by K. A. Hobbs
What the hell?
“Go long, Seb. Astian,” she calls, wiggling her butt in triumph as though she didn’t just cost herself half a packet of pleasure later on.
“Enjoy your Christmas, ladies,” he calls. “I’ll definitely enjoy mine now.”
I pout, ramming the trolley in the general direction of my ex friend who will be spending Christmas in the dog house. “How can one enjoy Christmas with a headache and no cookies?” I yell. “You are a bad, bad man. The naughty list is full of people like you.”
He flashes us a devilish smile and backs up down the aisle. “Oh, I can assure you it’s not.”
“You’re getting a bag of soot tomorrow morning. I hope it spills all over your white carpet.”
“My carpet is navy blue,” he calls back, barely containing his laugh.
God, that laugh… I never would have believed that day in that god-awful room that he was capable of laughing like that. It’s such an honest, pure sound, like he hasn’t a care in the world. His eyes twinkle with fun and his entire posture is open and warm. I guess he has to be that way at work, but in the supermarket? I shouldn’t be enjoying this. I shouldn’t want to be anywhere near him. And yet, when he turns on his heel, waving the cookies over his shoulder as he swaggers away, I have to stop myself from calling out to him again—from keeping the conversation going just a little longer.
“Well, was that as much of a turn on for you as it was for me?”
I cast Imogen a disparaging look as I whack her lightly around the back of the head with a box of chocolate fingers. “You’re incorrigible. Do you ever stop?”
“Well, yeah, I mean, I have to sleep sometimes.” She winks.
“I’m not convinced you do. I think you’re a wind-up doll that just keeps going and going. You’re like the Duracell bunny for bad jokes and innuendo.”
She skips forward and hugs me. “I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me. Come on, we still have loads to get.”
“Loads,” I repeat, dreading how full she’s going to have this trolley by the time we check out. I’m almost certain the reason she forces me to go down every aisle in the shop, including the one with nappies and other gross baby stuff, is just so she can drool over Doctor Sebastian some more, but we don’t bump into him again, much to my relief and Imogen’s disappointment.
Sure enough, by the time we reach the checkout, the damn trolley is piled high with a variety of food we’ll probably never eat, random games she thinks she’s going to convince me to play with her, and, thankfully, several bottles of wine. I suppose I ought to at least be grateful for that.
“Okay,” I say as we wrestle the trolley across the busy car park towards my little car. “What do we do now?”
“Now,” she replies with a grin and a gleam in her eyes, “we do Christmas.”
I look around the bare house and decide there and then, it’s not acceptable.
It’s Christmas eve and there isn’t a bauble, fairy light or piece of tinsel to be seen. It’s almost as bad as the big house I now call home.
“Molly?” I call from the lounge. “Where is your tree? Where are the fairy lights?”
I count to ten and wait for her to tell me they’re in the loft, where they’re going to stay because she simply hasn’t got the energy or interest in putting them up.
Too bad for her, I have both and I will not spend Christmas Day in the least festive place I’ve ever seen.
I can’t help but smile when I think about how today has gone. When we walked into that art shop I never imagined anything remotely exciting would happen. Then the door swung open on Molly’s face and the day got interesting.
I could tell she was attracted to Seb. Astian. I laugh to myself again at his introduction. I could also tell she felt guilty about feeling it.
It was like fate was on my side when we bumped into him again in the supermarket, and I think the banter that occurred between the two of them will be the highlight of my Christmas this year. For a few minutes, I got to see some of the real Molly appear. I got to see her wit, her humour and her cheekiness, and I am determined to make that side of her appear more often.
When I don’t hear anything from her, I head into the kitchen where she’s busy packing everything away. I offer to help, but she shoos me away, telling me to go sit down and she’ll be through in a minute with snacks.
After fifteen minutes of waiting, I’m getting restless. If she doesn’t have decorations then I’m going to have to rope George into helping me find some.
As I make my way back into the kitchen, I notice the door to the cupboard under the stairs is open and a Molly-shaped bottom is sticking out of it. I reach forward to tap her lower back and she jumps, hitting her head on the top of the doorframe and swearing in a very unladylike manor.
“Molly!” I gasp in mock horror. “Ladies do not swear like that.”
Rubbing the back of her head, leaving the slight bump on the front exposed, she turns and gives me an exasperated look. “I never claimed to be a lady. What did my poor head ever do to Santa that he thinks it deserves all this abuse today?”
“Maybe it’s the fact that it’s the most wonderful time of the year and your house looks like… I don’t even know. But it looks boring, and boring at Christmas is the ultimate crime.”
“No, giving somebody a concussion at Christmas is the ultimate crime. Now, hold this a second. I’m going back in.” She hands me a nondescript black bag, tied tightly at the top so I can’t even peek inside, and then goes back to wiggling about in the shamefully untidy cupboard, humming to herself. I’ve never heard her sing before, despite knowing she’s a musician, and the sound makes my heart skip a beat. That’s got to be a good thing, right?
“What exactly are you doing? Other than giving me an eyeful of your behind?”
She wiggles the aforementioned behind right in my face, letting out a very uncharacteristic giggle, and twists like some sort of contortionist so I can see the grin on her face. “You know you love it, Thomas. I’m looking for something. Obviously.”
“Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, Sparrow.” I roll my eyes at her, using the bag she gave me as a weapon to swat her behind.
“Sheesh, first my head and now my backside. Jesus would not want us to celebrate his birthday by painting my skin black and blue. Just wait a moment. I think you’re going to like this.” She shuffles further forward into the packed space, mumbling occasionally about how ‘it must be here somewhere’ and letting out little yelps each time she stubs a toe or stands on something painful.
“Can I help? I’m smaller than you are, and bendy. I can fit in almost any space in any position.”
“You have no patience,” she mumbles out before her body stiffens and she lets out a triumphant cry. “Aha! I knew it was here somewhere.” Her backside begins to wriggle in the opposite direction as she backs up towards me, dragging a huge cardboard box that’s almost as big as her along with her. “Tadah!” She dumps it in front of me, narrowly missing my toes, which I suspect is not an accident, then gives me her best spirit fingers as though I ought to somehow know what’s in the box.
I glare at it and then at her. “Magical. I feel the Christmas spirit already. What the hell is in the box, Molly? I don’t have x-ray eyes. I can’t see inside.”
Rolling her eyes again, she moves forward and tears at the box, rendering it completely useless. I hope whatever is inside doesn’t need to go back in, because it won’t be happening. The floor is covered in shredded bits of cardboard by the time an artificial Christmas tree comes into view. “You wanted Christmas. Here is Christmas.”
“That is Christmas. Molly, I think I just fell in love with you.”
Not waiting for a response, I scoop the tree up and carry it haphazardly into the lounge. It’s a lot bigger than I am, but my determination and excitement at seeing it seems to give me a new lease of life and I manage it pretty well.
When I place it carefully onto the floor, I realise on
e important part is missing. “Where’s its feet? Or it’s stand, whichever it came with.”
“Uh…” Molly looks lost for a moment, her eyes darting around as though she expects the thing to materialise like magic. “I’m not… Ben always…” She stops herself short, perhaps realising she’s said too much, then turns for the door. “I’ll find it. It has to be there somewhere.”
I wait a few minutes and then the sound of pieces of plastic being bashed against one other comes towards me. “You found it. Aren’t you a clever girl,” I tell her, holding my hands out for the feet that will hopefully hold the tree up.
“Oh yeah,” she says, handing me the stand with a flourish. “I’m a regular Marie Curie. Now pass me that Mensa application.”
“I think you need to get back into the festive groove. Being a musician, I am hoping you have a lot of Christmas music we can listen to while we assemble and decorate. Don’t let me down now, Sparrow.” I rest my hands on my hips and look at her seriously.
It’s make or break time.
If she tells me she doesn’t have a single cheesy Christmas CD, we’re going to have problems.
Big problems.
Bigger than trying to make this clearly past it tree look good. “I’m waiting.” I tell her.
She blinks and stares at me for a moment before casting her eyes surreptitiously towards the piano standing against the wall by the window that has remained firmly closed for as long as I’ve known her. “I don’t have… We always used to… Wait. I have an idea.” She dashes from the room, pausing briefly to caress the walnut wood of the piano lid on the way past. When she returns, she has a seriously old looking iPod in her hand, and she stabs at the buttons randomly, trying to revive it from what looks like a seriously long coma. “I’m sure there will be something on this thing. Any ideas?”
Cautiously I hold my hand out for it. She places it in my palm and I have to bite my tongue. I didn’t even realise anyone even had these anymore. I press a few buttons and a few seconds later, it blinks to life.
Scrolling through, I manage to find a playlist helpfully titled Christmas, and nod. “Found it.”
She smiles softly and takes it back from me, her fingers moving gently over the screen. “There was a thing it stands on. Technology isn’t really my thing,” she admits sheepishly.
I look around the room and find what we’re looking for. “Allow me,” I tell her, taking the iPod and walking to place it on the dock.
There’s a crackle and then seconds later, the best sound in the world comes filtering through.
“Well if Slade isn’t Christmas, I don’t know what is.”
A small, wistful smile curls her lips as she hums along to the familiar tune. Cheesy Christmas classics bring people together. It’s just a fact. She seems to be lost in thought for a moment, and it’s pretty clear who the iPod belonged to. For a moment, I wish she remembered telling me about him. Things would be so much easier if that particular piece of ice was properly broken.
“I’m going to erect the tree.” I wink. “I’m always good at that part. Can you rustle us up some decorations? Lights? And maybe a glass of wine?” I add hopefully.
“Oh yeah, wine will do my headache the world of good,” she jokes, but spins on the spot in time to the music and toddles off to do as she’s told. Just for a first. She’s gone quite a while, but when she returns, she’s almost completely hidden behind a stack of boxes with two glasses of wine precariously balanced on top. “A little help?”
I take the two glasses from the top and take a large, much needed gulp out of one. “Nice work.”
She puts the boxes on the floor and I hand her the other glass, raising mine. “To Christmas with friends, and more wine.”
She lifts her glass and taps it gently against mine before slipping her arm through my elbow and resting her head on my shoulder with a soft sigh. “I’m glad you’re here, Immy.”
I sigh and rest my head on hers. “I am, too.”
The music swirls around us, the wine warms our blood, and slowly the tree becomes a tree and not a bunch of odd plastic twigs.
When we’re happy with the fluffiness, I eye the box of decorations and find Molly sitting on the sofa, wine glass in hand, head bobbing to the music.
“What do you think you’re doing? This thing won’t decorate itself. Get your butt over here and finish decorating your tree.”
“Sheesh,” she mumbles, taking a long sip of her wine before placing the empty glass on a side table and sauntering over to me. “Are you this bossy with Gorgeous George?”
“No.” I roll my eyes. “I’m not anything with George.”
“Uh huh.” She nods and smirks. “And that look in your eyes whenever his name comes up says exactly the opposite.”
“There is no look in my eyes, thank you very much. It’s the wine making you see things.”
“I haven’t had that much,” she protests, turning to grab the bottle from the mantelpiece and staring at it. “When did we empty this?”
“You emptied it about twenty minutes ago.”
“Excuse me. You definitely helped. You are a bad influence, my friend. I was a good girl until I met you.”
“Do you honestly believe if you keep telling yourself that, it will actually be true? Because I’ve heard it about a thousand times and each time it smells like bullshit to me.”
“Imogen!” She gasps in mock horror. “Ladies do not swear like that.” She grins, having thrown my words from earlier right back at me, then twirls on the spot with seriously questionable balance, and starts to rummage through the box of ornaments for something, muttering to herself.
“Ladies swear among ladies, never among men.” I giggle in a posh voice.
She snorts in a very unladylike way. “The patriarchy is alive and well. Aha! Here she is. My beautiful girl.” She turns from the box waving the ugliest angel tree topper I’ve ever seen in my face. “Hey, wanna hear a joke?”
“Sure, good luck beating Obama or the snowman.”
“Pfft,” she spits, grabbing a toy Santa from the box and waving both figures at me. “Okay, so one Christmas, Santa was really fed up. He’d had enough of always being the one to look after everybody else all the time. All that international travel was getting him down, and he was the only man on the planet not getting any on Christmas Eve. So, he was in his workshop, stomping around and sulking, the way that only men can, when an angel came into the room carrying a raggedy old tree that looked like it had seen better days. The angel said, ‘Where would you like me to put this?’ And that’s how we ended up with angels on top of Christmas trees.” She snorts loudly at her own joke before unceremoniously stuffing the angel on top of the tree.
Not expecting the ending, and I’m sure helped by the half bottle of wine I’ve consumed already, the joke suddenly becomes hysterical and I burst into laughter, wobbling on my feet, and in a bid to stop myself falling, I pull Molly down with me.
Lying on the floor of her lounge, both laughing so hard we have tears running down our cheeks, I finally feel like Christmas has arrived.
“You know,” she says, rolling over onto her side, her face painted in flickering shades of red, orange, green and blue from the fairy lights, “I was dreading this time of year. All I wanted to do was hide away until it was over. But you… You’re like a dog with a bone, aren’t you?”
“How do you mean?” I ask, hoping she’ll keep talking.
“Relentless,” she mumbles, resting her head in the crook of her elbow as though the wine has rendered her unable to hold it up any more.
“Sometimes we need someone who won’t give up on us, even when we want them to.” I smile, knowing I’ve made a small breakthrough.
“Why don’t you, though? I mean, you’ve known me for, what? A few weeks? And I’ve hardly been a ray of sunshine in that time, have I? Why would anybody stick around for that?” she questions candidly, her eyes intense on mine, curiosity shining through her wine-induced honesty.
&nb
sp; “Sometimes, when we bring the clouds, we need someone to bring the sun,” I tell her simply. “I want to be the sun for you, Molly, because I think you need it.”
“You Are My Sunshine,” she sings softly, her fingers moving to her lips and tracing over them softly. “The song he used to sing to me when I couldn’t sleep at night.”
Siezing my chance, I jump on the topic of her lost husband while the wine is once again knocking down her walls and making her candid again. I can’t help wondering whether she’ll remember it this time, though.
“It’s okay to talk about him. I’ll listen and I won’t interrupt. It’s okay.”
“There’s nothing to say,” she says abruptly, rolling over onto her back. “He was here and now he’s not. I miss him. Every single day I miss him. But you can’t miss somebody back to life.”
I roll onto my back, too, watching the lights bounce off the ceiling. “And not talking about him won’t make the pain any less,” I whisper, then decide to try another tactic. “I miss my sister every day, too. Her name’s Olivia. She’s older than me by three years. She’s so funny and kind hearted. She’s the reason I never give up. She always told me to fight for what I think is right, to help those who need helping and to not let people walk over me.”
I close my eyes and focus. I can hear her voice, see her smile. I can even smell her perfume. The distance between us and the time we’ve spent apart has made them fade a little, but I can still remember.
I hope I’ll always remember.
I wait to see if she’s going to talk, and when she doesn’t, I decide not to push it any more.
“Shall we finish the tree and have something to eat? We shouldn’t have started the wine without eating first. It’s basic drinking 101.”
“I’ll remember that next time,” she says softly, and I can’t help wondering whether she’s talking about the wine or the opportunity to talk openly about the grief that tears her apart from the inside out every day.
Finishing the tree helps both of us to lose the sadness that’s been hanging around us since we had our little heart to heart. While I pack away the boxes, Molly freshens our drinks and creates a platter of snacks to eat while we watch a movie.
