Page 78 of Cold Comeback
"Ma'am, you're over by at least fifty people," the marshal interrupted. "This is a fire safety issue. I'll have to shut this down unless you can get these numbers under control immediately."
Silence reigned. Blake's face turned pale. "But we're filming a documentary—"
"Sir, I don't care if you're filming the Second Coming, my job is keeping people safe, not protecting your production schedule."
Wren's thoughts churned at light speed. She didn't panic. Instead, she calculated resources and logistics with the efficiency of a computer processing data.
"Give me fifteen minutes," she told the marshal. She turned to the team, her voice calm and commanding. "We're going satellite, boys. Pluto—face painting moves to Murphy's Pub. They've got the back room and it's already decorated. Linc—story time at Second Street Coffee. They've got the reading nookand the owner's a fan. Knox—games and activities will be moved to the parking lot. I'll coordinate with public works for portable heaters."
While she spoke, she was already texting, her thumbs hurrying to manage the impending disaster.
"Bricks, you coordinate overflow at the fire station—they offered their community room if we needed it. Gideon, you and Thatcher stay here with the core activities, but we must move at least half the crowd to satellite locations."
Blake stammered about production logistics and camera coverage, but Wren was already three steps ahead.
"Your crew follows the story," she told him without looking up from her phone. "The story is that this community is so invested in this tradition that we'll move heaven and earth to ensure it happens. That's your documentary."
Within ten minutes, she'd coordinated with four local businesses and organized volunteer coordinators for each location. She turned a potential disaster into an expanded community celebration touching every corner of downtown Richmond.
Families began migrating to the alternate locations. Children chattered excitedly about visiting new places. Parents gathered contact information to coordinate pickup times. Grandparents settled into chairs at Murphy's Pub like they'd been planning to spend Christmas Eve there all along.
"This," Wren told Blake as the crowd dispersed cheerfully across downtown Richmond, "is the story you came here to tell. This is what real community investment looks like."
The main hall settled into a more manageable celebration. I operated the hot chocolate station, watching the children's activity area where a group of kids claimed Thatcher to educate him in the finer points of holiday crafts.
A seven-year-old girl with pigtails had appointed herself his personal instructor in the ancient art of paper snowflake construction. She explained the process patiently.
"You fold it like this." Her small fingers worked the paper confidently. "Then you cut here, and here, and here. You have to be careful not to cut all the way through, or it falls apart."
Thatcher followed her instructions, his large hands surprisingly gentle with the delicate paper. When he unfolded his creation, it looked like abstract art.
The girl studied his work with the diplomatic expression of someone searching for encouraging things to say about a hopeless effort. "That's... very creative," she finally managed.
Thatcher examined his mangled snowflake with genuine delight, turning it in the light to appreciate its spectacular failure from multiple angles. "It's terrible," he laughed, "I think I cut in all the wrong places. Can you show me again?"
His laughter wasn't the practiced chuckle he used for cameras. It was pure joy at failing spectacularly at something that mattered to no one except a seven-year-old who'd decided he was worth teaching.
The girl beamed at his request for more instruction, delighted to have such an attentive student. "Okay, but this time, make sure you watch."
She demonstrated again, her movements slow and deliberate so he could follow. Other children gathered around, latching onto the possibility they might get to teach the big hockey player something he didn't know.
A tiny boy with sauce stains on his shirt tugged at Thatcher's sleeve. "Will you help me write my letter to Santa? My mom says I have to use my best handwriting, but my best handwriting is still pretty bad."
"Of course, buddy. What do you want to tell him?"
For the next twenty minutes, I watched Thatcher help kids articulate their Christmas wishes. He didn't correct their spelling or suggest more realistic gift requests.
Instead, he listened to elaborate explanations of why they needed specific toys, validated their concerns about whether they'd been good enough, and helped them find words for wishes they couldn't quite express.
When one girl asked whether hockey-playing reindeer were real, Thatcher launched into an elaborate tale about Rudolph's secret career in the NHL. He invented statistics, described training routines, and explained why reindeer made excellent goalies due to their superior peripheral vision.
"And Comet," he continued, "plays left wing because he's got the fastest acceleration off the face-off. Cupid's an amazing playmaker—he can thread passes through traffic like you wouldn't believe."
The children hung on every word, asking detailed questions about reindeer hockey contracts and whether Santa got season tickets. Thatcher answered every question.
Blake tried directing the interaction from behind his camera—"Thatcher, can you look like more of a mentor when you help that kid?"—but Thatcher remained entirely absorbed in the kids' worlds.
Something fundamental materialized as I watched him. Thatcher wasn't performing. This was the real him—patient, present, and genuinely interested in other people's experiences. The children responded to his authenticity. They were experts at detecting fake interest from adults.
