Window Shopping, page 2
I bounce on the sore soles of my feet to clear my thoughts, moving to the radiator to make sure heat is coming out. During the long walk to Chelsea, I told myself my heart was pounding because of the brisk pace I set, but it still hasn’t stopped. The organ continues to drum unsteadily as I sit down on the edge of my bed. Gradually, my gaze meanders over to the ancient laptop left behind by my uncle. I shake my head, refusing to entertain the notion of filling out an application for a job I am not qualified for. Or even if I am slightly eligible to dress windows, three years of online courses with a focus on fashion merchandising will be wildly eclipsed by four years in lockup.
My right leg bounces up and down.
Why am I so itchy?
I last another five minutes before lunging to my feet with a curse of Bow Tie’s existence, and I start hunting through drawers for the laptop charger. What’s the worst that can happen? I submit the application and they never respond?
No, that’s what will happen. I’m an ex-convict.
But for some crazy reason, I send it anyway.
I’ll never hear back.
2
Aiden
I sit down at my desk and clap my hands. “It’s going to be a good day.”
On the other side of the office, my assistant’s fingers pause in the act of typing out God knows what at two hundred miles an hour. “And what exactly is your basis for that theory?” asks Leland over the top of his wire-rim glasses. “It’s a Monday and it’s snowing.”
“Both of those things are the sign of a clean slate. It’s like we’ve got a fresh spiral notebook from the drugstore and this time we’re going to use good handwriting the whole way through. Not just on the first page.”
Leland stares through the floor-to-ceiling window at the big, chunky flakes falling from the sky down onto Fifth. “The extra-wintery vibe is a reminder that I haven’t done any shopping and there’s only twelve days until Christmas. I’m never going to make it in time.”
“You always make it on time,” I reassure him.
He picks up a ballpoint pen and uses his forehead to click it open. Closed. Open. “I bet you have all of your shopping done. Wrapped. Thoughtfully written cards attached.”
“Everyone knows you don’t wrap presents until the twenty-third of December.”
“I don’t know that.” Curious, he stops clicking and arches a cautious ginger eyebrow. “Why do you wait?”
Realizing I forgot to take off my overcoat, I stand up and cross to the rack by the door, draping it over the top hook so the hem won’t brush the floor. Snow falls from the collar and melts onto the gray carpet, leaving little wet spots behind. “Let’s say you bought your aunt a green scarf. You bought it assuming she didn’t already have one. But you have to leave yourself a cushion in case she shows up wearing one three days before Christmas. Or out of the blue she might say, ‘I hate green scarves. I hope no one ever buys me one.’”
Leland sputters. “Now what are the odds of that?”
I hold up my hands. “You want to wrap presents pre-twenty-third and gamble with Scotch tape, that’s up to you. You just better hope my theory doesn’t stick.”
Slowly, my assistant turns back to his computer, muttering, “You asked. You know better than to ask,” to himself.
I chuckle under my breath and tap a key to wake up my computer. Leland is twenty-nine—three years younger than me—but he has the disposition of a cranky senior citizen and the pessimism of Eeyore. That’s one of the reasons I hired him five years ago. Hell, someone needs to balance me out. He also brings a mean homemade peach habanero salsa to company parties and that is a quality that cannot be underestimated.
My calendar alerts pop up onto the screen, causing an odd pinch in my chest.
Same odd pinch I had in my chest on Friday during that impromptu conversation outside of the store. How . . . odd. Rubbing at the spot with a knuckle, I hide the calendar alert that reads NOON INTERVIEWS WITH WINDOW DRESSER APPLICANTS and open the drive file I share with Leland. There are sixteen applications inside. Is one of them her?
“Before you ask, all the applicants have been vetted,” Leland says without looking up from his computer. “In the interest of saving time, I weeded it down to the ones that have potential. Excluded anyone who used all caps or used the word thrive in their cover letter. That word is literally draining in and of itself. My personal pick is Vivian Blake, former Bergdorf’s window dresser. She was responsible for the elf runway show design of 2019. Iconic.”
Leland is right. That window beat the band.
Santa’s little helpers in bustiers and wigs? Tends to stick out in one’s memory.
I definitely never have nightmares about one of them breaking through the glass and chasing me down the avenue waving an ice pick heel.
“Did anyone else stand out?”
I’m not even sure why I ask. There’s nothing Leland could say that would make me positive one of these applications belongs to her. Like a bozo, I didn’t get her name. I didn’t get any information about her whatsoever, except for the fact that she’s a little standoffish and a whole lot of pretty. Insightful about window design, too, and that’s what counts. That’s why I encouraged her to apply.
Not because I want to see her again.
Ignoring the twist south of my throat, I click through the applications, positive that I’ll somehow know which one belongs to her. I just will. There’s going to be some defining characteristic. Past work experience in an edgy coffee shop/gamer lounge or college spent abroad somewhere like Bruges or Berlin.
Nothing doing. All of these applications are too straightforward. Impressive in a way that I’m used to seeing as general manager of Vivant. Some of these hopefuls are even overqualified. None of them are her, though. I would just . . . know.
I lean back in my chair, calling myself nine kinds of ridiculous for panicking. This is a girl I met and spoke with once and she didn’t even like me. I lost count of the times she rolled her eyes up into those thick black bangs or tried to end our conversation prematurely.
But before I ever stopped to engage her, I saw that half smile reflected in the window and I couldn’t seem to quit trying to get it back on her face. To make her lips tick up again.
Her half-smile was beautiful. It stopped me dead in my tracks.
And at the end of it all, I didn’t even ask her name.
Now I have to rely on the far-off chance that she applied to dress windows at Vivant. That’s a riskier gamble than wrapping presents before December twenty-third. For all I know, she has a job. Or she’s just visiting New York City. I had a few bourbons too many over the weekend coming up with possibilities. Which, again, is ridiculous. I met her one time.
Yet her face is clear as day in my head.
I can remember it in finer detail than my childhood bedroom in Tennessee.
The big, blue walnut-shaped eyes rimmed in black makeup. The gentle slope of her brows, the deep crease running down between her nose and her upper lip. That series of freckles along her lower right jawline. The go away vibrations coming off of her in waves.
And the certainty she inspired in me that . . . she didn’t really want me to go. That she was feeling kind of lonely and wistful and just needed someone to stand beside her for a spell.
I’ve been there. I recognize the signs in a person.
Those signs in someone else don’t usually make my stomach trade places with my lungs, however. Or inspire me to miss a meeting so I can try and help. Try and figure her out.
“I mean, there were a couple of standouts in the terrible department. Like the first round of an American Idol competition?” He pauses for drama. “This one girl had an honest-to-God prison record.”
A jolt goes through me, snapping my spine straight.
Prison?
No.
But the hair on my arms is standing up and that’s usually an indication that the universe is about to send me a challenge. Usually I get pumped when that electricity races up my skin, like a nerd before a pop quiz, but if this application connects to Go Away Girl, what am I going to do about it?
“What is her name?”
Leland rears back a little, his fingers continuing to fly over the wireless keyboard. “Uh, I don’t recall. Why do you ask?”
I’m already rolling my chair closer to my desk, hand on the mouse. It’s not my first flicker of optimism that I might get to see her again—good thoughts equal good things—but this time I have an actual lead. “What did you do with the applications that didn’t make the cut?”
My assistant doesn’t answer right away and when I glance over, he’s got a slight wince on his face. “Uh, well . . . they’re in a sub-folder marked Utter Rejects.”
I give a low whistle. “How someone so cold can craft such a spicy salsa is a mystery.”
“It’s the habanero juice and pickled—”
“I don’t want to know, man, I just want to eat it.”
Leland is shifting in his chair, as if still feeling guilty for giving the file such a harsh name. While I would like to alleviate that guilt, I find I’m a little protective over the blue-eyed girl that doesn’t even like me and her information might be in this folder, so unfortunately Leland will have to stew a spell. “I’m bringing some of my salsa to the Christmas party next week,” he ventures. “A whole jumbo Tupperware container of the stuff.”
“I sure hope so. It’s a requirement of your employment.” I flash him a quick grin to let him know I’m joking (mostly), but my smile drops when I locate the folder and click. Because I see the name Stella Schmidt and somehow I just know that’s her.
She’s a Stella.
Before I go any further, I remind myself of something very important. I’m not going to get her phone number off this application and use it. That’s creepier than a daddy longlegs spider and I already made her talk to me longer than she wanted to outside the store.
Now that I’ve assured myself that this situation will remain ethical, I have the Main Dilemma. If Stella Schmidt is, in fact, the applicant with the prison record, I can’t hire her. I can’t even bring her in for an interview. Can I?
I might be the general manager of Vivant but I answer to a board of tough buzzards, one of whom is my father. Another of whom is my grandmother. And they aren’t even in good moods on the Friday before a three-day weekend.
If I don’t bring Stella in for an interview, I’ll never see her again.
But I can’t call her in here just to ask her out.
That would elevate me from a daddy longlegs to a hairy tarantula.
“You look conflicted, Mr. Cook.”
Leland never calls me anything but Aiden. “You can drop the formalities. I’m not going to lecture you about the file name.”
“Oh, thank God.” He lets out a hoot and deflates, sending his chair back into the file cabinet with a rattle. “I was having flashbacks to my job interview where you said the one thing you’ll never tolerate is unkindness. And I really shouldn’t have labeled the file that way. No one is a reject. Everyone has ups and downs. That’s all. We’re all at different phases of our lives . . .”
Leland is still rambling, but my thoughts drown him out.
Everyone has ups and downs.
That’s damn well right.
God knows I have.
When I took over as general manager of Vivant five years ago, I promised myself I would be fair in all things, no matter what it cost me. Before I arrived, decisions were based solely on the bottom line—and I’m not so idealistic that I believe profit margins aren’t important in business. But there has to be a balance. Everything is a balance. For instance, Leland’s pessimism balances out my optimism and keeps our office running somewhere in between.
If Stella is the one with the prison record and I don’t interview her based solely on that, I’m not listening to my gut, which is telling me she deserves a shot at the position. I’m dismissing her because of the board of directors and their preconceived standards.
Not mine.
Lastly and perhaps selfishly, I want to see her again—and then there’s only one way to do so the right way—and that’s to give her a real shot at the job. Interview her with the same open mind I interview everyone else. Being in prison shouldn’t preclude her from a chance if she’s served her time, right?
I’ll worry about the fact that I’m not allowed to have romantic relationships with employees without filing documents with human resources another time.
Finally, I allow myself to scroll down.
Stella Schmidt. Based on her birthdate, she’s twenty-five. Sheesh, that’s young. I’m one and a half presidencies older than her, but okay. Moving on. Three years’ worth of online courses in fashion merchandising and product marketing. All right. That’s definitely something, even if she didn’t graduate.
I stop when I reach the box asking if she’s been convicted of a felony.
The answer is yes.
Under “more information,” it simply says Bedford Hills Correctional from 2017-2021.
No further explanation. And I can almost see her stubbornly tight-lipped expression.
I spear my fingers through my hair. Jesus, she just got out. What the hell could she have done to get herself four years behind bars? The girl barely reached my shoulder. Not that height has anything to do with committing crimes. Unless she’s one of those spies who has to carefully climb over a complicated series of green lasers protecting a giant diamond. Being small in stature might give someone an advantage in a situation like that.
I keep scrolling.
She didn’t even put down a single reference.
Work with me, Stella.
Based on the application alone, it’s a real stretch to call her in for an interview, but if I don’t, it’s going to be a pinwheel under my skin for a long time. Balance. Find the balance.
If Stella gets a second shot, so does everyone else.
“All right, Leland, here’s what we’re going to do. Call everyone in the no pile and set them up for interviews, too.”
His jaw dangles down in the vicinity of his knees. “What? Even the musicians?”
“Even them.”
It’s much later when I start to regret this decision.
Past five o’clock. Everyone, including Leland, has gone home for the day. I’m on my thirty-first interview and I haven’t had lunch, so my groaning stomach is drowning out the answers of the woman sitting across from me. Kimberly. She’s one of the overqualified applicants. NYU graduate. Top of her class. Impeccably dressed, a gold cuff wrapped around her deep brown bicep. She answers everything correctly, but I don’t get the same kick in my gut when we’re discussing concepts for the window. Nor do I get it with the next hopeful—Jonathan from Minnesota, who is only in town for two weeks with his death metal band and thought maybe they could perform in one of the windows, like, “a conceptual thing or whatever.” Or Lonnie, a former contestant on Project Runway who got voted off in one of the early rounds and insisted on me watching his highlight reel.
None of them make me see what they’re describing. Especially Minnesota Jonathan.
And that’s a problem.
Because Lonnie is my last meeting, besides Stella, and she’s nowhere to be found. The row of chairs outside of my office is empty for the first time since I started interviewing at noon and I’m beginning to lose hope that she’ll show.
I finish the interview with Lonnie, letting him know we’ll be in touch, either way. Now I sit, drumming my fingers on the solid pine of my desk. Restlessly, I pull her application back up and look for hidden messages, of which there are obviously none. It would be ethical to call her and ask if she’s coming, but it’s not something I would do for any of the other applicants, so I force my hand away from the phone.
With a sigh loud enough to wake the dead, I roll away from my desk and stand, taking about ten times longer than usual to pack everything into my leather briefcase, just in case she’s running late. I drop my phone and stoop down to get it—and that’s when I see a flash of something in the gap between my desk and the floor.
Am I crazy or did something just move outside of my office?
Quickly, I straighten to my full height, but find my doorway empty.
“Stella?” I call, grateful Leland isn’t here to make an A Streetcar Named Desire joke, because he’s definitely the type.
Getting no response, I come around my desk and walk out onto the empty main floor just in time to hear the stairwell door open and close. Who is taking the stairs down from the tenth floor when there’s a perfectly good elevator?
The universe sends me another one of those here-comes-a-challenge skin prickles and I start to jog in the direction that the person (or possible ghost) just disappeared. I yank open the door to the stairwell and listen for footsteps, hearing a quick pattern of them below.
“Stella,” I say again, my voice echoing off the concrete.
The footsteps stop abruptly. Several seconds pass.
“I changed my mind,” she finally answers. “About doing the interview.”
Oh boy. I forgot how much I like her voice. It’s got a sweet, smooth tone to it and she probably hates it like hell. “You’re allowed to change your mind,” I say, weighing my options. I don’t want her to leave. But I can’t exactly barrel toward her in a stairwell that looks straight out of an M. Night Shyamalan film. “Wow. My office looks like the North Pole. It’s lit up within an inch of its life. You’d have no idea we were sitting right on top of a portal to hell.”
I hear an intake of breath that sounded suspiciously like a laugh, but I’m not getting my hopes up.
Damn. Too late. They’re up.
“You might have mentioned you were the general manager when we met outside,” she says with a hint of bite in her tone.
