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  She gave her husband a cynical look, then reached down for a handful of tush. No one else noticed, including Meredith who watched the numbers on the elevator screen blink as if monitoring a life-support system. If only their daughter could loosen up, lose some of the sternness and the fierce competitiveness she felt with her cousin. Though Ev had to admit, it was never easy being a Rossman. Ev had married into the dynasty with some concern, though she herself had been raised in a moneyed family—“a pickle fortune,” as her grandfather used to say—and she’d quickly allied herself with the Rossman family values and work ethic, an ethic her daughter Meredith embraced with ease. Ev wished she could say the same of her nephew Daniel.

  “Another big-budget Christmas,” he groused. “What’s the damage this year?”

  “Not so bad,” Lenny said, rubbing the furrowed lines in his bare forehead. “We combined some of our inventory decorations, right?”

  Meredith checked her clipboard. “Right. The designers are well under budget this year.”

  The elevator doors groaned shut, and Daniel let out an exasperated sigh. “We ought to fix this thing.”

  “Why fix what isn’t broken? It’s perfectly safe, inspected every month,” his father Leonard Rossman replied.

  “I’m talking upgrade. The flooring. The walls. Why don’t we have paneling in our elevators?”

  “Because we don’t waste money on extravagances like fancy freight elevators, thank you very much,” Lenny chastised him. “We put our money into the merchandise we sell. Pass it on to the customers. Pass it on.”

  Daniel slunk back against the rail. “Pass, is right. So if we want to cut costs, why don’t we take a pass on Christmas?”

  “Please, Daniel . . .” Karl waved him down. “You’re not scoring any points with that attitude.”

  Daniel turned to his cousin and mumbled so that only she could hear him, “I’ll take a zero.”

  “Okay.” Meredith jotted a fat zero on her clipboard, and grinned back at Daniel defiantly. The family inspection of the store’s Christmas village was an annual ritual savored by her parents, disparaged by Daniel, and dreaded by Meredith ever since Daniel had been old enough to trade braid-pulling and wet willies for cynical put-downs.

  The elevator doors opened on nine, where most of the floor had been off-limits to the public for the past week as store employees and window dressers scurried to stage the store’s Santa land, a Rossman tradition for fifty years. Only the café at the back of nine had remained open, cordoned off so that shoppers couldn’t see the Christmas kingdom until its unveiling on November 15th.

  The elevator doors opened on nine, and there was a flurry of activity as the family stepped out. Someone called, “They’re here!” and two elderly women paused on their way from the public elevators to the café.

  “Look, Doreen, it’s Evelyn and Karl.”

  “Evelyn and Karl, how’s everything?” one woman asked as her bag sank from her shoulder to her elbow.

  “Everything is fabulous, thank you, Doreen,” Karl said, stepping forward to graciously squeeze her hands.

  Her friend nudged her. “He called you Doreen. What a charmer.”

  “Ladies, have you started your Christmas shopping yet?” Ev asked the women. She and her husband never missed a chance to socialize with store customers.

  “Please,” Doreen rolled her eyes, “let me tell you my dilemma. My husband needs dress shirts but he refuses to go up a size, though he needs it in the neck. A very thick neck he has these days, but will he admit it?”

  “Thick neck, thick head,” the other woman said.

  “I’m going to buy bigger and have different size labels sewn in. What else can I do?”

  Her friend shrugged. “What can she do?”

  “That’s clever of you,” Ev told the woman, then she went on to joke about selling label kits with various sizes just for those purposes.

  “Okay, then, we’re off for a nice cup of coffee,” the friend said. “Be well.”

  Doreen waved, her charm bracelet jangling. “And Merry Christmas.”

  “That’s not P.C., Doreen. You’re supposed to say happy holidays.”

  “They’re the Rossmans; they love Christmas.”

  “Not all of us,” Daniel muttered, but no one acknowledged him as the family ducked behind a temporary wall and stepped into the transformed snowy landscape of Santa Land.

  “A little excessive, isn’t it?” Daniel screwed his mouth into an unattractive twist. “All the white, twinkly lights? What’s this costing us in electricity? Anyone seen last year’s bill?”

  “Don’t be foolish, Daniel,” Karl said gently. “As I always say, it’s only money; we’ll make more. Besides, you can’t cut corners on Christmas.”

  “I don’t know why not,” Daniel said, looking away from his uncle. “Macy’s got rid of its Santa Land. The buzz is that the Maise Company stores are going to axe them, too. I’m telling you, more and more the heartland is scaling down.”

  “You think we should scale down Christmas?” Evelyn asked him.

  “I’m just thinking about the customer here. If you listen to what people are saying, they’re not so into it anymore. Always complaining how hectic the holidays are. Pressurized. Commercial. Too much food and drink and traffic, long lines at stores, long shopping lists to knock off.”

  “He’s right, he’s right. I hear the complaints,” Lenny agreed.

  “Christmas is our busiest season,” Meredith Rossman said, her eyes sharp beneath the lenses of her eyeglasses. “Not to reduce it all to money, but our highest sales months are November and December.”

  “Yes, yes.” Lenny was nodding profusely. “So what’s your point, Daniel?”

  “Just that we used to wait until after Thanksgiving to start the Christmas promotions, and it probably saved us in marketing expenses. If people are going to come out for Christmas shopping anyway, why throw money into advertising and marketing?”

  “You can never have enough of Christmas,” Evelyn Rossman said, her face beaming with pride as she scanned the winter wonderland of snowy white twigs sparkling with silver glitter, crystal pinecones, and white pindots of light. Every beam was hidden; every light filtered by swirls of glittering stars. “First impression is good.”

  “Very good.” Her husband slipped his hands in his pants pockets as he stepped through a trellis made of giant candy canes. “It’s like an enchanted lane.”

  “An enchanted lane . . .” Evelyn nudged Meredith, who trailed with clipboard in hand. “Make a note of that. Great copy for our sales flyers.”

  Meredith took note as the candy canes gave way to giant sugary gumdrops, then gingerbread figures who raced and tumbled and cajoled as they made their way toward the sparkling gingerbread house of Santa Land, where staff were still gluing on giant gumdrops, chocolate chips, and peppermints.

  “Oh, you’re here!” Rahiella, the designer in charge of window displays, clasped her hands together dramatically. “We weren’t expecting you till—”

  “Not to worry,” Evelyn interrupted. “We like what we see.”

  “You do? You do? Oh, I’m so relieved! Did you see little cutout chairs for Santa’s guests? The craft station where bored little children can decorate a gingerbread cookie or assemble a snowman?”

  The Rossmans followed Rahiella through the facility as she explained how the line of children would flow through the snowscape, how the wait would be minimized, and how Santa’s elves would keep anxious children and their parents amused and distracted. “We’re in the process of auditioning elves, and we’re calling back the Santas we were so happy with last year. Personnel is on it. Which reminds me, though. While we were trying to salvage items in our inventory of decorations we came across something that may have special value to you.” She summoned an assistant, who brought over a silver gift box embossed with a swirled “R”—not the collapsible type used by stores like Rossman’s, but the old-fashioned box constructed of thick cardboard with a lid that whis
pered gently over the top third of the box. Rahiella presented the box with a flourish, and the Rossmans gathered close as Evelyn lifted the lid.

  Evelyn’s dark eyes went wide with wonder at the sight of the crimson velvet trimmed with white fur. “Oh, dear . . . the Mrs. Claus suit. Where did you find it? I though it had been given away years ago.” Her hands glowed pink from the warm hue of the material as she lifted a sleeve from the box.

  “Mama made it the first year the Rossman’s went national,” Lenny recalled. “A very lean year, so she thought we’d better scrap together some extra Christmas spirit from the fabric leftover from the Santa suits.”

  Karl wagged a finger at Meredith and Daniel. “Back then, your grandmother sewed all the costumes herself.”

  “Note how the stitching is so fine—nearly invisible.” Rahiella turned over the fur-trimmed lapel of the jacket to reveal the smooth seam. “And this beadwork on the jacket. See how the tiny red beads form a very subtle fleur-de-lis pattern? So subdued yet it gives a glimmering aura to the entire costume.”

  “Mama had magical hands.” With great care Evelyn lifted the jacket and held it up to her chin, and everyone seemed to gently breathe in its sumptuous crimson beauty. The texture and velvety folds of the coat brought back fond memories for Ev; she had enjoyed playing Mother Christmas, reassuring nervous children and frazzled parents. She had always considered herself an ambassador of goodwill, and somehow in the Mrs. Claus suit, she felt empowered to spread her Christmas spirit without shame of appearing sentimental.

  “You were a lovely Mrs. Claus,” Karl told his wife. “How many years did you do it? Six? Seven?”

  “Until Meredith was born,” Ev said.

  “She was in all the papers, written up every year, the only Mrs. Claus in town,” Lenny said, his fingers splayed for dramatic effect. “Let me tell you, it didn’t hurt Rossman’s great reputation as a Christmas store. When people shopped Christmas, Rossman’s was the place they wanted to be.”

  “And still is.” Evelyn neatly folded the red velvet jacket and let her fingers smooth over the lapel. “You know, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to reinvent Mrs. Claus this year.”

  Rahiella’s jaw dropped with a gasp. “Exactly what I was thinking! And wouldn’t it be charming if she were played by a Rossman?”

  All eyes turned to Meredith, who was scratching a note on her clipboard. “What do you. . . . You mean me?”

  “Do you want to give it a shot?” Evelyn asked, hoping her daughter might muster the desire to play a whimsical, fantasy role just once in her life.

  Meredith paled. “Of course not . . .” she sputtered. A year of grad school at University of Chicago and they expected her to play a cartoon character at Christmas? What did she need to do to be taken seriously around here? She didn’t see anyone asking Daniel to play Santa.

  “Of course not,” Ev said, her disappointment apparent.

  “Hello? Can we just let it go?” Daniel cut in, fed up with the sentimental wave that captivated everyone. “That thing’s been sitting in dust for a decade. Time to retire the moth-bitten old rags. Besides, who cares about Mrs. Claus? What power does she have? Kids wouldn’t even get near Santa himself if they didn’t think he was the conduit of toys.”

  Evelyn looked at her nephew as if he were speaking an incomprehensible language. “You know, Daniel, marketing is not your forte.”

  “But who will be Mrs. Claus?” Karl asked.

  “It doesn’t have to be Mer-mer.” Lenny shrugged. “So we hire an actress.”

  “I was just thinking we should send it to the new store in Baltimore,” Meredith suggested. “They’re opening next week and it might be fun to advertise a special visitor in their Santa Land.” In addition, she suspected it wouldn’t hurt to have that suit thousands of miles away—remove it from sight and take away the family pressure to follow so closely in her mother’s footsteps.

  “Of course! Excellent idea,” Lenny agreed, flipping open his cell phone. “I’ll notify the store manager. They’ll be thrilled, I’m sure.”

  “I’m sure,” Daniel added sardonically.

  Evelyn shook out the garment then refolded it with expert precision. “I’m so glad you found it, Rahiella,” she said, tucking the lid on gently.

  Karl checked his watch. “We need to get this wrapped quickly if we want to overnight it to Baltimore.”

  “Overnight?” Lenny barked, lowering his cell phone. “That’ll cost a fortune. Make sure it goes by two-day express. Such a savings.”

  Inside the silver box, the fabric glowed, rich dark red, ready to warm the heart of its next occupant . . .

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  Copyright © 2004 by Rosalind Noonan

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  ISBN: 978-0-7582-9119-6