"You are such a vulgar ass," his sister said with open revulsion.
"This is not an actuarial demographic," Preston shouted. "This is Christmas! Christmas. Do you know what Christmas means?"
If I had expected him to deliver a speech about what the Christian savior's birth meant to Catholics and Protestants around the world, or to reflect on the central theme of this season as a time of love and joy, I would have been sorely disappointed. However, I had by now seen enough of the Fenster family not to expect anything of the sort.
"Profits!" he said. "December should be our most profitable month of the year. And instead, it's breaking us. Do you know why?"
"Because our merchandise keeps getting hijacked en route," his sister said tersely.
"What?" I blurted. "Seriously?"
"Oh, yes," Arthur said with a nod. "Three trucks have been seized at gunpoint in the past ten days. The trucks have been found afterward, but not until after the culprits and all the goods are long gone."
"Has anyone been hurt?"
"No," said Helen.
"Not yet," Arthur added anxiously.
"Wow, I had no idea." There was a lot of staff gossip about shoplifting, which was an obsession with Fenster managers and security guards, but I didn't think I'd heard anything about hijackings. Which made sense, I supposed. If the trucks were being hijacked out on the road, the heists wouldn't involve store premises or affect anyone whom the seasonal staff knew. I wondered if the guys down on the docks had mentioned the hijackings to Satsy, since they might know some of the truckers affected by it.
"Don't you follow the news?" Helen said, looking at me critically. "This has been all over the media."
"All over," Arthur added, looking distressed.
"I haven't had time for the news lately. I'm always here," I said. "Armed robberies? That's scary."
"Also expensive." Helen gave Preston a pointed look. "Of course, we could put a stop to it."
"You could?" I asked, puzzled.
"The police will put a stop to it," her brother said brusquely.
Helen said, "All we'd have to do-"
"No," said Preston. "Fenster's is through dealing with criminals and giving in to extortion!"
Helen persisted, "This mess is turning order fulfillment into a catastrophe and costing-"
"The police will take care of this," Preston snapped.
His sister shook her head. "My God, you're na?ve. Doesn't it even occur to you that the police might be in their pockets?"
"Whose pockets?" I asked.
"Anyhow, I wasn't talking about that when I referred to our losses," Preston said impatiently. "I was talking about your goddamn Solsticeland! It's draining us dry!"
"Really?" I said in surprise. "I thought the whole idea was that it brings a lot of people into the store. And it sure seems to work. I'm always amazed at how crowded this place is." Since Arthur was nodding at me with approval, I continued, "Just like your ad slogan always says, ‘At Christmas, everyone comes to Fenster's.' And they come to see the holiday displays. You have the most elaborate ones in the city, after all."
Looking bemused, Preston asked me, "Who are you?"
"I'm Dreidel," I reminded him. "I sing Hanukkah songs and teach Santa's visitors Hebrew words like shalom and . . . um . . . No, just shalom."
Sure, I had been sent to Hebrew school as a child. But I was such an inattentive student that our nice rabbi-who was unusually progressive even for the Reform movement in Judaism-eventually agreed to let me focus my studies on Yiddish theater, a unique legacy of the Jewish diaspora, for my bat mitzvah. Which is not to say that I know Yiddish any better than I know Hebrew; just that I knew, even as a child, that theater would be my lifelong vocation.
"This elf is right, Preston," said Helen. "Solsticeland brings in the crowds. People who could go to half a dozen other flagship stores in Midtown come here instead, because we've got the biggest, best, most extravagant holiday exhibits you can find anywhere. We aren't a place to shop at Christmas, we are the place. And it's because of Solsticeland!"
"First of all," Preston said loudly, "I don't take business advice from an elf. Not even a Jewish one. Secondly, do you two have any idea what it costs us to run Solsticeland? No matter how many people it might be bringing in-and you've shown me no proof that it makes the difference you say it does-it's bleeding money!"
"Proof?" Helen shouted back. "You want proof? Look at our holiday revenues!"
"They're not impressive compared to our holiday expenses!"
Arthur broke in timidly, "It's also our mother's legacy. Solsticeland was her vision. She saw the future and-"
"Oh, my God, do not drag her into this again." Preston looked suddenly queasy. I wondered if mentioning his mother always had that effect on him. "Look, when Holidayland was a popular Christmas display that took up a modest portion of the fourth floor, it was cost effective. When Mother and Frederick Senior doubled its size and turned it into an ‘immersive experience,' we still broke even on it. But ten years ago, when Mother blew that good idea all out of proportion to create a multicultural theme park covering the whole goddamn fourth floor for six weeks every year, she fucked us over. And she's still fucking us over from the grave with this thing."
Arthur looked upset at hearing an obscenity used in relation to their mother.
Helen said in exasperation, "Are you completely dense? Are you so stupid you're incapable of understanding that the sort of holiday attraction that brought in crowds way back when Frederick Senior was alive and still occasionally sober is so uncompetitive in today's retail world that dogs wouldn't even bother coming to Fenster's to piss on it?"
"Enough." Preston held up a chubby a hand. "I don't intend to waste any more time arguing with you two-or with your elf."
"I'm not their elf. I'm an elf."
"I've made my decision," Preston declared. "Mother is gone and no longer controls this company. So this is Solsticeland's final year."
Helen sneered. She did that well, I noticed. "You say that as if it were up to you."
"Money talks, and it's speaking in my favor," he replied. "So I can persuade the rest of the family to vote with me, even if you and Arthur refuse to see reason."
"Oh?" Helen said with disdain. (She was good at that, too.) "After the scene you just threw with Freddie, do you really imagine he'll vote with you on anything?"
"If there's one thing that Freddie and his idiot mother both love, it's money. When I explain to them how much more of it there will be for them if we're not flushing it annually down the drain called Solsticeland, they'll vote my way," Preston said confidently.
Looking amused rather than convinced, Helen said, "And I suppose you think Elspeth will vote with you, too?"
"She's my daughter," Preston replied, obviously expecting filial loyalty to weigh in his favor. "And since the twins are too young to have a say in the matter . . ."
Helen glared at him but didn't argue. I recalled that she'd had her twins, a boy and girl, with her third husband, an oil baron named Thorpe. She still kept his name attached to hers with a hyphen, perhaps because Thorpe was her kids' surname. She'd conceived the twins, her only children, late in life (and thanks to the help of expensive fertility treatments, it was said), and they were now still minors. According to Jingle, the twins were spending the holidays this year skiing in Switzerland with their father. Sure, that sounded enviable; but at the moment, I was inclined to think they'd probably prefer scrubbing floors in Poughkeepsie to spending Christmas in the collective bosom of the Fenster family.
Preston said triumphantly, "The vote will be four against two. Solsticeland will be discontinued."
After a long, tense moment, the three siblings all looked at me, as if awaiting my judgment on the matter. I said, "I think something might be wrong with the freight elevator. Maybe maintenance should look into it?"
Well, that was what was on my mind, after all. I hated this job and never intended to come back here after my temporary employment ended in three more days, so I didn't care what happened to Solsticeland. I cared even less about how the Fensters used or spent their inherited fortune. As far I was concerned, they could all take their silver spoons and shove them up their-
"Ah! I see nearly everyone's here and ready for the board meeting," said Freddie Junior as he opened his door and exited his office. He came down the hallway toward us while making sloppy work of tucking his shirt into his trousers. His brown hair was tousled, and a faint sheen of sweat covered his face.
"Hello, Freddie," Helen Fenster-Thorpe said in a tone of chilly resignation.
"Aunt Helen, you look younger than ever! That's so weird." Freddie turned to me, looked at my neckline, and said to my breasts, "Hello! I don't think we've met."
"This is Dreidel, Santa's Jewish elf," Preston said tersely. "Was this your idea?"
Freddie studied me for a moment, then shrugged. "I really can't remember."
"I replaced someone else who was playing the Jewish elf," I said. "Mr. Fenster and I haven't met before."