by Annie O'Neil
‘Yeah. This Christmas. Aww, look. It might not happen, but …’ She gave her one of those ‘I’m going to level with you’ looks. ‘I sent him a ticket. An airline ticket. To come over. See the new house, meet my new friends.’ She gave Jess a pointed smile that instantly deepened the friendship they seemed to be forming.
‘Why wouldn’t it happen?’ Jess asked.
‘I send him one every year.’
‘Wow. That’s nice. And …?’
Drea cleared her throat again and put the biscuit down, pushing the plate away from her as she did. ‘He’s never come.’
Ah.
‘He …’ Drea gave the kitchen table a few taps with her fingernails. ‘When I left things became quite … complicated between the two of us.’
Jess got up, put the kettle on again and leant on the breakfast bar while Drea continued.
‘The truth is, I wasn’t the put-together, organised being you see before you when I had Spence. I was a kid, really. My parents kicked me out. They were the country-club type. Not the sort to have a sixteen-year-old debutante daughter wandering round in a family way. There was no way I was going to have the boyfriend involved because he was a right plonker, but it didn’t seem to stop me from falling for more of them until I finally got my head screwed on.’
‘They kicked you out?’ Jess backtracked, completely unable to imagine her parents doing the same. ‘What did you do?’
‘Only thing I could,’ Drea said without a flicker of humour. ‘I danced.’
‘What?’ Jess tried to imagine her in leggings and a sparkly leotard and … actually could.
‘Pole-danced, doll. I’d been taking ballet, jazz, modern, the lot right up until I was up the duff. Once I’d had Spence, I put my moves to work on a pole.’ Drea tried to imagine men tucking notes into a teenage mother’s G-string and shuddered. Drea clocked it and sniffily tacked on, ‘I only danced at the no-touch ones with the biggest bouncers and I only did it until I had enough money to do what I really wanted to.’
‘Which was?’
‘Fitness-based stuff. Exercise.’
Jess shook her head. She wasn’t following.
Drea looked over her shoulders as if she were about to disclose an embarrassing secret. ‘Have you heard of the Bondi Beach Body?’
Jess nodded. Just about the whole world had heard about it. It had eclipsed Zumba and Soul Cycle and just about every other fitness craze. Amanda did it all the time before work. She called it ‘Death by Lunges’. Amanda had great legs.
‘That’s me,’ Drea said.
‘What?’ Jess nearly spat out her tea. ‘You invented it?’
Drea did one of those head-tip to the side moves that said yes, she did, but that she’d earned it. The hard way.
‘Wow. That’s amazing.’
‘Not so much when you consider the bozos I dated along the way. The parenting choices I should’ve made if I hadn’t been so obsessed with finding the right guy. Spence had to handle a lot of growing up stuff on his own. Things he should’ve had his mum by his side for.’ She huffed out an aggrieved sigh and shot Jess a sad smile. ‘Story has a happy ending, though. Sort of. I finally ditched the last one two years back. In Nottingham.’
Ah.
‘But you haven’t been back to Oz?’
Drea dropped her decoration-free biscuit into the bin. ‘I think that’s enough sharing and caring for today, dollface. All right?
So that was a no, then.
‘I’m sure you did a better job than you think you did,’ Jess tried to blow a bit more oxygen into the conversation.
‘With Spence?’ She picked up a star-shaped biscuit. ‘Yeah, he’s a good lad, all told. Knows right from wrong on the important stuff.’ She scrunched up her nose and began flicking hundreds and thousands off of the star. ‘I didn’t give him the best of examples when it came to relationships.’ She finally met Jess’s eye. ‘I’d love to have gone back, watched him graduate, helped him move into flat, meet his partner, but I didn’t earn it. Nor have I earned the right to beg for his forgiveness. It’s too much pressure to put on the lad. He’s got his ticket. He gets to choose.’
‘We all make mistakes.’
‘We don’t all date blokes who insist upon relocating to another country before your kid leaves uni.’
‘I’m sure you had your reasons for agreeing to go. Didn’t Barack Obama’s mum leave him with his grandparents when she remarried? He turned out all right.’
‘She turned out dead,’ Drea countered. ‘Cancer. Well before he became President.’ Drea blinked pointedly, then scrubbed her nails through her hair. ‘Look. The point being … I talk a good game about how to be a good person but the truth is, I didn’t prioritise the right one. Spencer should’ve been my number one guy all along.’
‘He must know you love him.’
Drea made a strangled noise. ‘I’m not so sure about that.’
Jess’s heart skipped a beat. One thing she had always been sure of was her parents’ love.
‘So … when is the ticket good for?’ She asked.
‘Between now and Christmas.’
Jess gulped. That would be one expensive ticket. Then again, Drea had invented Bondi Beach Body. She could probably afford it. Which did beg the question, why was she living here in this lovely, but not exactly exclusive cul-de-sac.
‘Why don’t you move back to Australia?’ she asked instead. ‘You could always live in a different city if you wanted to give him space.’
Drea took a sharp inhalation of breath and shook her head. ‘I want Spence to want to come here, you know? By choice. I just want him to know I’m a normal mum now. A normal mum living a normal life.’
And suddenly the living advent calendar made sense. Drea was paying her dues to the Christmas miracle gods to see if she could earn a miracle of her own.
‘Well, I will cross absolutely everything I have for you.’ Jess held up her fingers and crossed everything she could. All of a sudden her blood ran cold. ‘I’m so sorry, Drea. I’ve got to go.’
‘Oh, right.’ Drea gave her a dubious look. ‘Didn’t realise being a sofa limpet was a nine-to-five thing.’
‘No, sorry. It’s not that. It’s …’ she hesitated. ‘It’s Mr Winters.’
‘What? Number twenty-four?’
‘Yup. I told him I’d help him plant tulip bulbs.’
Drea gave her the side eye. ‘And how did this arrangement come to pass? ‘
Jess quickly explained about the Christmas card, accidentally opening it, reading it, feeling hugely guilty and trying to fix it. ‘Which, of course, I probably shouldn’t have told you either, because now that’s two of us who know who shouldn’t and Mr Winters is still in the dark.’
‘If he hasn’t opened the letter.’
‘Good point. Although, even if he has opened it, it’s pretty unlikely he’ll go on the internet and find Will’s catering company. He needs the business card if he is going to get in touch with him.’ Jess suddenly felt ill. ‘What if the Christmas card has made him even more depressed? Bringing back all of those memories about his son and learning he’s had two grandsons all of these years and never known it.’
‘You’re going to have to fix it, doll.’ Drea’s tone suggested doing otherwise was completely out of the question. ‘If he has a chance to be reunited with family? You’ve got to make it happen.’
An interesting order coming from someone opting for the ‘If You Build It, He Will Come’ mode of family issue resolution.
‘How?’
‘That’s your problem, doll.’ Drea’s expression darkened. ‘But if that man does not do something on Christmas Eve for the advent calendar? I will be raging. And I will blame you.’ She gave Jess an adorably bright smile. One, Jess now realised, that was the smile of someone who could do a thousand lunges and feel no pain. ‘No pressure.’
> After Drea left, Jess raced into the shower, dragged a comb through her hair, stuffed an Alice band onto her head because her fringe was definitely not feeling obedient, removed it, put her bobble-topped hat on instead, then raced down the street. She knocked on Mr Winters’ door only to be met with a deafening silence. She tried again. Nothing. She peeked into the windows. Nope. No signs of life apart from a large blue-eyed Siamese cat, which gave her a decidedly dismissive flick of the tail before stalking out of the room.
Shoulders slumped and feeling as if she’d let him and the neighbourhood down, Jess went home, mind spinning with ways to cajole Mr Winters out of his house and, more importantly, how to convince him having the entire neighbourhood over on Christmas Eve would be a good thing.
6 December
6 December
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Your Christmas Card
Dear Mr Winters
Delete delete delete
Dear Will (is it all right if I call you Will?)
Delete delete delete
Dear Will,
Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Jess(ica) Green. I live at number 14 Christmas Street, just down the road from your grandfather, Mr Arnold Winters.
How do I know he is your grandfather, you might be asking yourself. Good question. Well, it’s sort of a funny story. The postman accidentally delivered your Christmas card to mine and because I was so excited to have received Christmas cards at my new house, I didn’t even bother to check who it was from (or addressed to, obviously) and … erm … I opened it. I’m really, really, really sorry. And then I read it. (Sorry, sorry, sorry times a million, I know it’s illegal please don’t press charges it was genuinely an honest mistake).
I brought the card to your grandfather straight away, but accidentally managed to superglue the envelope shut without the all-important contact details card. Because your grandfather is a) older than average and b) not entirely keen to increase his social circle from what I can gather, I didn’t manage to get your business card to him so I decided I’d write to you instead to see if perhaps you might be able to send him a second Christmas card with a second business card as I would hate for your plan to meet your grandfather to go wrong. I’m so sorry to have created such a mess. I know this is your busy season (great name for the catering company by the way!). Maybe he will need to use your services for Christmas Eve as his house is the final destination for our street’s living advent calendar???
Anyway. Sorry. I’m interfering and I have had bad experiences with interfering so I’ll just leave it there but if you have any questions or are cross, I understand on both counts.
Yours sincerely
Jess(ica) Green (Number 14 Christmas Street)
‘I would say you’re a … hmmm …’ Kevin crossed his arms and leant closer in towards Jess. ‘You’re a tough one.’
Jess bristled and backed up a step. She was feeling decidedly edgy. And it wasn’t just because Kev from number 6 was eyeing her up like a prize pony.
Okay. She might be overreacting a little bit to being at the wrong end of his invisible magnifying glass. Kev was perfectly nice, as was his wife, and the actual reason he was peering at her was for his ‘what kind of car would you be’ party trick. So far he’d handed out three minivans, a Jaguar (Drea), a Porsche, an Aston Martin (Jess’s ex would’ve died to have been told he was one of those), four pastel convertible Volkswagen bugs (the Gem’n’Emms – whose husbands were all primary-coloured Volkswagen camper vans), a Range Rover, a Bugatti, whatever that was (it drew whistles of admiration from most of the men anyway) and, for Martha Snodgrass, an old-fashioned Land Rover. Everyone hid titters or rolled their eyes as she crabbed something about practicality and reliability being preferable to carbon-fibre showpieces, particularly as there was no radio inside a proper Land Rover with which to blare poor excuses of music. She’d finished with a pointed look at Tyler, her lodger, who was too busy enjoying his miniature DeLorean to notice.
Either way, Kevin was taking ages to figure out what kind of car she was like and having everyone’s eyes trained on her was making her feel anxious. As if she was transparent and they could all see her flaws. Her heartache. The anxiety she’d been battling for over a year. The scarlet FAIL that had so nearly besmirched her teaching record.
Drea (and Jess’s mum, if she were here) would be telling her to buck up. That she was stronger than this. It was her choice what face she decided to show the world. A positive confident one, or the quivering wreck that had emerged after being browbeaten by a pair of over-privileged parents whose son wouldn’t survive a second in the real world. That, or he’d become prime minister. It was fifty-fifty on that one.
Out here in front of all of her new neighbours, she’d love to have that bright can-do attitude. A Teflon exterior. People’s opinions bouncing off her. But at home behind her curtains? She was definitely an anxious mess. Especially since, once again, her day had been a bit of a dud.
Though she had refreshed her email enough times to wear out the return key, Will Winters had not written back to her. He was most likely talking to the police and preparing some sort of restraining order or invasion-of-privacy charges.
She’d tried a second time to make good on her offer to lend her bendy knees to Mr Winters so that he could get his tulip bulbs in, but he’d not answered the door again. She’d even done a slow ‘walk by’ this evening on the off-chance he’d be coming out to join them. But there was no sign of the Siamese cat, the curtains were drawn and not even a hint of lamplight round the edges. The house was big enough that he could be sitting in a room round the back. There was a large stone slab path that presumably led round to the back garden, but adding trespassing to her list of criminal activities probably wasn’t the best of ideas. As such, she’d pretended she was on a perfectly innocent stroll. When she saw Rex and Kai coming out of their house, she waved and joined them as they all headed to number 6. Rex and Kai already had their cars. Kai was a little red Corvette and was thrilled. Rex had one of those big 1950s trucks like they had in films like The Bridges of Madison County, but this one had miniature milk churns filled with flowers in it. He, too, was delighted. Now it was just Jess. The cheese stands alone, she thought glumly, shifting again, trying to adopt a pose that was less deer in headlights and more, check it out, no one can slap a label on me.
‘Get on with it, Kev!’ Someone shouted from the back of the crowd. ‘It’s bloody freezing out here.’
‘I’ve got to go out in half an hour, Kev. Can you speed this up a bit? Oop, mind yourself love, it’s a bit slippy there.’
‘All right, all right,’ Kev pressed his hands in a ‘simmer-down folks’ gesture. ‘Just want to get this last one right.’
‘Anyone know if they’re gritting the roads? I need to get to the shops.’
‘Kev! Freezing my bloody tits off ’ere, mate. Get on with it.’
Kevin from number 6 was a mechanic. He was also an avid toy car collector. As such, his contribution to the advent calendar was a toy car for everyone followed by a race on a glow-in-the-dark ramp he’d set up. It began at the apex of his hedge which was nearly two metres tall and ended at the kerb on the other side of the street. His wife was telling anyone who’d listen that if they wanted more than one car just to say because she’d had more than enough of Kev’s ‘precious cars’ clogging up her shelving units. ‘He’d have us all sleeping in the loft if he could,’ she was telling someone as they all waited for Kev to decide what kind of car Jess was.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity Kev reached out to the portion of his collection he’d displayed with pride on a card table he’d set up an hour earlier, and plucked a racing-green Mini Cooper from the collection. A little swirl of warmth wrapped round her heart. She’d always liked Mini Coopers. Never in a million years would her l
ife in London have afforded her one, but maybe … maybe if she set up a special savings account—
She dismissed the thought. Things don’t make life better. Happiness and confidence and kindness make life better.
Kev held up a rather bland-looking Rover alongside the Mini. Her spirits plummeted. He squinted at Jess, then smiled and handed her the Mini Cooper.
A collective sigh of relief went round the crowd.
Jess smiled at the car, stupidly happy that Kev chose it in the end. A sign, perhaps, that things might be taking a turn for the better? She’d put it on her mantelpiece as a symbol of hope when she got home.
‘Right then, Kev,’ the neighbour with a previous engagement briskly rubbed his hands together then gave them a loud clap. ‘What do you want us to do? Chuck them on the ramp and see how we go?’
Kevin’s face filled with horror. He began an exceedingly detailed plan as to how he’d classed the cars and how the races needed to be broken down by model and make when Drea cut in and instructed him, ‘Just tell three people to bring their cars up, the winners will then race one another in groups of three and so on until we have a single winner. Right?’
Jess hid a giggle behind her mittened hands. She could easily picture Drea getting the entire street to do press-ups and star jumps if she wanted to. Little wonder they’d all been hurling snowballs at each other on the day she’d arrived. Little wonder, she thought a bit more sadly, that her son saw her in a different light.
Kevin nodded obediently and called out three names.
His wife applauded her and asked Drea if she could come over next time she needed Kevin to do some housework.
‘You got it, doll,’ Drea winked. ‘Now let’s get crackin’, eh?’
Once the races were under way, Drea worked her way through the crowd with her winning Jaguar and handed Jess a reusable water bottle. ‘Stunning Picpoul in there, if you fancy something to take the edge off. I’ve disguised it so people don’t think I’m a complete lush.’ She shot Jess a wicked smile then gazed out at the crowd as a queen might survey her people. Grandly.
