It’s a week before Christmas and I’m working outdates in the candy aisle at Walgreens. I’m seven and a half hours into an eight-hour shift. My feet hurt and a recent interaction with a disgruntled customer has put me in a mood. I glance at the clock and urge the minute hand to move faster, but it creeps along like it’s stuck in traffic. I’m sorting through the chocolate bars when someone walks up beside me.
“Excuse me, Miss?” I glance up at the old man in the baggy pants and mismatched sweater. “Do you work here?” As if my blue shirt, blue pants, and the name tag that says Team Member since 2018 are not dead giveaways. I’ve been here seven point five hours and I’ve run out of nice. A rude remark pops into my head, but we don’t do people that way, not here on the corner of Happy and Healthy. So I force a smile.
“Sure do.”
He smiles back. “I could use some help picking out presents for my baby girl.”
I have the whole, entire department to check before my shift ends. But customer service is number one, and besides, I’m curious. Baby girl? The man is eighty if he’s a day.
“Okay, let’s see what we can find,” I say brightly.
He seems relieved. “My wife passed away in October, so I’m on my own this year.”
My heart fills with an inexplicable tenderness. After mom died, my father would pick out gifts for my sisters and me; warm, soft sweaters, books of poetry. Thoughtful, tasteful gifts that showed a love he sometimes could not express. I’m reminded of that, suddenly. My father would have been a lot like this man, if he’d lived to be eighty.
“Miriam’s fifty-two,” he says. “She likes nice things. That girl never spends a dime on herself.”
“Then you’ll have to spoil her, if she won’t spoil herself,” I say.
He beams. “Yes, I want to spoil my baby girl.”
I steer him to the fragrance counter. After trying a dozen samples, neither of us can smell anything anymore, but we’re having fun. “Oh, now, this one is nice,” he sprays another generous splash of White Diamonds on his wrist, breathes it in. “I’ll take it.”
I remove the bottle from the cabinet and place it in his shopping basket. “Now what about candy?” he asks. “What’s your fanciest kind?”
Back in the candy aisle, he narrows it down to the Belgian chocolates and the holiday truffles sampler. My shift has ended, but I want to get this right. I want Miriam to have a warm memory of her first Christmas without her mother, the year her daddy spoiled her with perfume and candy.
He finally tucks a bag of truffles into his basket. “Thank you, Miss. You have yourself a Merry Christmas, now.” He shuffles off to the check-out line, reeking of White Diamonds, unaware of the beautiful gift he’s given me.
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