‘Paying customers, I hope?’ he announced pointedly as Holly and Danny approached him. The girls ignored him and continued to pull things off the rack.
Holly realised she would have to rescue him. She went up to one of the girls and studied the leather jacket she was trying on.
‘Excuse me. Are you going to buy that?’ The girl looked at Holly and shrugged noncommittally. ‘Because I would really like to see it.’
‘Sure,’ the girl said and shrugged the jacket off.
Holly made a big show of going over it in every way, turning it inside out and examining the label up close. She even pretended to examine the buttons on the sleeves. Then she turned her back to Frank and said to the girls in a loud whisper.
‘Can he see me?’
The girls shook their head, as Frank was engrossed in conversation with Danny. Still, their interest in what she was doing was piqued.
‘Can you believe he only wants twenty-five dollars for this? Man oh man … ’
‘What do you mean?’ The girl Holly had taken the jacket from asked a little defensively.
‘Well, you do know Joan Jett … oh, never mind,’ she said quickly and began walking away with the jacket as if about to buy it.
‘Wait a minute, I was trying that on … ’ The girl held out her hand, demanding the jacket back.
Holly held onto it for a moment, as if unsure of what to do.
The other girl chimed in. ‘Lady, my friend was trying that jacket on, do you mind?’ She looked as if she were trying to get eye contact with Frank, who really was ignoring them now.
Holly begrudgingly handed the jacket over. ‘Well, I just hope you know what you have there.’
The girl snatched it from her. ‘I certainly do!’ she announced, marching up to the counter to buy it.
Holly watched the two girls march out of the store and turned to Frank who was smiling behind the cash register.
‘I really wish you would come and work for me, Holly … ’
She smiled guiltily. ‘Where’d Danny go?’
‘Back section, something about Christmas tree decorations? I think there are a few in the boxes back there.’
At the back of the store, Holly found Danny standing amid boxes Frank apparently never bothered to unpack, but had simply arranged on long buffet tables, rummage-sale style.
‘Oh brother … ’
‘Plus everything smells like mothballs,’ Danny said dejectedly.
‘No worries, we’ll search through it for a few minutes and if we don’t find anything, we’ll just go to Rite-Aid and stock up on cheesy plastic stuff, OK?’
Danny nodded and the two of them dived in, searching through the boxes for anything that might work on their newly bought tree.
After a few minutes Holly called out, ‘Bingo.’
‘What? What did you find!’ Danny crossed to her side of the table excitedly.
She’d salvaged two faded boxes with twelve ornaments in each, the old-fashioned kind made with mercury glass. The colours were faded, but they were charming, in various shapes of Santa, angels and silver bells.
‘Perfect,’ Danny grinned.
Danny sought out an old tree stand but when they brought everything to the front towards the register, Frank waved them right out the door. ‘Go ahead, you got me a sale. Merry Christmas and whatnot … ’
Bidding him a grateful goodbye, they made their way back to the almost frozen tree vendor, who handed over their tree.
