The Christmas Swap

by Sandy Barker

  And yet …

  Jules also knew she was her dad’s biggest ally, that when the family dinners and games of Cards Against Humanity or Trivial Pursuit got too rowdy, she could catch his eye across the table and they’d share a moment of calm, just with a look. Those moments were a sort of “time out” from their maelstrom of family life, shared by two introverts who loved everyone there, but longed for a breath of quiet and stillness.

  She knew her brother, Will, would do his best. He was under strict instructions to look out for their dad—and for Lucy—but he didn’t see the world quite the way Jules did, and she was worried he would neglect his duties.

  Why, oh why, am I going all the way to Australia for the holidays? she’d asked herself, just as the plane touched the tarmac in LA.

  But she knew why. Sometimes, getting on a plane was the only way to shake yourself out of a rut—a rut that you had created and that was slowly eating you up.

  *

  While she waited for her luggage to pop out of the shoot in Melbourne, Jules peeled off as many layers as she could—coat, sweater, and long-sleeved T-shirt—and stuffed them into her carry-on, still wearing a tank and her jeans. She was also still in her boots, but her flip-flops were packed, and there was no way she was going through the rigmarole of swapping them out at baggage claim.

  Her luggage arrived and she cleared customs, then followed signs through the terminal to the Sky Bus. Ash had offered to pick her up, but Jules was fine with finding her own way into the city. She didn’t want to be a burden.

  The heat felt glorious when she stepped into the bright sunshine. Her feet prickled with it inside her boots, but the rest of her body was relieved. Her entire life she’d lived in Colorado and every year she dreaded the icy winters. Summers in Boulder were gorgeous—eighty-five degrees, bright blue skies that stretched on forever, light breezes—but the winters were something to be endured.

  With her luggage stowed on a rack, she chose an elevated seat in the middle of the bus so she could see out the large window. The first half of the journey was unremarkable, except when the driver pointed out a field next to the highway that was brimming with kangaroos.

  Dozens of pointy furry faces with big ears watched as the bus flew by and Jules grinned. Australia, she thought. I’m in Australia! A young couple in front of her spoke rapid Japanese to each other and tried to take photos, but the bus was going too fast.

  The second half of the journey revealed glimpses of the skyline and then, after one bend in the highway, the city of Melbourne was revealed, taking up her window and the ones either side. It was nothing like Boulder, or Denver for that matter. Melbourne was dense and tall, with dozens of skyscrapers earning their name. And she’d never seen so many cranes in her life.

  There was also a Ferris wheel like the one in London, although it looked out over an industrial area and a giant yard of shipping containers. Somewhere from the back of her mind, she retrieved a memory of Chloe saying that no one went on it because the view was terrible—oh, and one year, the frame had started to crack. She’d avoid it.

  Twenty minutes later, Jules regretted turning down Ash’s offer to pick her up from the airport. It was a much longer walk from the bus station to the Docklands apartment than she’d anticipated. She’d looked it up a few days ago, thinking it would be an easy walk, but now she was hot, tired, and cursing herself—and her damned boots.

  “I should have caught a cab,” she grumbled.

  Just then, as she crested the rise of a bridge, the marina came into view, with dozens of moored boats and a large bridge spanning the water in the distance. It was just what Jules needed to give her a boost of energy and she picked up her pace.

  At the marina, she turned right and walked briskly as her eyes locked on the high-rise apartment buildings in every shape and design, then scanned the array of boats—everything from small runabouts to luxury yachts tied up and still in the calm, but murky water.

  She’d thought the marina was on a freshwater river, but as she breathed in the tangy brine of the air, she wondered if she’d been wrong. Or maybe the marina was close to the beach. “Oh, please let that be true,” she uttered to herself. She was hankering to get to the beach. That was the other disadvantage of living in Colorado, being landlocked. Sometimes it felt like a form of claustrophobia.

  Jules stopped one last time to consult her phone, then turned onto the promenade. Chloe had said that the entrance to their building was opposite a gelato shop, adding that the gelato was excellent and that she and Ash practically kept them in business. There! Jules laughed to herself because the shop was shaped like a giant ice cream cone, and opposite—just as Chloe had said—she spied the building’s entrance.

  Standing outside was a tall man with jet-black curly hair and a stubbled chin, wearing faded jeans, work boots, and a tight black T-shirt. He was carrying a box and speaking into the intercom—probably making a delivery. As she approached, he glanced back at her and a smile, the kind strangers exchange, flickered across his face.

  Maybe it was jet lag, or sleep deprivation, or even heat exhaustion, but that smile roused something in her. She waited her turn at the intercom so she could buzz Ash, taking the moment to appreciate the tight fit of his jeans.

  He’s sorta scruffy, but seriously hot.

  She reproached herself as a muffled voice replied to him and the glass door slid open. She was in Melbourne for Christmas and to spend time with Chloe’s friends. She was not there to get her groove on.

  The man disappeared into the lobby and Jules pressed the apartment number on the intercom.

  “Hey, Jules!” The voice startled her, then she realised she was on camera.

  “Hi, Ash.” She was relieved to hear a welcoming voice, even if it sounded like the intercom at a McDonald’s drive-thru.

  “Come on in and take the lift up to the fourth floor.”

  The glass door slid open again and Jules heaved her satchel back onto her shoulder for the final leg of an extremely long journey. When she got to the elevator, she was surprised to see that the man with the box was still waiting.

  He turned towards her. “Hey, what floor are you going to?” Those eyes—deep brown, almost black. Holy crap.

  “Four.”

  “Hmm, me too, but it looks like the lift’s out. I think we’ll have to go up the stairs.”

  “What?” She’d heard him; she just hoped he was kidding. Jules looked up at the display above the elevator and where she expected numbers, there was just a bunch of red dots rolling across the screen. He wasn’t kidding. The thought of dragging her luggage up all those flights of stairs to the fourth floor hit hard.

  “Yeah, apparently it happens quite a bit. My friends are always complaining about it.” He shifted the weight of the box in his arms. It seemed heavy.

  “Oh, your friends live here?” So, he wasn’t a delivery guy. Maybe she’d get to see some more of him then.

  “Yeah, just dropping this wine off. We’re doing the Chrissie orphan thing.”

  “Hang on, then you know Chloe and Ash?”

  “Yeah! Oh, you’re the friend from America.”

  So, I’m spending Christmas with the hot guy, she thought as she imagined him standing nude under a sprig of mistletoe. She flashed her excellent example of American orthodontia and said, “I’m Jules.”

  “Matt.” He smiled back, then seemed to remember they were both standing there with heavy things. “Oh, sorry, I was going to offer to take your bag upstairs for you.”

  She looked down at her luggage. “Oh, no, you don’t have to do that. It weighs, like, fifty pounds.”

  He grinned again. “Yeah, that’s okay. I’ll manage. So, how ’bout I head up with your bag, then come back down for you and the wine?”

  There was no sense in arguing. He had offered and she had no desire to lug her luggage up all those stairs. “Sure,” she said, surrendering it.

  Matt placed the box of wine on the floor, retrieved his phone from the front
pocket of his jeans, swiped a couple of times, then pressed it to his ear. “Hey Ash, the lift’s out. Can you meet me at the top of the stairs? Yeah, she’s here. I’m bringing up her bag. Cool, ta.”

  Then he pocketed the phone, took the handle of her luggage and disappeared through the door to the stairwell. “Be right back,” he called as the door swung shut.

  As she waited, Jules settled on one thought. Christmas far from home and far from her dad, was definitely looking up.

  Chapter 7

  Chloe

  “Stop right here, thanks.”

  The taxi driver pulled to the kerb, cutting off another car. Chloe ignored the long horn that sounded and handed over her credit card. She was running uncharacteristically late and waited impatiently for the driver to tap it.

  “Receipt?”

  “No thanks.” She took her card and opened the car door, throwing a look over her shoulder. “Can you get my bag out of the boot?” The driver huffed out a sigh, but she ignored that too. Surely, he didn’t expect her to lift that massive thing.

  It was too hot to be wearing ankle boots, jeans and a jumper, and a thin sheen of sweat prickled her brow. She’d be fine once she got in the terminal—if the driver would hurry up.

  She double-checked the backseat to make sure she hadn’t left anything behind before closing the door. The driver heaved her bag onto the footpath and grunted, “There you go.”

  He was rewarded with a million-watt Chloe Sims smile, which seemed to disarm him instantly. “Have a good flight,” he chirruped.

  She pulled the handle up with a snap and strode towards the terminal, mentally rehearsing her get-an-upgrade strategy. One in three times it worked, mostly because of her frequent-flier status. She hoped this would be one of those times, because the thought of all those hours in economy did nothing to lift her mood. An upgrade would, though.

  *

  Twenty-nine hours she’d been in transit, counting the layover in Dubai, immigration at Heathrow, and the bus ride to Oxford—and she’d been unlucky with the upgrade. But the worst part of the journey was waiting at the open-air bus station in the freezing cold hoping she’d recognise Lucy’s dad from a photo on Facebook.

  According to the glary orange digits of the overhead clock, the bus had only dropped her off fifteen minutes ago, but fifteen minutes standing in the cold felt like years. Where was Mr Browning?

  She shoved her hands deeper into the pockets of her Kathmandu puffer jacket. Her top half was warm, but the damp icy wind was biting through her jeans and her toes were so cold, they’d gone numb. She may not have packed appropriately for winter in the English countryside.

  And she realised that her face hurt. Surely, that’s not normal? People can’t go about their everyday lives with their faces hurting every time they step outside.

  “Chloe?” she heard behind her.

  She spun on her heels, so relieved to see the friendly face of her friend’s dad that she uncharacteristically blurted, “You’re here,” before throwing herself into the poor man’s arms.

  He patted her stiffly on the back and cleared his throat. “Right then, shall we go?” Chloe stepped back and nodded like a four-year-old who’d been asked if she wanted a pony ride. “Shall I get your case for you?” He indicated her bag and before waiting for an answer, took the handle and with a smile that drew his lips taut across his face, said, “This way.”

  Chloe followed, more excited to get into a car than she could ever remember being.

  *

  “Here you are, love,” said Mrs Browning as she opened the door to a tiny upstairs bedroom. “This was our Lucy’s room before she moved away.” She needn’t have added the last part, because the room had Lucy stamped all over it.

  The single bed, which was pushed against the wall, had a bright pink doona cover and about a thousand throw pillows in various shades of pink—Lucy’s signature colour until Chloe and Jules had finally talked her out of it, at age twenty. Not in time, it seemed, to talk her out of pink curtains, a fluffy pink rug, and a hot-pink light fitting.

  On the wall opposite the bed was a massive array of framed photographs of Lucy, ranging from infancy to early adulthood. Chloe scanned her eyes over the many faces of Lucy, seeing the dramatic transformation she’d had in her early teens.

  She also spotted several photos of her, Jules, and Lucy from some of their May Ladies holidays—Venice, New York, Vietnam, and Santorini. Mrs Browning must have put those up, because they’d all been taken after Lucy moved to London.

  The tall white dressing table was covered in trinkets and catchalls, as though a teenaged Lucy was about to walk through the door and scrounge for a hair tie or some pale-pink nail polish. The room was rounded out with a bedside table, a small desk and a wooden chair—also white—and on the shelves above the desk was an impressive collection of Sweet Valley High novels. Oh, Luce, you total dag.

  “I’ve cleared out the bottom two drawers of the dressing table for you,” said Mrs Browning.

  “Oh, thank you. It’s lovely.” Like Barbara Cartland had decorated it for her granddaughter.

  Mrs Browning beamed at her and Chloe found herself smiling back. She realised that she hadn’t remembered the Brownings very well. The last time she’d seen them, she was deeply ensconced in her new friendship with the other two MLs and adults were “boring”. Yet, there they were, opening their home to a virtual stranger—at Christmas.

  She felt a surge of affection for them both.

  There was also a tiny but loud part of her that was dying to give Mrs Browning a makeover. Chloe couldn’t remember exactly how old she was—she rarely noted such details about other people’s parents, even those of her closest friends—but the kind, broad face of the woman now fussing with the throw pillows couldn’t have been any older than sixty. Yet she dressed like she had one foot in the grave.

  “Now,” said Mrs Browning, turning back to Chloe. “I expect you will want a bath, a hot meal, and bed, in that order. Have I got that right?”

  Chloe glanced at the clock on the bedside table. 6:03pm. It didn’t matter what time it was in Melbourne. She needed to acclimate as soon as possible to UK time, so Mrs Browning’s suggestions seemed perfect. Except the bit about the bath.

  “That sounds divine, thank you. But …” A pair of eyebrows shot up to a hairline inquisitively. “Can I just have a shower instead?”

  “Oh, of course, love.”

  The weight of the journey hit her with full force and all Chloe wanted was that shower. “We have a handheld nozzle for that business.” A handheld what? “We tend to take baths here, but last time she visited, Max bought the nozzle for Lucy.”

  “Er, right.”

  Chloe got undressed in the frigid bathroom and stepped tentatively into the massive bathtub, her flesh covered in tiny bumps. After fiddling with the taps and waiting for what felt like forever, she discovered that tepid was as warm as the water got and that the handheld nozzle put out little more than a trickle. She rinsed as quickly as she could, bracing herself against the cold water and even colder air, then got out and wrapped the towel tightly around her, attempting to get warm.

  “Maybe I’ll just use a wet washcloth ’til I go home,” she muttered to herself as she dried off. The thought made her giggle. What on earth had she signed up for? Maybe this was part of the traditional English Christmas.

  Dinner was a plate piled high with sausages, mashed potatoes, and peas—all of which, Mrs Browning mentioned, came from a local farm. Chloe cleaned her plate and enjoyed every mouthful—the fresh bursts of the peas, the creamy, buttery potatoes that were an indulgence she would never allow herself back home, and the spiciness of the pork sausages.

  Regardless of whether it was Mrs Browning’s cooking or the farm-fresh produce that made everything so delicious, Chloe was going to have to watch herself. If she ate like this the entire time, she’d go up a dress size.

  Seated in the front room, as the Brownings called it, Chloe sipped a tiny glass of
after-dinner sherry while admiring the traditional charm of their Christmas decorations. They’d strung a piece of red wool from one end of the longest wall to the other, with Christmas cards of all sizes and colours hanging from their spines. Placed along the mantle above the fireplace was a faux fir-tree garland and six small brass candlesticks, each holding a red candle. None were lit. Perhaps that only happened on Christmas.

  There were four stockings hanging from the mantle, three of them much-loved and one new one with her name embroidered across it in gold thread. Chloe was surprised to feel the sting of tears in her eyes. Would her parents have done the same for Lucy? They would have, she decided—not stockings, because her family didn’t do those—but had they not been cruising around the South Pacific, she was sure they’d be spoiling Lucy, or Jules, or whomever she’d swapped Christmases with.

  Actually, if her parents weren’t on a cruise, she wouldn’t be here.

  The Christmas tree was only as tall as she was, but it was real, and the heady scent of pine filled the room. Chloe stood to admire it, taking her sherry with her. She was not particularly into sherry—it was far too sweet for her—but apparently it was Mrs Browning’s after-dinner ritual. When in a tiny village in Oxfordshire, right?

  “Oh, Mr and Mrs Browning, your collection of ornaments is beautiful.” Amongst the dense assortment of nutcrackers and angels, all very traditional in design and colour, were the handmade ornaments of a child. Chloe carefully held the bottom of an angel made from cardboard and painted gold.

  She sensed Mrs Browning next to her. “Oh, thank you, love. You see that we’ve kept all our Lucy’s ornaments from school days. And many of the others are from her travels with you girls. She’s always finding the loveliest things. I think this one is my favourite.” She pointed to a Murano glass angel that Chloe recognised immediately, as she’d been there when Lucy had bought it.