Enright Family Collection (54 page)

But Zoey was not happy, could not be happy, in a losing venture. The shop was perfect, its contents wonderful, but it had failed to thrive. Georgia had been right. It was, sadly, the wrong location for such upscale items. And isn’t that what the real estate people say is the most critical thing—location, location, location?

She lifted the newspaper and read through the article yet a third time. The new station would be located less than twenty miles from where she stood. There was even a number listed to call to arrange for an audition. Were the gods telling her something?

Well, then, perhaps we should hear what they have to say,
she mused as she lifted the receiver and punched in the numbers. The call was answered on the third ring by the light, pleasant voice of a young woman.

“Welcome to ValTech. How may I direct your call?”

*  *  *

Five days later, armed with written directions and high hopes, Zoey drove through the stone gates of her mother’s home and headed toward Lancaster. With all the construction on Route 30, Zoey had missed the turn and driven almost as far as Soudersburg before she figured out where she had gone wrong, turned around, and headed in the right direction once again. Having successfully located the correct cross road, she had driven through one small town after another, past Amish farms generations old, as well as new housing developments, and fields that waited for the spring plows to turn over the earth. Zoey followed the directions she’d been given over the phone, taking what appeared to be one small backcountry road after another to a place called Lanning’s Corner, which turned out to be every bit the one-horse town that its name implied.

Finally, she sighed with relief as she approached the drive announced by a sign: “ValTech—Home of the Home MarketPlace.” Following its winding trail to the low-slung two-story brick and glass building, she parked in a visitors’ spot and glanced at her watch. She was forty minutes late. Damn.

Zoey pulled the mirrored visor down and quickly studied her reflection. She touched up the blush on her cheeks and refreshed her lipstick. With her hands she fluffed up her hair, then took a deep breath and swung her legs out of the little sports car and stretched to get the kinks out.

Biting her lip as she smoothed the short skirt of her poppy red silk suit, Zoey straightened up to her full height of five feet six inches tall—in two-inch heels, that is—and gave the car door a slam.

She was here. She looked great. She would knock them dead.

Assuming, of course, that she hadn’t missed her appointment.

“You do realize that you are forty-two minutes late,” the young receptionist said by way of a greeting. “I’m not certain that there is anyone here now who can speak with you.”

“I understand.” Zoey forced a smile onto her face and raised her chin just a tad. “I got lost. . . .”

“Well, that is unfortunate, but I think Mr. Pressman has left the building—”

A girlish giggle from around the corner of the hall drew the attention of Zoey and the receptionist.

A shapely blonde bearing a startling resemblance to Marilyn Monroe rounded the corner, followed closely by a tall, lean, middle-aged man in a dark gray suit.

“Oh, Mr. Pressman,” the receptionist addressed the man, “I wasn’t sure if you were still here. Miss”—she looked down at Zoey’s résumé—“Enright has arrived for her interview.”

He looked across the hall and focused on Zoey momentarily, then smiled—a bit foolishly, Zoey thought, like a little boy who is trying to sneak out of the house to play baseball when he knows he is supposed to be practicing his piano scales.

“Ah . . . yes. Miss . . .”

“Enright. Zoey Enright.”

“Ah, perhaps, Kelly,” he addressed the receptionist, “ah, possibly
Brian
could interview Miss Enright. I was just on my way to . . . lunch, you see. . . .”

“I’ll see if he is in.” The receptionist’s wary eyes followed Pressman and the giggly blonde as they passed through the front doors. She and Zoey exchanged a glance of having just seen the same ghost. “Have a seat, Miss Enright. I’ll see what I can do.”

Several moments passed before the elevator doors opened and a young man stepped into the lobby.

“Zoey Enright,” the receptionist told him, pointing a ballpoint pen in Zoey’s direction.

“Brian Lansky.” He crossed the lobby in three strides. “You’re here for an interview. Right this way . . .”

Thirty feet down the hall he turned to the right and led her through a doorway and flicked on the lights to reveal a set, which consisted of little more than a desk and a solid pale yellow painted backdrop.

“Tell me about yourself,” he said
to
Zoey, “while I try to locate a cameraman. . . .”

“Well, I’m twenty-eight. I live in Westboro, Pennsylvania. I have a degree in English from Villanova, I am currently in sales—actually, I have my own business. . . .” She rambled on, despite the distinct feeling that no one was paying the least bit of attention to her.

Brian sat on the edge of the desk, punching numbers into a telephone, nodding and murmuring “Uh-hnn” every few minutes or so.

He put the phone down and said, “The cameraman must have left for lunch. I would hate to make you come back, so let’s see if I can operate this myself.”

He fiddled with the camera, then stepped out from behind it and took a quick glance around the room. He crossed the room and lifted an item from the windowsill and handed it to her before stepping back behind the camera. “What can you tell me about this?”

“It’s a can opener . . . ?” a confused Zoey ventured.

“Right,” Lansky said from behind the camera. “Sell it to me.”

“Excuse me?”

“The camera is rolling, Miss Enright. Sell me the can opener.”

And sell she did.

Flashing her best smile, she looked directly into the lens. Filled with the same sense of being
on
that she recalled from her news reporting days, Zoey launched into a sales pitch that would become the standard by which future auditions would be judged.

“When I was six years old, we had a snowstorm to beat all storms. All of the electrical lines in our neighborhood went down. We had to build a big fire in the living room fireplace to keep warm. We did have a gas stove, but everything else in that house ran on electricity. To keep us busy, Mom let us help bake bread in the afternoon and we ate dinner that night all huddled around the fire—this wonderful crusty homemade bread and chicken noodle soup. Even though the soup came out of a can, I remember that as one of the best meals
ever.
My brother and sister and I
still
talk about that day.” Zoey held up the manual can opener. “It just goes to show that you can own all the latest equipment—God knows I like my gadgets as well as the next person—but you simply cannot do without the basics.”

“Cut.” Brian rose from his stool.

“How’d I do?” Zoey grinned.

“Would you mind waiting right there for a minute?”

“Sure.”

Within minutes, Brian returned with an executive type—Ken Powers—and a cameraman.

“If you wouldn’t mind . . .” Brian handed her a letter opener. “We’d like to run one more tape..”

“Sure.” And Zoey proceeded to sing the virtues of the letter opener, convincing all who listened that without that little piece of polished brass, everything from Christmas cards to wedding invitations to letters from a
favorite grandchild would forever be locked away. She had just launched into a discourse on paper cuts when Brian stopped her.

“Miss Enright, if you’re not in a hurry, we’d like to take another look at the first tape. Perhaps just a short wait . . . ?”

“Not a problem,” she assured him, inwardly raising a fist in triumph and shouting YES!, knowing it was in the bag.

“Let’s see if I can find someone to bring you a cup of coffee.”

“So, has there been a big response to the ad?” Zoey nonchalantly inquired of the young assistant who brought her a cup of dark and terrible brew.

“You wouldn’t believe it.” Eddie rolled his eyes to the heavens, and proceeded to tell her about the hordes who had come in to tape an audition.

He was interrupted by the ringing of the phone.

“They want you in Ken’s office,” Eddie told her. “This way . . .”

Zoey followed him out of the studio and to the bank of elevators. “Second floor. First door to the left off the lobby. Good luck.” He winked and punched the 2 button.

“Ah, here she is.” Ken stepped from behind his desk to greet her as she knocked softly on the partially opened door. “Miss Enright, this is Ted Higgins, vice president in charge of hiring our hosts and hostesses. We think that sounds more in keeping with the image we want to create. Now,
salespeople
can be found in any retail outlet, but
hosts
invite you in, hopefully, to shop. Miss Enright, we’ve all seen your tapes, and there’s no question that you have a most inviting way about you.”

A chair was held out for her and she sat in it.

“We think you have exactly that right combination of professionalism, charm, intelligence, poise—not to mention your natural gift of gab, if you don’t mind my saying so. The camera loves you, and you have a great look—sort of a cross between Miss America and the girl
next door. . . . We think you’d be very appealing.” Ted Higgins all but beamed.

“We all agree that you’re a natural,” Ken added.

“Well, I do love to shop. . . .” Zoey nodded modestly.

“We’re hoping you can convince millions of TV viewers that they will love to shop with you.” Higgins smiled. “And from the looks of those tapes, I’d say you could probably sell just about anything to anyone. Relax, Miss Enright, and let’s talk about your future with the Home MarketPlace. . . .”

Chapter
3
 

It was almost midnight when Zoey unlocked the front door to the apartment she had rented in Lannings Corner to give her a place to hang her hat while she went through the three months of training classes required by the Home MarketPlace. Had anyone suggested that the sessions would be downright rigorous, she’d have thought them deranged. The sales sessions were only the tip of the iceberg; selling techniques were important, but there were, in addition, hours of memory enhancement training and mock broadcasting situations. Zoey could not remember the last time she’d been so tired, or worked so hard. Why had she so blithely assumed that this new job would be
easy?

Flipping through the mail just quickly enough to see that nothing but bills had been delivered that day, she tossed the stack of envelopes onto the glass-topped table in the hallway and headed toward the kitchen, turning lights on as she passed through the living room and small dining area, stepping around the moving boxes, which held her clothes and a few books and personal items she had brought with her. Zoey hated living alone, had
always dreaded that feeling of solitude encountered upon entering an empty house. Perhaps because her mother had spent so many weeks over so many years away from home on book tours, Zoey had never quite gotten used to the hush, the slight echo of her footsteps on the hardwood floors, the ticking of a clock, the hiss of the heater. Even running water in the kitchen sink sounded like a waterfall to her ears. She was never comfortable with the silence.

She drew a glass of tap water and sipped at it slowly while she listened to the messages on her answering machine. Georgia had called to say hi and to let her know that she had seen Zoey’s photograph in an article about the network that had run in the Philadelphia newspaper (’You looked gorgeous! I was so proud, I showed everyone at the studio! And Mom said you rented an apartment! Way to go, Zoe!’), and Delia called to ask her to think about what furniture she might want from the attic and to let her know that a retailer from Wilmington was interested in buying the contents of the shop and if there was anything in particular that Zoey wished to keep she should let Delia know before the following Tuesday.

Zoey saved all the messages, knowing that in her exhausted state she’d have forgotten anything important by morning. Flicking off the lights, she traveled the short hallway to her bedroom.

Stripping off her blue suit and pitching it toward the nearest chair, Zoey unceremoniously dropped facedown on the bed, shoving aside Miss Felicity, Miss Maude, and her assorted young ones, and immediately fell into a dead sleep.

“It’s perfectly darling, Zoey,” Delia had exclaimed when she had seen Zoey’s apartment for the first time. “And you have a lovely deck,” she added, having pushed aside the dining room curtains.

“Zoey, I want to take you shopping for some furniture,” Delia announced from the kitchen doorway.

“Mom, that’s very generous of you, but you don’t have to do that. This time I’m actually being
paid
to shop.” Zoey grinned.

“I know I don’t have to, but I want to,” Delia insisted.

“Mom, I’m not even going to be here all that long. It’s a month-to-month lease. As soon as things settle down, I plan on looking for a little house.”

“Hmmm. A little house will be fun. But, Zoey, just a sofa. Let me just buy a sofa so I’ll have a comfortable place to catnap when I visit. I saw just the right thing at Bloomingdale’s in King of Prussia last weekend.”