“Dude, I treat all my women with complete respect and you know it, but you have a point with me getting bored.” I walked through the office door. “Johnny, good to see ya.”
Johnny was your average ‘pocket protector filled with graphite pencils’ kind of guy. He liked things very orderly, which was why he was perfect for the Hawthorne conglomerate. He never missed a thing, and the Hawthorne hotels were very high end and needed the attention to detail.
“Asher, I was glad to hear you were bringing Sawyer along. These malls are in big trouble and I think you two are going to come up with some great plans for us.”
“We were noticing a few things just walking through. I assume you have blueprints?” I asked. “How is it, engineering-wise?”
“Not bad, structurally sound. Although, I do think we should add supports in a few places.” Johnny laid out the blueprints on a big table. “I made notes where they’re needed.”
“I can tell you right now that we will be doing solar panels. Hawthorne Corp is all about green living.” I read over the plans. “Well, wherever and whenever we can, anyways.”
“I figured you were going to want to do that. These are the areas I was thinking we could put them.” Johnny pointed to areas on the blueprints. “You’ll have to let me know if that’s enough solar to run the whole place.”
“I’ll run through some calculations and get back to you. We may need to add more.” I flipped through the pages. “Sawyer, I want to add a few of your design ideas.”
“I’m gonna walk the mall and look at that one area,” Sawyer said. “You wanna join?”
“I’d like to walk the whole mall for a bit more.” I stood from looking over the plans. “How many storefronts are empty?”
“It’s about three-quarters full, but the ones that remain are struggling.” Johnny gestured to the office door. “Come on, let’s walk.”
“We won’t be able to have this mall in the shape we want before Christmas, but I believe there are a few things we can do to get started, to encourage people to want to come here.” Sawyer pointed. “The food court needs redecorating. Should be able to paint it and change the décor within a few days.”
“The restaurants in there aren’t too bad, so, once it looks better, people will be interested in sitting in there.” I added, “The main entrance area is very old-looking. The floors aren’t horrible, but they could use a good polishing.”
“You could always polish them now and change them later,” Sawyer agreed.
“Why is Santa’s workshop at the far end of the mall?” I asked. “It should be right in the middle for everyone to see.”
“I agree.” Sawyer stopped us in the main area. “Have the workshop moved to the middle, but first clear out all of this old stuff. Give it to charity. Then, I’ll have the floors polished tomorrow. I’ll order the new furniture.”
“Oh, you’re gonna do the design too?” Johnny asked. “I thought we would be using the design team we use on the hotels.”
“Some of it. Get me in touch with them and I’ll go from there,” Sawyer said.
We spent another hour walking the mall and discussing ideas. Sawyer’s cell sent a weather alert of the snowfall for the evening. We wanted to look over the mall more but figured we better get out soon. We needed to get gifts still, though. I would have called my mother already, but where was my cell?
“We have to go out to the manor, big get-together for Kellan’s new baby, but we’ll come back.” Sawyer put his hand out to shake Johnny’s. “I’ll send over specifics of things that need to get going immediately.”
“You got it. I’ll be coordinating most of this flagship one, along with the contractor and designer,” Johnny said.
“See you in a few days.” I turned to leave, then turned back. “By the way, are there cameras in this mall?”
Chapter 3
Paige
The last customer of the night had just jumped off Santa’s lap and was now running in circles around me, stepping all over my already-mangled elf slippers. As Santa’s helper elf, there was nothing I could do but smile and laugh with Santa.
Seriously! Could the parents try to control him? Get the candy canes.
I grabbed the bucket of candy canes and lowered it to the little boy’s eye level, waving it in front of his face. His eyes lit up and he stopped circling me.
“I bet you’d like one of these, wouldn’t you?” I dug my hand into the bucket. “You can have two if your mommy says it’s okay.”
“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, can I have two candy canes from the elf?” The little boy tugged on the bottom of his mother’s shirt. “Can I, Mommy?”
The mother was busy looking at the pictures they’d just taken while talking on her cell phone. Then, without answering the little boy, she took his hand and walked off. I chased after them and handed them both candy canes. It was a requirement of the position to give those out and I couldn’t afford to lose my job over it.