Merri
Christmas
By
Victoria Chatham
A passing customer
pointed at her name badge, chuckled, and sang out, “Ho, ho, ho.”
From behind her
glass-topped jewellery counter, Meredith Christmas gave him a cheeky grin,
pointed her finger at him and repeated his greeting.
“Merri, I don’t know how
you put up with it,” her colleague, Sandy, moaned. “All that ho-ho-hoing
year-round would drive me nuts. How did you get the surname Christmas anyway?”
“From my Dad’s side of
the family. It dates back to thirteenth-century England via one Richard
Christmas, who settled in Virginia in 1647,” Merri said. She waved at a girl of
about seven or eight who looked longingly at the jewellery displays but was hurried
along by her mother.
“Wow, it’s a pretty old
name then,” Sandy mused.
“Yes, it is. Mom and Dad
have a framed certificate showing the family crest and history.”
“That sounds positively
baronial.” Sandy narrowed her eyes and looked thoughtful. “I can see an
oak-beamed hall with a log-filled open fireplace and flames leaping up a stone
chimney.”
Merri laughed. “You and
your imagination. But wouldn’t that be lovely? It would be decorated with holly,
ivy, and real lanterns, and there would be room for everyone.”
Sandy nodded. “Family and
friends and all the peasants, of course.”
“Naturally,” Merri
agreed, then sighed. “Christmas is such a special time of year.”
“Merri, of everyone I
know who loves Christmas, you’re the hands-down winner.”
“You love Christmas, too,
Sandy, and don’t pretend otherwise. Ooh, look out, a customer is checking out
the gold counter. Your turn.”
Merri picked up a
polishing cloth and moved aside to let Sandy approach the counter. They both
started working on the same day at Boyle’s Emporium, the town’s historic corner
store. It had been a family-owned business since it opened, but none of the staff knew anything about the current Boyle family. Another
mystery was that, at the end of September, when Boyle’s began hiring for the Christmas season, they had not asked for resumes but for 500-word essays
on why the applicants liked Christmas and wanted to work at Boyle’s.
Meredith looked around
the beautifully decorated store. Who could dislike Christmas here? She had
loved it ever since sitting on Father Christmas’s knee in the Winter Wonderland
when she was four and asking for a baby brother. Her innocent request now made
her smile, but hadn’t Father Christmas delivered? The following summer, her
baby brother was born, wrapped in a pale blue crocheted shawl, not in pretty
snowflake-patterned paper as she had imagined.
The sound of the till
opening and closing broke into her reverie.
“Good sale?” Merri asked
as Sandy rearranged the jewellery display to fill the gap made by the removal
of several pieces.
“Four-hundred and
ninety-four dollars and change,” Sandy replied. “I can’t believe how much cash
we’ve taken today. I’m glad I’m not closing tonight, so I won’t have to count
it.”
Merri glanced at her
watch. “Goodness, we’ve only got another half an hour to the end of our shift.
The day has flown by.”
“We can’t claim to be
bored, that’s for sure,” Sandy agreed. “Especially when there’s a gorgeous-looking
man on the horizon.”
She tilted her head,
signalling a six-foot-plus, dark-haired person approaching their counter. “This
one’s yours,” she whispered, placing a steady hand in the middle of Merri’s
back and guiding her towards the counter.
Merri faltered as she
recognised the child gripping the man’s hand. Right, she thought,
recalling how the mother had hurried her daughter past the jewellery counter.
So, there’s mom, dad, the kid, and possibly more than one, but she smiled at the
child and said, “Hello again.” Then she turned her gaze to the man she took to
be the girl’s father and swallowed at the twinkle in his warm brown eyes. She
pulled herself together. Be professional. “May I help you?”
“Yes, you may,” he
replied. “My sister was in a hurry earlier and didn’t give Amanda time to buy a
gift for her grandmother.”
Sister? Merri hadn’t
considered that, and if she smiled more brightly at the child, who could blame
her? “Would you like to look at silver or gold earrings?”
Amanda shook her head. “I
want to see Christmas earrings. Grandma loves them.”
“Got it.” Merri pulled a
chair from behind the counter. “If you would like to sit here, I’ll bring you a
selection for you to view.”
She took a black velvet
pad from under the counter and carefully examined the earrings on display. She
frowned as she realised how few Christmas earrings they had in the silver and
gold sections, so she moved to the carousel stands and carefully turned them,
relieved to see a wider selection. There were tiny green trees studded with
different-coloured stones, a pair of wreaths decorated with red bows, a fun
pair resembling red-and-white striped candies, and another pair in the shape of
a snowflake. Merri placed them all on the pad and took them back to her young
customer, but then had a thought.
“Amanda, while you look
at these, I’m going to check something. I’ll be right back.”
Merri raced to the main
floor storeroom. She and Sandy had checked a delivery the day before, but
hadn’t they left one box for this morning? Merri keyed in her code and entered
the storeroom, scanning the area where they had worked the previous day. Yes,
there it was, tucked in the corner of a shelf.
She hauled the cardboard
container onto the worktable, reached for a box cutter and slit the tape. She removed
the invoice and checked it, but nothing was specifically Christmas earrings.
She would have to empty the whole box. She tipped the contents onto the tabletop
and checked each packet, breathing a sigh of relief when she found three pairs
of Christmas earrings. She ticked the removed items off the invoice, replaced
everything else in the box and hurried back to her counter.
“I’m sorry I took so long,
Amanda,” she said, catching her breath. “Here are three more pairs.” She
removed them from the packets and laid them on the pad. “What do you think?”
“Oh, I like these.”
Amanda pointed at a pair of enamelled snowmen. “But I like these better.”
She picked up a pair of
shiny red globes trimmed with gold. They looked like miniature tree baubles.
“These are the ones, Dad.
Grandma will love them. They will go with her white hair.”
Merri looked up at the
child’s father, who nodded. “Could you gift wrap them, please?”
“Of course.” Merri turned
to Amanda. “Shall I put them in a box?”
“Yes, please.”
Merri opened a drawer and
took out a small black box, wrapping paper and ribbons. Amanda chose plain blue
paper and gold ribbon and watched Merri measure and cut the paper.
“Can you wrap a parcel
that small?”
Merri grinned at the
child and whispered, “Watch me.”
In a few deft moves, she
creased and folded the paper, quickly wrapped the ribbon around the small box, and
asked Amanda to hold it with her finger while she looped the bow.
“There, how about that?”
She handed the small gift to Amanda. “Do you think your grandma will like it?”
“She’ll love it,” Amanda
said. “Grandma says simple things are classy, whatever that means.”
“She sounds like a smart
lady,” Merri said. She shifted her gaze to Amanda’s father. “And I’m sure your
dad will explain what your grandma means.”
“Thank you very much,
Miss Christmas,” he said, removing a credit card from his wallet.
Unsure whether he was
being sarcastic at her suggestion or thanking her for helping his daughter, Merri
barely glanced at the card as she entered the sale into the processing machine
and handed it to him.
“Would you like a
receipt, Mr.–” Merri stopped, suddenly flustered because she didn’t know the
man’s name.
“Yes, I would, please,
and the name is Boyle. Josh Boyle.”
Merri looked up at him. “Boyle?”
she stammered. “As in Boyle’s Emporium Boyle?”
“That’s the one. We
prefer to keep it quiet if you don’t mind.”
“Um, yes, yes, of course.”
Merri’s head whirled. With her name in plain view so that everyone knew who she
was, she still couldn’t quite accept that she was talking to one of the
renowned but reclusive Boyles.
“And thank you again for
helping Amanda.” The smile he gave her warmed Merri right down to her toes. “My
mother said you were a good salesperson. She was right.”
Merri’s brow wrinkled.
She didn’t know any Boyles until now.
Josh Boyle whispered,
“You know her as Mrs. Winter, in Human Resources. She told me to come and see
you. I’m glad I did.”
“Dad,” Amanda tugged his
hand impatiently. “We have to go. Aunty Caroline said not to be late. If you
want to talk to,” she squinted at Merri’s name badge, “Merri, she should come
too.”
“What a splendid idea,”
Josh said. His eyes twinkled even more as he smiled at Merri. “How about it,
Miss Christmas? If you are free, would you accompany Amanda and me to my
mother’s Christmas party?”
“Please come, Merri,”
Amanda said. “Grandma is lovely, and so is Aunty Caroline when she’s not in a rush.”
“But what about your…”
Merri began, not sure how to ask the question uppermost in her mind.
“Wife? Amanda’s mom?”
Josh softly supplied for her.
Merri bit her lip and
nodded.
“No longer with us, I’m
afraid.”
“She died,” Amanda said
with all the candour of childhood.
“Well, then,” Merri took
a deep breath. “Yes, I should like that very much.”
“The party starts at
eight this evening. We’ll come and collect you at about seven-thirty, if that
works for you. Perhaps you’d put your phone number into my phone?”
Merri nodded, speechless
because her mouth was suddenly dry. He gave her his cell phone, she entered her number, then returned it to him.
He slipped it into his
coat pocket. “Later, then.”
“Wow,” Sandy whispered in
her ear. “Cinderella shall go to the ball. I can hear the uproar when this news
gets out.”
“Don’t,” Merri said.
“Please don’t say a word to anyone.”
Sandy chuckled. “Alright,
I promise. But you must also promise to tell me more about Mr. Dark and
Delicious and his daughter after that party. And if the look on your face is
anything to go by, you will have a very merry Christmas.”
Merri groaned. “Not if I
don’t get a move on.” She glanced anxiously at her watch. “Where’s Dora and
Sue? If they are late–”
Sandy gave her a push.
“Just sign out and go. I can manage until they get here.”
“You are–”
“Your best friend, Merri
Christmas, and don’t you forget it. Go and have fun.”
Merri quickly hugged
Sandy, grabbed her coat and rushed out of the store into a cold, crisp evening.
She still couldn’t quite believe that she had accepted Josh’s invitation, but there
was no going back now. She couldn’t contact him, because although she provided
him with her phone number, she hadn’t taken his.
But, she told herself,
you don’t want to go back. Amanda and Josh had charmed her, and she tried to
get to know them much, much better. Sandy was right, and Merri smiled at the
thought that, yes, she would have a very merry Christmas indeed.
THE
END
Victoria Chatham
It is snowing in New York this morning.
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