by Gail Cleare
They bought so much art that eventually Lexi decided she really ought to be a partner in the business, rather than an employee. Her boss felt differently. So Lexi took her rich art buyers out of the big city and back to the small town environment where she had been so successful earlier in her life. She moved back to New England. She used investment money obtained from her parents to open her own art gallery in our vital downtown area, and hired two bright, pretty girls to run it for her while she went to the day spa and had those long, lucrative lunches.
I was the lowest bump on the totem pole when I worked for Lexi. I was the dirt beneath her diamond-studded heel. In her sparkling blonde presence I felt drab, dull and ugly. When she corrected me in front of a client, making a joke at my expense, I felt stupid. After a few months, I felt angry, too. I had originally thought the job would be an opportunity for me to increase my knowledge of art retailing and make some connections of my own. Eventually I realized that I was there to be a reasonably presentable shoplifting deterrent and cleaning person.
Pretty much everything I did was either wrong or insufficient, in Lexi’s view. And she did not hesitate to say so, in scathing terms. It was not a job that was good for my self-image. It didn’t pay very well, either. And she protected her connections and her information so well that I didn’t really have a chance to learn from her. The day she insisted that I clean the bathroom and I quit on the spot, I really hadn’t planned it. But it was obviously the right thing to do. I didn’t struggle, I didn’t argue with her. I just walked out.
I figured I was leaving a bad time behind me, and moving forward into what I hoped would be a more productive, positive era. It was a learning experience in terms of emotions and people skills. I meditated for weeks on dissipating my anger, trying to let it go. I realized how destructive anger could be to the person who indulges in it. It actually made me feel kind of sick and achy, nauseated. Emotionally, I felt weak and out of control. It made me think like a victim, which was the last straw as far as I am concerned. I had to get this anger out of my system, out of my life.
When I answered Mr. Paradis’ help wanted ad, I was still in the process of working the anger out of my heart. I wished for the self-control to will it away, and keep it away. As time passed, and the magic of lots of good, hard, creative, productive work soothed my spirit, I started to feel better about what had happened. I moved on.
Now I didn’t even think about Lexi or the gallery very often. We still lived in the same town, but obviously we did not frequent the same places because I never ran into her. This wasn’t too surprising. I read about the openings at her gallery in the newspaper. I assumed she was still making tons of money and living the lifestyle of the rich and fabulous. I assumed she couldn’t have cared less what had happened to me when I quit, and immediately replaced me with another reasonably attractive live body.
After lunchtime on the day of Tony Novak’s return, I left Siri in charge of the shop and went over to the Green Thumb to attend a meeting of the Market Street merchants. We had been talking about organizing a kind of street fair as a promotional event, something timed to coordinate with the downtown sidewalk sales that took place at the end of every summer. We wanted to rope off the intersection of Crescent and Market to admit only walking traffic for that day and evening. We were planning to use the space to put up a tent with a big stage and have free entertainment including live bands, street magicians, clowns, jugglers, story-telling for kids and strolling musicians. We thought it would help to draw new people to our business district during the sidewalk sales, since we were only a short walk from Main Street.
Our ad rep from the newspaper loved the idea and talked to her publisher, who offered to sponsor the event. He wanted to print up a special advertising insert for that weekend’s edition, listing the events and profiling the performers and the stores who were hosting. He was giving us a discounted rate for ads in the insert. He had put us in touch with a representative from the state arts council, who was trying to get us some grant money. The most popular local radio station wanted to sponsor it too, now, and volunteered their DJ’s to act as announcers for the musical performances. The whole plan was falling together beautifully.
I was in charge of the budget, and could happily see that while it wasn’t going to be cheap to put this event together, the bottom line investment for each neighborhood business would be pretty reasonable, considering the amount of advertising and marketing value we could derive from it.
I was on my way to present the latest figures to our group, who had gathered in the closed restaurant. I could see them milling around through the glass front of the enclosed porch. I hurried across the street and opened the lime green swinging doors, rushing into the room. And there she was, big as life, looking absolutely stunning, as usual.
Lexi had chosen to sit at the very center of the bar, with her elegant legs crossed at the knee. If the long, shining, streaked blonde hair didn’t get your attention, then those amazing slim, tanned legs were sure to do it. A cherry red high-heeled sandal dangled from her extended foot with its matching cherry-red toenails. She was sitting directly in front of the doors where she couldn’t be missed by anyone who came into the room, or vice versa. She wore a fluttery white sleeveless sundress, and looked like she had just come off the ferry from Nantucket. She slowly turned to see who had entered.
When she saw me, her cornflower blue eyes narrowed subtly. But she greeted me with a wide smile and unexpected enthusiasm, like an old pal, jumping down off the bar stool with her arms spread for a big Hollywood hug and two cherry-red air kisses. She smelled like lilies of the valley.
“Emily! Darling, how are you?” she said with a theatrical tone sure to be heard all over the room full of people. She grabbed me by the upper arms and held me with her perfectly manicured cherry-red claws. They sank into me a little, though it must have looked like a friendly gesture to everyone else. And everyone was definitely watching.
“Don’t you look just darling!” Lexi gushed sweetly. “I love that denim skirt! Blue was always such a great color on you, Em.”
“Um…thanks, you look wonderful too, Lexi. Have you been at the beach? You’re so tan,” I replied politely, trying to gather my wits.
She laughed dramatically, shook her hair, and twirled around like a model showing a new gown.
“Yes, I’m living the good life this summer! Back and forth to the Island.”
She threw back her head, shook her streaked blonde mane again and laughed, making sure that anyone who had not been watching before was definitely watching us now. She gracefully hopped back up on the barstool, showing off those long legs again.
I was trying to figure out what she was doing here. Her gallery was on Main Street in the prime retail district, so she was not a member of our neighborhood merchants group. She was sitting next to our ad rep from the paper, Lisa Gordon, who was deep in conversation with Rocco Sorrentino. I noticed that he looked worried. He shot me a meaningful look of dismay as he asked Lisa a question. Before I could do anything, I heard the café doors open behind me and everyone looked towards the entrance.
“Sarah!” Lexi announced, jumping down off the stool to give the air-kiss treatment to the newest arrival.
It was Sarah Bennet, president of the Downtown Business Association. The DBA was city-wide, so we were all members. Sarah was a retail marketing expert, hired to run the organization. Most of the marketing efforts made by the DBA seemed to benefit the central retail district much more than outlying neighborhoods like ours. We are mixed residential and commercial, and literally on the other side of the railroad tracks. That’s why I had dreamed up this idea for how to pull people off the main drag and around the corner to visit us while they were in town. We were doing this on our own, not through Sarah’s organization. In fact, she had not been invited to attend the meeting, as far as I knew. But then, neither had Lexi.
Rocco stood up and raised his hands.
“OK now everybody,” he said lou
dly, “We’re all here! Time to start! Everybody take a seat. Here, Mom, you sit here,” he pulled out a chair in the front of room and gently seated Josie. Everyone settled down, and I sank into a chair at the table where Laurie and John sat. I gave Laurie an amazed look. She looked at Lexi, then back at me, and discretely mimed gagging behind her hand. I leaned closer to John, who sat next to me.
“What’s going on?” I whispered.
He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head silently with a concerned look on his face, crossing his arms. Rocco raised his voice again, stating that the DBA had heard about our plans and had asked Sarah Bennet to drop in today and speak with us.
“I’ll let her tell you the rest,” Rocco said, sitting down. He looked grim.
Sarah took over the meeting smoothly, obviously a practiced hand. She managed to give us the bad news without appearing negative or disagreeable. She was a true politician. Lexi watched her talk with a little ecstatic smile playing across her lips, as though she were hearing beautiful music or having her feet massaged. This did not bode well for the rest of us, I suspected.
The DBA’s members had learned about our promotion from the newspaper and radio advertising reps, Sarah told us. The DBA was concerned about the fact that we had not come to them with this idea, not for their permission of course, since that obviously wasn’t necessary, but for their advice and collaboration. Sarah was very diplomatic. She congratulated us on our imagination and our marketing acumen. She called the idea, “fantastic!”
Then she started to steer things a different way. Some of the DBA members on Main Street had a few concerns, she said, that needed to be addressed. We had to understand that they counted on the income from the sidewalk sales to weather the slow summer vacation season. The Main Street merchants were worried that our free entertainment would detract from their sidewalk sales, pulling traffic away from the center of town. She looked pointedly at Lexi, a prominent Main Street merchant.
Lexi smiled at her calmly, not looking worried at all. Why should she? The gallery certainly didn’t count on the income from selling a few prints and picture frames on the sidewalk to fill its coffers. Whoever Sarah was talking about, it obviously did not apply to Lexi. She had to be here for another reason. I wondered what it was.
“Sarah?” I said, raising my hand. She nodded at me. “What exactly do the Main Street merchants want us to do about this, er…problem?”
“Well, there have been several suggestions. But the simplest idea was proposed by Alexandra Gladstone here from the Gladstone Gallery,” Sarah replied, waving her hand toward Lexi, who sat up straighter and tossed back her hair.
“The obvious thing to do, to keep everyone happy, is for you people to have your little event on another weekend,” Lexi said, with a charming smile. She spoke as though delighted to have discovered such a fair, simple solution. “That way, everyone will get more attention, with no competition for the spotlight!”
Silence in the room followed her statement. Rocco and Josie looked over at me.
“But,” I said slowly, “The whole idea was to piggyback the two events. So we can all make the most of each other’s advertising money, and have more of a draw to pull people into town. The timing is essential to make the budget for our event work.”
Lexi turned to focus on me, with a nasty glint in her eye.
“Why, Emily, you can’t possibly be saying that you want to take advantage of all the effort and money spent over the past ten years to make our sidewalk sales a success! Steal our customers away, and give us nothing in return!” She regarded me triumphantly. “Anyone with a bit more, well, experience, must see that it just isn’t fair to the rest of us after all our hard work.” I wondered how much hard work exactly she had put in, and decided it was probably zip.
Rocco stood up and took the floor.
“I think we all agree that we certainly don’t want to piss off the Main Streeters,” he said with a grin, lightening the mood and drawing a few chuckles out of the crowd. “Sarah, what if we think about coming up with some kind of compromise on this?”
Sarah nodded her head in agreement, as compromise was her business.
“I think we can give it a try,” she said. “Do you have anything specific in mind?”
Rocco looked over at me, hoping for a contribution.
“Well, maybe there is a way,” I said, thinking very fast. Everyone looked at me expectantly. Lexi frowned, but nobody saw her except me.
“For example, what if some of the entertainment isn’t just down here? What if we had the street performers cover Main Street too?” I started to get excited about the idea. This could actually benefit us, in the end.
“Street performers?” Lexi asked, with a dubious tone.
“Clowns, jugglers, magicians and buskers — strolling musicians, that is,” I answered. I already knew she was going to react negatively, but everyone else was nodding their heads and making sounds of approval.
“We could still rope off the intersection here and have the stage events under a tent, so there’s something special to pull people down this way,” Rocco observed. “The police would never let that happen in a high traffic area anyhow, so it isn’t an option for Main Street.”
“Yes, and the street performers would actually add some new interest to the sidewalk sales on Main,” Sarah added. “I think it would be fun, festive!”
“Yes,” I agreed, “And you could mention it in your advertising, which would be a great added feature!” Plus, I thought silently, we could put posters up along Main Street advertising the events in the tent, so all the shoppers would be sure to see them.
“Yes, yes,” Sarah said, picturing it and nodding her head. She looked at our ad rep, who nodded enthusiastically.
“We were planning to run profiles of the Market Street merchants in the special insert,” Lisa said, “But we could cover selected businesses from all over downtown.” She spoke to Lexi anxiously. “We could do a little article on your gallery, Lexi! How would that be?”
Lexi was still frowning, but nobody paid much attention to her as they all discussed the new development. She did not reply to Lisa’s suggestion and sat silently, radiating displeasure. She looked at me with an expression of extreme distaste, as though she had encountered a nasty smell. I ignored it, and went up to Sarah so she could hear me over the noisy conversation.
“Do you think the rest of the DBA will agree to the idea?” I asked.
“I think so,” she replied. “I’ll bring it up at the next meeting of the sidewalk sales committee.” She looked at me. “This actually might be a shot in the arm for our tired old event. Sometimes people get sick of the same old thing, you know? I like your creativity, Emily!”
She and Lisa, who had been listening, both smiled at me approvingly.
“We should get you to join the committee!” Lisa suggested.
“Yes, that’s a great idea! Why don’t you come to the next meeting with me?” Sarah said. “You can make this suggestion yourself. You’ll represent this neighborhood, and we’ll work something out that is to everyone’s benefit!”
“Of course we’ll want to contribute to the expense of the street performers, you understand,” she added quietly, turning her back to Lexi slightly. “We know how much these things cost.”
“Sure,” I answered. “That can be arranged!” I looked past Sarah at Lexi, who was glaring at me. But she knew when she had been defeated. She picked up her purse off the bar and slung the strap over her tanned shoulder.
“Well, I must fly!” she proclaimed with a bright, false smile. “A client is waiting.”
She hugged and air-kissed Sarah and Lisa, in that order. When she came toward me I almost stepped away. I didn’t like the look in her eye.
“Bitch!” she hissed privately in my ear as she hugged me, grabbing me with her talons when I stiffened in response. “I’ll never forget what you did! You’ll get what you deserve.”
That’s when I finally realized what all of thi
s was about. She was still mad at me for defying her. She was willing to hurt the whole neighborhood just to get back at me! I remembered being worried that she would do something to scare off any prospective new employers, if they called for employment verification. I didn’t think Mr. Paradis had ever spoken with her. If he had, it didn’t seem to have made any difference.
“I’ll be sure to remember,” I said, pulling away from her. She let go of me reluctantly, but Rocco came over just then and threw his arms around both of us, a wide grin on his face.
“So, you see what can happen when we all cooperate, Ladies?” he said happily. “This will be the biggest sidewalk sales event ever!” He stood between us, shielding me from her. He turned his head toward me and winked.
“Yes,” I said, “And how lucky for us that the DBA might pay for part of the entertainment expense! We’re so grateful for the community support, Lexi!”
I turned towards her and raised one eyebrow, daring to pull the tiger’s tail. She looked furious, but said nothing and gave Rocco one of her brilliant smiles. Without another word, Lexi swept out through the front doors and was gone. Rocco and I stood and watched her exit. He shook his head in disbelief and gently held my upper arm, pointing to the crescent shaped indentations she had left there with her fingernails.
“So what did you do to the Countess Vampira in a former life?” he asked. “She wanted to rip you apart!”
“It’s a long story,” I said, rubbing the red marks. “I didn’t realize she took it so personally.”
