"Pohl, Frederik - Best of Frederik Pohl" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pohl Frederick)

The store was packed with last-minute shoppers. I suppose I'm sentimental, but I love to watch the thousands of people bustling in and out, with all the displays going at once, and the lights on the trees, and the loudspeakers playing White Christmas and The Eighth Candle and Jingle Bells and all the other traditional old favorites. Christmas is more than a mere seffing season of the year to me; it means something.
The girl called me over near closing time. She looked distressed and with some reason. There was a dolly ifiled with gift-wrapped packages, and a man from Shipping looking annoyed. She said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Martin, but I seem to have done something wrong."
The Shipping man snorted. "Look for yourself, Mr. Martin," he said, handing me one of the packages.
I looked. It was wrong, all right. Heinemann's new wrinkle that year was a special attached gift card-a simple Yule scene and the printed message:

The very Merriest of Season's Greetings

From

To

$8.50

The price varied with the item, of course. Heinemann's idea was for the customer to fill it out and mail it, ahead of time, to the person it was intended for. That way, the person who got it would know just about how much he ought to spend on a present for the first person. It was smart, I admit, and maybe the smartest thing about it was rounding the price off to the nearest fifty cents instead of giving it exactly. Heinemann said it was bad-mannered to be too precise-and the way the customers were going for the idea, it had to be right.
But the trouble was that the gift-wrapping machines were geared
to only a plain card; it was necessary for the operator to put the price in by hand.
I said, "That's all right, Joe; I'll take care of it." As Joe went satisfled back to Shipping, I told the girl: "It's my fault. I should have explained to you, but I guess I've just been a little too rushed."
She looked downcast. "I'm sorry," she said.
"Nothing to be sorry about." I showed her the routing slip attached to each one, which the Shipping Department kept for its records once the package was on its way. "All we have to do is go through these; the price is on every one. We'll just fill out the cards and get them out. I guess-" I looked at my watch-"I guess you'll be a little late tonight, but I'll see that you get overtime and dinner money for it. It wasn't your mistake, after all."
She said hesitantly, "Mr. Martin, couldn't it-well, can I let it go for tonight? It isn't that I mind working, but I keep house for my f ather and if I don't get there on time he just won't remember to eat dinner. Please?"
I suppose I frowned a little, because her expression was a little worried. But, after all, it was her first day. I said, "Miss Hargreave, don't give it a thought. I'll take care of it."
The way I took care of it, it turned out, was to do it myself; it was late when I got through, and I ate quickly and went home to bed. But I didn't mind, for oh! the sweetness of the smile she gave me as she left.

I looked forward to the next morning, because I was looking forward to seeing Lilymary Hargreave again. But my luck was out-for she was.
My number-two man, Johnny Furness, reported that she hadn't phoned either. I called Personnel to get her phone number, but they didn't have it; I got the address, but the phone company had no phone listed under her name. So I stewed around until the coffee break, and then I put my hat on and headed out of the store. It wasn't merely that I was interested in seeing her, I told myself; she was just too good a worker to get off on the wrong foot this way, and it was only simple justice for me to go to her home and set her straight.
Her house was in a nondescript neighborhood-not too good, not too bad. A gang of kids were playing under a fire hydrant at the corner-but, on the other hand, the houses were neat and nearly new. Middle-class, you'd have to say.
I found the address, and knocked on the door of a second-floor apartment.
It was opened by a tall, leathery man of fifty or so-Lilymary's father, I judged. "Good morning," I said. "Is Miss Hargreave at home?"
He smiled; his teeth were bright in a very sun-bronzed face. "Which one?"
"Blond girl, medium height, blue eyes. Is there more than one?"
"There are four. But you mean Lilymary; won't you come in?"
I followed him, and a six-year-old edition of Lilymary took my hat and gravely hung it on a rack made of bamboo pegs. The leathery man said, "I'm Morton Hargreave, Lily's father. She's in the kitchen."
"George Martin," I said. He nodded and left me, for the kitchen, I presumed. I sat down on an old-fashioned studio couch in the living room, and the six-year-old sat on the edge of a straight-backed chair across from me, making sure I didn't pocket any of the souvenirs on the mantel. The room was full of curiosities-what looked like a cloth of beaten bark hanging on one wall, with a throwing-spear slung over the cloth. Everything looked vaguely South-Seas, though I am no expert.
The six-year-old said seriously, "This is the man, Lilymary," and I got up.
"Good morning," said Lilymary Hargreave, with a smudge of flour and an expression of concern on her face.
I said, floundering, "I, uh, noticed you hadn't come in and, well, since you were new to the Emporium, I thought--"
"I am sorry, Mr. Martin," she said. "Didn't Personnel tell you about Sundays?"
"What about Sundays?"
"I must have my Sundays off," she explained. "Mr. Crawford said it was very unusual, but I really can't accept the job any other way."
"Sundays off?" I repeated. "But-but, Miss Hargreave, don't you see what that does to my schedule? Sunday's our busiest day! The Emporium isn't a rich man's shop; our customers work during the week. If we aren't staffed to serve them when they can come in, we just aren't doing the job they expect of us!"
She said sincerely, "I'm terribly sorry, Mr. Martin."
The six-year-old was already reaching for my hat. From the doorway her father said heartily, "Come back again, Mr. Martin. We'll be glad to see you."
He escorted me to the door, as Lilymary smiled and nodded and headed back to the kitchen. I said, "Mr. Hargreave, won't you ask Lilymary to come in for the afternoon, at least? I hate to sound like
a boss, but I'm really short-handed on weekends, right now at the peak of the season."
"Season?"
"The Christmas season," I explained. "Nearly ninety per cent of our annual business is done in the Christmas season, and a good half of it on weekends. So won't you ask her?"
He shook his head. "Six days the Lord labored, Mr. Martin," he boomed, "and the seventh was the day of rest. I'm sorry."
And there I was, outside the apartment and the door closing politely but implacably behind me.
Crazy people. I rode the subway back to the store in an irritable mood; I bought a paper, but I didn't read it, because every time I looked at it all I saw was the date that showed me how far the Christmas season already had advanced, how little time we had left to make our quotas and beat last year's record: the eighth of September.
I would have something to say to Miss Lilymary Hargreave when she had the kindness to show up at her job. I promised myself. But, as it turned out, I didn't. Because that night, checking through the day's manifolds when everyone else had gone home, I fell in love with Lilymary Hargreave.