” she said hoarsely.
“No, you didn’t,” Woody said. “You wanted to be a Rockette that year, but you broke your ankle.”
She shook her head. “You’re only remembering part of it, hon. Okay, maybe I didn’t love the idea of the job at first, but I grew to like it. I’m telling you, there’s something lucky about that suit.”
Cassie couldn’t believe she was hearing this. Another Mrs. Claus, right here at Rossman’s?
She tucked a strand of hair behind one ear and stepped up to the redhead. “Hey, sorry to cut in, but I caught part of your conversation. Did you really play Mrs. Claus?”
The redhead nodded, her curls bobbing. “At the Baltimore Rossman’s.”
“I was Mrs. Claus in San Francisco, two years ago.”
The redhead squealed, and suddenly they were hugging like old college roommates. After the woman introduced herself and her husband Woody, Cassie added, “And to make things even weirder, that’s my mother out there this year.”
Olivia sighed. “She’s perfect for the role. Probably better than I was. I don’t have kids, so I was fumbling all around, scaring the stuffing out of some of them until I figured it out.”
“Ah, but you figured it out,” Cassie said. “That’s the power of the suit.”
“Do you think it’s lucky?” Olivia asked her as Woody waved an emphatic “No!” behind her.
“I think the Mrs. Claus role helped me find the magic of Christmas,” Cassie said thoughtfully. “And it helped me see what really mattered in my life. My son.” She took a deep breath, thinking of the ways Tyler had grown in the light of Buchman’s subtle influence. “Luck sounds so fickle, but love, that’s solid, a tangible. And where there’s love, there’s magic.”
Listening in, Meredith caught the dialogue about the magic of Christmas. That was one to save f
or Nick at dinner tonight. She still argued about the existence of magic in the world, but at this time of year, with the tree lit in their library, Meredith knew she wasn’t making a convincing argument. In the golden glow of their Christmas tree Meredith heard the rising voices of ghosts from the past and children from the future, and most remarkably, it all blended into the harmonies of her favorite Christmas carol.
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
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Copyright © 2005 by Carly Alexander
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
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ISBN: 978-0-7582-6385-8
The Secret Life of Mrs. Claus Page 33
