Chapter 1
“I hate the public. Hate, hate, hate the public.” Hannah Jenkins spit out the words as she flopped into an overstuffed chair and waved away the glass of wine her housemate Sarah offered.
“Really? The entire public? Worldwide? Or just Portland, Oregon, and its environs?” Sarah accompanied her question with an exaggerated eye roll.
“Okay, maybe not all the public. Just the ones who’re a pain in the butt this time of year. Which, face it, is a large number.”
“Sure you won’t have a glass of wine? It might take the edge off your pissed-offness.”
“If I start drinking tonight, I might never stop until the damn Christmas season is over. Which is weeks away. By then, I’d do in my liver and my tombstone would read, ‘She was right: Christmas killed her.’”
Hannah was the manager of the flagship—and largest—store in a chain of women’s specialty shops. She’d worked her way up from part-time clerk to sales associate to buyer and now to store manager, all by the age of thirty-two, an impressive accomplishment. She loved working in the heart of the city. Loved her colleagues. Loved everything about working retail.
Except Christmas. She hated Christmas.
Sarah settled on the couch and took a sip of her wine. “Maybe if you vent, you’ll be in a better mood for the dinner I’ve spent the last hour preparing. So, tell me, what happened today?”
Hannah knew her housemate was asking only because she was a good friend. Sarah had heard this particular rant each year at this time ever since they’d moved in together.
“Not everyone was an asshat,” Hannah admitted, “but there were enough to prove that the idea that everyone has a generous holiday spirit is a huge lie.”
“Specifics, please,” Sarah said with an annoying grin. “You know me. I don’t like generalities.”
“Okay, there was this jerk who spent a boatload of money on a miniscule bit of lace the manufacturer calls a ‘nightgown.’ For his girlfriend, he said.”
“What’s so bad about that?”
Hannah snorted. “He also bought a pair of bunny slippers and a flannel nightgown for his wife and a second nightgown for his secretary—who, I’m sure, does more than print out his schedule for him.”
“Oh.”
Hannah was almost
happy to see her housemate’s disappointed slouch. “After him was the woman who thought she could bargain with me for the last bottle of ‘Tragic’ perfume in the entire city. Telling me that since it was the last one, we couldn’t advertise it, so I might as well let her take it off my hands. Like I’m gonna give her a break on the price of the hottest scent to come along since Chanel No. 5. She was so pissed off she filled out an official complaint form saying I wasn’t living up to the store’s customer-friendly reputation.” By now Hannah was sitting with her spine in military alignment, her chin jutting out and her hands in fists.
“But the topper was the woman who said her two teacup poodles were service dogs, so we couldn’t ask her to leave them outside. She asked one of my sales staff to hold them while she tried on a half-dozen dresses. Said she was looking for something special for her Christmas-card picture. When she finally decided on one she liked, she grabbed the stupid dogs back to see how they looked with what she’d chosen, and one of the little furballs peed all over the five-hundred-dollar dress, which the woman then refused to buy.”
“Don’t get angry at the dog. It’s not his ... her ... fault.”
“I’ll apologize to the dog if I ever see it again. But damn it—”
“I get it. Bad day at the office.” Sarah waved her hand at the bottle on the table. “A bit of the grape might make you feel better about it. Are you sure you won’t join me?”
“Maybe I will.” Hannah pulled herself out of the depths of the chair and poured a small glass of wine. “I swear, if this job wasn’t the best I’ve ever had, I’d quit. Or at least take a leave until January.”
If she were honest about it, Hannah would have to admit she didn’t hate everything about working retail during the holidays. For example, she loved the profits. And she didn’t object to some of what went along with the season, like the background music that played endlessly from Thanksgiving through Christmas Eve. Didn’t even mind having to put up the glittery decorations the night before Thanksgiving so the store was ready to greet shoppers on Black Friday.
It was what happened beginning on Black Friday that she hated—people
showed up to shop. There was the crux of her problem. She was ashamed to admit to anyone except her roommate that nasty, stressed, badly behaving customers were the reason she’d come to hate the entire Christmas season. No one seemed to be happy this time of the year. At least not that she noticed. People came into her store, made demands, treated her staff badly, and killed any sense of joy by behaving like—well, like toddlers who hadn’t napped in a week. Or kindergartners deprived of their afternoon snacks. Or infants who’d lost their pacifiers.
Sadly, those pathetic examples of Christmas cheer she’d just vented about to Sarah were only the tip of the iceberg. She hadn’t even mentioned the shoplifters and credit-card scammers or the people who deliberately damaged merchandise to try and get a discount. Sure, they were around the rest of the year, but the holidays brought more of them out of the woodwork.
Hannah had tried to tell herself that, as manager, she only had to deal with the customers who were difficult, and didn’t see the nice people who were there every day. Tried to believe that not everyone was a PITA. But the closer it got to Christmas, the more difficult it was to believe when all she ever saw was a long line of belligerent people like the teacup poodle woman. And all her staff gossiped about were people like the man who’d involved her store in his cheating ways.
If this was what the holiday spirit was about, she wanted none of it.
Which was sad because when she was younger, she’d loved Christmas—the food, the presents, the anticipation, the lights. She especially loved the lights. She’d grown up on Peacock Lane, a four-block-long street in southeast Portland known for its Christmas-light displays. Every house on the lane was a glowing celebration of the season. Trees, bushes, rooflines, doors—everything that could support lights was draped in them. When it was lit up for its annual celebration of the season, the street was visible from the international space station, her father used to tell her. She believed him until she was a lot older than she liked to admit
Hannah couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment her enjoyment of the season had begun to wane. It could have been the year her family’s beautiful light display, along with several others on the street, was damaged by vandals, leaving her wondering why anyone would attack something her family and their neighbors did as a holiday present for strangers.
Maybe it was when one too many customers treated her badly on the sales floor, ...
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