Chapter
2
Fingering the news article Georgia had so proudly sent from Maryland, Zoey rested her elbows on the glass counter and leaned forward to reread the feature that a local paper had run on Georgia’s dance troupe. That the reporter had chosen her little sister as the focus of the article had provided Zoey with an unexpected and unwanted twinge of envy. Zoey studied the photograph that accompanying the article. A frail but happy Georgia in light-colored leggings and a long knitted shirt, sleeves pushed to the elbows, leaned against the doorway of the dance studio, her golden hair falling casually around her face, her legs crossed at the ankles. She looked pleased and sure of herself. Which she had, Zoey reminded herself, earned the right to be.
With a sigh, Zoey dropped the article onto the glass, where it fell upon the program from the ballet she and her mother had attended the previous Wednesday evening. While Georgia’s role had been minor, she had danced with the joy and energy of one who clearly loved every step she took. Delia had made no effort to hide the tears of pride that had begun the second her youngest had stepped onto the stage and illuminated it with her presence. Georgia was a fairy princess come to life, with her thick blond hair and round pale green eyes set in that tiny angel’s face. Zoey recalled how hard Georgia had worked for so very long, giving up everything else for the sake of her dancing. Delia should be proud of her daughter.
For a moment Zoey wondered what it would feel like to find that kind of success in a job you loved, to earn that kind of pride from your family, to find your path and follow it to the stars. With each passing day, it was becoming more and more obvious that the path leading to My Favorite Things was veering farther and farther from success and happiness and closer and closer to one marked by a going-out-of-business sign.
“Damn,” she whispered, “it had seemed like such a good idea at the time. . . . .”
Forcing herself to shake off a feeling of gloom, Zoey chucked another small piece of wood into the small woodstove, having decided early that morning that she’d need a little something extra to dispel the dampness that seemed to permeate the old structure. The new heating system installed during the renovations just didn’t seem to do the trick.
“Well, what we are lacking in heat, we make up for in style,” Zoey said aloud to her shop, empty of customers but crammed to the rafters with an endless array of wonderful things. “Yup. No one can ever say that Zoey Enright lacks flair.”
“And flair, as we all know,” she noted as she draped a small round table with a lace cloth, giving a saucy little flip to the edges before smoothing it gently, “is one of those things you just have to be born with.” She pulled a small settee up close to the table on one side, then set a small wicker chair at the other.
“Now, what do you say, Miss Maude?” Zoey addressed a large handmade stuffed mouse dressed in a calico pinafore and a large garden hat from which all manner of blooms tumbled over a wide brim to partially obscure the mouse’s carefully embroidered face. The tiny faces of an entire litter of mouse babies peeked over the sides of the basket which rested in the mouse lady’s arms. “Which tea set should we use today? Something painted at the turn of the century by someone’s great aunt Hattie perhaps? Yes, I think so, too.”
Zoey lifted a stack of small, delicate plates, each decorated with spring flowers. “China painting, you know—now, Miss Felicity, I’m sure you will have a personal recollection of this”—Zoey turned and addressed an antique doll with a china head and a faded blue silk dress—“china painting having been such a popular pastime among genteel ladies when you were in your prime. So difficult to find acceptable outlets for one’s creativity a hundred years ago. And it would appear that great-aunt Hattie—see, here’s her name, Hattie Jerome, painted right here beneath the flowers—was fond of spring things. Or maybe it was the color purple, in all its shades and variations, that she loved. Look here at the plates . . . violets, hyacinths, lilac and pansies. Aren’t they just too lovely?”
Zoey set the table for three, rinsed out the teapot, then filled it with coffee, which she poured from a small coffee maker that sat on a table behind the cash register. Zoey had thought to keep the pot filled to have something to offer her customers. It occurred to her that lately she had been drinking a lot more coffee than she was accustomed to, and that the pot was seeing a lot more activity than the cash register.
“Oh, yes, of course, Miss Felicity, I am aware that tea was the beverage of choice among ladies, but one must, on occasion, make do. I myself prefer a nice cup of Lemon Zinger, but I left the box at home, so it’s coffee or nothing.” She plumped a variety of handmade pillows, some needlepoint, some velvet patchwork, on the settee, then propped up Miss Maude at one end and Miss Felicity at the other. Zoey herself perched on the wicker chair. Opening a box of Girl Scout cookies, she placed one on each painted plate, explaining, “I get to keep the box because I’m the human and it’s my fantasy. What’s the matter, there, Maudie, cat got your tongue? Oops, sorry. How totally insensitive of me.”
Zoey sipped at her coffee and munched first her cookie, then those she had placed on the plates of her silent companions, noting, “Well, the mints are my favorite, too, but the kid selling these door-to-door was all out, so I opted for the Trefoils, okay? If you don’t like butter cookies, just say so.
“Okay, if you’re going to give me the cold shoulder . . .” Reaching behind her, Zoey slid the morning paper from her tote bag. “I know it’s rude to read at the table, but you guys aren’t exactly holding up your end of the conversation, you know. Much as I love you all, this would be a lot more fun for me if one of you would say something once in a while,’ cause I love to talk, and not having anyone to talk with is making me crazy.”
Leaning back in the chair, Zoey skimmed the headlines, occasionally reading aloud an entire item that snagged her attention. “Oh, listen to this.” She brightened as she read the headline on the front of the business section. “‘Valentine, Inc. Finalizes Purchase of Shop-From-Home Network.’ Shop from home. Now, that is a concept I could get behind.” She read through the article twice, once to herself, the second time aloud. “‘Edward Bruce, spokesperson for Valentine, Inc., has announced the purchase of the station, which will be run by Val-Tech, the cable television company owned by Valentine. The station will be extending its broadcast hours from its present sixteen to twenty-four hours of continuous live broadcasting each day, and will mark a new venture for Valentine. The new channel, dubbed the Home MarketPlace, will continue to offer viewers the opportunity to purchase items that will be displayed and demonstrated on their television screen. The Home MarketPlace will join several other shop from home stations already being broadcast, but will, Bruce promised, “bring ValTech’s own special touch to this still relatively new retail outlet.” The Home MarketPlace plans to begin interviewing this week for new faces to add to its on-the-air sales staff.
Zoey sat silently staring across the table for a long moment, her eyes resting absently on the basket of baby mice.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she addressed her mute company. “You’re thinking that this has my name all over it. And you’re right. It does. I’m a natural. It’s everything I love. Everything I do best. Shopping. Selling. Talking.” She stood up, then slowly began to pace. “You know, when I had my brief run with the news, the only part of the job I really enjoyed was talking on camera.”
Zoey turned on the small television set that stood at one end of the counter, and flipped along the dial until she found a shopping channel. She sat down on the high wooden stool and watched for several long minutes as the woman on the screen described a bedspread in the most careful detail.
“I can do that,” Zoey announced. Picking up a pair of handmade copper earrings, she proceeded to sing their praises, mimicking the woman on the television screen. When she had finished her little sales pitch, she sat back on the stool and repeated, “I can do that,” with unquestioned conviction.
Lifting Miss Maude and her basket of babies from the settee, Zoey held them to her chest and crossed the wooden floor to the window, where sheets of water distorted the view outside the shop, and contemplated the facts. My Favorite Things was a screaming failure. There was no way around it. The longer the shop remained open, the more money Delia would sink into it, and the more money she would lose. Not that she had ever complained. Money had long ceased to be an issue to Delia. Her daughter’s happiness, on the other hand, meant everything. Zoey knew that she could keep the shop open forever, continue to lose money, and Delia would never chastise her for it, as long as Zoey was happy.
But Zoey was not happy, could not be happy, in a losing venture. The shop was perfect, its contents wonderful, but it had failed to thrive. Georgia had been right. It was, sadly, the wrong location for such upscale items. And isn’t that what the real estate people say is the most critical thing—location, location, location?
She lifted the newspaper and read through the article yet a third time. The new station would be located less than twenty miles from where she stood. There was even a number listed to call to arrange for an audition. Were the gods telling her something?
Well, then, perhaps we should hear what they have to say, she mused as she lifted the receiver and punched in the numbers. The call was answered on the third ring by the light, pleasant voice of a young woman.
“Welcome to ValTech. How may I direct your call?”
* * *
Five days later, armed with written directions and high hopes, Zoey drove through the stone gates of her mother’s home and headed toward Lancaster. With all the construction on Route 30, Zoey had missed the turn and driven almost as far as Soudersburg before she figured out where she had gone wrong, turned around, and headed in the right direction once again. Having successfully located the correct cross road, she had driven through one small town after another, past Amish farms generations old, as well as new housing developments, and fields that waited for the spring plows to turn over the earth. Zoey followed the directions she’d been given over the phone, taking what appeared to be one small backcountry road after another to a place called Lanning’s Corner, which turned out to be every bit the one-horse town that its name implied.
Finally, she sighed with relief as she approached the drive announced by a sign: “ValTech—Home of the Home MarketPlace.” Following its winding trail to the low-slung two-story brick and glass building, she parked in a visitors’ spot and glanced at her watch. She was forty minutes late. Damn.
Zoey pulled the mirrored visor down and quickly studied her reflection. She touched up the blush on her cheeks and refreshed her lipstick. With her hands she fluffed up her hair, then took a deep breath and swung her legs out of the little sports car and stretched to get the kinks out.
Biting her lip as she smoothed the short skirt of her poppy red silk suit, Zoey straightened up to her full height of five feet six inches tall—in two-inch heels, that is—and gave the car door a slam.
She was here. She looked great. She would knock them dead.
Assuming, of course, that she hadn’t missed her appointment.
“You do realize that you are forty-two minutes late,” the young receptionist said by way of a greeting. “I’m not certain that there is anyone here now who can speak with you.”
“I understand.” Zoey forced a smile onto her face and raised her chin just a tad. “I got lost. . . .”
“Well, that is unfortunate, but I think Mr. Pressman has left the building—”
A girlish giggle from around the corner of the hall drew the attention of Zoey and the receptionist.
A shapely blonde bearing a startling resemblance to Marilyn Monroe rounded the corner, followed closely by a tall, lean, middle-aged man in a dark gray suit.
“Oh, Mr. Pressman,” the receptionist addressed the man, “I wasn’t sure if you were still here. Miss”—she looked down at Zoey’s résumé—“Enright has arrived for her interview.”
He looked across the hall and focused on Zoey momentarily, then smiled—a bit foolishly, Zoey thought, like a little boy who is trying to sneak out of the house to play baseball when he knows he is supposed to be practicing his piano scales.
“Ah . . . yes. Miss . . .”
“Ah, perhaps, Kelly,” he addressed the receptionist, “ah, possibly Brian could interview Miss Enright. I was just on my way to . . . lunch, you see. . . .”
“I’ll see if he is in.” The receptionist’s wary eyes followed Pressman and the giggly blonde as they passed through the front doors. She and Zoey exchanged a glance of having just seen the same ghost. “Have a seat, Miss Enright. I’ll see what I can do.”
Several moments passed before the elevator doors opened and a young man stepped into the lobby.
“Zoey Enright,” the receptionist told him, pointing a ballpoint pen in Zoey’s direction.
“Brian Lansky.” He crossed the lobby in three strides. “You’re here for an interview. Right this way . . .”
Thirty feet down the hall he turned to the right and led her through a doorway and flicked on the lights to reveal a set, which consisted of little more than a desk and a solid pale yellow painted backdrop.
“Tell me about yourself,” he said to Zoey, “while I try to locate a cameraman. . . .”
“Well, I’m twenty-eight. I live in Westboro, Pennsylvania. I have a degree in English from Villanova, I am currently in sales—actually, I have my own business. . . .” She rambled on, despite the distinct feeling that no one was paying the least bit of attention to her.
Brian sat on the edge of the desk, punching numbers into a telephone, nodding and murmuring “Uh-hnn” every few minutes or so.
He put the phone down and said, “The cameraman must have left for lunch. I would hate to make you come back, so let’s see if I can operate this myself.”
He fiddled with the camera, then stepped out from behind it and took a quick glance around the room. He crossed the room and lifted an item from the windowsill and handed it to her before stepping back behind the camera. “What can you tell me about this?”
“It’s a can opener . . . ?” a confused Zoey ventured.
“Right,” Lansky said from behind the camera. “Sell it to me.”
“Excuse me?”
“The camera is rolling, Miss Enright. Sell me the can opener.”
And sell she did.
Flashing her best smile, she looked directly into the lens. Filled with the same sense of being on that she recalled from her news reporting days, Zoey launched into a sales pitch that would become the standard by which future auditions would be judged.
“When I was six years old, we had a snowstorm to beat all storms. All of the electrical lines in our neighborhood went down. We had to build a big fire in the living room fireplace to keep warm. We did have a gas stove, but everything else in that house ran on electricity. To keep us busy, Mom let us help bake bread in the afternoon and we ate dinner that night all huddled around the fire—this wonderful crusty homemade bread and chicken noodle soup. Even though the soup came out of a can, I remember that as one of the best meals ever. My brother and sister and I still talk about that day.” Zoey held up the manual can opener. “It just goes to show that you can own all the latest equipment—God knows I like my gadgets as well as the next person—but you simply cannot do without the basics.”
“Cut.” Brian rose from his stool.
“How’d I do?” Zoey grinned.
“Would you mind waiting right there for a minute?”
“Sure.”
Within minutes, Brian returned with an executive type—Ken Powers—and a cameraman.
“If you wouldn’t mind . . .” Brian handed her a letter opener. “We’d like to run one more tape..”
“Sure.” And Zoey proceeded to sing the virtues of the letter opener, convincing all who listened that without that little piece of polished brass, everything from Christmas cards to wedding invitations to letters from a favorite grandchild would forever be locked away. She had just launched into a discourse on paper cuts when Brian stopped her.
“Miss Enright, if you’re not in a hurry, we’d like to take another look at the first tape. Perhaps just a short wait . . . ?”
“Not a problem,” she assured him, inwardly raising a fist in triumph and shouting YES!, knowing it was in the bag.
“Let’s see if I can find someone to bring you a cup of coffee.”
“So, has there been a big response to the ad?” Zoey nonchalantly inquired of the young assistant who brought her a cup of dark and terrible brew.
“You wouldn’t believe it.” Eddie rolled his eyes to the heavens, and proceeded to tell her about the hordes who had come in to tape an audition.
He was interrupted by the ringing of the phone.
“They want you in Ken’s office,” Eddie told her. “This way . . .”
Zoey followed him out of the studio and to the bank of elevators. “Second floor. First door to the left off the lobby. Good luck.” He winked and punched the 2 button.
“Ah, here she is.” Ken stepped from behind his desk to greet her as she knocked softly on the partially opened door. “Miss Enright, this is Ted Higgins, vice president in charge of hiring our hosts and hostesses. We think that sounds more in keeping with the image we want to create. Now, salespeople can be found in any retail outlet, but hosts invite you in, hopefully, to shop. Miss Enright, we’ve all seen your tapes, and there’s no question that you have a most inviting way about you.”
A chair was held out for her and she sat in it.
“We think you have exactly that right combination of professionalism, charm, intelligence, poise—not to mention your natural gift of gab, if you don’t mind my saying so. The camera loves you, and you have a great look—sort of a cross between Miss America and the girl next door. . . . We think you’d be very appealing.” Ted Higgins all but beamed.
“We all agree that you’re a natural,” Ken added.
“Well, I do love to shop. . . .” Zoey nodded modestly.
“We’re hoping you can convince millions of TV viewers that they will love to shop with you.” Higgins smiled. “And from the looks of those tapes, I’d say you could probably sell just about anything to anyone. Relax, Miss Enright, and let’s talk about your future with the Home MarketPlace. . . .”