Chapter 2

I stopped dead in my tracks and listened, like a twitchy doe, for one more hint that I should run for the hills. Only there were no hills, even on a good day when the doors would open, and running could only take me as far as a corner to be, well, cornered in.

My mind raced. Zooterkins. It was hardly a menacing word. And the voice that had uttered it had been … fussy? Female for sure, now that I thought about it. But not tough New Jersey Mob Wives female, more like an elementary school teacher. My grandmother. Anyone’s grandmother.

But what was I to do? I mean, I was barefoot, in a satin nightgown and robe, miles from my phone, and the only thing I could use as a weapon, if need be, would be a stiletto. Which wasn’t a bad idea. I grabbed a Ferragamo spike-heel pump from the display table and headed toward the back room of the shoe department, where the noise had come from. Once I got as far as the counter, I could pick up the phone there. It was better than a mobile because the minute I hit 911, emergency crews would be on the way. Assuming they had sled dogs. But I couldn’t afford to think about what could go wrong.

I moved as stealthily as possible. Interesting side note: Satin makes a whole lot of noise when you are otherwise in silence and want to remain that way. Still, I made it to the phone and picked it up. So, with phone in one hand and shoe in the other, I stood at the door to the back room and called, “Hello?”

Pause. “Oh, hello.”

It sounded like an old woman—but so stereotypically like an old woman that I could picture it being a big, burly man with a gift for mimicry.

“I have the police on the line,” I said, then hit the CALL button to be sure I had a line out. I did; it hummed so loud I had to hit the button again to turn it off. “They’re on the way.”

“Oh, dear.” There was an unidentifiable bustling sound. “This isn’t how this was supposed to go at all.”

If that wasn’t genuinely an old woman, it was a damn good imitation. I relaxed fractionally.

“I’m sorry?” I asked. “How what was supposed to go?”

Worried sounds came as an answer, then, “I’ve blown it. Just like last time.”

I had no idea what to do with this. “Um … ma’am? Can you please come out here?” Then what? What would I do?

“I could, dear, but who would clean up this mess?”

“Mess?” I remembered the sound that had brought me in this direction and took a tentative step in. “What mess? What on earth happened?”

Then I saw. There were shoes all over the floor, mismatched pairs lying haphazardly. The huge metal shelf that had held them was leaning against the wall opposite where it usually stood, at an angle forming a virtual steeple over what looked, indeed, like an elderly woman in a high-necked dress and the kind of boots Mary Poppins wore. Her white hair was an unkempt bun, leaving tendrils of pale gray to frame her moonlike face. She looked like the kind of person who smiled frequently, but she wasn’t smiling now.

She was looking downright fretful. Cartoonishly so.

“What happened?” I asked again, setting both the phone and the shoe down and going in to assess the damage.

“My hat,” she said, indicating the floor a few feet away, where a small pile of pink fabric sat with a feather poking out of it, askew. It was surrounded by shoes. “When I came in”—she gestured vaguely upward—“it got knocked off on the top of the shelf, and I was going back up to get it. Climbing up, you see, because I just don’t present as well without it.” She sighed and knitted her brow, looking around at the wreckage. “You can see exactly what happened.”

“Are you saying,” I began, unable to believe it. Surely she wasn’t. Or was she? “That you were climbing the shelves to try to retrieve your hat?”

She hesitated, then nodded. “Of course, I realize that sounds silly now.”

“It sounds insane.”

“Oh, Zooterkins, I know it does.” She looked at me plaintively. “I don’t have a better explanation than the truth, though, do I?”

“Okay…” Lord, the mess. I was not in the mood to deal with a batty old lady and two thousand mismatched shoes. Five minutes ago I was freaked out at the idea of being alone here; now I was freaked out at the idea of not being alone.

It felt like I was supposed to be tested this Christmas Eve one way or the other, and I’d taken being locked in too much in stride, so God or Santa Claus or whoever had thrown something else my way.

“Who are you?” I asked her. Someone must be waiting for her, worried about her. Some grandchild, maybe, or even an old man sitting outside in an ancient rear-wheel-drive Cadillac that was getting increasingly buried in snow.

“Oh! That! That’s easy. I’m your guardian angel!”

Oh boy. My guardian angel. This was obviously a fan of holiday movies. “Is anyone waiting for you? Expecting you? Should we make a call?”

“Only one way to make a call to my boss.” She widened her eyes, pointing upward, then put her hands together as if in prayer. When she smiled, it made her round apple cheeks go red and her watery blue eyes damn near twinkle.

This was immediately tiresome, not because it wasn’t charming—it was—but because it wasn’t true, and the truth needed to be discovered because there were probably some people out there worried to death about her.

“What’s your name?” I tried.

“Call me Charlie.”

Great. “Okay. I’m Noelle—”

“Oh, I know that. Christmas in July, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” I answered automatically, then realized that wasn’t something a stranger should know.

“I learn that sort of thing before taking on a job,” she explained. “It helps me prove to you I’m telling the truth.”

I wasn’t sure what it proved besides that she was an exceptionally lucky guesser. Exceptionally. But that was hard to buy. A good guess would have been that I was born at Christmas, or that it was my mother’s favorite holiday, neither of which was the truth. I supposed “Christmas in July” was guessable—it is an expression, after all—but still …

“Don’t worry, dear,” she said. “Goodness, you look so fretful. It’s difficult to strike the right balance between reassuring someone and alarming them. I apologize if I’ve alarmed you.”

Now she just sounded like an old lady again. Absolutely typical, nothing scary. It was easy to let go of the uncomfortable question of how she knew the origin of my name and to return to the idea that she needed to be accounted for somehow.

“What’s your last name?” I asked her.

She shrugged, not a care in the world. “Don’t remember. Must have had one once, but I don’t anymore. I’m just known as Charlie around the clouds, so that’s what you can call me. Unless you want me to make up a last name. I can do that.”

“All right, why don’t you?” Chances seemed decent that she might “make up” her own real last name and I could call Lex or Sandy or someone to have them figure this out.

“Let’s see . .” She tapped her finger against her chin, then looked at me and raised an eyebrow. “Smith?”

I shook my head.

“Jones.”

“Nope.”

“Moneypenny!”

“That’s from James Bond.”

“Oh, but it’s such a fine last name. All shiny and coppery. I do love it.”

I sighed.

“Carpenter.”

“That’s my last name.”

“I know, dear. You see?” She tapped a pudgy index finger against her temple. “I did it again, slipped it right in there.”

“How do you know my name?” Then it occurred to me—the company newsletter. Maybe she was a relative of someone who worked at Simon’s, which would explain why she was here, and she’d seen my picture and maybe even heard a story from someone I’d had an unlikely conversation with.

“I really think we should contact your family to let them know that you’re all right.”

She looked bereft for a moment, then said, “I don’t have family here.”

“In town?”

“On earth.”

It was obvious I wasn’t going to get anywhere with this line of questioning, so I gave up. “Fine. I’ll call you Charlie, and we’ll forget the last name for the moment.”

“Excellent. Noelle.”

I looked again at the shoes. What a mess. It was going to be a long night. “Do you want to try to help me put these back, Charlie?”

“Of course! I’m the reason for the mess, after all.” She bustled over to the pink hat and set it crookedly atop her head, then gave me a nod as if to say, Now I’m ready to work!

“So first let’s just match up shoe styles, then size, then find the boxes, how does that sound?”

“Like I’ve created a heck of a mess.”

“You have.” I laughed. “But we’re going to fix that.”

We set about collecting styles and pairs, which wasn’t as bad as it had seemed like it would be, since of course everything had fallen straight off the shelves and onto the floor in front of where it had been. It wasn’t as if shoes had ended up thirty feet away from each other.

“So what do you do for work?” I asked Charlie casually.

“Angel,” she said. “Not a very good one.” She was focused on picking up shoes, with not a hint of self-consciousness in her voice or facial expression. “I’m working on guardian angel.” She glanced at me. “You’re my first. They always give the klutzes like me to the nice ones like you.”

I was momentarily flattered until I remembered that what she was saying was nuts. “What did you do before that?”

“I can’t say I remember.”

“You can’t remember?”

“My life here, on earth. That’s what you’re asking, isn’t it?”

“I guess so.” This was too weird.

“I don’t remember it. I did once, but I’ve been gone a long, long time. At least by your standards.”

The idea of that being true—though I totally wasn’t believing it—struck me as inestimably sad. A whole life forgotten?

“Oh, it was a long time ago,” she said, as if reading my mind. “I’m surrounded by my loved ones now; it’s just that no one can remember who was what.” She chuckled heartily. “Now and again, I have had the feeling I was a seamstress, though.”

“Yeah?”

“Or a cook.” She shrugged. “I’m very picky about both. The hem on this dress”—she gestured—“it just makes me bonkers. The stitches are too big, too loopy, and so the hem isn’t right.”

I looked at her hem, but nothing was obviously shoddy.

“Then again…” She sighed. “I do love to eat. I haven’t eaten in ages. Absolute ages.”

I hadn’t either, come to think of it, and I remembered Gemma’s description of the cheeses in the kitchen. “Want to go grab a bite in the restaurant?” I asked her.

“What? Is it open?”

I laughed. “Well, no. The entire store is closed. Which is why I was so surprised that you’re here.” I felt like I should ask again if anyone was looking for her, but, honestly, she seemed a lot more like some poor soul who had gotten stuck and wanted to make a good story of it than a kook who didn’t know who or where she was. She was going a bit heavy on the guardian-angel bit, which made me think she’d probably watched a few too many Christmas movies and found the perfect way to occupy herself on an otherwise-lonely Christmas Eve.

She was certainly occupying me. I have to confess, I was kind of enjoying playing out my little Christmas story.

“Let’s go grab a bite, then come back and finish up here.”

“Very well,” she said, following my lead as I walked out into the brightly lit store. “Is my hat okay?” she asked.

I turned and looked at her. What had been a pink blob on the floor, with a crooked feather, was now a pink blob on her head, with a crooked feather. “It’s perfect,” I told her.

We made our way to Filigree, a little Mary Poppins/Cherry Tree Lane of a spot, with twisted white wrought-iron gates and delicate tables and chairs, and a commercial kitchen that was equipped to cook for a legitimate army.

I, however, was not fit to cook for an army. I was used to cooking, rather poorly, for myself. My repertoire was quite limited. “Do you like cheese?” Everyone likes cheese, right?

She shook her head. “No, dear. Makes me gassy, I’m afraid.”

“Egg and toast?” I offered.

“That sounds lovely.

“Excellent.” I took out a couple of plates, found a few slices of bread, plus butter and eggs from the fridge, and took a pan down from the rack and put it on the stove to heat. My mother used to call these Bull’s-eye Eggs. I buttered the bread and placed it buttered side down in the pan. “So what makes you think you’re a guardian angel?”

“They said you’d be like this.”

“Who said I’d be like what?”

“Not just you,” she hastened to correct. “They said everyone is like this. I imagine I would have been, too. Or was.” She drifted off into thought for a moment, and I watched her. “I just don’t know.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “You lost me.”

“Oh! Oh! Yes indeed. They, the crew above, they said that no one ever believes anymore. That everyone is skeptical and thinks they’re dealing with a loon.” She narrowed her eyes and looked at me. “Do you think you’re dealing with a loon?”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “But I don’t think I’m dealing with a guardian angel.”

She seemed to consider that, then gave a nod of acceptance. “That’s fair.”

“No offense, of course.”

“None taken, I assure you.”

I took out a small glass and cut a hole into each piece of toast with it, then cracked an egg into each and topped them with salt and pepper. As I watched the egg grow white around the edges, I asked, “If you’re a guardian angel sent to me on purpose, why?”

“Because this is the time of year you reflect the most and feel the worst,” she answered simply.

An easy guess, though. I mean, you can’t swing a cat by the tail without hitting someone who hates the holidays.

“I don’t hate the holidays,” I said, without a lot of conviction.

“I didn’t say you did. You said that.”

“Okay, I don’t feel the worst during the holidays.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“I hate the holidays.” I flipped the eggs and put the circle I’d cut out of them back over the yolks in the center. “I do, I hate the holidays. There, I said it.” After a few seconds, I scooped an egg-and-toast onto each plate and took them over to the table where Charlie was sitting. She’d already opened our wrapped silverware. “Hot sauce? Ketchup?” I asked, ready to retrieve them.

“We’re getting there,” she said, and I realized she thought I’d said catch up.

“No, I mean, do you want ketchup or hot sauce? For your eggs?”

She looked at me, utterly puzzled.

So I added, “Or are they fine like this?”

“This is fine,” she agreed, then delicately cut a piece of bread off with her knife and fork. She popped it into her mouth and said, “Mmmmmmm. It’s been so long.”

There was no way to know whether she meant it felt like a long time since lunch or if she hadn’t eaten since her mortal days who-knows-how-many-years-ago, though I was pretty sure if I asked her she would answer that it was the latter. So I just said, “Bon appétit.”

We ate in silence for a few minutes, but it was nice. How often does a person have a chance like this, to eat in a favorite restaurant virtually alone? Admittedly it would have been better if Gemma had been in the kitchen making some of her fabulous concoctions, but this was pretty ideal as it was, especially since the one of us who did not get gassy from cheese went and made a plate of creamy Brie with balsamic cherries, sweet and tart Gorgonzola Dolce, hard aged Parmesan with crystals of flavor in every flake, and a rich Morbier with its vein of ash running through the middle.

Overhead, the Cocteau Twins started singing “Frosty the Snowman” on the never-ending loop of holiday music that played over the system, and my spirits soared.

“Anyway,” Charlie went on, “I’m here to help you get over your troubles.”

“But I’m not troubled!”

“Does it bother you that you’re stuck at work here on a beautiful Christmas Eve?”

“No!”

“Not even when the rest of the world is warm and cozy in their homes with their families, watching the snow come down, sitting by a crackling fire, maybe singing around a piano or lighting candles or doing whatever rituals each of them has?”

“Does that make me feel bad? No, of course not.”

She leaned fractionally forward. “Do you ever wish you had your own traditions and routines on this day?”

“I’ve never even thought about it.”

“There you go. That’s trouble.” She jabbed her fork at me for emphasis. “Most people want to be with family and friends today, but you’re just fine being locked in a retail establishment where you toil forty or more hours every week.”

“I love my work!”

“That’s all very well and good, missy, but you also love avoiding life.”

My ire raised, even while I knew there was an uncomfortable level of truth to what she was saying. “That’s not true.”

She took the last bite of her egg, looked at my empty plate, and shrugged. “If it weren’t true, then you wouldn’t need me. And, believe you me, you do. I believe you should have had a visit a long, long time ago. But, of course, I wasn’t ready then. Zooterkins, they gave me a tough case to begin with, didn’t they?”

I sighed. “Maybe you don’t need to try, then?”

She shook her head, essentially pooh-poohing me. “Let’s go back and clean up the shoes. I have the most marvelous idea.”