They each rolled their luggage behind them and Gage took her hand in his. “I know it may be overwhelming, but…promise you’ll let me know if it’s all too much and we’ll go find a hotel, okay?”
“I’m sure it will be fine.”
There were sliding doors at the entrance and then a second pair of them that opened into the lobby.
Which was in total chaos.
“What in the world?” Gage murmured.
Hannah spotted his mother making her way through the crowd of people and an alarming amount of holiday decoration chaos scattered all over the lobby.
“Oh…you’re even earlier than I thought,” Rebecca said breathlessly as she hugged and kissed them both. “I had hoped some of this would have been cleaned up by now.”
“Mom, what’s going on? I thought you said the lobby was decorated already.”
She was wringing her hands as she looked over her shoulder. “The tree fell over last night and took most of the displays we had here in the lobby with it! Just about everything is ruined!” She sobbed quietly as she shook her head. “We were supposed to start working on the rest of the decorations for the party today–you know, stuff in the dining and common areas–but now we have to deal with this. I don’t know how we’re going to get it all done or if we’ll have enough decorations! Oh, it’s terrible!”
“What can we do to help?” Gage asked.
Hannah was already assessing the situation and spoke up before Rebecca had a chance to reply. “Is there a craft store nearby?”
“Um…there is. It’s about twenty minutes away,” Rebecca said. “Why?”
“I think I know what we can do,” she said as she continued to look around. “Are there more decorations somewhere that you were going to use for the party?”
Rebecca nodded.
“May I see them?”
“Uh, Hannah,” Gage interrupted. “I’m sure they have it all under control. No one expects you to go to work. You’ve never been here before and I’ll bet there’s someone in charge of this committee or something…”
“I’m in charge of it,” his mother hissed, slapping his arm. “Let Hannah speak!”
Feeling invigorated, Hannah began to walk through the chaos, making a mental inventory of what she saw. Rebecca trailed along behind her explaining everything they were seeing and what the original plans were. It took almost an hour–she got introduced to everyone they passed along the way–but she finally had a plan.
“Okay, I need a pad and pen so I can make a list and then we’ll need someone to go do the shopping while the rest of us try to salvage what we can around here,” she explained authoritatively. A group of women came and sat with her, each of them writing down what she told them, and before she knew it, they were racing out the door. She and Rebecca stood and were getting ready to dig in when a thought came to her. “Where’s Gage?”
“Oh, he took your luggage upstairs and then went to grab us some lunch. He should be back soon.”
It was crazy that she had been so distracted that she hadn’t even noticed and immediately felt guilty.
“He’ll be fine, Hannah. And trust me, it’s better that he’s not here right now. I think he was a little annoyed how we all jumped on your generous offer to help.”
Part of her thought it was sweet that he was concerned for her, and the other part was annoyed that she wouldn’t be able to make it up to him later because…well…there was no way they were going to have any real sexy time with Rebecca right across the hall. Just thinking about it made her shudder.
So, rather than focusing on her disappointment, Hannah clapped her hands together and smiled. “Okay, let’s turn this place into a magical holiday wonderland!”
It was after eight and Gage was putting his foot down.
At first he thought it was nice that Hannah wanted to help, but not if it bordered on the residents getting free labor out of her and refusing to let her rest. And if his mother wasn’t going to stand up for her, then he was.
Riding down in the elevator, he fumed and thought of all the ways he was going to basically give a collective “Shame on you!” to everyone. Then, after they all apologized, he was going to drag Hannah upstairs and make sure she ate some dinner.
Which was practically ruined since no one bothered to look at the clock.
“Okay, I’m verging on being a nag at this point,” he muttered and took a couple of cleansing breaths to calm down. When the doors slid open to the lobby, Gage stared in disbelief.
It was like he’d stepped into some sort of Christmas fairyland.
“What the…?”
Music was playing, there were no longer boxes or trash littering the floor, the tree was standing and fully decorated, and…the entire lobby had been transformed. Stepping out, he looked around and couldn’t help but smile. He’d been coming here for years and was very familiar with the kind of displays the residents normally put up. But this? This was so far beyond that he was having a hard time believing his eyes.
Looking up, he saw twinkly white lights on the ceiling and lines of golden stars twined with them. The tree was as big as the one in their lobby at home, but decorated tastefully in silver and gold with giant red ribbons and as he got closer, he saw it had been anchored to the wall. There was a winding staircase on the left side of the lobby, and there was a line of red and white Christmas stockings going up the railing filled with oversized candy canes. The air smelled of fresh pine and peppermint and as he walked through to the dining and common area, he found it equally festive with more stockings on the fireplace mantle along with more twinkly lights and stars on the ceiling. Each table was draped in silver with either a tiny Christmas tree, a menorah, or a centerpiece made of candles and shiny Christmas balls.
But the most amazing thing was the train that lined one of the walls. It was really just a locomotive and gondola car made out of cardboard, but they were festively painted and the gondola had “Secret Santa Express” written on it, with a pile of presents inside it.
All he could do was stop and stare because it was hard to wrap his brain around all this happening in such a short time–especially after seeing how disorganized it was when they first arrived.
“Oh, Gage!” his mother cried out when she spotted him. “Isn’t it wonderful? Hannah did it! She made it all possible! Everyone’s talking about how amazing she is!” She hugged him and stepped back. “I didn’t think we’d be able to pull it off, but…just look! I’m so happy I could cry!”
Gage was looking around and everything he saw was truly festive, but…
“Where’s Hannah?”
“What? Oh, she and Candis Levy are just finishing up in the movie theater. We had a few extra decorations and…”
“Mom!” he interrupted furiously. “Enough! How could you let her do all of this?”
She blinked at him in confusion. “All of what? I don’t understand what you’re so upset about.”
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Gage mentally counted to ten. “Mom, we’ve been here for six, maybe seven hours, and Hannah worked the entire time! That’s a little rude for all of you to make her do that!”