ovember 1989

Crowds of Chicagoans strolled along Michigan Avenue, their unhurried pace due partly to the unseasonably mild November day and partly to the jam of shoppers gathered at the windows of Bancroft & Company which were already spectacularly decked out for Christmas.

In the years since the store's opening in 1891, Bancroft's had evolved from a quaint two-story brick building with dome-shaped yellow awnings at its windows into a fourteen-story glass-and-marble structure that covered an entire city block. But regardless of the many alterations that Bancroft's had undergone, one thing had not changed: A pair of doormen attired in maroon and gold livery still stood formal sentinel at the store's main entrance. This small touch of stately elegance remained—a visible statement of Bancroft's continued insistence on dignity and graciousness.

The two elderly doormen, who were so fiercely competitive that they'd rarely spoken to each other in the thirty years they'd worked together, surreptitiously watched the arrival of a black BMW, and each doorman silently willed the driver to draw up on his side of the doors.

The car pulled up to the curb and Leon, on one side of the doors, held his breath, then expelled it in an irritated sigh as the car glided past him and halted directly in front of his adversary's territory. "Miserable old coot!" Leon muttered at his counterpart as Ernest hurried forward. "Good morning, Miss Bancroft," Ernest said as he opened Meredith's door with a flourish. Twenty-five years ago, he'd opened the door of her father's car, taken his first look at Meredith, and said exactly the same thing in exactly the same reverent tone.

"Good morning, Ernest," Meredith replied, smiling and handing him her keys as she got out of the car. "Will you ask Carl to park my car for me? I had a lot to carry this morning, and I didn't want to have to bring it all the way from the parking garage." Valet parking was another elegant convenience that Bancroft's offered to its customers.

"Certainly, Miss Bancroft."

"Tell Amelia I said hello," she added, referring to his wife. Meredith was on familiar terms with many of the store's long-time employees; they were like family to her now, and this store—the main store of a growing chain that today had seven stores in various cities—was as much a home to her as the mansion she'd grown up in or her own apartment.

Pausing on the sidewalk, she watched the crowds gathered in front of the store windows. A smile touched her lips and her heart swelled with pleasure. It was a feeling she experienced nearly every time she gazed up at Bancroft's elegant facade, a feeling of pride and enthusiasm and fierce protectiveness. Today, however, her happiness was boundless because last night Parker had taken her in his arms and said with tender solemnity, "I love you, Meredith. Will you marry me, darling?" Afterward he had slid an engagement ring on her finger.

"The windows are better than ever this year," she said to Ernest as the crowd shifted and she glimpsed the stunning result of Lisa's talent and skill. Lisa Pontini had already earned widespread industry acclaim for her work at Bancroft's. In another year, when her boss retired, Lisa was slated to take his place as director of visual presentation.

Eager to find Lisa and tell her the news about Parker, Meredith opened the passenger door of her car, gathered up two briefcases and several stacks of files, and headed for the main doors. As soon as she entered the store, a security agent spotted her and came forward. "May I help you with those, Miss Bancroft?"

Meredith started to decline, but her arms were already aching, and besides, she felt an irresistible urge to stroll around before she went to see Lisa, and to luxuriate in what looked to be another record sales day based on the crowds of shoppers already thronging the aisles and counters. "Thank you, Dan, I'd appreciate that," she said, shifting the load of heavy files into his arms and handing him both briefcases.

When he headed off toward the elevators, Meredith absently straightened the blue silk scarf she'd looped through the lapels of her white coat and, tucking her hands into her pockets, she strolled past the cosmetic aisles. Shoppers jostled her as they hurried toward the banks of escalators in the center of the store, but the bustle only added to her pleasure.

With her head tipped back, she gazed up at the thirty-foot-high white Christmas trees that soared above the aisles, their branches trimmed with twinkling red lights, huge red velvet bows, and enormous red glass ornaments. Festive wreaths decorated with sleighs and bells were hanging on the mirrored square pillars that dotted the store, and "Deck the Halls" was playing gaily on the speaker system. A woman who was looking at handbags saw Meredith and nudged her friend. "Isn't that Meredith Bancroft?" she exclaimed.

"That is definitely Meredith Bancroft!" one of the women pronounced. "And that writer who said she looks like a young Grace Kelly was right!"

Meredith heard them, but she scarcely registered what they said. In the last few years, she'd grown accustomed to people staring at her and talking about her. Women's Wear Daily had called her "the embodiment of cool elegance"; Cosmopolitan called her "total chic." The Wall Street Journal called her "Bancroft's reigning princess." Behind the doors of Bancroft's boardroom, the directors called her "a pain in the ass."

Only the last description mattered to Meredith; she didn't care what the newspapers and magazines wrote about her—except for whatever value their articles had for adding to the store's prestige. But the board of directors mattered to her immensely, for they had the power to thwart her, to block her dreams for Bancroft's continued expansion into other cities. The president of Bancroft's treated her with no more affection or enthusiasm than the directors did. And he was her father.

Today, however, not even her ongoing battle with her father and the board over expansion plans could dampen Meredith's spirits. She felt so completely happy that she had to restrain the urge to hum along with the Christmas carol. Instead, she indulged her high spirits by doing something she used to do as a little girl: She walked over to one of the mirrored pillars, leaned close to it, peering into the mirror and pretending to poke a strand of hair into place, then she grinned and winked at the security agent she knew would be sitting inside the pillar, watching for shoplifters.

Turning, she headed for the escalator. It had been Lisa's idea to decorate every floor in a different color, and to key the hues according to the merchandise on the particular floor. Meredith thought it was very effective— particularly when she stepped off the escalator on the second floor, which contained the fur salon and designer gowns. Here, all the white trees were trimmed in a soft mauve with shimmering gold bows. Directly in front of the escalators, seated in front of his "house," was a Santa Claus clad in white and gold. On his knee was a mannequin—a beautiful woman wrapped in a magnificent french lace peignoir who was pointing prettily to a $25,000 mink coat lined in mauve.

The smile that had been lurking in Meredith's heart dawned across her face as she recognized that the aura of extravagant luxury created by the display was a subtle and effective invitation to shoppers who ventured onto this floor to indulge themselves with similar extravagance. Judging by the large number of men looking at the furs and the many women trying on the designer gowns, the invitation was being accepted. On this floor, each of the designers were given their own salon, where their collections were displayed. Meredith walked down the main aisle, nodding occasionally to those employees whom she knew. In the Geoffrey Beene salon, two stout women in mink coats were admiring a slinky blue-beaded gown with a $7,000 price tag. "You'll look like a sack of potatoes in that, Margaret," one of them warned the other. Ignoring her, the woman turned to the sales-clerk. "I don't suppose," she said, "you have this in a size twenty?"

In the next salon, a woman was urging her daughter, a girl of about eighteen, to try on a velvet Valentino gown, while a salesclerk hovered discreetly in the background, waiting to assist. "If you like it," the daughter replied, flinging herself down onto the silk sofa, "then you wear it. I'm not going to your stupid party. I told you I wanted to spend Christmas in Switzerland."

"I know, darling," her mother replied, looking guilty and apologetic as she spoke to the sulking teenager, "but just this once we thought it would be nice to spend Christmas at home together."

Meredith glanced at her watch, realized it was already one o'clock, and headed for the bank of elevators so that she could find Lisa and share her news. She'd spent the morning at the architect's office going over the plans for the Houston store, and she had a busy afternoon ahead of her.

The design room was in actuality an enormous storeroom located in the basement, beneath the street level, that was crammed with design tables, dismembered mannequins, giant bolts of cloth, and every conceivable prop that had been used in the display windows during the last decade. Meredith wended her way through the chaos with all the familiar expertise of a former inhabitant—which she was. As part of her early training, she'd worked in every department in the store. "Lisa?" she called out, and a dozen heads of helpers who worked for Lisa glanced up. "Lisa?"

"Over here!" a muffled voice shouted, then the skirt around the table was thrust aside and Lisa's head of curly red hair poked out. "Now what?" the voice demanded irritably, the hazel eyes peering at Meredith's legs. "How can I get anything done with all these interruptions?"

"Beats me," Meredith cheerfully replied, perching her hip on the top of the table and grinning at Lisa's startled face. "I've never figured out how you find anything back here at all, let alone create it."

"Hi," Lisa replied, looking sheepish as she crawled out from beneath the table on all fours. "I've been trying to rig some wires under there so we can have the table tipped for the Christmas dinner treatment we're doing in the furniture department. How was your date with Parker last night?"

"Oh, fine," Meredith answered. "The usual, more or less," she lied, making a great show of fiddling with the lapel of her coat with her left hand which now bore a sapphire engagement ring. She'd told Lisa yesterday that she had a hunch Parker was going to propose.

Lisa plunked her fists on her hips. "The usual! God, Mer, he was divorced two years ago, and you've been going out with him for over nine months. You spend almost as much time with his daughters as he does. You're beautiful and intelligent—men fall over themselves when they get one look at you, but Parker has been looking you over' for months now—at very close range —and I think you're wasting your time on him. If the idiot was going to propose, he would have done it already—"

"He has," Meredith said with smiling triumph, but Lisa had launched into her favorite diatribe and it took a moment for Meredith's words to register. "He's all wrong for you anyway. You need somebody to pull you out of your conservative shell and make you do crazy, impulsive things—like voting for a Democrat just once, or going to the opera on Friday instead of Saturday. Parker is too much like you, he's too methodical, too steady, too cautious, too— You're kidding! He proposed?"

Meredith nodded, and Lisa's gaze finally dropped to the dark sapphire in its antique setting. "Your engagement ring?" she asked, snatching Meredith's hand, but as she examined the ring, her smile vanished behind a puzzled frown. "What is this?"

"It's a sapphire," Meredith replied, unperturbed by Lisa's visible lack of enthusiasm for the antique piece. For one thing, she'd always liked Lisa's bluntness. Secondly, not even Meredith, who loved Parker, could convince herself the ring was dazzlingly beautiful. It was fine, and old, and a family heirloom; she was perfectly content with that.

"I figured it's a sapphire, but what are those smaller stones? They don't sparkle like good diamonds."

"They're an old-fashioned cut—not so many facets. The ring is old. It belonged to Parker's grandmother."

"He couldn't afford a new one, hmm?" she teased. "You know," she continued, "until I met you, I used to think people with money bought gorgeous things and price was no object...."

"Only new money does that," Meredith chided. "Old money is quiet money."

"Yeah, well, old money could learn something from new money. You people keep things until they're worn out. If I ever get engaged and the guy tries to foist off his grandmother's worn-out ring on me, it's all over right then. And what," she continued outrageously, "is the setting made of? It isn't very shiny."

"It's platinum," Meredith replied on a suffocated laugh.

"I knew it—I suppose it will never wear out, which is why whoever bought this thing two hundred years ago had it made out of that."

"Exactly," Meredith answered, her shoulders shaking with laughter.

"Honestly, Mer," Lisa answered, laughing with her, but there were tears in her eyes. "If you didn't feel you have to be a walking advertisement for Bancroft & Company chic, you'd still be wearing clothes from college."

"Only if they were very sturdy clothes."

Without further pretense Lisa wrapped her in a fierce hug. "He's not half good enough for you. No one is."

"He's perfect for me," Meredith argued, laughing and returning Lisa's hug. "The opera benefit ball is tomorrow night. I'll get a pair of tickets for you and Phil," Meredith said, referring to the commercial photographer Lisa was dating. "We're giving an engagement party afterward."

"Phil's in New York," Lisa said, "but I'll be there. After all, if Parker's going to be a member of our family, I have to learn to love him." With an irrepressible grin, she added, "Even though he does foreclose on widows for grins—"

"Lisa," Meredith said more seriously, "Parker hates your banker jokes, and you know it. Now that we're engaged, couldn't you please stop bickering with him?"

"I'll try," she promised. "No more bickering and no more banker jokes."

"And no more calling him Mr. Drysdale?"

"I'll stop watching 'Beverly Hillbillies' reruns altogether," Lisa swore.

"Thanks," Meredith answered, standing up. Lisa turned away abruptly and became strangely preoccupied with forcing the wrinkles out of a bolt of red felt. "Is anything wrong?"

"Wrong?" Lisa asked, turning back, her smile overbright. "What could be wrong? My best friend has just gotten engaged to the man of her dreams. What are you going to wear tomorrow night?" she asked, hastily changing the subject.

"I haven't decided. I'll stop on the second floor tomorrow and pick something smashing out. In fact, while I'm there I'll take a look at the bridal gowns, too. Parker is determined to have a big, splashy wedding with all the trimmings and formalities. He doesn't want me to be cheated merely because he already had a big formal wedding."

"Does he know about—about that other thing, your other 'wedding'?"

"He knows," Meredith said, her voice turning somber. "Parker was very kind and very understanding," she began, then abruptly broke off as a series of bells began chiming insistently on the store's loudspeaker system. Shoppers were used to hearing them and ignored them, but each division head had an assigned code, and they responded as quickly as possible. Meredith paused, listening: Two short bells, a pause, then one more. "That's my page number," she said with a sigh, standing up. "I have to run anyway. There's a staff meeting in an hour, and I still have some notes to read."

"Give 'em hell!" Lisa said, and abruptly crawled back beneath the table, reminding Meredith of a tousled redheaded child playing in a makeshift tent she'd erected in the family dining room. Meredith went to the phone on the wall near the door and called the store operator. "This is Meredith Bancroft," she said when the operator answered. "You just paged me."

"Yes, Miss Bancroft," the operator said. "Mr. Braden in security asked if you could come to his office as soon as possible. He said to tell you it's important."