The Christmas Shoppe (7 page)

Despite Rose’s best efforts to be clandestine when it came to anything related to Matilda Honeycutt, Susanna had discovered the nature of the business Matilda planned to open. In spite of the predictions of the local gossips, it was not going to be (1) a tattoo parlor, (2) one of those import stores that reeks of incense and diesel, (3) a New Age shop selling drug-related paraphernalia, or (4) a disrespectable massage parlor.

Although Susanna was partly relieved the gossipers were wrong on the worst suspicions, she still felt worried. Partly for Matilda, because she actually liked the woman, but even more so for the town, because she knew that none of the merchants on Main Street would be particularly happy to see a secondhand shop. It was bad enough that thrift stores weren’t zoned for this neighborhood, but with the Christmas shopping season upon them and everyone’s hopes elevated in the expectation of some bright, shiny, consumer-friendly store, a secondhand shop was more than just a minor letdown. Furthermore, Susanna knew that the powers that be, including Councilman Snider, would now have the opportunity to make Matilda miserable.

“Why don’t they just let her be?” Rose had said that morning after Megan left for school. “Who cares if she runs a thrift shop or not? This is a free country, no?”

“It’s a free country, Rose, but you know there are ordinances. Businesses must apply for licenses, and a secondhand shop requires a special permit. According to my assistant, Matilda hasn’t applied for one yet.”

“Matilda knows what she’s doing,” Rose said.

“I hope so.”

Rose gave a sly grin. “Besides, you can help her.”

“I can?” Susanna filled her commuter coffee cup.

“Sure you can.” Rose nodded. “You run the city, don’t you?”

Susanna laughed. “More like the city runs me.”

“Well, Matilda is a good person. I know you’ll take good care of her.”

“I’ll do my best.”

For that reason, Susanna had spent an hour trying to soften up Hal in the permit department, explaining that Matilda had been distracted getting her shop in order and overlooked applying for the permit.

“Well, she better get to it,” he warned her. “We usually require two weeks to process a permit.”

She smiled at him. “I know that and you know that, but I also know you can put a rush on it if needed.”

“I can’t make promises, Ms. Elton.”

“Please, call me Susanna. Everyone else does.”

He smiled. “Okay, Susanna. I still can’t make promises, and I sure can’t do anything if she doesn’t come in here and apply.”

“I’ll do everything I can to get her in here today,” Susanna assured him. “I really do appreciate your help with this, Hal. My hope is that Parrish Springs will become known as a can-do city and will attract some new business and commerce our way.”

He nodded. “I hope so. I still feel bad for the layoffs a couple years back. I’d like to see some of those people come back.”

“So would I.” She thanked him again, then headed back to her office. Hopefully Hal meant what he said, but for all she knew he could just be another member of Councilman Snider’s Good Ol’ Boys Club. She couldn’t believe how many people the old councilman carried around in his back pocket. It must be crowded in there!

On her way to her office, she stopped by the restroom and ran a brush through her hair and even put on some fresh lip color. She didn’t know if Tommy was bringing a photographer with him or not, but she’d worn her favorite red suit just in case.

She knew it was possible that she was primping for another reason. For the past week, she had thought about Tommy quite a bit, more than she cared to admit. She even managed to discreetly discover that he was in fact single. Never married at all, her elderly neighbor had told her. Naturally, that surprised Susanna. She’d learned that if a man had never married by this stage of the game, there was usually a reason. But from what she could learn without looking overly interested, Tommy was fairly well respected by everyone. Still, she wasn’t dumb—there could be other reasons.

She’d been thrilled when he’d called Monday afternoon to schedule an interview with her, but then dismayed when she checked her calendar. The only time that worked for both of them was Friday morning. For the past four days, she’d hoped to bump into him somewhere in town, but despite her best efforts to be out and about, their paths had never crossed once. Maybe it was fate. Or perhaps God was trying to tell her something. She’d be smart to listen. For now she was simply looking forward to seeing him again.

She was back in her office and just starting to get impatient when Alice buzzed her. “Tommy Thompson’s here for the interview.”

“Send him in,” Susanna told her. She looked at her watch. He was only four minutes late, but for some reason it had seemed like longer.

“Sorry to be late,” he said as he caught her still looking at her watch. “You know that commute from the newspaper office to city hall is killer this time of morning.”

She chuckled as she stood to shake his hand. “I was thinking about that same thing as I drove to work this morning. I live less than three minutes from here—really, I should be walking—but the funny thing is I still bring my commuter cup in the car with me.” She pointed to the shiny aluminum cup on her desk.

“Small-town life is hard to beat.”

“I’m sold.” She nodded to the chair across from her desk. “Make yourself comfortable, Tommy. We have just a little less than an hour.”

He pulled a notebook from his inside coat pocket. It was a brown suede blazer that looked well made and expensive. He removed his jacket and casually laid it in the other chair, then sat down. Susanna noticed he was wearing an attractive navy sweater, probably cashmere. Well, the guy had taste.

He took the cap off of a silver pen, then smiled at her. “Ready?”

She blinked. “Is that all you use? Pen and pad? No electronics?”

He nodded. “I’m an old-fashioned kind of guy. This works for me.”

“Interesting.” She almost confessed that she was an old-fashioned kind of girl, but that felt like too much information. “Ready when you are. Fire away.”

He started with the usual queries about educational background and past work experiences, but gradually the questions grew more personal. Not that she minded. She had nothing to hide. Not really. She explained that she’d grown up in a somewhat unconventional family. “My maiden name was Garcia, and my father was fourth-generation Mexican American with a Stanford degree in engineering. He worked for the city too. My mother was a blue-eyed, blonde beauty with no college education. She’d grown up in a dysfunctional family and really didn’t want to be married. Consequently, my parents divorced when I was four and my father raised me.”

“That is a bit unconventional, but interesting.” He continued writing, glancing up occasionally. She wondered how he was really getting all this down because, as usual, she was talking fast.

“My father saw to it that I got a good education, and I suppose I kind of followed in his footsteps by working for city government.”

“Your father sounds like a great guy.”

She nodded. “He was. He died shortly after Megan was born.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thanks. At least he got to see his granddaughter, and . . .” She paused to weigh her words. “He didn’t have to witness me going through my divorce.” She shook her head. “I know that would’ve hurt him deeply. Especially since he was the one who introduced me to my ex-husband.”

Tommy nodded with a sympathetic expression. “How long ago was that? Your divorce, I mean. Well, not that it matters . . .” He seemed uncomfortable. “That doesn’t need to be in the article. I didn’t—”

“It’s okay. I don’t mind telling you, but I agree it probably doesn’t need to be in the article. Megan was three when our marriage really began to deteriorate. In Carl’s defense, his family had been a bit dysfunctional too.”

“How so?” Tommy looked up from his notebook.

She smiled. “You’ve met my mother-in-law.”

“Yes . . .” He seemed to be wearing a poker face.

Susanna couldn’t help but chuckle. “Rose was the healthy part of Carl’s parents’ marriage.”

He looked somewhat surprised, but to her relief he was not taking notes.

“As you may have noticed, Rose is Hispanic. However, Carl’s father was not. He met her in Mexico, and she was quite a beauty in her day. They were one of those couples who married too hastily, if you know what I mean.”

“I think I get your drift.”

“Rose put up with a lot of grief from that man.” She shook her head, unwilling to say too much. “And Carl . . . well, you know what they say. The apple didn’t fall too far from the tree.”

“I see.”

“Carl and I parted ways, and Rose came to live with Megan and me.” She stopped talking, feeling alarmed at how much she’d just revealed. “I would appreciate it very much if that remained in this room.”

He looked directly into her eyes. “You have my word on it.”

“Thank you.” She sighed. “I don’t usually run off at the mouth like that.”

“Really, it’s okay. You can trust me, Susanna.”

“Yes, I think I can.”

They moved on to city business. He asked her about the challenges of being a woman in a job that had previously been held by men, how she was adjusting to small-town life, and what had been her biggest challenge so far.

“I’ve only been here a couple of months,” she began carefully. She wanted to say something quote-worthy without stepping on any toes. “I think the biggest challenge is striving to bring people and ideas together in a peaceful manner so that we can work together for the good of the entire city.”

He chuckled. “Spoken like a true politician.”

“Off the record?” she asked.

He closed his notebook. “Absolutely.”

“This whole thing with Matilda Honeycutt is turning into quite the three-ring circus.”

He nodded. “I’ve noticed. I have a feeling the fun hasn’t even begun.”

“Have you been able to interview her yet? Has she told you much about what’s going on? What she’s doing?”

“I’ve tried, but with the resistance I get from her and Rose, I feel like I’m ramming my head against the big brick wall of the Barton Building.”

“Well, I’ve got my concerns about her.”

“Such as?”

“Off the record—although I’m sure it’ll be public knowledge before long—I’m worried that she’s going to open a thrift shop without the proper permits in place. At least that’s what my mother-in-law is saying. Of course, Rose can’t see anything wrong with it, but she doesn’t know about Councilman Snider.” She bit her lip, wondering what would happen if Rose and the councilman went head-to-head. It would be ugly.

“Councilman Snider will have a heyday with Matilda if she does that. He’s just waiting to get his hands on that building.”

“Believe me, I know.” She nervously fingered the edge of the budget packet that she needed to take to her next meeting.

“Plus the other retailers won’t be too pleased about a secondhand shop going in there. Most of them had been hoping for a furniture store. We haven’t had one in town for years.”

“I wish that were in Matilda’s plans . . . but I’m afraid it’s not.”

“Well, I hope you can help her to sort things out.”

“So do I.” Susanna looked at her watch. It was time to wrap this up. “I really do like her, and I want to see her business succeed. But not at the expense of the other downtown merchants. That wouldn’t be fair.”

“Quite the balancing act.” He stood, reaching for his coat.

“You got that right.” She stood too. “Thanks for respecting my time, Tommy.”

“No problem.”

She wanted to say something more, like when would it be her turn to ask him some questions, but it was time to get to the budget meeting.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to email you the article before it runs so you can make sure I’ve gotten my facts straight.”

She pointed to his black notebook. “I have to admit that I’m a little curious about how that’s even possible. I’ve been told that I can talk a mile a minute, and I doubt most people can write that fast.”

“I use shorthand.”

She laughed. “Well, of course you do.”

They said goodbye, exited her office, and continued in opposite directions. She was a little concerned about how candid she’d been with him—she was usually more cautious with her words. But he’d promised she could trust him. She would have to see if Tommy Thompson was what he appeared to be—a man who kept his word. She sure hoped so.

Helen never worked a whole day on Fridays. But she had wanted to stick around long enough to hear Tommy’s response to the websites she’d sent him. Surely he wouldn’t continue his conversation with Garth Price once he realized what that shyster was really up to, would he?

She paced in the small kitchen, glancing up at the clock from time to time. It was 12:30 and Tommy still wasn’t back. She’d already cleaned the coffeepot, sink, and counters, and unless she cleared out the refrigerator, which probably needed doing, she would have no excuse to stay.

She looked out the window just as Matilda Honeycutt was about to go into her building. That gave Helen an idea. Tommy had been trying and trying to make an appointment with that woman, but she’d been dodging him like he was with the IRS. Perhaps Matilda would be more open to talking woman to woman about her plans for her new business. If Helen was able to extract some information from Matilda, she might be able to pin down Tommy and make him listen to her.

With this mission in mind, Helen grabbed her purse and hurried across the street. Without hesitating, she knocked loudly on the door.

“Come in,” Matilda said as she opened the door.

“Are you open for business?” Helen tried to mask her surprise at this unexpected friendliness.

“It all depends.” Matilda smiled as she stepped aside. “But you are more than welcome to browse through the merchandise if you’d like.”

“Thank you,” Helen said. “I’d love to look around.”

“Just let me get the rest of the lights turned on,” Matilda said, “so you can see better.”

Helen followed her, watching as Matilda’s long, colorful skirt swirled behind her as she walked. Something jingled—probably jewelry—and her long, curly gray hair hung in a loose ponytail, tied midway with a loopy piece of purple cloth. Her feet shuffled along the wood floor, not bare today—but wearing sandals in mid-November? Truly, this was a strange sort of woman. But for some reason, Helen felt intrigued by her.

“There we go,” Matilda said as the lights flickered on. “Let there be light.”

Helen looked around the room. Much of the original shelving—the same sturdy wooden units that had been used for Barton’s Stationery Store long ago—was still in place. Sure enough, there seemed to be merchandise arranged on the shelves. But there didn’t seem to be any particular order to the way the goods were laid out. A baseball mitt sat next to a crystal vase with a black pocketbook on the other side of it, and next to that was a worn rag doll. Really, it made no sense.

What made even less sense to Helen was that this was obviously a thrift shop—exactly what Parrish Springs didn’t want or need in this part of town. There were plenty of secondhand stores on First Avenue. Helen could only imagine how the other downtown retailers would react to this news. In fact, it seemed clear that there really was a story here. After years in the newspaper business, Helen knew that controversy always equaled story. She could already imagine the headline: “Local Merchants in Uproar.”

“When do you plan to officially open?” Helen asked as she pretended to browse along the oddly stocked shelves. She picked up a chipped and stained coffee mug with the words “Coffee Brake” on it—was that a typo or was it supposed to mean something? Seriously, who would want this junk? She’d been to garage sales with a much better selection than this. She set the mug down.

“I think perhaps I’m already open,” Matilda said lightly.

Helen turned in time to see Matilda pulling a piece of newspaper away from the window, then another. Slowly the afternoon light began to flood the room. But that seemed only to illuminate how shabby all the items on these shelves truly were. Helen didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want to be rude, but she couldn’t help but think Matilda Honeycutt might be a few cards short of a deck.

Matilda stood on her tiptoes and stretched her short frame, trying to grab a piece of craft paper up high. She must have used a ladder to tape it up there because she was obviously unable to reach it now.

“May I help you?” Helen asked, wondering why she even bothered. Why would Matilda want for anyone to see inside here? Yet the next thing she knew, she was helping to reach the high pieces of paper, pulling them down from the windows so that the whole world could see the madness inside.

“Many hands make light work,” Matilda said cheerfully as the last piece fell to the floor. “I’ll take care of this little mess while you continue your shopping.”

Shopping?
Helen couldn’t imagine what she could possibly want to purchase in this strange shop. Still, to be polite, and hoping she might learn something else about this eccentric woman, she continued her pretense of browsing. As she walked up and down the aisles, she could hear Matilda humming to herself as she disposed of the paper. At least she enjoyed her work. But did she think anyone would ever come in here to shop? For real?

After a bit, some nice music began to play. It sounded like Johnny Mathis and transported Helen back in time.

She paused. Despite the pleasant music, she was ready to exit this bizarre bazaar. She tried to think of a graceful way to make her getaway. She really didn’t want to offend Matilda, who seemed a decent person, even if she was a little nutty.

As she stood there, Helen tried to read the lettering high on the wall but couldn’t quite make it out. She used her glasses only for driving and didn’t really want to dig them out of her handbag. Instead she squinted to read the curly letters and decipher the words, and finally she figured them out.

When disbursed seventy by seven, this precious gift is a slice of heaven.

She wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but something about the rhyme felt reassuring to her. In an odd way, it seemed familiar too. She just couldn’t put her finger on it.

“How are you doing?” Matilda asked her. “Are you finding what you need?”

Helen turned and smiled. “I think that might be my problem. I don’t really
need
anything.”

Matilda’s brow creased. “You don’t need anything?”

Helen felt embarrassed. “Well, I suppose I do need some things. Like I need to go home and do the laundry.” She laughed.

Matilda nodded. “We all have needs, don’t we?”

“We certainly do.” Helen was tempted to tell Matilda that she might need a good shrink, but that would be unkind.

“How about if I help you look?” Matilda offered. “Perhaps together we could find something you really do need.”

Helen wanted to back up and say, “No thank you very much,” but Matilda was already moving toward another aisle, saying she thought there was something over there, something that might interest her.

Helen felt a strange sense of fascination—seriously, what did Matilda suppose she had here that could interest Helen? Out of curiosity, she went over to where Matilda stood in front of a shelf not unlike the others, filled with a motley bunch of unrelated items. A dog-eared Webster’s dictionary with no front cover, a pair of peeling patent leather shoes, a red plaid Thermos, and a set of warped plastic measuring cups that looked like they’d seen a few too many dips in the dishwasher.

“I, uh, I don’t think there’s anything here that . . .” Helen’s voice trailed off as she continued to stare at the lopsided stack of measuring cups. They were Tupperware, lime-green, from around 1978 unless she was mistaken. Helen had owned an identical set at one time, back when she still used Tupperware products. She must have purchased hundreds of dollars’ worth of the stuff back in the late seventies and early eighties.

Helen picked up the smallest measuring cup and stared as if hypnotized as the lime-green blurred and faded. Instead of old Tupperware, she saw Joanne Spencer. She saw her exactly how Joanne had looked when she first moved in next door—a painfully thin divorcée with dishwater-blonde hair and pale blue eyes that looked frightened. Helen had befriended her neighbor, and when Joanne began to sell Tupperware to make ends meet, Helen had hosted a party to help her out. As it turned out, Joanne had helped herself to Helen’s husband when he went over to help with a clogged sink drain. Their affair lasted for nearly ten years before Helen figured things out. Naturally, she threw Rich out—and Joanne took him in. Eventually they left town, and Helen threatened to kill them both if she ever saw them again.

“What do you think?” Matilda asked, jerking Helen back to the present.

“Think?” Helen looked at Matilda with wide eyes.

“How do those work for you?”

Helen looked back at the measuring cup still in her hand. It was trembling. Or perhaps her hand was trembling.

“Old things sometimes contain old stories . . . unfinished stories . . . don’t you think?”

Helen didn’t know what to think. She looked back at the measuring cups and felt that old feeling of hatred sweeping through her again. Not just a trickle either, like it usually was. Today it came at her like a tidal wave. Had that much anger been inside her this whole time?

She leaned her head back, seeing once again those curly-lettered words high up on the wall. She read them out loud this time. “‘When disbursed seventy by seven, this precious gift is a slice of heaven.’” She looked at Matilda. “What does that mean?” She pointed to the sentence. “That saying up there?”

“What do you think it means?”

Helen frowned. “It sounds somewhat familiar. That ‘seventy by seven’ part, I mean.” She thought hard. “I used to go to church for many years . . . I think maybe it’s in the Bible.”

Matilda nodded but said nothing.

Helen looked back down at the little green cup and suddenly saw Joanne again—and she felt that deep-rooted hatred. In a flash she knew exactly what those words meant. “Seventy times seven” was how many times Jesus Christ had told his disciples to forgive others. She turned and stared at Matilda. “Is
that
what it means?”

“What?” Matilda asked.

“Forgiveness. That’s what it means, doesn’t it?”

Matilda just smiled as she picked up the other measuring cups. After nesting the smallest one on top, she gave the stack to Helen. Cupping her hands around Helen’s, she said, “You take these, dear, and you think about it. I’m sure you’ll figure it all out.” Humming to herself, Matilda walked away.

Helen stood there for a long moment, trying to make sense of everything. Feeling slightly dizzy, she finally walked out of the store and just stood there. With the cups still in her hands and her thoughts spinning back to more than thirty years ago, she walked back to the newspaper office and got her things. It wasn’t until she was inside her car and nearly home that she realized she’d never even paid for the measuring cups. Did that make her a shoplifter?

Once she was home, safe inside the same house where she’d once used an identical set of measuring cups in her kitchen, she set the cups on the counter and just stared at them. She still remembered the morning she’d gathered up her Tupperware products and thrown them all over Joanne’s front yard. That same morning, she’d thrown all of Rich’s clothes and personal items onto their own front yard. Later that day, she had the locks on the house changed.

Compared to all the things she’d wanted to do—horrible things she’d fantasized about doing—her actions were quite subdued. For the next few weeks, she’d spent hours planning elaborate murders, fires, accidental deaths . . . It had consumed her, devoured her, threatened to destroy her. Until Tommy’s mother had stepped in and put a stop to the madness.

Somehow Betty had managed to get Helen out of her funk. Betty had spoken of forgiveness, and out of respect for their friendship, Helen had listened. But it was a pretense. When Betty got sick a few years later, Helen became even better at pretending. For Betty’s sake, she acted like she harbored no ill feelings toward Rich and Joanne. The truth was she had hated them both. She still hated them now. She had never forgiven either of them.

Betty was right—holding back forgiveness came with a high price. Even if Helen could hide her bitterness from others, cover it up, pretend it was gone, it festered away inside of her, and in her darkest moments, it would raise its ugly head and torment her some more. Helen was sick of it.

She picked up the smallest measuring cup and went to her room, closed the door, got down on her knees, and just cried—long and hard. Then she did something she hadn’t done in years. She prayed. With that little green cup in her hands, she asked God to help her forgive the two people who had wounded her the most deeply. “Help me to forgive Rich and Joanne,” she sobbed. “Help me to move on and be free of this poisonous burden.” She prayed like that for about an hour and eventually fell asleep.

When she woke up, she felt different. Happier, freer, lighter, as if a heavy weight had been lifted from her heart. She thanked God for helping her and set that little green cup on her bedside table as a reminder. She put the biggest green cup in her kitchen window and the half cup in a drawer in the den, and the quarter cup she planned to take to work and set on her desk.

Each time she saw one of those lime-green cups, it would be her reminder that she’d forgiven Rich and Joanne, that she was free of them and that bitter monster of unforgiveness. Even if she had to forgive them again and again—even seventy times seven—she was determined to do it. With God’s help, she would do it.