21

YOU HAVE BEEN ELECTED CHAIRMAN
OF THE BOARD.

Chance card, Monopoly

Mimi Pink was thinking big. “What we need,” she said to her assistant in the Porcelain Parlor, “is an organization of retailers. All our own people.”

“Well,” said Bonnie Glover, “there’s, you know, the Concord Chamber of Commerce.”

Mimi laughed scornfully. “The Chamber of Commerce, what good is that? A lot of old-fashioned people stuffing themselves with pancakes and sausage once a month at the Colonial Inn. No imagination. No creativity. No, we need our own team, our own elite corps.”

“Oh, fabulous,” murmured Bonnie Glover. “Fabulous” was Bonnie’s noncommittal way of saying “Hmmm.”

They pondered over names for the new organization. “Coalition of Concord Shops?” suggested Mimi.

“Fantastic,” said Bonnie automatically.

But Mimi shot it down herself. The word coalition implied equality among the participants, and that was out, because as the owner of all the shops, Mimi herself must be more equal than the rest.

In the end she came up with Consortium of Concord Boutiques.

“Awesome,” said Bonnie, clapping her hands, sensing that this was Mimi’s choice, this was it.

“The Consortium for short,” said Mimi.

The first meeting of the Consortium of Concord Boutiques was called for July 17 in the Porcelain Parlor immediately after closing hours.

“The meeting will come to order,” said Mimi, smiling at her audience, enjoying the way they had all adopted a Mimi Pink look.

Bonnie Glover was the best clone. Bonnie was extremely pretty in her own right, and she had made the most of her endowments. But the others, too, were good demonstrations of the Pink style. Narrow skirts rode high over black nylon knees. That year the fashion was for big football shoulders, and Mimi’s were wider than anybody’s. There was hardly room along the rows of folding chairs for the bundles of shoulder padding crowded together side by side. Everyone’s hair had been blown into fluffy exaggerated shapes like Mimi’s and sprayed with a glistening coating. Fingernails were silver, scarlet, baby pink. All Mimi’s people were drenched in scent from the Parfumerie. Swooning fragrances blended in an olfactory mishmash.

Reverently they listened as Mimi held forth. “I’ve got people begging me for space right now, with the darlingest ideas. Potpourris Unlimited has been after me for a year. And Loving Hearts—you know, those specialty shops that sell heart-shaped things—they want a shop here, too, and there’s a new little chain, Ladybugs, exclusive knitwear with the ladybug emblem. I’m dickering for more space. And I’m hiring the interior designer for Hyatt Hotels.”

Mimi Pink was throwing the dice, throwing the dice, hopping over the less important properties on the Monopoly board, aiming for some ultimate perfection of real estate, some glorious Park Place, some supremely up-market Boardwalk with towers of alabaster.

Everyone in the room felt part of something important. It was especially fantastic to be here in the Porcelain Parlor surrounded by the most expensive merchandise in town. The fabulous price tags on the china figures cast a spell. The track lighting was artfully arranged to shine on the glass shelves with their fragile images of bluebirds among apple blossoms and mothers cuddling babies and nubile girls with windblown skirts. In the place of honor perched a porcelain imitation of azalea twigs adorned with lifelike magenta flowers. Its price tag was seven hundred and fifty dollars.

Across Route 2 on the south side of town, deep in the woods between Walden Pond and the Sudbury River, Homer Kelly and Ananda Singh were ankle deep in the cushiony moss covering the surface of the fourth Andromeda Pond. Above them on the hillside stood a row of oaks, vast round globes of moving leaves, nodding in the soft breeze like dreaming old men who had lost the power of speech.

Swamp azaleas blossomed here and there. No price tags hung from their fragrant branches. They were altogether free.