During the sixties, as big-box stores started to fulfill shoppers’ every need, the prospects for basic general stores essentially disappeared. So her grandfather, Alfred Montgomery Jr., decided to shift focus and begin to sell holiday décor, which led to an abundance of Christmas decorations that “sold like hotcakes.” As the years passed, holiday items comprised most of their inventory, hence the name change to Razzle Dazzle Décor.

Lauren could hear her grandfather and father saying, “I’m razzled and dazzled every time I walk through these doors.” Both were still alive but no longer active in the day-to-day operations of the store. Her grandfather was now living in a fancy-dancy assisted-living facility, and her father had been diagnosed with a severe form of crippling arthritis at age fifty-eight. The past three years had taken its toll on both her father and her mother, who was her husband’s constant caregiver. Lauren didn’t know how her mother managed, but she knew that something had to change, and soon, or her parents’ source of income would dry up. She felt sure that they had some sort of retirement plan. What she did not know is whether or not that plan included the loss of income from Razzle Dazzle. She needed to know the specifics of their personal finances but dreaded telling them why she needed to know. Maybe she could find a way around the problem with the store.

One last time, she went over what should have been record sales for the day, since it was, after all, Black Friday, and again, the numbers just didn’t come close to where they should have been. Disgusted, she tossed the calculator aside and looked at her watch, a Rolex given to her by her father when she’d sold her first biography. It was almost midnight, and her parents would be asleep when she got home.

She had been thirty-two when she moved from Florida back to Fallen Springs after her father was diagnosed with severe rheumatoid arthritis. It had never been in her life plan to return to Fallen Springs, but family was more important than living in her beachside condo. She sold her place quickly, making an indecent profit, which allowed her to give up her work as a biographer and run the family store. She had written four biographies of giants in the business world, all of which had been best sellers, something she was quite proud of.

It had been over three years since she’d done any writing at all because everything that running the store entailed required her full attention. Perhaps she could have made time for another book if a publisher had asked her to write one, but no one had come begging for another, so Lauren worked from sunrise to sunset to keep her family’s retail legacy alive.

And I am doing a crappy job, she thought. A few locals had come in to browse, but the resulting sales came nowhere near the amount needed to remain solvent. They’d sold four wreaths she’d taken on consignment from her mother’s craft group. Most of that money went back to the crafters. Other than that, she had sold one artificial tree and a few boxes of handblown ornaments, to make her Black Friday truly a dark day.