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Turning his gaze to the twenty-six expectant faces, he found they had all fallen silent when he walked in. No more dirty dancing elves or drink-slinging Mrs. Clauses. The karaoke girls were silent and the guys were stone sober.
He realized how he must’ve looked to them – loosely laced running shoes, college sweatshirt, and a shadow of a beard that had clearly seen three five o’clocks already. Not exactly like the representative of a parent company.
But that was okay.
“I know I met some of you at Friday’s party, although that didn’t exactly show me what you do on a daily basis. Luckily, I had Nora Ruben as my tour guide this weekend. She took me into some your venues to give me a sense of the enormous effort you give and the pride you take in what you do. Now, I know change is never easy, but please hear me out…”
ChapterTwenty
“It’s a dark day.”
“Darling, aren’t you being a bit dramatic? Jobs come and go. Boys come and go.”
“I mean, on Broadway, Mom. Dark curtain…a day off?”
“I don’t remember your grandmother ever having one ofthose.”
Nora had just rage-quit her job – was there some sort of app for rage-quitting a call, short of smashing your phone on the floor? Her mother was the last person she felt like talking to, let alone explaining the past three days.
“Anyway, chin up. Tomorrow’s a new day.”
“No, tomorrow is Christmas Eve.” She had already called in every favor to give her staff – no, no longer hers,Britesmith’sstaff – that day off, and then it was Christmas. Come December 26th, as the lights of Broadway clicked back on, would there be anyone to continue fulfilling the company’s contracts?
At least Hedstrom had attempted business as usual while hell-bent on running the company under. Myers and Sons didn’t have a clue – Broadway wasn’t baseball; it didn’t get called when it started to rain. And New York wasn’t Des Moines. There was a reason it was called the city that never slept.
Whatever.
No longer my circus, Nora reminded herself.No longer my monkeys.
No, her monkey sat in front of her, legs half-sewn.
Which was the reason she had had to call her mother in the first place.
“Can you just tell me where you moved Bubbe’s extra sewing supplies?”
Some people might drown their sorrows by binge-watching bad shows or in a bottle of booze. In times of trouble, Nora found herself turning to the bobbin.
Besides her Chai necklace, Nora’s other enduring gift from her grandmother had been her Singer sewing machine. But it was a 1970s industrial beast that she had no room in her own apartment for, and so heavy, she would’ve had to hire a moving crew. So it still resided where Bubbe had resided up until the end: the extra bedroom of her parent’s Lenox Hill apartment. The room her mother had wasted no time turning into the exercise room she’d always coveted.
Her mother sighed. “Check the closet. Top shelf. Suzie might have moved it.”
Suzie was also probably responsible for the bird’s nest of tangled thread Nora had discovered under the machine’s needle plate, as the family housekeeper was the only other person besides Nora who knew how to use the machine. And not nearly as careful with the family heirloom.
“Thanks, Mom.”
Sure enough, Ruth Ruben had been right about something. There, between her mother’s yoga mats and kettle bells, sat Bubbe’s sewing basket. Extra bobbins, carefully-kept quality threads in every color, new needles – everything she could possibly need to solve the problem at hand.
If only she had Bubbe. And her sage advice.
Tears fell on the half-monkey/half-still-socks with the Rockford Original Red Heel. Wiping her eyes, she began the methodical steps to correct the tension of the machine, and within herself.
Smoothing fabric under the gentle hum of the machine, she could practically hear her grandmother’s voice, creating a new mantra for her current state.
Be kind to yourself.
Do things from a place of love.
You are not your job.
