One day down, twenty-four to go.
She sucked in a deep breath of night air, cooled and salted by the Pacific Ocean just a block away, and let it clear out the lingering notes of cinnamon-and-clove potpourri that was The Perfect Christmas’s signature scent. Customers Internet-ordered the stuff from all over the world, claiming it captured their very best holiday memories.
As far as Bailey was concerned, captured was the operative world. From the day she could be trusted to unwrap merchandise to the day she could run the cash register with her eyes closed, she’d been a prisoner in the two-story Victorian that housed the almost sixty-year-old family business. She’d managed to escape for the ten years between eighteen and twenty-eight, but now, just as surely as Hermie’s dental skills came in handy, just as inevitable as the foggy night that required Rudolph’s very shiny nose, she was once again held hostage.
Until December 25. Then she was outta here and back to Los Angeles and her happy holidays-less life.
Giving an emphatic nod, she almost lost the green-and-white striped hat jammed over her blond hair. With a grimace, she yanked the thing off and stuffed it in the front pocket of her red cotton and fake-fur-trimmed apron. This morning she’d driven straight from her condo in L.A. to the shop and found them hanging on their customary hook in the back office. Along with her customary nametag-her name between two peppermint sticks-that read:
BAILEY
(Yes, like George!)
Just about everyone except the Japanese tourists recognized the identity of the main character of the movie classic It’s a Wonderful Life. Just about everyone loved the idea that she’d been named after a famous Christmas character.
Just about everyone.
Gee, thanks, Mom.
Which made her think about the next item on her today’s to-do list. Heading the eleven blocks to her childhood home and confronting her mother. Bailey rested her head another moment against the cold glass, then straightened. There was nothing to it but to do it. And there was no one else to do it but Bailey.