Christmas at the Hummingbird House Read Free Page B

plum-colored magnet from his desk drawer, neatly printed the name “Phipps” on it, and placed it on the magnetic board in the column labeled “December 21–26.”  The row, filled with red, yellow, orange, emerald, blue, and chartreuse magnets, now was complete.  Derrick gave a satisfied nod as he stepped back to admire it.
    “A beautiful sight, isn’t it?” he said.
    “Oh dear, I keep telling you, you need to put Geoffery Allen Windsor in the blue room,” Harmony said.  “It’s much more spiritual.”
    “But that would mean the Bartlett girls would be separated from their parents,” Paul pointed out.
    Harmony waved it away, her bracelets jangling.  “They’re fourteen and sixteen,” she said.  “They want to be separated from their parents.”
    “Mr. Bartlett specifically asked for a suite, and the melon and turquoise rooms are the only ones with a connecting door to accommodate them. We’re doing their tree in magnolia blossoms and renaming it the Magnolia Suite for the duration.”  At Harmony’s puzzled look he explained, rather annoyed, “Well, we could hardly decorate with melons, now could we?  It was the best compromise we could come up with.”
    “We could move Mr. Windsor to the plum room,” Derrick offered, “and put the Phipps in the yellow room.  Purple is a spiritual color, isn’t it?”
    “No, no,” Harmony said.  “Plum is not the same energy at all, not at all.”
    “Too much red, I suppose,” Derrick agreed thoughtfully.  “I can see that.”
    “Mr. Windsor stays in the yellow room,” Paul said firmly.  “It has the best morning light, and he likes to write in the morning. And …” He finished entering the last of the reservation information into the computer and straightened up.  “We’ve gone to far too much trouble designing the holiday themes for each room to start switching them around now.”
    “Very true.”  Derrick gave an adamant nod of his head.  “Plum it is for the Phipps.  Although …” He tilted his head toward Paul.  “We have got to come up with better nomenclature for the yellow room.  It’s really more canary, don’t you think?”
    Paul shook his head.  “No birds.  We’re not naming a room after a bird.”
    “Lemon?”
    “Seriously?”
    “Sunflower,” declared Harmony.  “The color is sunflower.”
    Paul and Derrick gave one another a considering look, but Harmony’s attention was on the reservation board, her expression dreamy, as it often was.  “Hildebrand, Matheson, Phipps, Bartlett, Windsor, Canon … Just names on a board, but they’re going to be part of your family for the holidays.  Don’t you wonder who they are? What their stories are?”
    “Oh, we know most of them already,” Paul assured her cheerily. “Bryce Phipps is a rather prominent surgeon, according to his online bio, and his wife is in interior design, although it seems to be mostly a hobby these days.”  He glanced back at the computer, scrolled down a page, and added, “They’ve been married almost forty years, no children.  She was on the board of the San Francisco Symphony 2005 to 2008, and they’re both major sponsors of the theater, which will certainly give them something to talk about with Mr. Canon, who’s retired from Pinnacle Records.  His wife is a fanatical gardener—second wife, I understand—and mad about specialty roses, which is why, you understand, they must be in the rose room.”
    “We’re decorating their tree with living roses,” explained Derrick.  “Exquisite.”
    “And of course,” Paul went on, “everyone knows Mr. Windsor, who is one of only two of our single guests. One might dare hope for a little holiday romance to blossom, except the other single guest is well past eighty years old, Mrs. Hildebrand.”
    “Delightful to talk to on the phone,” Derrick put in, “very spry, a world traveler. She was the executive editor of Seasons Magazine until she retired last year.  Starts every morning