Then she looked at the clock. It was almost closing time.
Having waited a few more moments for any late evening stragglers, Holly eventually grabbed her coat and turned the sign to Closed. She had a whole rack of clothes to take over to Thuma for dry-cleaning, and a box of donations to take over to Sacred Heart, as per Carole’s instructions.
Having dropped off the dry-cleaning, she popped back to the shop to collect the donations and, lifting the heavy cardboard box to her chest, went back out and made her way slowly down the street.
Pausing in front of Encore, she noticed how quiet it was inside. When she walked in, Frank the owner was waving at her from the register.
‘So slow over there that you've decided to come over and help me?’ he teased.
He was a slender man, with thinning reddish hair and a large moustache. He, like Carole, had been downtown for years, holding on to his little thrift store with all his might, except his shop had not so much evolved like The Secret Closet had, but had simply become more overcrowded. Frank’s checkout counter was up on a platform as they were in the old days, so he could have full view of the store to see if there were any shoplifters. As a result, his customers would have to strain to reach the counter in order to check out. The effect was amusing.
Holly smiled at him, ‘Nope.’ She indicated the box she was holding. ‘Just popping down to Father Mike with a couple of things, if you wanted to add to them. It's pretty cold out these days, you know,’ she added pointedly.
Frank waved his hands in feigned annoyance. ‘Well I don't have time now. I’m just about to close up.’
Holly smiled inwardly; she knew he would try and get out of it somehow. ‘It's OK; I'll just go through the racks and pick out a few things myself. Unlike you, I'm a pro at this.’
Frank practically flew down from his perch behind the register. He sighed. ‘OK. Just nothing with too good a label – that’s all I ask.’
The two of them slowly made their way along the racks, and Frank started to get into it, checking coats for tears and stains and actually picking out the best ones (though the labels weren't fancy) to serve as donations.
‘So you have a heart after all,’ Holly teased.
He waved his hand dismissively. ‘Nah, I already told you, Max took it when he left me.’
Frank’s partner had left him over a year ago, having hot-tailed it to Florida with a much younger man. The only good thing, claimed Frank, was that he had left behind everything he owned, which he immediately put up for sale in his shop.
‘You haven't found anyone since?’ Holly asked.
‘Oh, I have found plenty of anyones!’ he laughed. ‘Just nottheone.’
Holly nodded and the two of them continued to work through the racks in silence. She shook her head to herself. Here they were in the biggest, busiest city in the world, where you would have to think you’d easily bump into the person of your dreams. They could be passing through, or visiting, working nearby or even taking in a Broadway show. But it seemed everyone Holly knew was single, lonely and searching. Of course, she herself was not searching; she had too much going on with Danny. But it would be nice to have someone special in her life sometime.
‘What about you, Holly?’ Frank asked, as if reading her mind. They had reached the end of the rack and the box was now full to bursting. ‘Any dates recently?’
She laughed. ‘I have a date every night, remember? His name is Danny.’
‘Oh please! How old is he now? Give it a few short years and he'll be out on dates himself – then what will you do?’
Holly paused. She hadn't really given it that much thought, but Frank did have a point. The last ten years had flown by. It seemed only yesterday that she was rocking Danny as an infant, and now he had just turned ten. It seemed unfathomable.
Frank smiled at her thoughtful expression and added some more fuel to the fire. ‘And of course men age so much more gracefully than women. Let's see … fifteen is the age of staying out in this city. So that's just five years from now – which would bring you to the ripe old age of … what, forty?’
‘Frank – enough!’ Holly exclaimed. ‘If that's the case, all I'll need to do is to come and hang out with you on a Saturday night, seeing as you’re telling me you don’t go anywhere.’
But his words had struck a chord with her. Danny was growing up so fast, and already she could see him pulling away. What would she do when he did?
Holly closed up the box and thanked Jack again, who gave her a dry peck on the cheek as she left.
Carefully making her way down the already slippery path, she headed up to Sixth Street. Sacred Heart was one of the oldest churches in the city, and Holly loved dropping off donations there. There was something very peaceful about walking into a dusty, empty church. She wasn't a terribly religious person these days – the family used to attend Mass back in Queens when she was younger, but her dad always said that all you needed for a church was a few people hanging around talking about good things. Which she figured was as good a description as any.
Holly frowned as she walked up the steps. Had she failed spiritually with Danny? She was concentrating so hard on keeping it all together, with providing for him and making sure his life was steady, it was all too easy to overlook that side of things. He had asked about his grandfather a couple of times, and Holly had told him that Seamus was in heaven, which seemed to satisfy him.
She heaved open the door and her boots clicked as she walked down the centre aisle towards the altar. Holly wasn't sure about heaven herself, and she remembered being so angry when her father died – at least until the arrival of her beloved bracelet.
She stopped alongside the altar and peered through the dusty air to the office in the back. ‘Hello, Father Mike?’ she called out tentatively.
‘Holly? Back here,’ a chipper voice sounded from the enclave.
