Giovanna Fletcher
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DREAM A LITTLE CHRISTMAS DREAM
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Follow Penguin
By the same author
Billy and Me
You’re the One that I Want
Dream A Little Dream
1
I’m warm, fuzzy and happy – deliriously high on the mulled wine we’ve been consuming while erecting our mammoth Christmas tree that’s standing smack bang in the middle of our lounge.
One by one, Brett and I take delicate glass decorations from a dusty cardboard box on the floor and place them lovingly on to the tree; all the while giving each other smug little smiles, because we’ve found someone to love us during what is surely the loneliest time of year for single people. Yes, I’ve been there – choking on my dry roast turkey, hearing how ecstatically happy everyone else in the universe is while I’m a heartbroken and lugubrious singleton …
But this time it’s us.
We’re the joyous ones …
And we deserve to be just a little smug.
I grab my ‘homemade’ mince pies (as if I made them – I always get mine from Tesco, change the cases and then bash them up a bit to make them look more rustic), remove one from the tin and sit elegantly on Brett’s knee before placing it in his gob.
He reaches over me, almost knocking me off my perch, and snatches another of my culinary delights from beside us and shoves it in my mouth – watching me closely as I bite into it.
We munch on them enthusiastically while making noises to exclaim just how good they are (proof I definitely didn’t cook them).
‘Delicious,’ I say gaily, puffing some of the pastry out into the air as I say it.
‘Mmmmm …’ says Brett, unperturbed by my lack of decorum and giving me an appreciative kiss on the cheek.
With She & Him’s Christmas album playing in the background, we’re engulfed in a magically festive atmosphere that’s on a par with some of the best love scenes in cinematic history: the sexy swan/rain scene in The Notebook, the moment Sid Quest defies every scientific law and saves the day and the girl in Halo, the elegant dance number between Danny Kaye and Vera-Ellen in White Christmas showing us exactly when the best things happen …
We’re all those scenes and more.
It’s beautiful.
We’re beautiful.
Suddenly the lights dim, the music gets louder and we appear in black and white – with Brett in a penguin suit (complete with a cane) and me in a 1950s frilly cocktail dress: a swishy number with intricate black floral lace woven from its tiny high-waisted belt to just below my knee.
We’re on our feet, stood an arm’s-width apart as we gently hold hands – gazing into each other’s eyes lovingly.
As the music swells, our bodies react, pulling us closer into a classic ballroom hold. Moving like two iconic film noir superstars, we chassé and glide around the room – twirling around the newly decorated Christmas tree like professionals.
We’re the image of happiness.
As I spin faster and faster, I feel something grip hold of my foot. A quick glance tells me I’ve got tangled with a loop of fairy lights.
‘Not to worry,’ I think to myself, gently trying to flick it off. ‘This is all so festive, wonderful and enchanting – I can’t stop now.’
Instead of stopping, I continue. I push off the ground with the opposite foot, snatch it up under my knee and deliver what is (without question) The Best Bloody Pirouette Ever Pirouetted.
Just as I’m rejoicing with the elation of the movement and basking in the look of wonderment on Brett’s face, I feel the lead around my standing ankle tighten, then tug.
It pulls the ground from under me and sends me flying forward towards the ground.
My body can’t react quickly enough. Instead of helping, my arms stay down by my sides – meaning the first thing to have contact with the ground is my jaw. It crashes into it with a crack and a grinding crunch.
Ouch.
The last thing I see are my shattered teeth flying from my mouth, through the air and on to the living room floor.
I black out as Brett looks at me in horror.
Gasping in shock, my body jolts forward. My hands fly to my mouth, protectively cupping my jaw, relieved to find a full set of gnashers still in there.
I breathe out and try to steady the adrenaline that the dream has unnecessarily sent pumping through my veins, which, in turn, has caused a flush of anxiety to niggle uncomfortably at my insides.
A warm hand from the darkness is firmly placed on my back.
‘What was it this time?’ Brett asks, his voice gravelly and hoarse in his slumbersome state.
Thankfully he seems to like the fact that my mind goes into overdrive during my sleeping hours, taking me to all sorts of faraway places and into the quirkiest of situations. Although little does he know that just before he came back into my life (we knew each other vaguely many moons ago), I’d been having recurring dreams of him and me together (he was my dream lover – literally – in one memorable dream we had the most explosive space sex ever). Then, just hours later, he re-entered my life and beat me to the promotion I wanted at work – it was a confusing time and utterly embarrassing. Needless to say, I never divulged any of the pre-Real Brett dreams to him. I didn’t think it would be entirely appropriate to share my stalkerish dreamland tendencies and I didn’t want him questioning my sanity. Luckily for me, Real Brett became even more dreamy, charismatic and funny than Dream Brett ever was – putting me in a rather happy little bubble and banishing Dream Brett altogether. Now it’s all about Real Brett.
‘I knocked all my teeth out,’ I mumble through my hands, remembering the vision of them all spilling out.
‘Come here,’ he growls lovingly, pulling me down sleepily and cocooning me with his body as he throws one of his heavy legs over mine. ‘We’ll have to look that one up in the morning.’
I’m never too fussed about what dream books say about dreams – I mean, I know dreams have meanings, but I don’t think it’s as simple as one image is equal to one meaning. I think it’s more complex. However, Brett loves rummaging around on Google and deciphering the madness. My madness. I get regular texts with possible meanings of my nightly escapades. It’s utterly adorable that he bothers.
‘It was horrible,’ I grumble.
‘Oh, Sarah …’ he says softly, squeezing me into him a little bit tighter and kissing the top of my bare shoulder before flopping his head back on to his pillow. ‘Sleep now. I’m here.’
Within seconds, he’s lightly snoring in my ear – effortlessly back to being fast asleep.
I try to breathe him in and enjoy the warmth and comfort of having my wonderful boyfriend’s arms around me in my bed. I attempt to focus on just the romantic side of my dream and how lovely, cosy and complete I felt in our festive merriment. But it’s no use.
Nothing I do manages to expel the sensation of my heart leaping into my mouth as I horrifically saw myself helplessly hurtling towards the ground.
Having been woken up so violently, it’s impossible to relax back into sleep.
I sigh in frustration and dramatically bash my fists against the bed, but Brett doesn’t even stir.
I snarl into the dark space around me. I know it was just a dream, I know I should be able to just shrug it off and go back to sleep – but some dreams just aren’t shakeable. They linger and fester, leaving you either too scared to go back to sleep, or, in the case
of when I was dreaming about Dream Brett, with the biggest crush imaginable. Dreams are powerful commodities. I don’t understand why everyone else can just forget them so easily.
Giving up the fight, I untangle myself from Brett’s embrace, slide out from under the covers and throw on a T-shirt I find crumpled up on the floor. Now that I’m up, I need a pee.
Walking out of my room, across the hallway and into the bathroom, I switch on the light and gasp in fright.
My ditzy flatmate Carly is on the loo stark naked – well, naked apart from her lacy black knickers that have been pulled down to below her knees.
‘What the fuck are you doing?’ I hiss, sure I’m about to have a heart attack.
‘Thank God it’s you!’ she whispers back, her hand on her heaving chest as she stares at me wide-eyed in shock.
‘Why didn’t you shut the door?’ I say, closing it now.
‘I didn’t want to turn the lights on – it would’ve woken me up more,’ she reasons – a logic I’d completely follow on any other given night, but we have guests. ‘I didn’t think anyone else was up.’
‘Shitting hell,’ I say, sitting on the edge of the bath as she finishes using the loo and we swap positions. I’ve no problem peeing in front of my best mate – it’s just something we do. It’s bumping into her unexpectedly in the middle of the night in the dark that freaks me out.
‘It’s only five o’clock,’ she says, grabbing her pink dressing gown from behind the bathroom door and covering herself up.
‘Only? I thought it was the middle of the night,’ I groan, running my hands along my face and stretching out the tired skin around my eyes – something I know my mum would tell me off for. ‘Encouraging wrinkles, Sarah – ageing before your time …’ Blah, blah, blah …
‘Nope, you’ve slept the night away, I’m afraid. Work in a few hours …’ Carly groans, brushing her blond hair off her face and tying it up into a messy ponytail.
‘I don’t think I’m going to get back to sleep now anyway,’ I admit, my body still buzzing from having two huge shocks within ten minutes of each other.
‘I probably won’t, either,’ she shrugs. There’s a pause.
‘Kardashians?’ I ask, pulling up my knickers and washing my hands.
‘I’ll go get it ready – you grab the teas and biscuits,’ she says, running off to the lounge.
Before I went and got myself a boyfriend, me and Carly were always in each other’s beds, watching crap on TV while stuffing our faces with naughty treats. It was our thing, our guilty pleasure. But now that I have bagged a man-friend and Carly has Josh (another of our besties – they kept us in the dark for months), we’re in each other’s rooms less and less. Although Brett loves Carly and Josh loves me, I think they’d object to our over-familiar ways in their presence. Plus, the bedrooms are now for ‘couple time’ and no one likes a third wheel. Well … they might, but neither of them are getting me and Carly in the sack together – sick and wrong. Just, no.
Anyway, our time together when the boys are around is generally restricted to in the lounge or general communal areas – although we still don’t get to do our favourite pastime of watching crappy TV without them moaning, so we have to sneak in episodes whenever we can – like at five in the morning when we can’t sleep.
Feeling like naughty schoolchildren, we sprawl out on either side of the sofa, snuggle up under the Snowman blanket we bought the previous weekend at a Christmas market, and start to watch the latest dramatics of Kardashian life while slurping on our teas and munching on custard creams.
We’ve completed one and a half episodes and have finished gnawing our way through the entire packet of biscuits when Carly presses the pause button and looks at me with a heavy sigh.
‘What?’ I say, eyeing her up suspiciously.
‘Josh wants us to move in together.’
‘What!’ I squeak, sitting up.
‘I know.’ She nods, her green eyes shiny.
‘When did he ask that?’
‘Tonight, before we got into bed,’ she giggles.
‘Right,’ I say. ‘And how do you feel about it?’
‘Well, we almost did before – you know … ’ she says seriously, screwing up her nose.
‘Yeah, I know,’ I say, pursing my lips into a smile.
The reason Carly and Josh had to come clean about their relationship to the rest of our friendship group was because she’d fallen pregnant. Guessing that a cherub-faced little sprog would be difficult to hide, they had no choice but to tell us what had been going on. They’d talked about moving in together – had even gone as far as spending a night browsing Rightmove to see what properties were in their price range – but sadly Carly suffered an early miscarriage. It hit the pair hard, understandably, and, although they’ve remained together, they’ve never really mentioned future plans – it’s been as though they’ve wanted to just live for today rather than plan for tomorrow. Well, until now that is.
‘We never actually talked about moving after everything,’ Carly muses, echoing my thoughts as she looks longingly into the empty biscuit packet. ‘I think we both just wanted everything to go back to normal and forget – but now, this feels right. It’s like he’s asking because he genuinely wants to live with me, and not because we have a baby on the way or because he feels sad about the situation we’re in.’
‘A nicer way to do it all, definitely,’ I say, grabbing her hand and shaking it with excitement.
Carly grins at me. ‘I’m going to live with a boy!’
‘That is some scary shit right there.’
‘Tell me about it … oh, I’m going to miss you so much,’ she groans, grabbing hold of my shoulders and pulling me towards her so that I’m lying next to her on the sofa. ‘It’s not going to change anything, though. We’ll still do this,’ she says, pressing the play button on the remote and cuddling me as we watch the Kardashian sisters all nibbling on salad as they have a heated family discussion about some ridiculous rumour circulating in the press. I zone out. Instead, I look around the room and imagine living here without Carly, my bestie … the thought makes me sad.
I’ve called this flat, in London’s Bethnal Green, home since leaving university just shy of a decade ago. Although I’d previously lived here with my ex-boyfriend Dan (he fell out of love with me and preferred the look of Lexie – they’re both in our friendship group now … it’s fine), Carly moving in brought the place back to life, removing me from the crater of despair I was living in.
With her came the sunshine, the love, the laughter – I don’t want it to go back to being just me.
And yes, I know I have Brett now and that life is a little different to the miserable lonely existence I had before Carly got back from travelling and moved in – but I don’t want to pin a ‘new housemate’ badge on him just because my current housemate has moved out and he just happens to be about. You can’t rush into these things and start thinking your relationship is somewhere that the other person might not. That’s when trouble starts … right? Or maybe I have some deep-rooted issues, thanks to my relationship with Dan, and am now worried about talking too much about the future in case Brett doesn’t think there is one?
Either way: I’m gutted Carly is going to be leaving me for love.
Stupid love. Love ruins everything … said no sane and happy person anywhere, ever. Bah, humbug.
2
After a hectic day at work trying to finalise and wrap up everything before the Christmas break starts at the end of the next week, I’m walking past a parade of shops on a busy east London street when my phone vibrates in my pocket.
‘Are you there yet?’ I ask, once I’ve quickly removed a hand from its glove and jabbed at the screen several times – icy hands never seem to work well with technology.
‘Yes. First one here,’ says Brett.
I can imagine him sat in our regular Wednesday evening spot, eagerly awaiting the rest of us and the start of our highly competitive quiz night.
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‘Already got a round in for when everyone turns up,’ he adds.
‘Good work,’ I say, imagining the warmth I’m going to be greeted with when I take that first sip of fruity, rich red wine. Yummy. ‘What are you up to while you wait?’
‘I’ve been looking up teeth falling out.’
‘Oh yeah?’ I groan. Having managed to finally remove the horrific image from my head I’m not overly happy to be greeted with it again.
‘Yep. You’re emotionally disturbed,’ he says, enjoying his declaration – I can tell he’s trying not to smirk as he delivers his diagnosis.
‘Tell me something I don’t know.’
‘Right,’ he agrees. ‘Apparently you’re that way inclined though because you’re facing some big changes in your environment.’
‘Oh,’ I say, thinking back to my earlier conversation with Carly – it’s like my brain sensed it was about to come and gave me some warning … although I would rather it hadn’t been delivered in such a gross and cryptic way.
‘So it turns out you shouldn’t have got rid of Gosling,’ Brett sighs, audibly gulping on his beer.
I crack up, throwing my head back and letting out a proper belly laugh, not minding the odd looks I’m attracting from strangers walking past.
When Carly first moved into the flat, we decided to rid the place of Dan and the horrors of heartbreak, by girlifying the place. Well, what better way to do that than hanging a half-naked Ryan Gosling poster in the living room for us to marvel over at our every convenience? But last weekend, after much debate and serious consideration towards our boyfriends’ feelings (it must be difficult knowing they’d never live up to the magnificence that is Ryan Gosling), we decided to remove Ryan from his perch. It was a sad, sad day … one that was marked with a bacon sarnie and mid-afternoon glass of wine – something had to fill the void he’d left behind.
‘Maybe we should bring him back.’ I smile.
Brett chortles down the line.
‘No?’
‘It’s your flat …’ he says, his attention suddenly elsewhere. ‘Alastair and Josh have just turned up,’ he explains as I hear my friends greeting him raucously in the background.
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