The bookstore never really existed without Christmas. Even in the warmer Chicago springs, Mr. B piped “The Nutcracker Suite” through the PA system. So when the actual season did come, everything got turned up to 11, sometimes 12.
One year, I remember a late afternoon delivery of a huge bowl of ice and champagne. Mr. B watched the white gloved men put it on his round oak table in the back. He took a moment to read the card that came with it and jumped into nervous action. “Mr. P is coming! Quick! Put the art books out! When he gets here, close the store!”
It seemed odd to me that the arrival of one person could lead us to shut the store, but sure enough when Mr. P showed up at 5:30, we ushered out our customers and locked the door. He was not a particularly tall man — more of a perfect medium build. But in his blue cashmere top coat, he looked like money.
Champagne flutes were handed out and everyone took a glass. Then Mr. P proceeded to spend 30 minutes with each clerk, and an hour with Mr. B, to find out what we were all reading. Each recommendation was placed on the table with the champagne and Letty, the accountant, added it to his tab.
I sold every book I’d read that year to him, starting with John Casey’s, Spartina, and went home drunk and charmed with the feeling that I’d touched some old world of plutocrats and literature where I danced with Tolstoy and Hemingway and thin women with names like Plath and Parker.
Six months later I remember Letty complaining about Mr. P as she stamped “Final Notice” on a bill that she was stuffing into an envelope with a Pebble Beach address.
Mr. P was in arrears.
“The Nutcracker Suite” swirled from the stereo anyway. I’m pretty sure Spartina was sitting on a shelf in some huge house overlooking the Pacific Ocean, spine unbroken.