There came a day when he realized as he walked home that he had sold something to every customer to whom he had spoken. It gave him a glow that lasted until he went to bed that night, and of which some trace remained even while he fixed his coffee and ate his sweet-roll the next morning.
He had to cross the park to reach his new apartment, but as far as he was concerned there were only two seasons—spring, during which the department carried lawn and patio furniture, and of course Christmas. Sometimes there were jonquils in the park, and sometimes there were chrysanthemums. Sometimes there was snow—no one ever seemed to shovel the park paths—and he wore the high, fleece-lined boots he had bought at discount in Men’s & Women’s Shoes and carried his working shoes in a brown paper bag.
Thus three Christmases came (in October) and went (in early December). One day in February he spoke for nearly an hour to a fat man of sixty or so who seemed to be interested in bookcases. The fat man left without buying anything, and as soon as he was gone Bridget Boyd came hurrying over from Small Appliances. “Do you know who that was?”
He shook his head.
“That was H. Harris Henry himself!” She sensed his lack of comprehension. “Our president, the honcho of the whole company. You must be in the stock plan.”
He nodded.
“Then you get the annual report. Don’t you even look at the pictures? You’d better start.”
He decided he would not start; he had never felt the least inclination to read the thing, and now it was clearly too late. “You could have told me,” he said.
“How could I? You were with him.” She nibbled her lower lip. “If we ate our lunches together, I could fill you in on the Corporate Structure.”
She pronounced it like that, with capitals, and he turned away.
A week later, an order came transferring him to Antiques in the uptown store. The new job carried a healthy raise but meant he had to ride a bus for twenty minutes, morning and night. In addition, he usually had to spend another twenty minutes waiting for a bus to come. The wait at the bus stop was miserably cold until April, and the buses were unbearably hot from June through August and most of September.
He liked the job, though he had immediately spotted several pieces on the floor as rank forgeries. When his customers asked about those he simply read the description on the tag, prefacing the reading with, “Well, it says.” If he liked the customer, he might also shake his head slightly. Since the items in question were large and showy, they generally sold well enough even with his negative endorsement.
There was one particular piece he wanted himself, a small desk of unimpeachable pedigree that had begun its career nearly two hundred years ago in the service of a British sea captain. As well as he could judge, it had been built in India of native sandalwood, using milk-glass drawer pulls salvaged from a still earlier piece. Three of the drawers retained their original green-baize linings; and when he had nothing better to do, he liked to examine them, always feeling when he opened them he was going to find something in them that he had never found before, sometimes actually bending down to sniff the faded cloth. The old captain had kept his tobacco in the upper left drawer, he thought; the other odors were fleeting and deceptive —so much so that he was never certain he was not imagining them.
One night he dreamed he was actually sitting at that desk. The floor moved beneath him, gently rocking, rising and falling with a motion he saw echoed ever so faintly in the well of black ink into which he dipped a feather pen. “My Dearest Heart,” he wrote. “My good friend Captain Clough, of the China Doll, has promised to post this in England. She is a clipper, and so …”
There was a hail, and hurrying feet drumming the deck over his head. He sat up, and in a second or two he was laughing at himself, though there was something within him—some part that was still the old captain—that was not laughing.
The next day an ugly middle-aged woman made him show her the desk. “The chair’s missing,” he said. “It really ought to have the chair.”
“That’s all right,” she told him. “I can get one made for it. It’s simple enough.”
He told her the price, trying to sound as though he thought it too high.
“Not bad,” she said, poking and prying.
He lowered his voice. “They should take off three hundred in January.”
The woman smiled, the smile of a cat that feels a bird in its claws. “Fine, have them send me a check.”
When he had written the order and turned it in, he glanced up at the clock. The woman had used a store charge, and for a moment he dared to hope that the sale would not be approved.
It was ten till six, ten minutes until quitting time. Next week—only next week—the store would stay open till ten, and on alternate weeks he would have to come in at two and remain until ten. There would be temporaries who could not make change, and temporaries who had taken their jobs to steal. Not too many of either on his floor, thank God.
The first warning chime sounded.
At the second, he strolled into the Employees’ Lounge to get some coffee. The windows were dark. He walked across to them, surprised that it had gotten dark so soon. They had gone off Daylight Savings, of course. He had forgotten.
People had been talking for weeks about what a beautiful fall they were having, about Indian Summer. It seemed to him, looking through the dark glass at the bent, hurrying figures on the sidewalk, that winter had arrived at last, and that it was likely to be a hard winter. He had a heavier coat, a long wool coat of a gray so deep it was almost black, put away somewhere. He reminded himself to get it out.
The Doll
The bus was as warm and stuffy as ever, and a brisk block-and-a-half walk from the bus stop to his building did no more than cool him off; by the time he had reached his apartment, he had wholly forgotten his decision. Next day the wind was gone and the weather was, or at least seemed, considerably warmer. The city was far enough south that really severe winter weather was exceptional.
Next week was the exception. Before it was over he had not merely remembered what he had meant to do, but actually cornered the custodian and demanded the carton he had left in storage.
“Got your woolies in it, huh?” The custodian chuckled. “Hope the moths ain’t et ’em.”
“That’s right. I should have sealed it with tape.”
The custodian nodded. “And sprinkled in some moth flakes. That’s what I’d a done.” He was sorting through the two dozen keys he carried on his belt. “Here ’tis.”
It would not fit the keyhole; he selected another. The third not only entered but turned the lock with a protesting click.
“When folks move out I always remind ’em about this place,” the custodian said. “But if they got anything here they forget about it anyway. Lots of people have put stuff in here, but you’re the only one I recollect that ever wanted something out. No.” He paused, one hand on the knob, and raised a finger of the other. “Miz Durkin got that old dress of her sister’s out, that she was going to give her friend. Only the friend didn’t like it, and it went back the next day.”
They entered, and the custodian pulled a string to turn on the light. The room was nearly full. “See what I mean? Pretty soon I have to throw a lot of the old stuff out. Only I don’t want to—you know somebody’s goin’ to say I stole. ’Course I won’t throw out anythin’ that belongs to somebody still lives here.”
He nodded, trying to recall the carton. Had it been from a grocery?
“Don’t see it, huh?”
“No,” he said. “Not yet.”