The Christmas Shoppe Read online

  “It’s all right,” he told her. “I get the sense that she’s very protective of you and Megan. Maybe Matilda too.”

  “That’s probably true.” Susanna stepped away from the door, trying to distance herself from the tantrum that continued to rage in Matilda’s apartment. “I, uh, I hope you don’t speak Spanish.”

  “I took a few years of it.”

  “Oh.” She grimaced. “Did you understand much of that?”

  He gave a crooked smile. “Enough to know I should watch my step.”

  “Well, I apologize for subjecting you to that. I should’ve known better. Please forgive me.”

  “Forgiven.” He tipped his head politely. “If you’ll excuse me, I should be on my way.”

  She told him goodbye, then opened the door to the apartment and quietly slipped back inside. Rose seemed to have calmed down a little and was now putting her energies to good use as she vigorously scrubbed the windowsill. Her back was to Susanna now, but that wouldn’t last long.

  It hadn’t been Susanna’s plan to spend her holiday doing housework. She had simply stopped by because Megan asked to check on things, but Susanna knew if she lingered, she would have the option of either being yelled at or being put to work—or both.

  She tiptoed over to where Matilda was showing Megan something in the kitchen, then quietly told her daughter that she was going to leave. “You can come with me or stay here with Abuela,” she whispered. “If you stay here, you better plan to work.”

  Megan’s brow creased like she was trying to decide.

  “How are your artistic abilities?” Matilda asked Megan.

  “Megan is a good artist,” Susanna said.

  “And with a paintbrush?”

  “I love to paint.” Megan nodded.

  Matilda smiled. “I thought so.” She turned back to Susanna. “If it’s all right with you, I’d like to hire Megan to do a little painting for me downstairs.”

  “It’s fine with me,” Susanna assured her. “If Megan is interested.”

  “Absolutely.” Megan beamed. Susanna wasn’t sure if she was excited about the prospects of painting or earning money. Maybe it was both.

  “Great.” Susanna pushed a strand of overgrown bangs away from Megan’s face. “Try not to get too messy. Those aren’t exactly painting clothes.”

  “Oh, I’ll give her something to wear,” Matilda assured her.

  “Fine. I’ll be in town doing a couple errands, but I have my cell phone. Then I’ll be at home if you get done and need a ride.”

  “Or I can ride with Abuela.”

  Susanna glanced nervously to where Rose was now eyeing her, almost as if she were ready to let loose with another tongue lashing. “I better scoot.”

  “That’s right,” Rose said. “If you’re not here to work, you’re not here at all.”

  “Have fun,” Susanna called as she hurried out. As she went down the stairwell, she felt relieved to escape but also a little disappointed to be without Megan’s company. She had really hoped they’d have a mother-daughter day, but Megan had seemed so happy to stay and help. Why spoil her fun?

  Downstairs, Susanna noticed that the lights were on in the back room. Being frugal by nature, she went to turn them off, but when she saw a lot of boxes stacked back there, curiosity got the best of her. Was this some of the Christmas merchandise for the shop? She peeked inside a box that was open and was surprised to see what looked like the remainders of a garage sale carelessly heaped together. She’d heard the strange rumors that Matilda had all kinds of junk hoarded in her car and hotel room, but she hadn’t taken them too seriously.

  Susanna peeked in another open box. Same thing. Dusty, old, useless-looking items.

  Certainly this wasn’t what Matilda intended to sell in her shop. If so, what about the city’s business ordinances? A special permit was required to open a secondhand store in Parrish Springs. What would Councilman Snider say and do if it turned out that Matilda Honeycutt planned to open a shoddy little thrift store in the middle of downtown? One thing for sure—he’d probably blame Susanna. But if it was a secondhand store, why would Matilda claim it was a Christmas shop? Susanna hadn’t seen a single Christmas item in either of the boxes.

  It wasn’t that Susanna was opposed to thrift stores in general, she just hated to see Matilda getting into hot water over a permit and zoning issue. She was tempted to head over to city hall, do some research, and see if there was an easy way to smooth this thing over for Matilda. Check into a special permit. A temporary exception. Although she wasn’t even sure Matilda truly planned to open a secondhand store. Susanna hated to jump the gun on that. It would be embarrassing to get the permit process going and discover that Matilda was actually opening a Christmas shop.

  Susanna remembered there would be no one at city hall today anyway. The place would be locked up. Even though Susanna had a set of keys and could get into her own office during off hours, it would require the use of the security code, and the last time she’d attempted that—on the Sunday after her first week on the job—she’d managed to get the police and fire departments into an uproar. What a way to meet the locals! The incident later appeared in the Police Reports section of the newspaper as a tongue-in-cheek account of the new city manager waking up Parrish Springs early on Sunday morning. She wondered if Tommy wrote the Police Reports section. It was usually quite witty and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny.

  No, she decided as she finally turned off the lights in the back room, she was going to stick with her plan—this was supposed to be her holiday! With or without Megan, she planned to enjoy this time off.

  Carefully crossing the freshly scrubbed floor, which was almost dry, Susanna let herself out of the building. Unsure of what to do next, she stood for a long moment, gazing up and down Main Street as if she expected one of the businesses to lure her in. Finally she looked across the street to the newspaper office. Tommy had seemed quite eager to do an interview with her, but would it be pushy to go over there uninvited and expect him to make time for her? Probably so. It might also seem a bit desperate, like she was pursuing him. And since when did Susanna Elton pursue men? If anything, she was usually holding them back at arm’s length. Plus, for all she knew, Tommy Thompson was happily married with four kids and a dog at home.

  Putting him out of her mind, she stopped by Cards-n-Stuff and browsed a bit. Next she popped into the florist shop and bought a mixed bouquet of fall-colored flowers. Rose thought purchased blooms were a waste of money, but Susanna liked supporting the local businesses. Then she stopped by the Shoe Inn to see if the Cole Haan pumps she’d ordered two weeks ago were in yet.

  “I’m so glad you stopped in,” Lauren exclaimed. Lauren owned the store and made customer service her top priority. “They arrived with the late UPS yesterday. I left a message at your office, but I suspected you’d already gone home.”

  Susanna tried on the pumps, which were gorgeous, and walked around the shop to make sure they were as comfortable as they were attractive. “I love them,” she finally proclaimed.

  “They look stunning on you.” Lauren smiled.

  As Susanna was paying for them, Lauren asked about the new business in the Barton Building. “It’s not shoes, is it?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” Susanna put her debit card back in her wallet.

  “Do you know what it is?”

  Susanna wasn’t sure what to say. Proclaiming it a Christmas shop might be premature. Especially after seeing those boxes of junk in the back room.

  “Would you even say if you knew?” Lauren’s brows lifted.

  “I think Matilda is trying to keep it under wraps for now. Maybe she’ll have a grand opening when the time comes. One thing I can assure you is that she is hard at work on it. I know she wants the shop opened up in time for Christmas traffic.”

  “Cindy at the Clothes Horse is worried it’s going to be another clothing store. We really don’t need another one, you know.”

  “I don’t think
Cindy needs to be worried either.”

  Lauren grinned as she handed Susanna the receipt. “Judging by Matilda Honeycutt’s interesting wardrobe, I think you’re probably right.” She chuckled. “The Cut-n-Curl probably doesn’t need to be too concerned either.”

  Susanna smiled politely. “No, I expect not.”

  “Sorry,” Lauren said. “I didn’t mean to sound so catty. You should hear the talk around town.”

  “I do hear it,” Susanna said. “Bits and pieces anyway. Maybe I’m just not used to small towns yet, but some of it seems a little mean-spirited to me. Matilda is a very sweet person.”

  Lauren leaned forward, lowering her voice since another customer was just coming in. “How well do you really know her?”

  Susanna considered this. “Not that well, I suppose, but I do like her. My mother-in-law is working for her.”

  “That’s your mother-in-law?”

  Susanna tried not to look too alarmed. “Rose Elton is my mother-in-law. Have you met her?”

  “In a way.” Lauren looked uncomfortable.

  “Rose has a bit of a temper.”

  “A bit.” Lauren put the shoe box in a bag.

  “Did you have a run-in with her already?”

  Lauren smiled stiffly. “Actually, my husband did.” She quietly told Susanna about how Rose had come in a couple days ago. “She wanted a cheap pair of shoes, you know, to work in and get dirty and toss out.” Lauren glanced around to see if anyone was listening. “Well, you know we don’t carry that sort of thing in here. Larry tried to explain that to her and—oh my. Do you want to hear more?”

  “That’s okay,” Susanna said quickly. “I can imagine. My mother-in-law can be very opinionated about what she considers overpriced merchandise.”

  “Yes. So it seems.”

  Susanna reached across the counter and patted Lauren’s hand, looking directly into her eyes. “Please accept my apologies on her behalf.”

  “Of course!” Lauren smiled brightly. “No one expects you to control your mother-in-law.” She laughed. “Good grief, you should meet mine someday.”

  Susanna smiled and thanked her as she took her bag. Trying not to look like she was in a rush, she pretended to browse a bit as she casually left the shoe store. But the truth was she wanted to tuck her head and run.

  Once she was in her car, she took a deep breath and just shook her head. As if managing the complexities of a small town like Parrish Springs wasn’t enough of a challenge, doing damage control on Rose was going to push her to the limit.

  Helen Fremont checked her image in the mirror as she dried her hands on a paper towel. Patting her perfectly styled hair with satisfaction, she knew the hairdresser had been absolutely right. Softening her hair color into a nice strawberry blonde did make her look younger, and the color hid the gray roots better too. Her visit to the day spa over in Greenburg while she’d been on vacation hadn’t hurt either. It had been her sixty-fifth birthday present to herself and well worth the expense.

  Oh, she knew some folks in town thought she’d gone under the knife while on vacation last month, but that didn’t trouble her. Helen had been born and raised in Parrish Springs. Accustomed to small-town talk, she rarely attempted to set gossipers straight one way or another when it came to her personal life. She figured that it was when people quit talking about her that she should be concerned.

  Helen retouched her lipstick, smiled to check her teeth for any stray spinach left over from today’s salad at Zephyr’s, then nodded in satisfaction. Yes, let them talk about her nips and tucks if it made them feel better about themselves. Thanks to a lot of spandex and a bit of Botox, Helen Fremont didn’t look half bad for her age.

  She wiped down the countertop and straightened the mirror above the sink. Satisfied all was in apple-pie order, she turned off the light and returned to her desk. The newspaper office was quiet as a morgue. Thursdays were always slow at the paper, but being that today was a holiday, it was dead. Most of the time Helen didn’t even come in on Thursdays. But after watching the parade then having lunch with Violet, she’d decided to stay in town for a bit and put this quiet afternoon to good use. Without the interruption of the phone or people stopping in, she could clean out her desk as well as some old and overly crowded file drawers.

  She’d spotted Tommy across the street earlier, talking to the new city manager and a young girl. Then they’d all entered the Barton Building together. Curious as to what that was all about, Helen figured she’d find out sooner or later. She expected Tommy to return at any moment since he’d left the lights on in his office and the front door unlocked. In the meantime, she was enjoying the freedom of emptying out drawers and making a temporary mess in order to gain some order and fresh storage space.

  She’d been meaning to do this much-needed task for ages, ever since she’d taken over for Tommy’s mother more than a dozen years ago. Being tidy by nature, Helen abhorred the idea of making the reception area look like a yard sale, if anyone was around to see it. She took pride in making the newspaper office—at least the entrance—attractive and appealing. What happened once you got past her end of the building was Tommy’s problem.

  From her own pocketbook, Helen had gotten sepia-toned reprints of historic photos beautifully matted and framed. Some were related to the paper and some were just highlights of town, but they were hung evenly along the big wall by the front entrance, and newcomers always seemed to enjoy them. She’d scrounged to find a nice leather couch, side table, and brass lamp to put on the other wall and added an old oriental rug from her own attic. She felt these efforts gave what had once been an eyesore entrance a feeling of a somewhat elegant lobby. For that reason, she’d been reluctant to tear things up like she was doing today.

  She lugged a heavy stack of faded manila file folders over to the couch and dropped them with a splat. The whole lot of them probably belonged in the dumpster, and that’s likely where they’d end up. Just to be sure, she wanted to skim through them first. Out of respect for her old friend.

  Betty, bless her heart, saved everything in hard copies and duplicates. Never comfortable with computers, Tommy’s mother had been certain that anything stored electronically would one day disappear into cyberspace. Or worse yet, her old PC would be sabotaged by a crazed hacker, determined to undermine the Spout. Then where would they be? There had been times, like when their whole system crashed a couple years ago, that Helen thought perhaps her old friend had been right. Then a computer expert had arrived, and like Superman—although he looked more like Clark Kent—he’d miraculously retrieved the lost files, fixed their system, and restored all back to electronic bliss and order.

  Helen pulled a fat old file from the mess she’d created on the couch. Blowing the dust from the top, she saw that the neatly typed label on the tab proclaimed “Past Due.” Inside were yellowed copies of letters that had been sent to their advertising customers for overdue bills. The top letter, to the Clothes Horse, was dated January 15, 1995. It figured that Cindy had been late on her payment back when that store first opened up. She was still late now. For some reason that date stopped Helen. She thought hard and realized that must’ve been shortly after Betty’s diagnosis.

  Out of curiosity, Helen scanned the letter and couldn’t help but smile at the tone of the scolding. Obviously Betty had been thinking about things other than late payments. The second paragraph really grabbed her.

  You are young and your business is new, and you think you have all the time in the world to catch up with these things, Cindy, but the next thing you know it’s too late. I encourage you to keep the slate clean. If you owe a debt, pay it. If you owe an apology, say it. Do not leave anything undone!

  Helen felt a lump in her throat as she laid this letter back with the others. Too bad Cindy hadn’t heeded Betty’s counsel. At least Betty had taken her own advice. She used the last year of her life to tie up loose ends. Why, she’d even done her Christmas shopping the summer before her death. Knowing full well th
at she would probably be gone by the holidays, she had carefully picked out and wrapped the presents and stacked them in her hall closet. She’d died just days before Christmas. Poor Tommy didn’t even find the festive packages until the following summer after he’d decided to rent out his condo unit and move back into his parents’ old home. Helen still remembered how he’d come into work that day with a sad smile, pretending to be Santa as he disbursed Betty’s gifts in the midst of summer. Christmas in July.

  “Excuse me.”

  Helen looked up from Betty’s old letters with misty eyes. A young man, or young by her standards, peered down at her. Caught off guard, she blinked at him. “I’m sorry. We’re not really open today.”

  “I didn’t figure you’d be open, but then I saw the lights on. And the door’s not locked.”

  She set the folders down and brushed the dust from her hands as she stood. “It’s a small town. A lot of people don’t lock doors.”

  He smiled. “Charming.”

  “So . . . what can I do for you?”

  “I’m looking for Tom Thompson.”

  “Oh.” She nodded. “Are you a personal friend? Or did you have an appointment?”

  “Not exactly. I mean, Tom and I met at a seminar about a year ago. He mentioned then that he wanted to sell the newspaper.”

  “Sell the newspaper?” Helen was shocked, but as usual in a dicey situation, she put on her poker face.

  “Yes. He said he hadn’t done anything official, although, like I said, that was a year ago. Anyway, I told him I might be interested, so he gave me his card. He told me to call him if I ever got serious.”

  “I see.” She nodded. “And now you are serious?”

  “If the price is right I am.”

  She stuck out her hand. “I’m Helen Fremont. I work for Tommy, but I’m also an old friend of the family.”

  “Nice to meet you. I’m Garth Price. I was actually passing through town and thought I’d stop and chat with Tom.”

  “Passing through?” She frowned—or attempted to, which was not possible thanks to her recent Botox shots. Didn’t this upstart know that Parrish Springs was not on the way to much of anywhere?