“Commander came over,” she said with an uncertain flutter of her eyes. “This will either make or break things. He said he’d teach them how to play checkers.”
I had stacks of cardboard pieces, rolls of wax paper, pushpins and a big jug of starch. When we’d laid out all the snowflakes, we took them outside and laid them on the lawn furniture to dry. It seemed almost like magic how they went from limp masses of tangled-looking thread to dainty things of beauty. Dinah turned up toward the night sky. “Good,” she said. “Dark blue. No chance of rain.” Maybe it wasn’t going to rain, but it was cold. We could see our breath as we rushed back inside to the warm kitchen.
Dinah hung around while I mixed up the dough for the batch of cardamom rolls for the bookstore. I mentioned that I’d gotten several voice mail messages from Emily. “I haven’t called her back,” I said. “At first I felt sorry for her and thought she’d been left to deal with a terrible mess her husband made. But after the whole thing with the watch and the shopping malls, I’m not sure how much she’s involved. And I don’t have time to figure it out now,” I said, putting the dough in a bowl and covering it to let it rise.
“THANK YOU, THEY’RE BEAUTIFUL,” MRS. SHEDD said, taking one of the snowflakes and handing it to me so I could hang it on the window. She was on the ground, attaching small balls of quake wax to the flakes, and I was on a ladder doing the actual hanging. The bookstore had just opened and there were only a few customers browsing while drinking some of Bob’s first brew of the day.
Mrs. Shedd was quiet for a moment, and when I reached for the next piece to press against the window, I noticed her face had settled into a sad expression. She mentioned seeing the woman on the news the night before and it was obvious she related. “How could all the money he took from everybody be gone?”
By now I was becoming an expert on how Ponzi schemes worked, so I explained how he used the money he took in from new investors to pay the few people who wanted to take out the returns on their investments or who wanted to cash out of the whole venture. “The rest of it ...” I said with a deep sigh. I reminded her of what I’d overheard the SEC investigator say about all the checks written to all the casinos. “It looks like Bradley lost it all gambling.” I asked her if she was going to talk to the SEC people and give them details of her dealings with Bradley.
“Eventually I will,” Mrs. Shedd said. “But right now I want to think about tonight’s event and the launch party and the future. Just the thought of finding the paperwork to bring them is upsetting, and it’s not as if it’s going to change anything.”
Adele came over to where we were working. She looked at the large stack of snowflakes and how many were already hung. “Where’d they all come from?” Her voice sounded surprised and maybe a little disappointed that I’d managed without any more help from her.
“Well, I have things to do,” Adele said, flouncing off. “I have to tweak the setup in the kid’s department and then I am the one in charge of the whole Santa Lucia procession.”
Mrs. Shedd watched her go. “Do you really think the last part was such a good idea?” she said as I continued hanging the snowflakes.
I was having second thoughts myself. Adele had begged to be part of the event and I felt guilty about the yarn department even if she’d brought it on herself by being so anti-knitters. But it was too late to do anything about it anyway.
“What can go wrong?” I said. “All she has to do is help Rayaad’s daughters into the white dresses and hit play on the CD machine.”
Mrs. Shedd sighed. I knew that no matter what she’d said, she was having a hard time getting in the holiday spirit. How was she going to tell Mr. Royal about her losses? I knew she was worried he might be so disappointed in her judgment that their whole relationship would unravel.
By evening the windows had their blizzard of snowflakes and we’d cleared a space in the middle of the bookstore for the procession. The travel books had been cleared from their table and a white paper tablecloth had been put on it. Bob had brought in the trays of brown ginger cookies and I’d cut the buns into quarters and set them on a doily-covered platter. There was punch for the kids and coffee for the adults. We’d covered the whole table with a sheet to be unveiled after the Santa Lucia procession. Even with it covered, the spicy scent of the cardamom and ginger gave away that there was something good under the sheet.
People had begun to filter into the bookstore. I was glad to see them browsing the aisles as they waited for the event to begin. After Mrs. Shedd’s comment, I tried to check on Adele and Rayaad’s daughters, but Adele had them all barricaded in the office and wouldn’t let me in.
Battery-operated candles flickered around the bookstore and we’d added a seven-candle candleholder for Kwanzaa to the table with the menorah. The trees out in front of the store had been strung with tiny white lights and looked very festive.
I was surprised to see Emily Perkins come in with her daughters. She got a lot of hostile stares as she worked through the crowd. Her determined stride in my direction made me think she was on some kind of mission. Whatever it was got aborted when Mrs. Shedd pulled me aside and said we ought to begin the festivities.
I knocked on the office door and told Adele it was time to start. I went back to the center of the store and cleared the customers from the path of the procession. Mrs. Shedd lowered the lights. The store holiday music went off and the familiar Santa Lucia song began. Personally it reminded me more of the singing gondoliers at the Venetian hotel in Las Vegas, but the look on Mrs. Shedd’s face made me think it was all connected with Christmases past for her.
Everyone turned as Rayaad’s daughters made their entrance. They wore the traditional white dresses with red sashes and had crowns of battery-operated flickering candles. I realized I’d been holding my breath in anticipation of disaster, and now that all seemed okay, I let it out in a gush. And then I saw Adele.
She had on a long dress, too, but instead of white, it was swirled with lime green, purple, rosy pink and sky blue. No red sash for her. She wore a purple one. Instead of the crown of candles, she had a crown of fiber-optic threads that kept changing colors.
The music lowered and Adele started prowling around the girls in white and playing to the crowd.
“Yo, yo,” she said in rhythm, holding up two fingers on both hands and waving them rapper-style. She stopped and took a stance, waving her arms in a hip-hop dance mode.
“Santa Lucia comes from a long time ago.
She started out Italian, don’t ya know, don’t ya know.
Then somehow she got to Sweden, how we don’t know,
Where they celebrate the day with white dresses and
candles, yo, yo, yo, yo.
Her name means light and she comes bringing hope.
Her goodwill lasts throughout the holidays, so don’t ya
mope, don’t ya mope.”
Adele threw in some more “yo, yos” as she started clapping her hands and dancing around Rayaad’s daughters. I looked at Mrs. Shedd. Her mouth was open in shock. The crowd seemed unsure what to make of it. No one stopped Adele and her holiday rap.
“We celebrate with cookies and rolls, don’t ya know,
don’t ya know,
Because St. Lucia said bring those goodies to the table.
She wants to feed everyone as long as she’s able, don’t
ya know.”
Adele punctuated it with some more “yo, yos” as she rocked back and forth toward and away from the crowd.
“Give it up for the lady in white. But she’s not the only thing we celebrate tonight, yo, yo,” Adele said, pointing at the crowd. “Say ‘yo, yo.’” She had to repeat it several times before everyone got it that they were supposed to join in. Once they did their repeat “yo, yos,” they started to clap in time to her rap. Mrs. Shedd closed her mouth for a moment, but then it opened again as a noise went through the crowd when Koo Koo in full clown outfit joined Adele. Rayaad’s daughters had moved out of view, but nobody noticed as the colorful couple continued the holiday rap.
“For Hanukkah, we have the dreidel game.