Page 5

Out front, I count the drawer while Noelle loads the new paper onto the dowels and sweeps the scraps under her counter into a pile. The train is still circling the window, its little light crossing the cotton snow. The houses glow along the track. Everything in that window runs on a timer I set the day the paper comes down, and it'll run until New Year's whether anyone watches it or not.

"Who did the window?" she asks.

"I did."

"It's a lot of window."

"It's my grandmother's design. I build it from her sketches every November."

She leans on her broom. "The same window every year?"

"Same houses. Same train. Same snow."

"Same snow."

"The batting gets replaced."

"That's a relief." She goes back to sweeping. "People want it the same?"

"They come back for it. Kids who stood at that glass come back with their own kids, and they want to show them the exact same train."

"Do you want it the same?"

I put a stack of twenties in the bank bag. "Somebody has to⁠—"

"Run it," she says. "I know. You said."

I look up. She isn't sweeping anymore. She's watching me, steady, the broom handle tipped against her shoulder.

"You built all of that," she says, "and you don't look at it."

"I look at it every day."

"You walk past it. I watched. You walked past that window forty times today and never looked at it once."

"You counted."

"I count things. Paper rolls. How often the owner looks at his own window."

"Never?"

"Never."

My throat goes tight. Nobody's watched me that closely since Gran. I've walked past that window for four years. I build it, I wire it, I set the timer, and I keep my eyes on the shelves.

"You watched me all day," I say.

"I watched the line."

"The line was at your counter. I was at the front."

She opens her mouth. Closes it. Goes back to sweeping, harder than the floor needs.

I finish the drawer and walk back to the wrap counter to check the tape guns. That's what I tell myself I'm doing. She's standing on a low stool behind the counter, reaching up to straighten a dowel that came off its bracket, and I reach past her to fix it. My hand comes down on the shelf above the paper rolls.

The carousel is right there.

I didn't mean to reach for it. I'm stretched as far as I can go, and only my fingertips clear the edge of the shelf, but they're on the base, beside the key, and the tin is cold. The NOT FOR SALE card has slipped sideways. I straighten it. My hand stays.