He couldn’t get her voice out of his head, the way she’d said there had to be something in it for the winner of Dolores’ little contest. Whatever it was, she’d made it clear that she was in it to win it. Well, so was he.
He did know Cold World better than anyone. Maybe better than Dolores herself, at least in a boots-on-the-ground kind of way. When he’d gotten hired there, he’d been barely out of high school, staying at a friend’s while he figured out where to go. Someone from the church had seen him making out with his then-boyfriend, and had sent pictures to his pastor father. He never did discover who it was, but it didn’t really matter—the damage was done. He was out.
Officially, his first job at Cold World had been Snow Globe Guard. That wasn’t a recognized title, but was essentially what the role had amounted to. He would stand just inside the doorway to the Snow Globe and make sure people were being responsible with the fake snow （mostly, that there weren’t kids shoving it into their younger siblings’ faces when their parents weren’t watching）。 He’d ask people not to put it in their pockets, reminding them that it would melt. After ten minutes, he’d politely encourage them to move on to another feature, to give the next group of people a chance to play in the snow.
He definitely knew Cold World better than Lauren. She’d only worked there for two years, and in the front office. He doubted she’d even been in the Snow Globe.
Asa pulled out a sketchpad from his desk, settling onto his bed with the pad on his lap. Art had always been one way he could express himself, a place where he could tuck every emotion or memory or whim without needing to explain it. Just colors and lines and composition. He could draw a boy on the stairs, reaching for a hand he’d never grasp, and Elliot would say something like, “Cool, man.”
He liked the idea that he could put so much into a piece and then let it speak for itself. But for whatever reason, he didn’t like the idea of just anyone entering into that conversation. At one point, he’d thought maybe he’d try to make a career out of his art—selling stuff independently, or looking into graphic design school, or whatever that might entail. But then he thought of putting himself out there over and over, and he just couldn’t do it. Big, fat coward.
Well, maybe this was his opportunity to do something with his art, even if it was just to design a new look for Cold World. The problem was that his mind was a total blank. He doodled a few snowflakes, wrote out the letters and traced over them several times, even drew a little snow globe with a wintry scene inside.
Lauren would hate playing Snow Globe Guard. She’d overly police everyone’s fun, and get flustered if people didn’t seem like they were moving on fast enough. He might be struggling to think of an idea to revamp the place, but suddenly he had a hell of a good idea as to how to make the competition more fun.
* * *
? ? ?
He showed up early for his shift the next day, heading into the Chalet to see if he could find Dolores. She had an office there, technically, but could be found just as often wandering around the place. There were some days when she didn’t come in at all, taking off-site meetings with possible vendors or representatives from the city who were always changing some minor code or regulation that sent Dolores into a tailspin. No matter what, she always stayed hands-on with the business, and Asa respected that about her. It would’ve been easy for her to be an absentee owner, signing their paychecks but otherwise invisible to most of the staff.
Asa had no doubt that if Daniel ended up inheriting this place, that was the kind of owner he’d be. Not that Asa would be around long enough to know—a change in ownership from mother to son would be the one thing guaranteed to make him quit.
Luckily, Dolores was in her office, and he gave a perfunctory knock on her open door to get her attention. Today’s outfit included a blouse printed with polka dots of all different colors, and she had her silver-streaked hair piled high on the top of her head. He had to marvel at how rare it was to see her in the same look twice.
“Asa!” she said with a huge smile. “Let me guess. You have a question about the presentations.”
“More an idea than a question,” he said. “You mentioned that we could work together, but it occurred to me that we all have such different roles here . . . I thought maybe we could learn from each other.”
Dolores leaned back in her chair, her fingertips pressed together. “Interesting,” she said. “Like job shadowing, is that what you’re suggesting?”