I had cartons of candy canes in the storage rooms ready for his sack, and the whole “Have Your Picture Taken With Santa” setup was ready to go. Last year we'd taken seventeen thousand pictures over six weeks. It was a huge headache to set up and control, what with staffing, inventory and the bookkeeping that came with it, so this year I'd contracted it out. The company I'd hired provided camera, staff, film, everything. All I had to do was put Santa in the chair and take my share of the money. A snap.
Sixty-five per cent of our whole year's retail business is done during the Christmas season, and the restaurants and other outlets also depend on the increase in customers during those six weeks.
Christmas is the one time of year when people happily give up regular shopping habits and drive longer distances to get what they want. And very often, the biggest magnet is what kind of Santa setup is in the mall. Ours is the most popular for miles around, and we're at the intersection of two major highways, so we're easy to get to. Our shopper count at Christmas is in the neighbourhood of three hundred thousand people a week, all with money and all prepared to spend it.
But right now, Saturday, October 31, two weeks and counting, a disaster was in the making. I'd lost Santa.
Two weeks before the parade, and the old geezer had up and quit before he'd even started. Shame he hadn't thought about nervousness in August when I'd hired him. I'd been so pleased to get him, too. He certainly had the build for it. An egg with legs. He wouldn't even have needed the belly padding.
Next Thursday was our monthly board meeting of the Merchants Association, and my presentation of the centre's Christmas arrangements would be first on the agenda. I had five days to find a replacement Santa. There was nothing, absolutely nothing on God's green earth, that would make me enter that meeting without one.
Now, Jenny, I thought. Calm down. You can do this. Put Halloween to rest first. Panic about Santa on Monday.
I checked the wall clock. Almost quarter to twelve. The Mayor and his entourage weren't due until later in the afternoon, and the trick or treaters were probably tied up with fries and a pop. There was time to sneak a quick burger.
I'd double-promised Helen I'd start eating healthy food today, but that was before Dick Simmons, Halloween and Santa. She'd understand, I reasoned.
Helen Lemieux has been the mall Security Chief for four years, ever since the centre opened, and we share an old house together. Both in our early thirties, we'd become instant friends when I'd joined the management team a couple of years ago. Two days into the job, we'd gone for lunch together, and two minutes into the meal, I was telling her my life story—particularly as it related to the guy I was involved with at the time. A guy who'd just told me, the night before, he thought we should move in together, but I should understand he believed in “open” relationships.
“And you said?” she asked.
“I told him exactly what he could do with his belief.”
Sometimes you meet people, and they just fit right into your life. That was us. It was almost as if there was a karma of sorts working in our favour. I suspect something in my Scottish ancestry reacts to her Cree heritage. Maybe we're psychic sisters, I don't know, but we do have the ability to sometimes finish each other's sentences, and one of us will very often know exactly what the other is thinking. It doesn't bother us, we enjoy it, but a lot of the time it spooks other people.
Helen's into healthy eating and alternative medicine. She exercises relentlessly and spends a lot of time researching nutrition and collecting heart-smart cookbooks.
I'm into eating—period, any medicine that works and my favorite exercises are reading and knitting. The only thing I've managed to collect is a '56 Chevy. She's working on changing all that and, with the exception of the car, I've promised to try.
I got up to go just as the two-way radio on Shirley's credenza crackled, and Helen's voice came on calling my name.
God, I thought. Caught already.
“Jenny, pick up the radio.” Her voice was urgent. “Jenny, pick it up. Emergency.”
“It was only gonna be a burger, Helen,” I said. “No fries. Honest.”
“Never mind that,” she said. “You'll eat later. Get down here fast, Jenny. I'm in the Food Court. There's been a shooting.”
Two
I heard the noise first. Pealing out like a summons. Demanding attention.
Please God, not the kids. Don't let it be the kids, I prayed as I got off the escalator on the ground floor and ran towards the Food Court, a sunken area in the middle of the ground floor which backs onto the west wall. It boasts the usual mixture of fast food outlets and a common eating area furnished with little square pedestal tables, each with four stools.
Rounding the corner by the Juice Nook, I plowed into a sea of bodies, some running towards me, others, like me, heading on the run to the Food Court, shouting at the top of their lungs, despair and pleading evident in every voice.
“Cindy…Mommy's coming, Cindy.”
“Paul, where are you Paul? Can you hear me?”
“Dear God, I can't see him. Jim, why can't I see him?”
“Billy…”
“Katy…I can't find Katy.”
The terrible litany came from all sides. Flashing lights from emergency vehicles outside added an eerie backdrop to the voices, pulsating, keeping time. I could see a group of police officers and firemen trying to clear a path for four, maybe five paramedics pulling stretchers, and, up above the whole thing, hung the fifty-foot banner I'd had made up for the promotion. The eighteen inch letters spelled out “Happy Halloween”, and they too were lit intermittently by red and yellow flashes.
Peter, one of Helen's uniformed security people, was just up ahead where the main aisle of the mall opened onto the seating area. He was desperately trying to halt the rush. Parents were grabbing at him, clawing at his arms and shouting kids' names.
“Please, people, stay back. You must stay back now. Keep this space clear.”
He saw me and motioned me over.
“God, Peter, what's happened?” Heart pounding, I clutched his sleeve. Panic spread through me. I felt like I was underwater and couldn't push my way to the surface.
“Jenny, there's been a shooting. Three people. Two dead and one nearly. Helen needs you to sort out the kids. She's over by the pizza place,” He handed me a walkie-talkie. “Said to give you this. Keep it on and keep it close.”
There was another surge forward as more people came around the corner. Over his shoulder, I could see stores on the other side of the mall closing and locking their doors.
“Peter, you'll never stop these people.” I took a couple of deep breaths, trying to stop shaking and regain some self-control. “They need to get to their kids. We'll have a better chance of helping from inside the food area.” Though, God knows, it was the last place I wanted to be.
“Please, sir, ma'am, please.” He gave it one last try, peeling a woman's fingers off his sleeve. She held a baby tightly to her breast with the other hand, and her face was ashen, lined with streaks of mascara. “This area has to be cleared. Stay back now. Everything's under control.”
Knowing it wasn't, they ignored him and kept pushing forward, scattering into the Food Court, heading for the back wall and their children.
“I think you're right, Jenny. I'm useless here.” He put his arm around me and gave me a quick, steadying squeeze. “Let's go.”
We pushed our way through the crowd across the courtyard to Paul's Pizza.
It was a bizarre scene, like the final act in an avant garde play. The food outlet's counter was hidden by a phalanx of cops, a solid wall