New Beginnings

“But I didn’t order these,” Payton protested, frustrated with the delivery man. Nate, a tomboyish eighteen year old hovered at her shoulder nervously in her Detroit hockey jersey and jeans.

“Look lady, it’s here on the order slip. It’s not my fault if your computers are faulty.” The balding man attacked back. “I’m not taking these back with me and you have to pay for them.” Lucy, in her usual uniform of a brown shirt and green skirt, laid a soothing hand on Payton’s arm, effectively stopping her from lunging at the man.

“The computers aren’t faulty,” Nate piped up quietly, pushing her wire framed glasses up her nose and running a nervous hand through her short Meg Ryan shag hair. Payton leveled her cool blue eyes to her employee.

“We know that, Nate.”

“No, I mean the order wasn’t wrong.” Payton and Lucy gave her a confused look.

“See, told you!” crowed the man as he thrust the order form under Payton’s nose. “Now sign the form lady.”

“Be patient,” she snapped at him before turning back to Nate. “Care to explain?”

Nate started to stutter nervously. “Well, you see, the Blackhawks are doing this promotion for one of their players that wrote a book about playing hockey—“she swallowed thickly. “They called the shop, asking if they could do a book signing, that they’d pay us for the books with an extra bonus if we let them in the store and give us gift packs….and…well…I heard you talking to Lucy that we needed to find a way to bring more people into the store during the year rather than just the exam period…and…well….everyone in Chicago pretty much follows the team and I also thought it would be a good publicity stunt…” she trailed off slowly then promptly burst into tears. “I’m sorry!”

Payton sighed and pinched her nose before grabbing the clip board from the arrogant man and signed her name. It was true that they needed more business, but Nate was out of line by committing them into the book signing without consulting her. Nate was a sports fanatic and was absolutely into Ice Hockey. The phone call was more than likely a dream come true for her and Payton couldn’t take that away from her.

“We’ll do the book signing, Nate, but I want you in the staff room in five minutes for a chat, Lucy can man the front counter for a moment.” Lucy nodded and disappeared back into the store. The delivery man pulled out eight large boxes of books then left quietly, leaving the two girls to put them away in the storage room and walk back to the staff room.

They sat down quietly, the atmosphere tense. Payton looked at the girl in front of her. “I’m not going to fire you, Nate,” she said soothingly, watching a lot of the tension disappear from her shoulders. “But this is a big thing. When were you going to tell me we had a book signing?”
“Today, honestly,” Nate replied earnestly. “I got the call over the weekend and I was just so excited that the NHL called here that I just booked them in. I know I made a mistake by not telling you immediately.”

“It’s done and locked in, there isn’t anything else for us to really do,” Payton sighed. “When is the book signing?”

“Next Thursday,” the girl replied quietly. Payton blinked in shock.

“I beg your pardon?”

“They originally had organized with another store,” Nate started quickly, trying to justify her actions. “But they canceled on the team and they had to find another venue and I said alright.”

“Jesus, Nate,” Payton cursed, leaning back into her chair, rubbing her eyes and sighing again. “How many players are coming and what do we need to organize?”

“There’s the Captain, Toews, the coach, Kane and Sharp and a few other players, plus the guy who wrote the book, a photographer and a few journalists and some security. We just need to send out some flyers to the business around us.”

“You can do that out of work hours,” Payton told Nate. “In fact, you get to organize this, the extra food we need to order, moving the furniture around to make room for the people and room for the players to sit down and decorations. Lucy and I will help, but you’re in charge of this. I’ll give you an allowance to hire things and get the deco-s. Pull this off and you’ll get a bonus and a glowing recommendation when you want to leave my employment.”

Nate got out of her chair in a rush and came around the table to give Payton a hug. “Thank you so much Payton! You so won’t regret this!” Payton let out a smile and hugged the other girl in return.

“It’s not a problem, just next time; give us a little more warning. I’ll put you down for opening on Thursday.”

**

The following day saw the three women giving the store a furious clean. Sugar and Lace stared at the trio with bored expressions before drifting off to the customers that they knew would shower them with attention. Payton groaned as she sat up from cleaning the lower book shelves. She and Nate were both cursing the book signing as they cleaned. The good thing was the store was starting to gleam brightly.

“Looks like the store needed a good scrubbing,” Lucy said idly as she swept past Payton with her broom. “I put in a special order of cakes and lunch supplies. Thank goodness we haven’t had any diva requests from the Blackhawks yet.”

“Yeah, well, we could always charge them extra for anything special,” Payton replied, polishing the brass letters on the shelving. How’s Nate going with the flyers?”

“Close to half folded; she’s made part of the café into a VIP area for the players and pulled out the white table cloths for them. Her brother is coming in on Wednesday night to help us move things around for the morning. The only thing we’re having trouble with is the decorations. They’re a little more expensive than we planned for.” Lucy gave Payton a sly look. “If you could get back into contact with Bryce, he could probably get us some for a good price.”

“He didn’t give me his number, Luce, and I forgot to give him mine,” Payton replied, “Or I would call him, Nate needs some help with this. She’s going well so far, but even I would need cheaper decorations.”

“Shame, I’d love to see the boy again, I’ve missed him like he was my own,” Lucy sighed before moving on with her cleaning. “He’ll come back soon, you’ll see.”