Page 457 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
“What time is it?”
“Almost eleven.”
Her eyes fluttered open and she pushed herself upright. I immediately missed the warmth of her cheek on my shoulder as she brushed her blonde curls away from her face and peered out the windows with squinted eyes. “How long was I asleep?”
“Forty minutes or so.”
She turned back to me with a bashful smile playing on her lips. “How long have we been parked here with me sleeping on your shoulder?”
I shrugged. “Twenty minutes.”
Her cheeks turned pink. “Thank you. I needed it.”
Tinsely and I left the warmth of the limo, hurried up the sidewalk to the front doors, knocked, and waited in the frigid night air for a staff member to come let us in. A cold wind blew up our backsides as we hurried inside, and the employee shivered as he locked the doors back up. A line of shoppers had already formed. The cold wasn’t enough to keep the most dedicated shoppers away even though they had memberships and had booked the event. Everyone who had a pass would be let inside. The line was completely unnecessary.
Still, it meant our business practices were working to build long-term relationships with our consumers.
I made a mental note that we’d have to figure out a plan to make the people who wanted inside first more comfortable out in the New York winter weather. Maybe a couple of free-standing heaters would do the trick, along with some volunteers handing out coffees and hot chocolate.
The staff member who had let us inside brought us to the staff room, where Tinsely dove straight into introductions and made friends with everyone immediately. We were invited to pour ourselves cups of coffee out of a giant carafe from a coffee shop down the block, pre-ordered ahead of time by the manager, who I gave kudos to for planning ahead. Some of the employees had brought homemade snacks, and we were welcome to help ourselves to whatever we wanted over the course of the evening.
The backroom had a magnetic, buzzing energy as everyone listened intently to Tinsely after asking her to tell them all about the time she’d locked herself in this very store overnight.
“I don’t think it’s as romantic as the company tries to make it seem now,” she admitted, shyly tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as the twenty-five employees stared bright-eyed at her. “I was so young at the time that it was more scary than anything else. I wasn’t very good at being by myself, and when I realized I was the only person in the entire store? I had a little panic attack behind the makeup counter.”
A couple of people chuckled, while others sympathized with understanding nods.
“I started decorating and organizing just to distract myself and get through the night,” Tinsely said. “When I was halfway through and realized how much I’d done, I worried that I’d be fired in the morning for breaking the sales floor plans. Luckily, I had a good eye and it all worked out in the end.”
After another fifteen minutes, the manager sent us all out into the store to assume our positions. Tinsely and I went to the front doors to prepare to let the shoppers in, while sales associates moved to their assigned departments. At midnight on the dot, Tinsely and I unlocked the doors, pulled them open, and stood back to invite all our VIP customers inside out of the cold.
The excited energy rolled through the store like a tidal wave. The shoppers, mostly women, got their hands on shopping carts, where they placed their purses and heavy winter coats before rushing down the main aisles of the store. Each and every one of them seemed to have a mission plan.
“Is it always like this?” I called to Tinsely as we watched the shoppers scatter every which way.
She nodded. “Yep, every year! People come in with shopping lists and strategies to hit each department in order of priority.”
“Priority?” I asked as the last shoppers made their way inside. We closed the doors behind them but didn’t leave the entrance in case any stragglers arrived.
“Yes, of course. These shoppers are here with a purpose. A lot of them, if not half, come here to do all their Christmas shopping in one night. Have you ever looked at the sales reports of the midnight VIP shopping event over the years?”
“Of course I have. They’re staggering. But I never really thought about why. It’s a serious undertaking to do all your shopping in one night.”
“It is,” she agreed as she peered out onto the sidewalk, looking for more shoppers. “But it’s also fun. The Christmas chaos is all part of the experience. People feel validated when they grab the last of something off a shelf. It adds a bit more of a challenge.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. Why anyone would want an added challenge to the already challenging task of Christmas-gift shopping, I couldn’t understand. Luckily, I didn’t have to. Not really—not with Tinsely around.
She chewed the inside of her cheek as she looked outside. “That’s probably the last of them. Should we jump into the fray and see if we can help people find what they’re looking for?”
I looked over my shoulder into the belly of the store, where customers were racing back and forth, filling up their carts with all kinds of things with seemingly no rhyme or reason. I swallowed hard. “Do we have to?”
Tinsely giggled and took my hand. “Yes, we do. Come on, Santa. You could do this in your sleep.”
As it turned out, Tinsely was right.
The chaos soon felt comfortable, and Tinsely and I were separated as we both went on wild goose chases through the store, helping desperate shoppers find what they were there for. I chatted with people in line getting ready to pay, posed for what must have been well over a hundred photos with women who continuously wanted to steal my Santa hat and wear it on their heads for the shot, avoided being kissed under the mistletoe four times, and found the missing left shoe to a pair of killer heels for a woman who planned to wear them with her new set of lingerie on Christmas Eve for her husband.
All I could say to that last one was that he was a lucky man, and then I got the hell out of there.
