Blessings of the Season

by Annie Jones

“Besides, my son isn’t even in town,” Maimie called after Nate before turning to Addie. “He’s off on his honeymoon, for his second marriage.”

  This is the place where you step up and volunteer to take care of Jesse, Addie told herself. Only she knew that the Goodwins would never allow her to do it. She had a marketing degree and a mom that didn’t know the meaning of the word discreet. Not exactly the kind of person you wanted handling this kind of delicate family situation.

  Unless you were totally desperate.

  “Excuse me, Mrs. Goodwin. I couldn’t help overhearing about your son and Jesse and Nate having plans and—”

  “Plans? Don’t tell me about plans, young lady.” The older woman shut her eyes and bowed her head. “When I was your age, Addie, and Doc was probably not much older than Mr. Browder there, we had such grand plans. They certainly didn’t involve a twice-married son finding himself responsible for a stranger’s child.”

  “Lots of people thrive in blended families, Mrs. Goodwin,” she said, trying to accentuate the positive.

  “Oh, Addie, dear. That’s sweet, but clearly you can see the Goodwin family is less blended than just plain mixed-up.” She gave Addie a pat on the shoulder.

  Nate started the engine of his rental car.

  “It’s just not the same world it was when we opened the doors of Goodwin’s fifty years ago.” Mrs. Goodwin looked in Nate’s direction, her face pinched with worry. “You could count on people then, and people, at least the ones in and around Star City, could count on Goodwin’s.”

  “I know that was true in our family,” she assured the older woman. With that she put her back to Nate. Any moment she’d hear him roar off, which was for the best, of course. Why would she want a guy like that to stick around, anyway? A guy who would leave an adorable kid and a kindly and stressed-out set of grandparents in the lurch, and at Christmas?

  “You know, my parents swore we’d never make a go of the store, but Doc and I understood what families needed.” Mrs. Goodwin had gone all gooey and sentimental as she stood back and gazed lovingly as Doc came outside to collect Jesse. “It was just a matter of showing them how good a Goodwin’s life could be.”

  Addie watched as the old man in his dark brown business suit offered his hand to the little boy in brand-new dark blue jeans. “Good at Goodwin’s…Didn’t that used to be the marketing slogan?”

  “You have done your research.” Mrs. Goodwin smiled. “Come see how good a Goodwin’s life can be. Not only was it our motto, but our very first Christmas ever, it was the basis for a publicity stunt that had the Goodwin name on every tongue in Tennessee.”

  “Whatever that is, maybe you should try it again!” And maybe you should hire a girl with a brand-new marketing degree who clearly does her research and desperately needs a job.

  Addie paused for a moment to listen. The engine of the lone running car parked on the next block was still purring in the quiet of the late November morning. She tried to ignore that and what it could mean.

  In front of Goodwin’s, Jesse rejected his ex-step-grandfather’s hand but in a split second had lowered the wheels on his shoes, then nabbed the tail of the old man’s suit jacket. Jesse went gliding along behind him, laughing as Doc pretended to try to shake him off.

  A big marketing ploy. Not even knowing what it might be, she knew she was so much better suited to that than to playing nanny to a little boy.

  Addie presented herself with cool but forceful enthusiasm and said, “I’d love to help you re-create that first publicity stunt, Mrs. Goodwin. You said if you could think of anything you could hire me for, you’d do it. This seems like a win-win situation for us both. You take a chance at stirring up big sales numbers for Goodwin’s this season, and I get a chance to prove myself to you, or to whoever I send my resume to if Goodwin’s doesn’t…need me come the first of the year.”

  Maimie stood back and gave Addie a long, slow, squinty-eyed going-over.

  Addie tried to look professional, fearing that in her old-fashioned outfit she might actually seem plain and unimaginative instead. Maybe she would have been wiser to offer to take care of Jesse. Though looking at the boy playing with Doc, she wondered if they would actually have a need for a full-time nanny. Even if they did, that would only be until their son returned from his honeymoon.

  “I can do this, Mrs. Goodwin. I know I can.” In that moment, she became aware that the car’s engine had stopped. Or perhaps while Addie had been making her big pitch Nate had merely driven off. Not that it mattered, of course. Jesse would be fine without him, and it wasn’t like Addie needed him for anything. She had a plan, and that plan was back on track. “Just tell me what I need to do.”

  Maimie smiled slowly. “It’s not what you need to do but what you need to have that would be the problem, my dear.”

  “I have the degree. I have the energy. I’ve done the research on the entire history of Goodwin’s. What else could I possibly need?”

  “A husband. Or at the very least a man to play the role. Nothing long-term, just someone to act as your counterpart for one or two weeks.”

  “Wait a minute!” She tried to make sense of that statement. She played what she had just learned against all the newspaper clippings and local stories about the old store. Addie’s face went hot as it dawned on her what the older woman was talking about. “You don’t mean…Mrs. Goodwin, the first publicity stunt wasn’t the year you had a couple living in the front window of the store using only things for sale at Goodwin’s for the two weeks before Christmas?”

  “Twelve days,” she corrected.

  “I’d be happy to do the behind-the-scenes work for that, but I don’t think…” She could hardly breathe. Her whole life she’d longed to disappear and just be one of the crowd. Her stomach churned. “Mrs. Goodwin, I can’t put myself on display like that.”

  “Then I can’t give you a job, dear.” The woman reached out, took her hand and gave it a pat. “I can’t pay for you to run the promotion and someone else to man it. Sometimes you have to be willing to stand up and let the world know what you believe in.”

  Despite the warmth of the sunshine reflecting off the sidewalks and large plate-glass windows, a chill snaked down Addie’s spine. This was it. She had always wanted to work at Goodwin’s, and now not only was she being offered a chance, but if she didn’t pitch in and do her part, there might not be a Goodwin’s to work at ever again. “I guess I could do it, but I wouldn’t have the first idea where to find a husband, not even a fake one.”

  “Okay. I’ll stay. One, two days tops, more if I have to, but not longer than a week. I absolutely have to be gone by Christmas Eve,” Nate shouted as he crossed the street toward them. “But the second you find someone else who can take my place, I am outta here.”

  “Good to hear it, Mr. Browder.” Mrs. Goodwin gave Addie’s hand a conspiratory squeeze. “This may just be the answer to all our problems.”

  Her heart pounded. “You mean to take care of Jesse, right?”

  “To help take care of Jesse, yes, until my son returns next week. That will give you time to get the word out and make preparations for the publicity stunt, and then…”

  “And then…?” Addie watched the handsome man she had impulsively kissed as he reached her side.

  He looked even cuter standing there with the breeze ruffling his hair, and his heart—putting Jesse’s needs ahead of his plans—on his sleeve.

  “And then what?” he asked, slipping off his sunglasses and looking first in Maimie’s eyes, then Addie’s.

  “And then we’re going to give you a chance to do what so few people ever get to do.” Mrs. Goodwin slipped her arm into Nate’s and began to lead him back toward the store. “We’re going to give you the opportunity to actually follow through on your promise to Addie.”

  “What promise?” he asked, looking back at Addie.

  Maimie gave him a yank to keep him by her side as she said, “That you’d happily help out if it would get her her job back.
”

  His loafers scuffed along the sidewalk as he glanced back over his shoulder at Addie again. “Do you know what she’s talking about?”

  “Unfortunately, I do, and I want you to know—including you was not my idea.”

  Chapter Four

  They stepped into the elevator on the first floor of the nearly empty department store. Mrs. Goodwin and Addie had not stopped talking the whole time the three of them made their way in from the street. Nate didn’t mind. Not one bit. He enjoyed listening to Addie infusing every last word she uttered with enthusiasm and her soft Southern accent.

  He could get used to that, he thought, and just as quickly reminded himself that he’d better not let himself get too comfortable with that voice, with those dreams, with this girl. He had plans. He had worked long and hard to get a chance to…

  He paused as they walked through the main aisle and he caught a glimpse of Jesse running his hand on the red satin arm of the painted gold chair where the store Santa was supposed to be. Something in that gesture really got to Nate.

  Of course it did. He had been that kid who knew not to rely on a mythical character for the answer to his hopes and yet couldn’t help but wish that somebody would help him get the one thing he wanted most in the world. A real family.

  Doc Goodwin noticed Jesse’s longing. He bent down and spoke to the boy, who nodded then cocked his head and whispered something to the stout bald man.

  That’s all Nate ever really wanted to do. To help others, to help kids in the way he had never had anyone help him. Deep down he knew he wasn’t going to get that at the posh L.A. school where he had landed his one and only job interview since finishing his doctoral degree last spring. Maybe it was a good thing he was staying. Maybe it was worth a few days’ vacation and enduring a little holiday cheer if it meant Nate had a chance to make a difference in Jesse’s life. And Addie’s.

  He turned his attention to her again. She smiled broadly and said, “What do you think?”

  He thought he should have been listening more intently, but the women really hadn’t gone to great lengths to include him. Under other circumstances he might have been tempted to just smile and tell them it sounded great but…

  He looked at Santa’s chair again and remembered his promise. No matter how much he wanted to help, he couldn’t see himself, a guy who really didn’t care for Christmas, playing Santa. So to make sure that didn’t happen, he just asked outright, “What’s my role in all this?”

  A few minutes later Nate sat in the offices on the top floor of the Goodwin’s Department Store building. Doc was still keeping Jesse occupied until he and Maimie got the details extending Nate’s work as the boy’s manny worked out.

  Addie had slipped out of her coat and was hanging it up on a row of hooks on the wall, just like a dutiful employee settling in for a full day’s work. Though he did think she was taking a little too much time messing with her coat collar trying to get it just right, maybe. Or maybe she was just trying to make herself unobtrusive in the austere office while Maimie Goodwin made the case for his participation in this unconventional publicity-stunt idea of theirs.

  “You said you’d go so far as to dress up as Santa Claus in order to help Ms. McCoy keep her job.” Maimie paced slowly from one end of the large cherry-wood partner’s desk to the other. “If you think about it, what we’re asking isn’t nearly that drastic.”

  “Or at least not as potentially itchy.” Addie turned from her coat. Something silver and sparkly but also white and glittery was cupped in her hand as she rubbed her knuckles along her cheek. “You know, with the fake beard and all.”

  “Well, you got me there. That’s generally what I look for in temp work—a low itch factor.” He frowned. The truth was that he’d been far less picky than that about the kind of temp work he’d done to supplement his way through college and grad school. Dishwasher. Blood donor. Amusement park ride operator. But with his future on the line and the reality that he couldn’t look for aid to either of his parents, who now had new families to support, he’d been highly motivated then.

  Not that there weren’t certain motivations to do this. He looked at Addie practically trembling in her grown-up girl shoes as she struggled to fasten her snowflake pin she must have just retrieved from her coat onto her sweater. All the while she kept her eyes trained on him.

  She needed a break. Nate had always espoused the virtues of making your own breaks. Wasn’t that just what Addie had done?

  “Oh!” Her hand suddenly jerked back, sending the pin flying to the floor by his chair. “Little mishap,” she explained with a nervous laugh as she rushed to pick the trinket up again.

  He bent down to rescue the Christmas object for her as he shook his head. If she could propose this wild idea to a total stranger, surely she could find somebody else to do this with her. Why him?

  “It has to be you,” she whispered as they both reached for the pin on the floor and her mouth was just inches from his ear. “It’s a small town, Nate. If we find a local guy to do this, people will get the wrong idea.”

  “I see.” He scooped up the cold metallic snowflake and placed it in her open palm.

  She glanced down to fasten the snowflake onto her black sweater, then raised her head to look deeply into his eyes. “Thank you.”

  He had said “I see” not “I’ll do it,” but as he looked into those big, clear eyes shining with hope and gratitude, Nate couldn’t help believing he had just made a commitment—one that he would do everything within his power to keep.

  Chapter Five

  “Have I told you lately just how proud I am of you?”

  “I haven’t really accomplished anything yet, Mom.” Addie looked up from the bowl of cold cereal she had been eating over the kitchen sink.

  “You’ve accomplished more than a whole lot of people, sweetie. You found what you wanted in life, and you worked and studied and found a way to make it happen. Even if it doesn’t work out the way you had always hoped, you took a shot.”

  She smiled as her mother, dressed in a pink-and-yellow chenille bathrobe, with her platinum-blond hair wrapped in curlers, took a seat at the vintage-style chrome-and-turquoise Formica table. Holding a cup of coffee the size of most soup bowls in one hand, the older woman propped up her pink caribou feather mules on the chair across from hers, then clicked the computer mouse to make the flat-screen monitor spring to life.

  “I guess I learned a few things from my mother,” Addie teased lovingly. “I can’t believe you developed your own Web site and blog just to put our house on the Internet.”

  Bivvy took a sip from her cup. “Wave to the people, darling.”

  Addie stepped back from the sink, mortified. “People can see me?”

  “I added a live Web cam this year.”

  It was still dark outside. Dark everywhere except the McCoys’ front yard, that is. There the electric radiance shone in through the small window over the sink to illuminate Addie’s simple black-and-white outfit and uncomplicated breakfast fare with a green-then-red-then-blue-then-amber glow.

  “No one can really see you, but if you wave they might be able to see some movement. Try it and I’ll let you know.” She pointed toward the window, one hot-pink acrylic nail glinting in the light from the computer screen.

  “No.” Addie curled her bowl close to her body and shrank back another step. “Mom, that is an invasion of my privacy.”

  “Sweetie, the camera takes a long, wide shot. You can’t see the doors or any windows but that small one right over the sink. I don’t think, if a body didn’t know it was there, that a person could see it.” She snapped her fingers. “Now wave and let me see for sure.”

  Addie set her bowl down, spun on her heel and headed for the bedroom.

  “If you can’t do this, how are you ever going to put yourself on display in Goodwin’s windows?” her mother called out from her spot in front of the computer.

  Addie stopped in the hallway. “I am just doing a few reci
pe and craft demos during working hours, Mom. No big deal.”

  “Is that what they did that first time?” The quiet clickety-clack of the keyboard fell silent.

  “Goodwin’s doesn’t sell all the kinds of stuff it used to back then. We’re using what we can—small appliances, household goods, some of their Christmas home décor that fits the tone.” She gestured weakly.

  “Nothing like the good old days, huh? That store used to have a little of everything. In fact, it used to take up most of the block.”

  “They still own the building next door and keep all the utilities on in it. They use it as a warehouse for the current stock, sale stuff and, well, other stuff.” She thought about sharing her conclusion that Doc hung on to the multistoried building chock-full of old merchandise, mannequins and countless display materials because it represented his reluctance to let go of the past.

  “Interesting,” Bivvy droned, clearly not interested at all. “The lights are about to go off in one…two…three.”

  Everything outside went dark and quiet.

  Addie heaved a sigh of relief.

  “Now to check the comments left by people from all over the world.”

  “Really? People all over the world are looking at our little house in Star City, Tennessee?”

  “You give people something interesting to look at, something out of the ordinary, something sentimental, something with a little style and they will just naturally be drawn to it. I’ve got so many fans and followers this year I decided to join in a contest.”

  That made Addie nervous. “What kind of contest?”

  “I’m trying to get the most votes as the best Christmas house. If I get picked, I get a flash to put on my Web site for next year and maybe a nearby TV news crew or one of those home and garden-type shows will come out and film my display.”

  “Mom.” Addie shook her head. “Why would you even want that?”

  “Because that’s what I do, Adelaide, sweetie.” Bivvy pushed back her chair and stood. Her features were softened by love and good humor as she came down the hall and put her hands on either side of her daughter’s face. “When I believe in something, I don’t care who knows it. And I believe in Christmas. I believe in shining a light on the love of God brought to us through the gift of Jesus. When people come to my Web site, they see that story. When they look at our home or at me, they see that joy.”