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“Oh,so now you’re dating the quarterback?” Archie groused as I entered the apartment after Chuck Langdon dropped me off in front of the shop.
I shot him a foul look. Thanks to Chuck’s parting comment, I didn’t quite know how to handle the situation. It wasn’t as if he’d made a specific request to take me out that particular night…or the next. Still, he’d definitely put it out there that he wanted to take me to dinner.
Why did people always have to complicate things?
“I’m not ‘dating’ anyone,” I returned, heading into the kitchen so I could pour myself a glass of iced peppermint tea. My mouth was dry, and although I could have attributed its current state to tromping around the back forty of Chuck Langdon’s ranch, I had a feeling the physical exertion that activity required wasn’t the real cause. “He’s letting me hold my solstice ceremony on his property because the fire chief wouldn’t give me a permit to do it in town.”
While all this sounded perfectly logical to me, I could tell Archie wasn’t convinced. His golden eyes slitted, and he gave one paw a casual swipe with his tongue before saying, “And he’s just doing you that favor out of the goodness of his heart?”
“I suppose so,” I said. “People do occasionally do nice things for other people, you know.”
“Hmph.”
That one syllable was all the cat uttered, but his tone indicated that he hadn’t been swayed by my argument for the inherent goodness of human nature. Honestly, I couldn’t really blame him. If I’d been cursed to be trapped in a cat’s body for more than sixty years, I probably would have had a jaundiced view of humanity as well.
I figured I’d better leave it there, just because I knew if I protested too much, Archie would be insufferable if it turned out that Chuck did end up taking me to dinner. The cursed cat was a pain in my rear most of the time anyway; I didn’t want to put up with his I-told-you-sos on top of everything else.
“Anyway, I need to get back down to the shop,” I said, which was only the truth. I’d left my trusty “be back at” sign hanging on the front door before I headed down to see Fire Chief Dale, but since it was only two in the afternoon and the shop closed at five, I still had a long afternoon ahead of me.
I hoped it would be quiet. I needed to plan.
Since this announcement was greeted with an expression of utter disinterest — borne out by Archie leaving the room so he could go back to sleep in his bed in the office — I guessed that the matter was closed…at least for the time being.
If Chuck did end up taking me out to dinner, maybe I could request that we meet at the restaurant. Archie was already smug enough on his own; I didn’t feel like giving him any additional ammunition.
After smoothing my hair and putting on some fresh lip gloss, I headed downstairs to the shop and removed the sign from the door. No one was loitering around the front of the store, waiting for me to return, so I guessed that I hadn’t missed too many customers during the past hour. At another time, that lack might have concerned me — Fridays and Saturdays tended to be my best sales days — but right then, I was just glad of some quiet time in which to work.
Okay, logistics. I got a pen and the notebook I used to make stray notes about inventory and other store-related stuff from the storage space under the cash register and started scribbling. The Best Western had sixty rooms. Double occupancy, that would be around 120 people, give or take. I supposed there was the possibility that additional solstice festival-goers would go slumming and take rooms at the Dew Drop Inn on the other end of town, but not nearly as many. Maybe twenty?
All right, so I figured I should assume a maximum of about 150 solstice attendees. Would that many people fit in the clearing?
I paused for a moment to visualize the space Chuck had shown me. While I’d never been very good at estimating crowd size, we’d had fifty people at my mother’s surprise party years ago, and they’d done a pretty good job of filling up the banquet room at a local restaurant that I’d rented for the occasion. That room hadn’t been nearly as big as the clearing on Chuck’s ranch, so I thought there should easily be enough space for a hundred people. Anything more than that, though, and I’d probably be pushing it.
Before I could get any further with my calculations, Josie came breezing into the store. Judging by the smile on her face, I guessed that she’d already heard about Chuck’s and my arrangement. How, exactly, I had no idea, except I’d begun to formulate the theory that she had her own sort of psychic powers, the type that sent feelers out into the air around Globe and sucked up every piece of news and gossip which might be circulating through the town.
“What a perfect solution!” she exclaimed. “Of course Shady Oaks is the perfect place for your solstice celebration! I don’t know why I didn’t think of it myself.”
“I’m sure you would have if I’d asked,” I replied, and she gave a modest lift of her shoulders.
“Possibly. Still, it’s good to know that you have it handled already.” Josie paused there and looked at the notebook on the counter. “Making plans?”
I nodded. “Trying to. I’m worried that more people are going to show up than will fit in the clearing on Chuck’s ranch. I need to figure out how to handle that.”
She didn’t even blink. “Why, sell tickets, of course.”
Why hadn’t I thought of that?
Probably because I didn’t have what you could call a business-y sort of mind. Yes, I was running a store, but Once in a Blue Moon was a labor of love. The place didn’t need to turn a profit; it was enough for me to see how happy people were with their purchases, whether it was a chunk of amethyst or bayberry-scented incense or a book on the Mayan pyramids.
“I didn’t mention anything about selling tickets on my Instagram,” I said slowly as I turned the idea over in my mind. “Won’t people be upset when they find out they have to pay to attend?”
The look Josie gave me was almost pitying. I had no doubt that she thought I was woefully naïve for someone who was about to turn thirty. Still, she didn’t miss a beat as she replied, “Then don’tsellthem. Just tell people they have to come into the shop to get a free ticket, and once the tickets are gone, they’re gone. That way, you aren’t charging people to go to your solstice ritual, but you’re still getting them to come to your store. With any luck, most of them will buy something while they’re here.”
Once again, I had to wonder why I hadn’t thought of such a solution. It seemed like the perfect way to handle the ticket distribution without getting anyone too angry. And, as Josie had pointed out, if people did a little shopping while they were in the store, it would be a win-win for everyone.
“I think that’s a great idea,” I told her, and was glad to see her beam at the praise. “I’ll get some tickets printed up and then put the announcement on my Instagram.”
“Go see Dave at Golden Globe Printers,” she said at once. “He’s the best in town — and he’ll have them done for you quickly. He can also do the graphics if you don’t want to do them yourself.”
