Practically Perfect - 6. VI. Holiday Magic

VI. Act Two – Gardening

Scene 3: Holiday Magic

The excited energy was nearly electric. The hundreds of volunteers in the Ninth Floor Auditorium had been assembling periodically for months, and as the days of the calendar flew by, each assembly brought December the 6th, and event day, that much closer. They waited for the organizer to get there.

As the exception that proves the rule, Naomi and Bruce sat quietly next to one another. She could tell her friend and coworker had a lot on his mind.

She tried a joke. "Hey, why were a whole pack of Senators seen pushing a house down the street in the middle of winter?"

Bruce frowned in uncertainty.

"They were so dumb, they were trying to jumpstart the furnace!"

Naomi laughed, but Bruce only blinked; one corner of his mouth rose in amusement.

"What brought that on…?"

"Oh, you know, I was just thinking how Senators spent seventy-five tax-payer-funded days filibustering the Civil Rights Bill, that's all."

"Well, at least that's over. It's passed; it's law."

"Yeah, there's talk that Famous will be on TV highlighting our equality work environment."

"That'll be cool. Really cool."

Silence re-asserted itself as Bruce faced forward, slumped in his seat and brought his velvet cuffs close to his face.

Naomi got flustered. "Brucie Boy – it's me. Tell me what's buggin' you. I can see something's up."

"Oh. Yeah." He heaved a sigh and straightened up against the creaking hinge of his bucket seat. "My hell night is only a couple days away."

"What do you mean?"

"Me and my department, plus a bunch of others – like Housekeeping, Maintenance, Window Dressing – we all work from the time the store closes till it opens again in the morning to roll out the year's Christmas theme and decorations. All of it – thirteen and a half floors, twenty-something display windows – all in one night."

"Wow. I didn't know that."

"Not supposed to. We are the 'elves' everyone talks about when blabbing about holiday magic. You should see what Window Dressing has planned for the corner window. It's really gonna be amazing."

"But, you're worried?"

"Hell yeah. My special project is only three days away from working or being a monumental waste of time." He pivoted his head and regarded her with telling earnestness. "I've checked and rechecked every connection. I have the install planned out component by component for each column – it’s a year's worth of labor that better work or Fink will fire me on the spot."

"You think so…?"

"Dunno. Maybe…."

Even though he twittered with laughter, the notion of Bruce being cut off from the thing he loved sunk dread into her heart. Despite her best efforts, Naomi's next question shone in sincerity. "Well, we can't let that happen, can we?"

"No?"

"No." She chuckled and play-punched his arm. "We won't let 'em. Mary and I've got your back."

"That's cool." Bruce's reply was lackluster.

"And Jerry still won't help you?"

"With the car loan?"

"Yeah."

"No. But guess what?"

"What, Bruce?"

"I went and saw her. She's a stunner of a car. She's in great shape, and taking her out, I could imagine the test drive never ending."

Naomi felt oddly emotional. She masked it with: "That's cool."

"Very. Martin took some pictures of me and her and will get me a set."

"Well, you'll have to give her a proper name."

"Any suggestions?"

She shrugged. "I'll have to sleep on it."

"Fair enough."

The smiling coordinator with his thickly layered clipboard stepped to the microphone.

"Hello! This is a great turn out, and I'd like to start by saying how proud I am of all of you. You've persevered, and here it is, the final meeting before the event on December 6th.

"I have great news to announce: the Loew's State Theater on Washington is providing the venue so the kids get a free screening of Mary Poppins.

"We'll have a super long day – three shows, about six thousand kids from forty-one hospitals, orphanages, and other organizations. It's going to be a tiring time for us, but the store will provide meals, coffee and tea to see us through."

He flipped the page on his checklist.

"Oh yes – now, as we normally host the kids' party here, where our seats are not fixed, we need a crew of volunteers to help remove the first four rows of seats in the movie palace. This is so those in wheelchairs and on gurneys can be placed – "

As the man continued, Naomi leaned over and reassured Bruce in low tones, "I'd help you, if I could…."

"With the car? You would, wouldn't you?"

"Yes, Bruce. We're 'chums,' aren’t we?"

"Yeah. I guess we are."

She straightened up and pretended to re-engage with what the coordinator was saying, but secretly enjoyed the warm feel of Bruce's inspection of her face.

She may not have been in a position to help her friend financially, but she could resolve to be there and make Bruce's 'hell night' a little less hellacious if she could. Even broke, she'd be able to help out, and show up unannounced so it became a pleasant surprise for Achitoff.

Maybe I'm learning a thing or two from Mary Poppins.

˚˚˚˚˚

Bruce pulled a handkerchief from his vest pocket. Already working for a few hours, he suspected it was about 8 p.m. now as he dabbed his brow. At his feet lay one of a dozen three-by-six boxes; each one carefully numbered and designed to match a designated column on his installation plan. The lid was open, and Frank and Jack from Display had taken the head armature out and over to column E-9 for installation near the capital.

Bruce heard a doorbell-like voice sounding over his shoulder: "Oh, Brucie Boy!"

"What are you doing here?" He was astounded to see Naomi striding up to him looking well-pleased with herself.

"Pitching in; knocking about; whatever you Teddy Boys would call it."

"You're – "

"Here to help! Don’t stand there with your mouth catfishing. Put me to work."

He felt himself smile hopelessly. He extracted his pocket watch via its gold chain. Glancing at it, he told Naomi, "It's 8:03 p.m., that means we now have eleven hours and fifty-seven minutes to complete our task. You ready?"

"Ready as I'll ever be!"

"Good. Grab that end of the box, and I'll take the other. Let's get this soldier to column E-9."

˚˚˚˚˚

Time slipped by. The early verve settled into a more measured unfolding; teams up and down the heights of the store unpacked their carefully tailored holiday garb, while the First Floor buzzed as boisterously as Santa's workshop.[1]

Great lifts, ten feet high and on rollers like airplane steps, moved slowly from column to column. First to dress Bruce's dozen central supports on the main aisle in their 'uniforms,' and then 'round to all the others one by one to install white-branched candle festoons.

White was the charming Neo-Edwardian theme of the year: ten-foot-tall conical trees with lights inside crowned the top of every counter island, miles of ivory-colored flocking and acres of mica-flecked cotton batting covered every non-essential surface with 'snow.'

The two great chandeliers were visited in turn by the fifteen-foot-tall folding ladders where Display Department employees converted them into 'potted' Christmas trees suspended from the ceiling. They did this ingeniously – via Mr. Fink's idea – by installing frosted branches from the center outwards, graduated with broadest at the base to thinnest at the top. The converted 'tree' sprouted the arms of the electric candles most charmingly, and the workaday silk shades were changed for the holidays with pale drums with red cords and trimmings. This same musical element was reintroduced for the bottom of the tree. A great drum – larger than any band's bass percussion instrument – became the pot from which the chandelier tree grew. The bottom rim was open and softened with a fluffy round of more white garland.

Likewise the two hundred twenty-five candle festoons for the other columns were snowy boughs – tall and wide as a man – and lifted up their own charming shades of white and red drums.

But whether they were fashioned into massive countertop tannenbaum, limbs for mid-air chandelier trees, or embellishments for column sconces, the white branches were all decorated in the same unifying manner.

Burnished glints of 24-karat gold peek-a-booed from the knots and intricate recesses of fancy shapes, like geometric icicles and upside-down finials, as they hung amid the couching neutrality of the limbs. Pops of unadulterated color came from contrastingly plain spheres of clear, un-silvered baubles in jewel-tones of amethyst, sapphire and wine-red garnet.

In contrast to the angelic purity of most of the open floor, where the store's holiday decorations came into contact with the twenty-foot-tall walls of red and cinnabar marble framing the north and south banks of elevators, the 'elves' of Display had come up with an altogether different approach. Three-dimensional sunburst fixtures offered backlighting against the stone and had two components: one in front, one in back. The topmost featured the sun's center, from which eight three-foot-long arms shot straight out. Behind this burnished red-foil geometry, eight other gilded rays burst forth. Unlike the static front, these were undulating and partially lit by a recessed bulb.

With breathtaking effect, one was mounted centered above each grouping of three of the store's twenty-one passenger elevators. In a similar way to the relationship between the drum chandeliers and the candle festoons, ten-foot-tall banners of red fabric hung here and there on bare patches of the marble to reinforce the sunburst theme, for on the crimson fields lived a golden starburst near the top with rays going out to the gilded edges.

During the night, and mostly out of sight of the Display Department denizens, the diligent staff of the Window Dressing Department scurried from window to window, carefully setting up and testing the mechanics of more than two-dozen huge displays. Each of the major selling divisions competed to outdo the others with 'their' window, and trusted Window Dressing would keep the plans under wraps.

The corner window, as it had for many years now, was reserved for Toyland, and like the rest had incorporated Mary Poppins and an Edwardian theme, albeit with a modern twist.

After all this work, the stage was set, but the animus of light and motion was denied. The big reveal awaited.

Amid the small army of Famousites, Bruce Achitoff directed how, when and where his column covers were to be installed. Naomi Tyson helped out as directed, and quickly blended in as just one of the guys. Bruce liked seeing that; he knew Naomi was special. She was like him: not prone to complaining, but willing to roll up her sleeves and tackle the issue at hand.

As the holiday spirit began to affect the crew, while more and more of the seasonal color transitioned from concept into reality, they forgot their overstretched limbs and tired hands, forgot their long hours and grumpy personas, and started to have fun. All of them except Jerahmeel Fink, who appeared to grow anxious the closer and closer Bruce's concept came to being a reality.

˚˚˚˚˚

…He wishes his birthday wish had been different.

Click.

Nothing.

Click; click. Nothing.

"See."

Bruce looks into the crushing smugness coming from Fink. The young man feels the weight of failure descent upon his shoulders, and he cannot understand how and why his boss is the way he is.…

The crowd seems to have been holding its breath. While it gradually releases it as a body, Bruce glances at Naomi – the controller still in his grip. The girl apparently aches for his misery; she also seems to want to punch Jerry's told you so smirk off his face.

Mary sails up to them, stepping between Bruce and his boss. "Not working?! Balderdash and fiddlesticks, I'm sure. Let me see that contraption, young man." Then she offered more softly and straight into Fink's eyes, "Perfect, pish posh."

She holds the controller, and appears to Bruce to make some sort of covert, eyes-closed gesture. "Now, Presto!"

The toggle switch is flipped, and the entire First Floor sputters to life with sound and motion.

The crowd behind them gasps in heady acknowledgement of what they are witnessing.

The conical trees with jewel-like baubles and golden pikestaffs glow from within – dozens of them, the snowy mountain peak of every counter island.

The great chandelier 'trees' glint as the candle bulbs spark to life behind the ivory drum shades with red trim, and the massive 'pot' of a kettledrum reveals itself to also be translucent and illuminated from the inside.

In a similar fashion, the festoons on the columns glow with the soft light from their own toy shades amid gold and gem-colored accents.

The earthly richness of the marble walls glows static yet vibrant as sunbursts radiate above elevator doors. The tall red fabric panels show their secret – reveal that each one has a spotlight trained on its starburst.

Around the entire perimeter – the entire block – the display windows begin to dance and sing in color and movement. In one, Bert and Mary tap-dance with penguin waiters, in another a chorus of little boy chimneysweeps pop heads and soot brushes out of rooftop flue pipes.

And at the corner window, not only does Jerahmeel Fink's glorious ninety-foot tree of ethereal points of light wink into being, music from speakers above the pedestrians' heads pipes in melody to warm the hearts of passersby.

Where Bruce, Naomi, Mary and Fink stand there is music too – a Tchaikovsky ballet March – to which Bruce's twelve central column covers come to life.[2] Six toy soldiers, and six nutcrackers 'march' in tandem with slowly swinging arms, and heads rotating right to left in unity. With amazing detail, each wooden soldier has a tall cap with tufts of white bristles at the front; the hat is four-foot-tall on its own. Fringed hair in a regimental cut peeks below the brim of his cap, and a rakishly upturned moustache appears above his smile. The fully-detailed uniform consists of a swallowtail coat in red, blue trousers – complete with a pale blue pinstripe down the sides – a gold-edged sash and belt crossing his white vest. On his shoulders sway the twisted gold ropes of epaulettes as he swings his arms.

The nutcracker wears a mitre-like parade helmet in gold – a cursive FB shield forms the badge. His Germanic face is dominated by a great bristle moustache and full beard. His arms swing in opposite synchronicity with his toy soldier compatriots, and his uniform is in the store's olive green with yellow accents. A three-dimensional sword – six feet long – rests in the golden scabbard strapped to his black belt.

Bruce feels like pealing out in laughter from sheer joy and relief. Twenty-foot-tall, the soldiers and nutcrackers born in his imagination are now alive before his very eyes, after one long year of labor.

He hears Naomi let slip a soft: "Oh, my. This is going to be one to remember. It's just perfect."

He blinks at the girl. "Almost."

Mary turns to the young man with authority. "As I suspected, nothing wrong with this thingamajig a' tall. And close your mouth, please, Bruce. We are not a sea bass."

While doing as bid, he sees Poppins exchange knowing glances with Naomi, who chuckles.

Mary presses the controller back into Bruce's hand. "Congratulations on an utterly charming and original concept. It's worthy of the best of Walt's Imagineers. You should be proud, and so should you, Mr. Fink."

Suddenly, the fact that they had an audience re-asserted itself again. A smattering of applause from the back of the house inches its way forward. Soon thunderous currents of it, punctuated with celebratory hoots and whistles, roll across the marble floor into every corner, tree, festoon and marching toy warrior to cement that Xmas '64 was indeed going to be one for the record books.

Amid the din, Naomi turned to Bruce's boss. She said loud enough for her companions to hear, "Yeah, pish posh, Jerry. And close your mouth. You ain't a catfish, are you?"[3]