“Before you ask, all the applicants have been vetted,” Leland says without looking up from his computer. “In the interest of saving time, I weeded it down to the ones that have potential. Excluded anyone who used all caps or used the word thrive in their cover letter. That word is literally draining in and of itself. My personal pick is Vivian Blake, former Bergdorf’s window dresser. She was responsible for the elf runway show design of 2019. Iconic.”
Leland is right. That window beat the band.
Santa’s little helpers in bustiers and wigs? Tends to stick out in one’s memory.
I definitely never have nightmares about one of them breaking through the glass and chasing me down the avenue waving an ice pick heel.
“Did anyone else stand out?”
I’m not even sure why I ask. There’s nothing Leland could say that would make me positive one of these applications belongs to her. Like a bozo, I didn’t get her name. I didn’t get any information about her whatsoever, except for the fact that she’s a little standoffish and a whole lot of pretty. Insightful about window design, too, and that’s what counts. That’s why I encouraged her to apply.
Not because I want to see her again.
Ignoring the twist south of my throat, I click through the applications, positive that I’ll somehow know which one belongs to her. I just will. There’s going to be some defining characteristic. Past work experience in an edgy coffee shop/gamer lounge or college spent abroad somewhere like Bruges or Berlin.
Nothing doing. All of these applications are too straightforward. Impressive in a way that I’m used to seeing as general manager of Vivant. Some of these hopefuls are even overqualified. None of them are her, though. I would just…know.
I lean back in my chair, calling myself nine kinds of ridiculous for panicking. This is a girl I met and spoke with once and she didn’t even like me. I lost count of the times she rolled her eyes up into those thick black bangs or tried to end our conversation prematurely.
But before I ever stopped to engage her, I saw that half smile reflected in the window and I couldn’t seem to quit trying to get it back on her face. To make her lips tick up again.
Her half-smile was beautiful. It stopped me dead in my tracks.
And at the end of it all, I didn’t even ask her name.
Now I have to rely on the far-off chance that she applied to dress windows at Vivant. That’s a riskier gamble than wrapping presents before December twenty-third. For all I know, she has a job. Or she’s just visiting New York City. I had a few bourbons too many over the weekend coming up with possibilities. Which, again, is ridiculous. I met her one time.
Yet her face is clear as day in my head.
I can remember it in finer detail than my childhood bedroom in Tennessee.
The big, blue walnut-shaped eyes rimmed in black makeup. The gentle slope of her brows, the deep crease running down between her nose and her upper lip. That series of freckles along her lower right jawline. The go away vibrations coming off of her in waves.
And the certainty she inspired in me that…she didn’t really want me to go. That she was feeling kind of lonely and wistful and just needed someone to stand beside her for a spell.
I’ve been there. I recognize the signs in a person.
Those signs in someone else don’t usually make my stomach trade places with my lungs, however. Or inspire me to miss a meeting so I can try and help. Try and figure her out.
“I mean, there were a couple of standouts in the terrible department. Like the first round of an American Idol competition?” He pauses for drama. “This one girl had an honest-to-God prison record.”
A jolt goes through me, snapping my spine straight.
Prison?
No.
But the hair on my arms is standing up and that’s usually an indication that the universe is about to send me a challenge. Usually I get pumped when that electricity races up my skin, like a nerd before a pop quiz, but if this application connects to Go Away Girl, what am I going to do about it?
“What is her name?”
Leland rears back a little, his fingers continuing to fly over the wireless keyboard. “Uh, I don’t recall. Why do you ask?”
I’m already rolling my chair closer to my desk, hand on the mouse. It’s not my first flicker of optimism that I might get to see her again—good thoughts equal good things—but this time I have an actual lead. “What did you do with the applications that didn’t make the cut?”
My assistant doesn’t answer right away and when I glance over, he’s got a slight wince on his face. “Uh, well…they’re in a sub-folder marked Utter Rejects.”
I give a low whistle. “How someone so cold can craft such a spicy salsa is a mystery.”
“It’s the habanero juice and pickled—”
“I don’t want to know, man, I just want to eat it.”
Leland is shifting in his chair, as if still feeling guilty for giving the file such a harsh name. While I would like to alleviate that guilt, I find I’m a little protective over the blue-eyed girl that doesn’t even like me and her information might be in this folder, so unfortunately Leland will have to stew a spell. “I’m bringing some of my salsa to the Christmas party next week,” he ventures. “A whole jumbo Tupperware container of the stuff.”
“I sure hope so. It’s a requirement of your employment.” I flash him a quick grin to let him know I’m joking （mostly）， but my smile drops when I locate the folder and click. Because I see the name Stella Schmidt and somehow I just know that’s her.
She’s a Stella.
Before I go any further, I remind myself of something very important. I’m not going to get her phone number off this application and use it. That’s creepier than a daddy longlegs spider and I already made her talk to me longer than she wanted to outside the store.
Now that I’ve assured myself that this situation will remain ethical, I have the Main Dilemma. If Stella Schmidt is, in fact, the applicant with the prison record, I can’t hire her. I can’t even bring her in for an interview. Can I?
I might be the general manager of Vivant but I answer to a board of tough buzzards, one of whom is my father. Another of whom is my grandmother. And they aren’t even in good moods on the Friday before a three-day weekend.
If I don’t bring Stella in for an interview, I’ll never see her again.
But I can’t call her in here just to ask her out.
That would elevate me from a daddy longlegs to a hairy tarantula.
“You look conflicted, Mr. Cook.”
Leland never calls me anything but Aiden. “You can drop the formalities. I’m not going to lecture you about the file name.”
“Oh, thank God.” He lets out a hoot and deflates, sending his chair back into the file cabinet with a rattle. “I was having flashbacks to my job interview where you said the one thing you’ll never tolerate is unkindness. And I really shouldn’t have labeled the file that way. No one is a reject. Everyone has ups and downs. That’s all. We’re all at different phases of our lives…”
Leland is still rambling, but my thoughts drown him out.
Everyone has ups and downs.
That’s damn well right.
God knows I have.