The Miracle on 34th Street (2 page)

"Ha. That's a good one." Susan gave Bryan a gentle pat on the knee.

"Mr. Bedford? May I call you Bryan?"

"I told you you could."

"Bryan. You know what? I know the secret—about Santa Claus. He's not real. I've known for a long time."

"Says who?" Bryan asked.

Susan turned to the window again. "My mom."

Bryan sighed. He remembered being six—almost thirty years ago. Back then, he'd believed in Santa Claus. He could barely sleep on Christmas Eves. But he always did, and Santa always came. Like magic.

Oh, well. That was a long time ago. Kids were different now.

Maybe.

Dingdong!

Bryan put down his coffee cup and answered the front door.

"Hi," Dorey greeted him. "You have something of mine?"

"About four-foot-two, dark hair? Talks like she's sixty-four years old?"

Dorey smiled and walked into Bryan's living room. "What do you think of the parade?" she asked Susan.

"It's a good one," Susan replied.

"Santa Claus come by yet?"

"Nope. Is it Tony Falacchi?"

"Tony had to leave."

Susan raised her eyebrows.

"Bombed?"

"Yeah."

"It's the pressure."

"I got a new guy at the last minute," Dorey went on. "He looks like the real thing."

"Maybe he is," Bryan suggested.

Dorey grinned. "Are you still coming for dinner?"

"You bet," Bryan replied.

"Susan, run home and put that video camera stuff away, okay?" Dorey asked. "I want to talk to Mr. Bedford a minute."

"Let her finish watching the parade. Santa hasn't even come by yet," Bryan said. Then he called to Susan, "I'll put the stuff away. You keep watching."

Susan shrugged. "Okay."

Dorey shot Bryan a sharp look. "As soon as Santa goes by, Susan, you come home."

"Sure," Susan replied. "That's the end of the parade, anyway. There's nothing else to see except guys cleaning up after the horses. And that doesn't thrill me at all."

Dorey spun angrily away from Bryan. He followed her out the front door and down the hall to her apartment.

She was still fuming when they walked in.

"I suspect I said or did something you don't agree with," Bryan began.

"First," Dorey snapped, "what if I had called Susan from the parade and got no answer? I would have had to come home."

"We left a message on your answering machine," Bryan replied.

"Second. I'm the parent. You're the friendly guy down the hall. When I ask Susan to do something, it really doesn't help for you to offer her an alternative."

"I'm sorry. I just thought she might want to watch the parade."

"She's been watching the parade since she was two! It's the same thing every year."

Dorey stormed into the kitchen. She yanked down the oven door and looked inside. Sure enough, he had sewn up the turkey.

"I corrected your mistake." Bryan chuckled. "I'm an attorney. I can't help it."

Now Dorey was grimacing at some brown lumps in a saucepan on the stove.

"That's the neck and the gizzard," Bryan volunteered. "You know, for giblet gravy?"

"You brought it over?"

"Uh, no. It was in the turkey. You forgot to take it out before you stuffed it. I figured, if you forgot to sew up the bird, you might have forgotten to remove the giblets. It's a common mistake."

"You
unstuffed
my turkey? You made me look like a fool by taking apart my dinner in front of my kid?"

"No, I took a plastic bag of guts out of it. You want to eat that?" Bryan took a deep breath. "Look, I'm sorry. I like Susan. A lot. I don't mean to get in your way. I have the best intentions for her. And for you, too—if you'd allow me to express them."

"Don't get the horse before the cart, Bryan." Dorey quickly looked away. "Susan had a father once. Briefly. She doesn't have one now. And there's a reason for that."

"You can think what you want about me, Dorey. And I honestly don't know what that is. After two years of seeing you, I still don't even have a hint. I'm not playing father with your daughter. Or husband with you. I'm just doing what comes naturally."

Dorey slumped onto a kitchen stool. "I apologize. I'm tired. It's been a terrible month and who knows what's going to happen—"

Bryan looked at her with concern. "You're talking about the takeover?"

"Sales were soft all spring, summer, and fall. If Christmas isn't huge, we're done."

"I don't suppose you're the type of woman who believes in miracles?" Bryan asked gently.

Dorey smiled. "No."

Looking out Bryan's window, Susan yawned.
Finally. Here comes the dumb Santa float, and then I can go have some turkey.

The new guy looked pretty good. Real-looking beard. Only wearing an old overcoat, though. Must not have fit into Tony's getup.

The old man waved to the crowd, then looked up.

Susan felt a shiver run up her spine. He was looking at
her
. Out of the hundreds of windows on the buildings of Central Park West, he was looking at her!

And winking.

Susan sank below the windowsill. How creepy.

Victor Lamberg sat at his desk, his eyes fixed on the TV screen. The Santa float was pulling up in front of Cole's department store now. A swarm of people dotted the sidewalk—one block away from Shopper's Express, which was deserted.

He knew that his store would lose business on this day. He wondered how much.

"What's the crowd estimate?" he barked into his phone.

On the other end, standing in front of Cole's, was Jack Duff. Duff was Lamberg's chief of operations. Some people called him slimy. Lamberg preferred the word
loyal
.

"Cops say over a million," Duff's voice replied. "Last year it was about seven hundred fifty thousand."

Lamberg frowned. "Have the marketing department come up with a giveaway, something free. I don't want a mob outside Cole's in the morning."

"I hate to say this, Mr. Lamberg," Duff said, "but Cole's has one heck of a Santa Claus this year. If I didn't know better, I'd say he was the real article."

"You told me he was the same man they used last year!" Lamberg snapped. "You said he was a drunk."

"I saw him this morning. They must have switched him at the last minute for this new guy."

The door crashed open behind Lamberg. "Grandfather!" screamed Lamberg's four-year-old granddaughter. "I saw Santa Claus! He was right outside! I waved to him!"

Lamberg put his hand over the receiver. "That's very nice, Patrice. Grandfather will be with you in a moment."

"They said on TV that he's staying at Cole's while he's in New York," Patrice gushed. "That's right by
our
store!"

She raced back out.

Lamberg's face hardened. "Keep an eye on this, Mr. Duff," he said into the phone. "I don't want my plans damaged by an elderly cherub in a red suit."

"I'm on it, sir," Duff replied.

Lamberg slammed down the phone.

Bryan cut into the turkey with a carving knife. Juice flowed down the steaming, brown-glazed side of the bird.

Susan's mouth watered. "This is kind of like TV," she said. "Except I'd need a brother and a dog. And Bryan—"

"Mr. Bedford," Dorey corrected her.

"He said I could call him Bryan," Susan protested.

"Only if it's okay with your mother," Bryan

quickly added. He passed Susan a plate of turkey.

"Fine," Dorey said sharply

"Bryan would be the dad," Susan continued. "You'd be the mom, and we'd need either a kind of fat person who's our cook or a neighbor who's always at our house."

"Uh, can we talk about something else?" Dorey asked.

Bryan held out a full plate to Dorey. "For the chef."

"The vegetables are catered," Susan remarked "So is the dessert."

"
Thank
you, Susan," Dorey said with a sneer.

Bryan filled his own plate, then sat. "Do we give blessings in this home?"

"Not unless my grandparents are here," Susan answered.

"Would you mind if I did it?" Bryan asked. "It's kind of a tradition with me."

Dorey hesitated. "Go ahead."

Bryan and Susan lowered their heads. Reluctantly, Dorey did, too.

"We give our thanks for the warmth of this shelter, the food before us, and the closeness of the people we love," Bryan said. "We pray that these gifts we so gratefully receive might be shared many times over with those less fortunate than us."

Susan glanced up. Her mom's head was still bowed.

"Amen," Susan said—quietly, so Dorey wouldn't hear.

While they were praying, the man who called himself Kriss Kringle walked quietly home through the park.

Kids squirmed. Parents took deep breaths. The morning was clear and cloudless, and Broadway was packed, from 33rd to 34th streets. All eyes were on the enormous clock above the entrance to Cole's.

It was one minute before the official opening of the Christmas season.

On the eighth floor, Santa's Workshop was ready for action. A pathway wound through a snow-dappled village of busy mechanical elves, reindeer, and gingerbread houses.

For the next thirty days, kids from all over the world would walk down this path to see Santa Claus.

And Kriss Kringle was ready for them.

He was dressed in the finest scarlet wool flannel, sewn with gold thread and cuffed with fur. Eight sterling buttons fastened his coat, each containing the name of a reindeer. His boots were genuine leather, polished but well-worn. He wore a long black cape, fastened at the neck by a clasp with the word NOEL spelled out in sapphire chips. Every detail of Kringle's outfit was
right
down to the gold, wreath-shaped ring on his finger.

As he sat on the throne, his "helpers" all smiled at him. They were Cole's employees, dressed as elves—and they did not miss Tony Falacchi. Not one bit.

As the clock hand inched toward 9:00, they took their places. Denice and Tricia, two of the helpers who were also best friends, leaned in to each other. "Where'd they get this guy?" whispered Denice.

Tricia shrugged. "Don't know, but I hope they can keep him."

BONNNNG!

The front doors opened. People rushed in like a herd of wildebeest.

Kriss Kringle heard the eighth-floor elevator door open. The silence was broken by squeals of anticipation.

And by his own loud, merry, "Ho-ho-ho!"

At the same time, across the street, Shopper's Express opened its doors, too. Rock-and-roll Christmas carols blared onto the sidewalk. An electronic sign, built into the glass-and-steel entrance, flashed:

Clack!
Gulp.

Clack!
Gulp.

Store workers stood outside the door, shooting gum into each other's mouths with plastic pistols.

Parents and children walked by in droves—and went straight across the street to Cole's.

A homeless man straggled over to Shopper's Express. "Cup of coffee?" he asked hopefully.

"Outta here!" snarled a worker.

The man shuffled away.

Inside a mother walked her daughter through the toy department. INTERACTIVE SANTA THIS WAY! a sign blinked. They shielded their eyes against the harsh, neon-lit displays, and walked around the stacks of boxes crowding the aisles.

Dzzzzit! Dzzzzit!
All around them, electronic action figures zapped each other with guns.

Finally they reached Santa—a huge TV monitor. On it was the image of a young man with a goatee and red baseball cap. "What's up?" he asked.

"Tell Santa what you want," the mother urged her daughter.

The girl shook her head shyly.

"Maybe she'd like a Santa of her own gender," the image chirped. "You can punch up a She-Santa on the control panel."

"Do you want a woman Santa, sweetheart?" the mother asked.

The little girl looked lost and bewildered. She shook her head no.

Twenty stories up, Lamberg was watching. On his closed-circuit monitor, he saw the mom and daughter talking to the video. And he frowned.

Jack Duff shifted uncomfortably on Lamberg's sofa. He shot a glance at Alberta Leonard, Director of Marketing. She was sweating.

Lamberg swiveled away from the TV monitor and looked out the window. "Cole's is jammed. We're empty."

"They just had their parade," Alberta said. "Their awareness is through the roof. We'll catch up. Our polls indicate that people don't want a traditional Christmas.
Excitement, speed
, and
price
dictate where holiday money will be spent. Cole's Christmas strategy will fail."

"When?" Lamberg demanded.

"Our advertising just started," Alberta replied.

Duff chimed in, "Why couldn't we put a traditional Santa in our setting?"

"Will you let our program play out a little?"

Alberta snapped. "Cole's Santa is too old, too fat.
It won't work
."

For the next few days, the line of children at Santa's Workshop was tremendous.

"Dorothy," Kriss Kringle said to a little girl on his knee. "That's a lovely name. One of my elves is married to a gal named Dorothy. Do you know what you want for Christmas?"

"Yep," Dorothy replied. "A Patty Pollywog Transmutable Baby Frog that swims and sings."

Kriss Kringle chuckled. "Those are a lot of fun."

"
Psssssst!
"

The old man looked to his left. Dorothy's mom was shaking her head no. She leaned closer to him and whispered, "Don't make me look bad. Those things are seventy bucks. My husband's on half-pay. I can't afford it."

Softly, so that Dorothy wouldn't hear, Kriss Kringle replied, "Shopper's Express has them on sale for thirty-four ninety-nine with a five-dollar rebate. Is that reasonable?"

"Yes, thanks! Since when does Cole's send customers someplace else?"

"It doesn't really matter who sells the toys, so long as the children are happy," Kringle whispered. "And I'm sure that the good people at this store believe exactly as I do."