Rudolph seemeda lot happier now that he had a harness and could sniff to his heart's content. The puppy bounced around from a tree to a stoop to a friendly doorman. I was constantly trying not to trip over the leash.
“I hope he manages to keep up the energy,” Morticia said. “We have a marathon shopping session ahead of us.” She pushed through the door to a high-end home-goods store.
“The dog needs to wait outside, please,” the saleswoman said when she saw me.
Owen had acted as if he didn't like the husky, but I would have bet all my Christmas cookies that if anything happened to the puppy, he would be furious.
“We're here to buy decorations forThe Great Christmas Bake-Off,” I explained. “Owen Frost is partnering with them, and we need enough Christmas decor to fill the lobby of his company, Quantum Cyber.”
As soon as the name dropped and I waved around Owen's credit card, the salespeople were all over us. A pillow was procured for Rudolph, and the manager literally closed the shop for us and insisted on leading us through the several floors of home decor.
“We have all our Christmas products out, as you can see,” she said.
Morticia showed her the sketches, and we explained the theme. “We need a mile of garland,” I added.
“Some of that we'll have to ship, but you can see our samples,” one of the saleswomen explained as I admired the lengths of garland. It was a nice sage green, interspersed with fairy lights that glowed warmly.
“I want a few of those abstract trees,” Morticia said, pointing to a crop of white, almost skeletal trees.
“I guess they don't look too bad,” I said. “They're sculptural.”
Another saleswoman led us through the furniture.
“We need cozy benches,” I said, admiring a white tufted couches and loveseats.
“We should have some other types of seating arrangements too,” Morticia said. “These leather chairs will look great draped with one of those fur throws.”
“These will be a nice arrangement next to a Christmas tree.”
“Right, the trees,” I said. “We need ornaments.”
“We have several sets of crystal ornaments,” the saleswoman said, leading me into another room. The glass ornaments sparkled in the light.
“These might be a bit much,” I said hesitantly.
“You wouldn't use these exclusively,” the saleswoman said. “Just to add some sparkle.”
“All right, let's do it!”
Morticia added several huge white, silver, and gold bows to our order, then we were ready.
“We'll have the items that are in stock delivered today, and the rest of the items we'll have rushed as soon as they package them from the warehouse,” the store manager said pleasantly as she swiped Owen's credit card. “Would you sign please?”
I stared at the total, the six-figure number swimming in my vision.
“How—how did we spend that much money?”
“It's a huge lobby,” Morticia answered. “Besides, Penny said it was okay.”
“All right, I guess,” I said, signing the receipt. “I hope Owen doesn’t freak out.”
14
Owen
The text interrupted Greg's tirade about Quantum Cyber not having an adequate staff of computer programmers. I stared at it coldly.
“What the fuck?” I said as I read the text message.
