The Christmas Company

by Alys Murray

  To his credit, Clark really did sound sorry. This morning, he probably would have jumped for joy and rubbed the absence of the classic story in her face. The taste in Kate’s mouth bittered with disappointment.

  “Maybe it’s somewhere else?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Clark said, even as he dug through the catalogue for a missing or misplaced card. “But why don’t you read it off your phone?”

  “That’s not the same.”

  She realized how petulant and selfish the refusal made her sound; she didn’t care.

  “It’s a shame. I’ve never read it.”

  They’d discussed this character flaw of his before, but now Kate felt she could really shine. All her life prepared her for this moment. Adopting a practiced British accent, she dipped into the same performative storytelling style she often did when reading the abridged children’s version to the little ones in the festival cast.

  “Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clerk…” Kate stopped. That wasn’t right. “No. Was signed by the clergyman, the undertaker…” Again, she messed up. “No…”

  When she looked back up, Clark graciously hid his laughter behind a hand clenched over his mouth.

  “Are you trying to recite it right now?” He managed between tightly gritted teeth.

  “I used to have it basically memorized.”

  “Is that a brag?”

  “It’s a tradition,” she defended as they made their way through the illuminated house back to the pine-scented living room.

  “Then read it on your phone.”

  “You don’t get it. The book itself is important. It takes me to Victorian England. Reading it on my phone reminds me I’m here in this time and this place. The paper is a medium across time.”

  “Listen. I like you, but you are a huge nerd. You know that, right?”

  Despite her disappointment, Kate laughed. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard that and it wouldn’t be the last, but coming from Clark who cobbled his own shoes and whispered when the TV was on, it was a hilarious accusation to hear. “No one knows better than me.”

  But if loving Christmas and trying to get others to love it too made her a nerd, then she gladly accepted the title, and nothing could ever make her give it up. Especially now, when Clark looked at her the way he did, like she had all the answers to his questions about finding joy in this world.

  Her mission for a copy of A Christmas Carol thoroughly defeated, they returned to the living room, though for what, Kate couldn’t quite decide. Going to bed now would be akin to admitting defeat. She still wasn’t convinced he cared enough about this day or this town or the festival. And, if she was being honest with herself, she didn’t want to leave him. He was, against all her better judgment, fun to be around. She was enjoying herself, even without the trappings of her usual traditions.

  Emily, no doubt, would have accused her of seeing him with rose-tinted glasses. Emily always said Kate’s willingness to like people without any proof of their goodness was a sign of her naivete. Maybe she was right. Kate saw it a different way. She didn’t need proof of someone’s goodness. Their being a person made them good; she just had to find where that good was buried. Today, Clark’s humanity peeked out through her excavation of his heart.

  On second thought, maybe it was better to think about him like a butterfly stabbed on a cork board. If she thought about him that way, she’d stop thinking about wanting to kiss him or hold his broken pieces back together.

  As they navigated the maze of hallways and doors between the library and the living room—Kate finally understood how the game Clue came about. If the house in that game and movie was anything like this house, it’s a wonder they ever found the body at all—Kate whistled absently to herself, a habit she’d had since she was a kid. It got her in trouble with teachers, her father, and coworkers, so when she realized she was doing it now, she braced herself for the worst. Clark didn’t like music, especially Christmas music. The worst never came; the whistling only stopped when they walked into the living room to the sound of the mantel-place clock tolling the hour. It matched her heartbeat, vibrating at the same frequency. Bom… Bom… Midnight. Bom… Bom… Midnight. Bom… Bom… Midnight. Unlike Cinderella, Kate’s magic remained when the clock stilled, and the prince didn’t disappear.

  Not that she saw Clark as a prince. Definitely not. Of course not.

  “What now? What do we do now?” Clark asked, a jagged edge serrating his enthusiastic voice. Did he… Did he think they were going to kiss? Like on New Year’s Eve? Quick thinking would be needed to avoid any confusion. A list of random activities ran out of her, activities she could use to wedge herself even closer to him without actually getting close to him. In this scenario she’d gotten herself into, Kate existed in the middle of a seesaw. Tipping too far to one side would keep her from her task, from saving her town. Tipping too far to the other would leave her vulnerable to Clark’s half-smiles and thawing eyes.

  “There’s plenty we can do.” She paced. “Sometimes people toast marshmallows. Or get out a telescope and look out for Santa. We could call NORAD.”

  “What do you usually do at this time on Christmas Eve? You’re the expert. Let’s do what you do.”

  Rats. She was hoping he wouldn’t ask that. The midnight tolls on the big clock in the center of Miller’s Point always meant one thing, and one thing only on December 24: the midnight ball. On a night when the festival wasn’t cancelled by a profit-hungry but secretly beautiful-souled out-of-towner, every volunteer and staff member would get dressed in their 1843 best and go straight to the town square, where the guests would be invited to join them for a traditional Victorian ball, complete with warm mulled wine, a live string band, and a fake snowdrift. As the last official event of the night, the twirling and dipping and bowing and swirling lasted well into the early hours of the morning. It wasn’t unusual for the younger members, Kate included, to dance until their shoes broke and the sun rose over the tops of the buildings. Then, they’d welcome Christmas morning with hot chocolate and leftovers from the previous day’s feast before preparing themselves for the Christmas Day crowds.

  But dancing would mean getting close to Clark physically…and that would mean the possibility of getting too close to him emotionally. She’d read and believed in enough Jane Austen books to know it only took one dance to fall in love with someone. One minute you’re dancing, the next everything else in the world disappears but the one person you’re meant to be with.

  If she danced with him, she could lose her heart to him.

  …It also occurred to her she might have been overreacting about the entire thing.

  It just wasn’t a chance she was willing to take.

  “I don’t think it’s really your kind of thing,” she brushed him off, searching the room for something else to do. Popcorn garlands? Gingerbread houses?

  “None of this is my thing. I hate all of this. But I’m trying it for you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I promised I would.”

  “You still don’t like it?”

  “I still don’t like it.” His hands flexed. “But I don’t hate it either.”

  Worse people hurled worse things at Kate on a regular basis. Out-of-towners coming in for the festival called her crazy, a zealot for Christmas. They tacked horrible names to her when she pulled them out of the crowd after overindulging on mulled wine or when she confiscated their flasks from their bags. Yet, Clark’s tacit admission sliced her in half. She was failing. He still didn’t believe.

  Fine. If he wanted it that way, if he wanted to throw her through the motions without ever really opening himself up to genuine change, fine. She could play his game. Her hands gripped the material of her jeans at the hips.

  “We dance. There’s this big dance in
the center of town. Everyone goes.”

  “I don’t dance,” Clark said, just as she knew he would. Almost every activity she proposed received some sort of push back from him; she expected nothing less from this challenge. If he didn’t cut loose enough to know how to decorate a Christmas tree, of course he wouldn’t dance. Dance required an openness of the heart she wasn’t convinced he actually possessed.

  “No?” she pressed, biting in her own confidence even as he sunk into the nearest chair and seemed content to stay there forever, if possible.

  “No.”

  As Clark sank into the armchair, he wondered vaguely if he could literally melt into the fabric and disappear. When that line of thought proved frivolous, he made himself a promise: You will not get up and dance with her. No matter how much she might want you to. Don’t you dare do it. You’ve made a fool of yourself a hundred times over today, but draw the line here. Dancing is a stupid, pointless activity and you’re not—I repeat, not—going to do it. Especially not with Kate.

  His place in the corner of the room afforded Clark the perfect view of Kate’s preparations. Bickering words popped between them like whacked baseballs as she dragged furniture towards the walls. A few hours ago, a move like that would have earned her Clark’s annoyance, annoyance he now knew to be fruitless. She’d gotten her way all day. Objecting earned him no points with her.

  This time, though, she wouldn’t get her way. Let her turn the room into a pseudo-ballroom if she wanted. He wouldn’t join her.

  “Why don’t you dance?” she asked. The smug smile tugging her pink lips told Clark everything he needed to know. She thought she was going to get her way with enough prodding. Well, joke’s on her. He was in his chair and in his chair he would stay.

  “I just don’t.”

  “You don’t do Christmas either,” Kate reminded him.

  “I’m putting my foot down at prancing around the room like a drunken reindeer.”

  “Someone’s grumpy.”

  “There’s no way you’re getting me to dance.”

  The coda of that sentence, with you, never made it out of his mouth. In his mind, there was a distinct difference between not wanting to dance at all and not wanting to dance with her specifically.

  Floor clear, Kate pulled off the little slip-on red and green shoes she’d been wearing with her pajamas, leaving her feet covered by an equally busy pair of socks covered in a pattern of Santa sleighs.

  “I didn’t want to dance with you anyway. I can dance on my own.”

  “Good. Enjoy yourself.”

  He reached for a nearby newspaper. The headline read something about the end of The Christmas Company. That page ended up discarded on the floor; the comics section always interested him more than any part of a newspaper, anyway. Determined to ignore Kate and whatever stunt she pulled, Clark only glanced up in time to see Kate walk over to the couch and coquettishly solicit an imaginary suitor for a dance.

  “Me? You want to dance with me?”

  “Really?” Clark deadpanned.

  “I’d be delighted,” she told the imaginary man as she took his invisible hand and led him to the newly made dance floor. Without a triumphant smirk in his direction, her lips wrapped around the whistling notes of a Christmas tune Clark heard a million times before but couldn’t quite place off the top of his head.

  “You’re making a fool of yourself.”

  “I think you’re making a fool out of yourself. You’re letting a beautiful woman dance alone.”

  Beautiful woman. She was that and so much more. Clever. Decisive. Loving. Damaged and beyond hopeful. Over the top of his newspaper, he watched her, this woman who invaded his house, his life and perhaps his heart. Watching her directly would make her think she’d won. Discretion was key here.

  Clark lived firmly in the real world. Two feet on the ground. Head firmly out of the clouds. Business. Practicality. Frugality. These ideals guided his simple, prosperous and quiet life. He didn’t like superhero franchises or any books about unrealistically clever detectives. Movies rarely made an appearance on his weekly leisure schedule. Television, even less frequently. He saw the world and everyone in it as they were, not as how they wanted to be seen or as he wanted to see them.

  …Then Kate curtseyed to an imaginary partner, and Clark’s firm grip on reality dissolved in a haze of magic, magic he didn’t believe in or trust, but that took hold of him all the same.

  Before his eyes, the world changed, as easily as turning a page in a book. Kate no longer stood in socked feet on an ancient rug. Her partner wasn’t invisible. Her pajamas were replaced with a ball gown. Her hair swept up into an elaborate updo. The living room was a ballroom, decorated even more grandly for Christmas than before. An orchestra replaced her whistling. A handsome man lifted her and swanned her around the room, making her fall more and more in love with him every step they took together.

  And Clark was jealous. Jealous of an apparition. His throat dried. His chest tightened. Leaving her to dance with this imagined rival was no longer possible.

  He stepped into this new reality, this historical fairy tale he conjured around them. He crossed the ballroom. His heart pounded louder than the orchestra. And he tapped the stranger on his black suit-clad shoulder.

  “May I cut in?”

  When Kate’s face sparked into an all-consuming smile, his heart rate quieted and the music once again dominated the room.

  “I’d be delighted.”

  The language was as dated as the fantasy, but she was very much real, a fact only confirmed when her warm hand found its way into his while the other placed itself on his shoulder. His found her waist. They drew close. Close enough to fall in love.

  “I don’t know how to dance like this,” he confessed.

  “Just follow my lead.”

  Kate stepped simply, nudging him along. Never judging his lack of confidence or shouting out when his foot accidentally grazed her toes. Soon, he got the hang of it, and they flew across the floor like dolls in a music box. His heart grew. And grew. And grew. Until he thought it would explode right out of his chest and hand itself over to her forever.

  In this dance, he saw everything he’d been denying himself his entire life: the chance to be free. Not only of his past, but of his own fears and hatred of the world. By trying to protect himself, he’d robbed himself of simple, easy joys like dancing.

  And falling in love.

  Not that he would have fallen in love before this moment. There was no one on earth like Kate Buckner, and even if he’d been looking for love before now, he wouldn’t have found it. It existed in her and her alone. And now, he’d found it.

  As they twirled and tripped and floated across the floor, Kate whistled the tune, her eyes never leaving his face and his never leaving hers. Could she feel his heartbeat? Could she hear it? Could she make out the Morse code of its beating? Bum… Bum… I think I… Bum… Bum… Love you.

  They spun out and stopped their movements when Kate’s song wound to a close. Unmoving, they held one another as if they hadn’t stopped the waltz. Her eyes seemed to be made for him to admire. The perfect color. The perfect shape. The perfect windows into a perfect soul.

  Was he crazy enough to think she felt this way too?

  “I have some bad news,” Kate whispered, too close to him to speak at a normal volume. Clark’s hands shook.

  “What’s that?”

  A glance upward. A guilty smile.

  “We’re under the mistletoe.”

  Sure enough. Green leaves and white berries dangled overhead.

  “You know the tradition, don’t you?” she asked.

  Nodding, not trusting himself to speak, he waited for her to answer the unspoken questions hovering in the air between them. There was no way she didn’t hear his heart now.

  “Would you…” The whisper trailed off
. Clark moved a tiny bit closer. “Would you like…” Another trail off. Another bit closer. “Would you like to…” She trailed off a third time. He was so close he could count the tiny wrinkles in her lips. Another breath closer, and their souls would collide as they fell into a tender, sweet kiss.

  “Yes.” He saved her from asking as he tightened his grip on her waist. “Yes, I would.”

  RIIIIINNNG! RIIIIINNNNGG!!!

  The moment shattered. The possibility of a kiss died. Kate fled Clark’s arms, diving across the room to collect her cell phone from the nearest table.

  He never knew two hands could feel as empty as his did when Kate left him like that.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Shaking so violently she almost dropped the phone twice, Kate scrambled to answer the call while trying to brush the stardust from her eyes. She almost kissed Clark Woodward. She wanted to kiss Clark Woodward.

  “Hello?”

  “Kate!”

  Her lifelong friend Michael’s voice couldn’t possibly be mistaken for anyone else’s, even when it was dominated by loud background noise. In the split second of his greeting, Kate picked out bits of sound with surgical precision. Laughter. A Santa going ho-ho-ho. Music. So much music and conversation everything mixed into a chaotic, cacophonous mud of sound.

  “Michael? Where are you?” Kate pressed her free ear with a finger, hoping the closeness would help her hear his shouting voice.

  “Are you still with Public Enemy Number One?”

  “Yeah, he’s in here with me. And don’t call him that.”

  Kate didn’t dare look at him. He’d wanted to kiss her, too. The very thought weakened her knees and blew on the embers inside her heart.

  “Great. Get into the car and have him drive out to the location I’m texting you, okay? You should be able to get there if the roads in his backwoods are clear.”