Page 16 of Snowflakes Over Starr's Fall
“I know that,” Liz replied, also with a glance at Jenna, “but pretty much everyone in Starr’s Fall likes tradition. There’s the way things have always been done, and that’s just accepted and not to be discussed.” She gave a little shrug. “I’ve been here for over twenty years, and I still feel like a newbie sometimes. What about you, Michael? You and Lizzy have only been here a couple of years. Do you feel like that?”
“In some ways, yes,” Michael replied. Jack knew he and his wife ran The Rolling Pin, which was a much more upmarket establishment than Miller’s Mercantile and seemed to do a fairly brisk trade in baked goods and coffees. Jack thought there were some ways in which they could expand, but he hadn’t shared them with the Harpers yet. “Certainly there’s a protocol in place for a lot of things,” Michael continued. “The first time Lizzy and I judged the cake walk we didn’t rig the music right, and we got an earful.”
Laurie laughed. “I remember Jenna telling me about that.” She glanced at Jenna, eyebrows raised, smile still in place. “Jenna, what do you think? You’ve been in Starr’s Fall longer than any of us here, except for Rhonda and Annie.” She turned to Jack. “Annie Lyman’s a lifer, too, but she’s not here tonight.”
Jack nodded, waiting for his nemesis to speak. Jenna looked like she was chewing her tongue, no doubt in an effort to keep from spitting out something snarky about him. Jack found he enjoyed her fluster.
“Yes, Jenna,” he chimed in, all solicitude. “I’d love to know what you think.” He smiled as he met her narrowed gaze with a deliberately pleasant one of his own, suspecting it would annoy her more.
“What I think?” Jenna finally said, unfolding her arms and sitting up straighter. “I think we don’t need some New York hotshot telling us how to turn Starr’s Fall into something it’s not and never will—or should—be.”
Her words landed with a figurative splat, making everyone blink and recoil, just a little. She’d spoken flatly, without any overt hostility, but she’d definitely soured the mood, and, Jack saw, she realized it, shifting in her seat as color came into her face and she glanced away. Jack almost felt sorry for her. Almost, but not quite.
“Oh, come on, Jenna,” Michael finally said in a jovial, cajoling kind of voice. “I think we could certainly take some advice, at least.”
“And what kind of advice does Jack Wexler want to give?” Jenna asked with acid sweetness. She turned back to face him. “I’d love to hear it.”
“Before I give any advice,” Jack replied, instinctively mimicking her pseudo-sweet tone, “I’d love to hear fromyou. What challenges do you face with Miller’s Mercantile?” He kept her gaze as her face flared redder and her beady gaze turned into a full-on glare. Jack waited. Maybe he shouldn’t be, but he found he was enjoying putting her on the spot.
* * *
Jenna shifted in her chair, willing the flush she could feel scorching her face to die down. Of course Jack was enjoying tormenting her like this. She could see it from the way his mouth kicked up at one corner, in a telling smirk. He was going to make her squirm… but she wouldn’t let him.
“Well, like everyone else, I face all the challenges of a twenty-first-century world with everything available online,” she stated evenly as she kept his ice-blue gaze. “These days it seems like people want things to be cheap, convenient, and quick, and I’m not sure Miller’s Mercantile can be all three, although I have always tried to keep the prices low. You might not know it, Jack,” she continued conversationally, “but over 10 percent of the residents in this part of Connecticut are living below the poverty line, and another 10 percent are hovering around it. Admittedly, we have our fair share of ex-urbanites and celebrities who come here for a taste of rural life, rocketing around the countryside in their Porsches and Beamers, but the average resident is struggling to make ends meet, and so my store, shabby though it might seem, reflects that.”
She stared at him, and he stared back, a glint of something that almost seemed like admiration but was probably just amusement in his eyes. For a long moment no one spoke, and Jenna could feel the curious gazes of every single person in that basement boring into her as they watched her and Jack’s exchange like it was a tense tennis match.
“Fair enough,” he finally replied equably, “but then you’re only catering to 20 percent of the population, and as you are running a business, not a food bank, you might want to think about the other 80 percent, if you’d like to stay afloat. What dotheywant? How can you make Miller’s Mercantile appealing to all, or at least most, of the residents of Starr’s Fall and the surrounding area?”
“If I knew the answer to that question,” Jenna returned tartly, goaded into it and wishing she wasn’t, “I would be doing it. Obviously.” And if that was all the advice he had, it wasn’t very helpful.
“I think we’re all wanting the answer to that question,” Michael interjected with a rueful laugh. “We’re all struggling, one way or another. Times are hard, and like Jenna said, people don’t have a lot of extra money to spend. We need to give them a reason to come to Starr’s Fall in the first place and spend money here, not just in one place, but all over.”
“Which requires working together, to make sure Starr’s Fall as a place is an appealing shopping proposition,” Jack agreed. “From what I’ve seen on the Main Street, there are some great novelty stores—the boardgame café and the pet store and bakery in particular are out of the realm of the ordinary, certainly.” He smiled at both Laurie and Maggie in what Jenna expected was an attempt to show he didn’t mean it as a criticism. “Most people will travel some distance for a novelty store,” he continued. “But it helps to have some anchors in place, as well.” He glanced around the room. “Have you ever been to a quaint little town that’sallantique stores and kitschy boutiques, but no pharmacies or hardwares? If you don’t like the kitschy stuff, there’s nothing for you there, and that’s the kind of situation you want to avoid in Starr’s Fall. You want to make sure there’s something for everyone on the Main Street, including covering the essentials, like with Miller’s Mercantile, for all demographics.”
“But that’s what I’ve beendoing,” Jenna burst out, frustrated now. He was reading from her hymn sheet like it was rocket science and he was the only one who understood it. “I’ve kept a firm commitment to the basics, and that hasn’t been working all that well.” She glared at him like it was his fault, but he just smiled.
“So maybe you need to re-evaluate what that firm commitment looks like,” he suggested.
“You think?” Jenna shook her head, annoyed as well as exasperated. “Well, if you have any bright ideas, do let me know.”
She’d meant it as a put down, but Jack surprised—and aggravated—her by saying in that same pleasant voice, “Actually, I do have some ideas. But we don’t need to take up the Business Association’s time by going through them. Why don’t we talk after the meeting?”
Jenna stared at him for a full five seconds before she finally managed a jerky nod. “Fine,” she said, and then grudgingly added a very belated, “Thank you,” simply because it seemed expected.
Michael took back control of the meeting and as they started talking about next week’s Fall Festival as well as making plans for the Winter Wonderland Weekend in December, Jenna wondered what kind of advice Jack Wexler was going to give her. Would he be all condescending, telling her how to run the store his way, which might work in Manhattan but not in small-town Connecticut? The prospect was already making her grit her teeth, but, Jenna acknowledged, hehadhad a lot of success in business, and she was getting desperate, so… maybe she should keep a semi-open mind. She’d listen to him, anyway, even if she suspected she wouldn’t want to hear his advice.
Sure enough, as the meeting broke up an hour later after tabling further discussion about the Winter Wonderland Weekend to next month, Jack ambled up to her, all relaxed ease and careless confidence, which set Jenna’s teeth on edge before he’d even spoken.
If he really had run his own venture capital firm, she reminded herself, he might have some ideas about how to run a business. He just didn’t have a clue about Starr’s Fall… or her.
“I feel like it’s time to bury the hatchet,” he told her without preamble. They were standing off to one side of the basement, but Jenna knew everyone had to be holding their breath, trying to listen in. “I think it’s three times now we haven’t got off to a very good start, and I have to take at least partial responsibility. I certainly could have been a lot more tactful in how I spoke of your store, and for that I’m sorry.”
“Well,” Jenna managed after a second’s startled pause, because she hadn’t expected such an upfront apology, “I appreciate people who call it as they see it.”
“Even if you see it differently?”
His eyebrows rose in query and something compelled Jenna to admit, “I don’t see it that differently, to be honest. I know Miller’s Mercantile is struggling. I know it looks like it might be on its last gasp, and you were right, it pretty much is. I just don’t like some snooty out-of-towner saying so.” She smiled to show she was joking—sort of—and Jack gave a theatrical wince.
