CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A Certain Balletic
Grace
There were thousands
of tourists in town and it seemed that at least half of them were
coming into the store. Late July/early August was always the peak
of the summer for us, and the great weather (and, I wanted to
believe, the improvements to the store) meant that we were busy all
the time.
During this
particular rush, the temporary “A” team was in place. Tyler, two
shifts from the end of his tour of duty, manned the cash register.
Jenna, who’d become his ostensible replacement, bagged and wrapped.
I prepped the next customer in the line. Jeff, a new stock clerk,
worked in the back, putting up a display of marbled
paper.
I’d often complained
about the limited space for the staff behind the counter, but we
were making the most of it now. Jenna and I would twirl around each
other to perform various functions, gesturing with our heads to
announce movement in a certain direction and never once getting in
each other’s way. Meanwhile, Tyler was all arm motion, pulling the
goods from the counter, ringing up the sale, receiving money,
giving change. Perhaps Bruce Hornsby’s piano arpeggios on the iPod
suggested this to me, but we seemed to have a certain balletic
grace to the way we approached this challenge. It was unlikely,
though, that we’d be performing at Jacob’s Pillow any time
soon.
“Tell me the truth,”
I said to Tyler, “you’re going to miss this.”
“I already told you I
was going to miss this.”
“But you’re really
going to miss this. That marketing firm is going to seem sedate by
comparison. Lots of sitting around drinking coffee and talking
about where you can get the best sushi in the
neighborhood.”
“Twenty minutes from
now, you’ll send Jeff to Bean There, Done That and we’ll stand
around talking about baked goods.”
“You’re missing the
point.”
“I got the point. Go
help a customer.”
There were still a
dozen people in line when a man cut in front. “Can someone help me
with the kaleidoscopes?”
“I’ve got it,” Jeff
said, coming from out of our line of sight to take the customer
over to the display.
Tyler looked at me
and offered an arched eyebrow.
“Who needs you?” I
said.
When things slowed
down in the store, I went on the coffee run myself, feeling like it
was wrong to assign the task to Jeff after he’d shown himself to
have greater value. The line at Bean There was huge, which I found
a slight bit humbling.
Walking back to the
store afterward, I stopped for a moment to look down the street.
This really wasn’t the Amber of my mind anymore. Many of the
merchants had changed hands over the past few years and their
replacements were for the most part more sophisticated and
knowledgeable about their products. The guy selling silver jewelry
designed much of it himself. The new boutique had hand-painted
scarves created by an artist in South Salem, NY, and handmade
leather purses from a woman in Portsmouth, NH. The deli had a menu
of original sandwiches that had become customer favorites, along
with a chalkboard listing “this week’s creations.” Even the
visitors seemed different to me. Fewer BMW’d couples getting their
annual fix of “quaint” and more families who actually touched each
other and pointed ahead to the next shop they wanted to see. I
could appreciate why people would want to visit this town, and I
realized that when I returned for a visit to Amber from wherever my
next destination might be, there were shops on Russet Avenue that
I’d want to drop in on.
I got back to the
store and Jenna was handling the cash register while Tyler helped
someone choose a mug. When he was finished, we drank our coffee and
the conversation almost surrealistically drifted to a comparison
between Bean There’s cinnamon rolls and the ones sold at the bakery
across the street.
A short while later,
I received a call from Howard Crest telling me that Pat Maple had
made an “excellent” new offer.
“It’s still not what
my father is asking,” I said to him.
“That’s true, but
it’s very respectable. He’s obviously serious.”
“But it’s not what
we’re asking. My father based those numbers on real multiples. We
didn’t just pull them out of the air. I’m sure Maple’s calculator
works the same way ours does.”
“You’re right, Hugh,
but I think we’re very close and I want to be able to tell Maple
that we’re getting there.”
“We’re getting there,
Howard. But I’m not even going to talk to my father about this
until Maple comes up another twenty-five percent.”
Howard was quiet for
a moment. “That’s going to be tough. He’s not going to want to bid
against himself like that. And we don’t have anyone else who’s even
close to being interested.”
“Well maybe we need
to find someone. Have you been in the store lately? Did you look at
the numbers for last week’s sales that I sent over?”
“I looked at them.
They’re very impressive. Everyone on the street is having a great
summer. But we’ve been through what the market is like for a store
like this.”
“I’m serious, Howard.
I’m not going to take a bid to my father until it comes up by
twenty-five percent.”
“That could kill the
deal, Hugh.”
I closed my eyes and
forced myself to relax. “It isn’t going to kill the
deal.”
The next night was
Tyler’s last in the store. As though the community wanted to give
us some time to ourselves, there was virtually no business during
the last hour. We stood behind the counter sampling the new candy
and reading to each other from New York
Magazine.
Tyler and I had
planned to go out for a drink as we always did on closing nights,
but I couldn’t leave it at that. Once I locked the front door,
while Tyler counted the register, I opened the back door to let the
rest of the staff in – including my father and mother, who were
making their first trip to the store since his heart attacks. When
Tyler came back to the office, the surprise stunned him. But when
he saw my father, his eyes rimmed with tears and they held each
other for nearly a minute.
“I was going to come
by before I headed off,” Tyler said to him.
“You can still come
by. But I wasn’t going to miss this.”
We drank champagne
and ate flourless chocolate cake and strawberries while Tyler
detailed his plans for taking on Manhattan. He outlined what he
hoped to accomplish in his first eighteen months at work, the
sights he planned to see with Sarah, and the various clubs and
concert halls he intended to visit. It was an ambitious agenda, and
from anyone else I would have simply rolled my eyes. But I’d come
to expect that Tyler was capable of accomplishing what he set out
to do. It was unlikely that these tasks would be any more daunting
to him than any previous ones.
About a half hour
after everyone got there, my father told me that he wanted to “see
what you’ve done with the place.” We left Tyler to entertain the
rest of the staff and walked out of the office. My father stopped
almost as soon as we set foot on the new carpet, examining the
repair work.
“They did a good job
back here,” he said.
“Eventually,
yes.”
“You used Cullins,
right?”
“That was who you had
listed in your book.”
“His people always do
a good job.”
“I’m glad you like
it. The repairmen almost earned residency status while they were
doing it.”
We moved from station
to station so I could show him the new merchandise, the display
cases, the adjusted racks. The iPod wasn’t on and I decided not to
bring up the subject. He wrinkled his nose at the HuggaGhouls, but
ran his fingers over the leather diaries.
He stood by the front
door and looked out at the entire store. His eyes landed on the
display of cards at the front counter and he picked one up to
examine it.
“Remade this place in
your own image,” he said.
“Not really. Just a
few touches. Helped pass the time.”
He put the card down
and appraised me. “I should have done some of this stuff years
ago.”
“You put a lot of
thought into this store.”
“The goal is to keep
thinking. I’m not surprised that business has picked
up.”
I realized at that
point that I’d been expecting him to like the changes. I hadn’t
made any of them with the notion that I might offend his
sensibilities (except, perhaps, with the music) or that I was
altering the spirit of the store. I was simply expanding on his
original vision. Still, I was pleased that it pleased him. I was
pleased that he didn’t feel I’d corrupted the place. I was pleased
that he was even standing here.
“Come on,” he said,
patting me on the shoulder, “let’s get back to the
party.”
People were making
plans to go out together when we returned. The three people I’d
recently hired, who obviously had much less of a connection to
Tyler, left for a bar a few minutes later. The others stuck around
a little longer and then left in groups. I was surprised when Carl,
the quiet stock boy who I’d barely spoken with in the past few
months, hugged Tyler and made him promise to stay in touch. He then
shook my father’s hand and told him how much he’d missed him and
how glad he was that he was beginning to feel better. These were
literally more words than I’d heard him say the entire time I’d
known him.
A short while later,
my father patted my mother on the leg and said, “What do you think,
Anna, a quick drink at the Cornwall before we head
home?”
“You aren’t supposed
to drink,” she said lightly.
“But that doesn’t
mean I can’t get you drunk,” he said with a grin I’d never seen on
his face before. They stood up and Tyler came over and squeezed
both of them, saying that he’d stop by in the morning before he
left.
When they were gone,
I poured the rest of the champagne for us.
“He liked it?” Tyler
said, motioning toward the front of the store.
“I think
so.”
“That’s gotta make
you feel good.”
“Yeah, it does.” I
clinked glasses with him and took a drink.
“I’m glad he
appreciates it. You have really made some serious
improvements.”
“Thanks.”
“Ever think you
should change your mind about selling?”
I looked out toward
the store and then back down at my glass. “No, not really. It’s
still this place, you know?”
Tyler nodded. “Yeah,
I think I get it.” He took another drink and we sat quietly for a
little while. “My last night here,” he said. “I sorta figured it
would get to me, but I’m having a little trouble with the idea of
actually leaving.”
“You’ve been here a
long time. You’ve invested yourself. That’s so impressive to me.
But keep in mind that this was a way station for you. Monday you
head off on the real journey.”
“I guess.” He smiled.
“Hope I don’t lose my luggage.” He looked around the room again. It
was hard to believe that he was getting nostalgic about this back
office, but it certainly seemed that way.
“You think that guy
is going to come up with the offer you’re looking for?” he
said.
“Howard is skittish,
which is like saying Howard is, but I
have a feeling he will.”
“And
then?”
“Then?”
“Where do you go for
your real journey?”
I shrugged.
“Someplace.”
“You thinking about
New Mexico again?”
“New Mexico. New
Guinea. Someplace new.”
“You really think
it’s over with you and Iris?”
“Over as in we’ll
never see each other again? No. I think it’ll be weird for a little
while and then once things are finished over here, we’ll have some
version of a friendship long-distance.”
“You can send her a
card every now and then.”
“I’ll have to
remember to stock up before I leave.”
Tyler finished his
champagne, reached for the bottle, saw it was empty, and sat
back.
“It really isn’t
‘better to have loved and lost,’ huh?” he said.
“Sure doesn’t seem
that way.”
A few more minutes
passed silently. This was processing time, something we’d used
effectively on drink nights in the past. I wondered if there would
be any more of these in our future and I realized how unfortunate
it would be if this were truly the last.
Tyler stood up and
looked around one more time, sticking his head out into the store,
though the lights were now off. “I should probably get going.
Sarah’s brother is coming with his truck at eight
tomorrow.”
I got up with him and
we left through the back door. I threw my arm around his shoulders
and walked him to his car.
“I’m gonna miss you,
you know?”
“Hey, I’ve got a few
feet of floor space in a studio closet over on Eleventh Avenue
whenever you need it.”
“I’ll take you up on
that.”
“I’m counting on
it.”
When we got to his
car, I looked back at the store and then reached out to shake his
hand. “Thanks a lot,” I said. “You made this a lot
easier.”
“You made it easier
yourself,” he said, hugging me before he opened his door. He got in
and rolled down his window, reaching out his hand one more time.
“I’ll give you a call next week and let you know how my master plan
is going. Call me before then if anything happens with the
store.”
I nodded and he drove
off.
I got in my car and
thought for a moment about seeing if my parents were still at the
Cornwall. I started the engine and decided to head back to the
house instead.