For years I’d tried to convince Ivy to let me collate the numbers each day, but she’d told me that Barbara had always done it, enjoyed doing it, and that she wasn’t going to be responsible for my blood pressure readings if she handed the job to me.
I was just invested, that’s all. For the good of Snowsly.
I glanced around the room at Barbara, Ivy, Howard, Jim, and Keely, trying to gauge whether or not everyone was as desperate as I was. Finally, I glanced at Sebastian. He looked as nonchalant and confident as he always did. I must ask him how he always seemed so self-possessed. “So?” I blurted, unable to hold in my anticipation any longer.
“Barbara, ignore her,” Ivy said. “We shall have some pleasantries first. Did everyone enjoy themselves yesterday? Did I miss anything? How is the tree holding up?”
I took a deep breath. I swear, Ivy knew she was torturing me and just didn’t care.
People chit-chatted and strung things out for as long as humanly possible. I zip, zip, zipped my pendant on its chain and bit my tongue to keep silent. Finally, Ivy said, “Barbara, tell us how we did.”
Barbara took a deep breath and it was all I could do not to push her off the bench and grab the papers from her hand so I could see for myself. “It’s not great.”
My stomach crashed to the floor.
It must have been the impact of the website. And the rival market at Snowsville.
I’d tried so hard to make this Christmas perfect and it seemed like the harder I tried, the worse things got. I should have pushed harder to get the other villagers to accept the Ferris Wheel—that would have drawn people in. But maybe not, if Snowsville was taking all our customers. I pushed my hands through my hair and flopped back in my seat.
“We’re twenty percent down on the first day compared to last year. Last year was fairly typical.”
That wasn’t not great. That was terrible.
Ivy nodded. “Well, we couldn’t have done any more. We’ve put on a great show by all accounts.”
“I’m surprised we’re down,” Sebastian said. The fact that he’d said “we” rather than “you” lifted my spirits. Just a little. “It was so busy. And not just the stalls. The shops as well. There were queues outside some of them. There wasn’t even a spare table in the pub. I checked.”
“Maybe people are visiting but aren’t spending,” I suggested.
“We don’t measure footfall,” Barbara said. “But Sebastian’s right. It was busy. I wouldn’t have said we were down on last year by looking at the number of people visiting.”
“I have more news,” Barbara said and cleared her throat. “From Mr. Taylor at the Black Swan.” Her tone was somber and I just knew he was going to tell us how Snowsville had killed it yesterday. I bet that’s why people weren’t spending as much with us—they were taking their money to Snowsville.
“Snowsville sent people to our market last night.” She glanced around as if she was getting ready to run if we started throwing things at her. “To see what we were doing. Check how busy we were. That kind of thing.”
“To steal all our great ideas, you mean?” I bit out.
Sebastian squeezed my shoulder, trying to reassure me, but nothing would help. “That’s not so surprising, is it?” he asked. “It makes sense for them to check out the village that’s been running Christmas for years. Especially when they’re so close. You’re not going to stop that happening. Look on the bright side—it will push Snowsly to continue to set the bar and do better every year.” His expression was all confident authority, but he couldn’t convince me.
Snowsville was going to sink us.
“But we’re not doing better every year,” I said. “We’re twenty percent down on last year.”
“We need a two-pronged approach,” Sebastian continued. “First, we need fresh ideas that will bring people to Snowsly to spend money, not just visit. And then we need to increase the numbers of people who are coming to the area. I have some ideas. And I can make a few calls. Leave it with me.”
“Wait,” Barbara said, throwing a long, searching look at Ivy. “If Snowsville knows what we’re putting on for visitors, isn’t it only fair that we know what they’re doing?” Barbara asked. “We should visit Snowsville’s market.”
“Great idea,” Howard said.
“Excellent,” Keely replied, nodding at me like I had suggested it.
I perked up. Yes, that made sense. If they were taking our business, I’d like to understand how and why.
“We don’t just want to copy them,” Sebastian warned.
Jim cleared his throat. “No, but it makes sense to check out the competition.”
“Yes,” Howard said. “We can figure out what we need to do better.” Howard was grimacing like someone had told him there was a sudden and total country-wide chocolate shortage.