As she made her way to Greenwich Village after safely seeing Danny to the school gates, Holly marvelled once again at the fairy lights that seemed to dominate the city streets in this part of town. Bleecker Street was often covered in lights anyway, but at this time of year they were festive rather than just funky.
She checked her watch and stopped by her usual deli, a Korean place on the corner of Tenth and Waverly, for a cup of coffee. Warming her hands around the hot cardboard cup, she held it to her face, letting the steam rise. Even though she had been working at the vintage store for almost four years, she could still not get the journey to work down pat. She was always late, despite the short walk from her place via Danny’s school only a few blocks away.
As she quickened her pace, she stole a look at some of the other store windows and paused for a moment in front of Encore, The Secret Closet’s main competition. Encorehad some hot pepper lights around the window frame and a display of handbags in muted leathers and plaids. A mannequin wearing full-on fifties evening dress stood in one corner of the window, and another wearing a motorcycle jacket and jeansà laJames Dean crouched in another. Holly shook her head fondly. An out-and-out thrift-store display. Pity, as she could tell the bags were authentic, and it was even possible that the evening dress on the mannequin might well have been worn by someone like Greta Garbo at some point.
Frank, the owner, just did not know how to dress a window. Suddenly the man himself appeared from behind the James Dean mannequin and waved at her happily, pointing to the display and giving her a thumbs-up suggesting, ‘Not bad, huh?’ Holly laughed and returned the gesture.
Her boss Carole was already at work when she arrived at the store, as the shutters were up but no lights were on yet. Holly pushed the door open, letting in cold air, and the bells that hung from the knob jingled.
‘Morning Carole!’ she called cheerily, as she worked to brush some stray hair out of her face and wipe melting snow from her pink cheeks.
‘I'm in the back, be out in a sec,’ a thin voice called from the rear of the store.
Holly unwound her scarf and folded it up along with her bag behind the counter.
She began switching on the lights that accented the various clothing racks around the room. Her boots clacked on the polished hardwood floor, and she could glimpse flashes of herself in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors that graced each wall.
There were only about ten racks out at a time; Carole liked to rotate clothing by season, keeping an eye on the trends that her many stylist clients (as well as the latest issue ofVogue) clued her into.
Each rack was stainless steel and uncrowded, and each beautifully restored and pressed vintage piece hung carefully on its own wooden hanger. Carole was strict about every garment being hung four inches apart from the next; she hated customers having to dig through piles of clothes to find something.
There were simple ladder-style shelves in one corner of the room, upon which hats and scarves were meticulously displayed, and in front of the windows, facing inwards, were two long benches with glass cases full of smaller accessories – brooches, hairclips and fascinators.
Holly leaned into the store window to make sure there was no dirt on the glass. Their window display could not have been more different than Encore's. Carole found regular store mannequins tacky, so ages back she had got hold of two dress dummies from a Metropolitan Museum of Arts costume exhibit.
How she had managed it, Holly never knew, but they looked great. Beautifully sculpted in wood and covered with a sheer layer of creamy velvet, one dummy wore a black Ralph Lauren pinstripe suit from the sixties, and the other an Oscar de la Renta early seventies lace ivory floor-length dress.
There was nothing else in the display, but good lighting and a view to the inside.
Most days Carole was out on the prowl for that perfect vintage piece, even attending Sotheby's auctions when she knew a big estate was being sold off, but most of her mornings were spent going through new stock and donations. A percentage of all their profits automatically went to the Red Cross, and as the store had a distinguished and wealthy client base, the prices were not for the faint of heart.
Holly looked up, suddenly noticing the UPS delivery person standing in front of the counter. ‘Oh gosh, Harold, I’m sorry, I was daydreaming … can I help you?’ She recognised their usual delivery person, who visited their store at least once a week. ‘I hope you haven’t been waiting long.’
‘Not long. A real winter wonderland out there today, isn’t it?’ he commented in a thick Brooklyn accent.
‘I know, isn’t it beautiful? The perfect start to the season,’ Holly said dreamily, completely missing the sardonic undercurrent.
‘Yeah. Ho-ho-ho,’ Harold replied dully. ‘You might change your tune if you had to drive that monster around the streets of Manhattan all day.’ He motioned to the brown UPS truck that idled by the kerb, turning the snow under its wheels to a dull grey sludge.
‘Oh Harold, stop. Surely you can still appreciate the holiday spirit,’ Holly smiled. ‘New York is especially magical round this time of year.’
‘Yeah, well, I’d appreciate some holiday magic in the form of a signature. Park an extra minute longer than necessary in the Village and I’m cited for blocking traffic. Corporate justloveswhen that happens, and I need my bonus this year, so if you don’t mind … ’
‘Of course. We wouldn’t want you to get in trouble.’ Holly took the electronic signature pad from him and scribbled her name with loops and swirls. ‘Here you go.’
Carole emerged from the backroom of the store, looking completely on task and focused, and well put-together in an Yves St Laurent suit. She held a variety of clothes on hangers, all ready to be displayed out front. Holly’s boss was in her sixties and had been living and working downtown since the 1970s. She had held on to The Secret Closet all that time, transforming it from a dowdy thrift store that once sold mismatched tea cups and old toasters next to used pea coats into what it was today, a streamlined and chic designer vintage clothing store.
Plump with a short pixie cut, Carole dyed her hair a deep red and always wore dramatic eye makeup. ‘It’s my signature,’ she had told Holly once, and Holly could see why. Her eyes were huge and almond-shaped, stunning. Her boss was typically brusque by nature, but Holly knew she appreciated her work. The two women had become close over the years, each knowing they could depend on the other to do whatever needed to get done.
‘Oh I’m sorry Harold, I thought I heard the front door open. I was up to my elbows trying to get this stuff out before we opened,’ she said.
‘Don’t worry about it, Carole, Holly was here to help me,’ Harold said. ‘She was just telling me all about the magic of the season,’ he added mischievously.
‘Ah yes, I should have figured,’ Carole said drolly. ‘As if you couldn’t already tell from her name, our Holly just loves Christmas.’ She turned to her employee. ‘I’m sure you were skipping through the streets singing “Jingle Bells”?’
Holly shrugged off the teasing; they knew her well. ‘Well, if I thought I was going to be facing the Ghost of Christmas Past and Ebenezer Scrooge, I would have taken my time getting here.’
Carole chuckled. ‘So what do we have Harold? How many boxes?’ No aspect of operations slipped through without Carole noticing. Her organisational skills and attention to detail was one of the reasons the store was so successful.
