A Mistletoe Moment

by Natasha West

  Sam was back in her flat, looking down at the phone. This was tricky.

  She wasn’t sure if the phone had a lock on it, but if it didn’t, she was in pretty dicey territory right now. She didn’t want to invade Tilda’s privacy. But on the other hand, it was her only lead.

  Sam took a deep breath and double tapped on the phone’s black screen. It sprung to life. Tilda’s lock screen was a photo, it looked like a real one, as opposed to some generic pre-loaded picture. It was a shot of a landscape. It didn’t look like anywhere in England, it was clearly a different country. There were enormous sand dunes, many of them, disappearing into the horizon, as though infinite. On one of the closest dunes, about mid-way down, was a group of people lying face down, slipping down the dunes on boards, apparently surfing the sand. Swathes of sand flew out from underneath the boards as the people zoomed along, joy and fear in their faces.

  Sam didn’t even realise that people did this but looking at the photo, it made a kind of sense. Was this something Tilda was into? It was strange, Sam had tapped the phone’s screen only hoping to get in, but instead she’d been given an insight into the woman she was pursuing. It was slightly thrilling.

  She swiped the screen upward, fully expecting to run into a password screen. She promised herself that if that were the case, she would leave it at that. But the password screen never came. The phone simply opened up onto the main homepage. She was in.

  The first thing she did was go to the phone book to see what numbers might be in there.

  But it was completely empty, but for Mikey’s number.

  Tilda climbed into the car.

  ‘Dad, I need your phone.’

  Chris looked up from his Guardian newspaper.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I need to call myself.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll explain in a minute. Just gimme your phone.’

  Chris had no idea what was going on but that wasn’t unusual with his daughter. He handed her the phone. Tilda scrolled his phone book and found her name. She hit dial and waited.

  ‘The mobile phone you are calling is unavailable’ said a flat woman’s voice.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Tilda cried. ‘Dad, why doesn’t it work to call my mobile?’

  Chris looked at his daughter. ‘Is this the one you lost last year on the train or the one you left in your pocket that went in the washing machine?’

  Tilda slapped her forehead. ‘I never gave you my new number, did I? I didn’t even get a chance to note it down for myself.’

  Chris tutted. ‘If you got a contract, you could keep the same number even if you lose the phone, you realise that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, father!’ Tilda cried, pissed off. The man never, ever missed a chance for a dig. ‘I realise that! But I can’t sign up for a twenty-four-month contract, can I? What if I’m not around as long as that? I’m paying for something I can’t use in…. Botswana!’

  ‘Botswana?’

  ‘Or wherever!’

  Chris took a breath, curbing the urge to lecture further. His daughter was more than ordinarily annoyed about the loss of the phone, which was not a new experience for her. What was so special about this phone?

  ‘Just get another one like you usually do.’

  But it wasn’t the loss of the phone that Tilda was annoyed about. She’d thought it might lead her to Sam. And now there was no way that it could.

  ‘It wasn’t the phone, Dad.’

  ‘Then what on earth was it?’

  Tilda wondered whether or not she could be bothered to explain things to her Dad. It was a convoluted story with a ridiculous conclusion. How could her Dad ever understand about the mistletoe moment?

  Perhaps it just wasn’t meant to be, she thought.

  ‘Look, let’s just go home-’

  ‘Tilda’ Chris sighed. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Just forget it. It doesn’t really matter.’

  But Chris was a stubborn mule. And he’d gotten his teeth into the topic.

  ‘I’m not starting this car until you tell me what’s so important about that phone.’

  ‘Dad, I promise you, you will not care about any of this.’

  ‘Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?’

  So Tilda, with no choice, explained what had happened. It was a short story. She’d met a woman and kissed her. And now the woman had come looking for and ended up with her phone. And Tilda wanted to see her again.

  Chris thought about it for a moment. Tilda was right, his instinct was to consider the whole thing quite silly. But he’d been rowing with his daughter all morning and the sour mood in the car was getting rather toxic. He saw himself from his daughter’s point of view for a second and he didn’t much like what he saw. It was the same thing his wife had been telling him for the entirety of their marriage, right up until she left him in the home they’d shared for thirty-one years to cohabitate with that ridiculous hippy who ran the organic food shop. That he was a ‘stick in the mud’, a grump with no sense of fun.

  Chris glanced back at his boot, where the fertiliser poked out. It was a vision of the future. All that lay before him in his retirement was gardening, crosswords and comfy chairs.

  That was the kicker. He turned back to his daughter.

  ‘OK. let’s look at this logically. Where did you buy the phone?’

  ‘What does that matter?’

  ‘Because if I’m going to help you find her, that might be a good place to start.’

  ‘You’re going to help me?’ Tilda exclaimed, amazed.

  ‘I’m a gentlemen of leisure now, might as well be of use. It’s a Sunday so the shops will be shutting pretty soon. But tomorrow, we’ll see what we can do about finding this Sam.’

  Eight

  23rd December

  It was Monday morning, the day before Christmas Eve and a normal workday for Sam. Sunday had pretty much been a washout. She’d gotten the phone and been so certain it was the key to unlocking the mystery of how to find Tilda.

  But it was a bust. The phone was empty of anything except one phone number. And since Sam wasn’t looking to hook up with the goofy young barman with the butterfingers, it wasn’t much use. Tilda was lost forever.

  Sam tried to tell herself that it probably wasn’t going to turn into anything anyway. It had been a simple moment of opportunity, a ships that pass in the night kind of deal. She didn’t know Tilda and Tilda didn’t know her. What could you really tell from a brief kiss?

  It was time to forget Tilda’s lips. And the sparkly blue eyes. Time to get back to normal life. The interview was coming up. That was where Sam’s head needed to be now. Not up in the clouds.

  ‘I just want to say one thing to you. And that thing is that Jake is a total animal in the sack’ Imogen said as she sat down at her desk across from Sam, by way of a greeting.

  Sam sighed. ‘I never understand why people use the term animal as a sexual compliment. Have you ever watched a nature documentary? Very wham bam. It’s not exactly geared toward pleasuring the female of the species. And when it’s over, the male buggers off to eat an antelope.’

  ‘Well, thanks for defecating on my cornflakes, Samantha. I can always rely on you to find the downer.’

  Sam rolled her eyes at herself. ‘Sorry, ignore me. I’m just… Never mind. Anyway, who’s Jake?’

  ‘The warehouse man from the party, with the tattoo. We went out last night. And I still can’t walk straight.’

  ‘I’m very pleased for you’ Sam said, trying to sound genuine. It all seemed to come so easy for Imogen. It was hard not to feel a dash of envy occasionally. But then, Imogen had different priorities, Sam reminded herself. She didn’t overthink everything. She just rolled with things.

  And Sam had made a stab at rolling with it, by pursuing a sexy stranger. But she’d fallen at the first hurdle. Perhaps it wasn’t all that easy to be easy.

  ‘Something’s up with you, isn’t it? I can tell. You’ve got a face like… what’
s that expression you working class types use? A smacked arse?’

  ‘No one has been smacking my arse, thanks’ Sam replied as she opened up a spreadsheet. Imogen would get bored soon.

  ‘Is it Lara? It’s Lara, isn’t it?

  ‘It’s not Lara’ Sam replied as she scrolled mindlessly up and down the spreadsheet. She couldn’t remember why she’d actually decided to open it. Probably just to look busy until Imogen stopped sniffing about for gossip.

  ‘Ahh, so it is something?’

  ‘It’s nothing. Now why don’t you tell me the details of your sexual adventures with the biceps that are attached to that man?’

  ‘Ha, you must think I’m stupid. You never want to hear about that kind of thing. What’s going on, Sam. Spill!’

  Damn the woman. She was a dog with a bone. But perhaps that was a quality that might be of use, Sam realised. She’d had been trying to go this thing alone but maybe what she needed was a fresh perspective.

  ‘Imogen?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Say you met someone...’

  ‘Ooh, this has potential. Is this a cute someone? Perhaps a someone whose knickers we might want to get into?’

  Sam was beginning to regret this already but it was too late. In for a penny…

  ‘Alright, yes. All of that business.’

  Imogen clapped her hands together happily.

  ‘Alright, enough of that’ Sam commanded. ‘Anyway, say after you met this person, you sort of… lost track of them. And you didn’t know any details about them except their first name.’

  ‘I guess I would ask around and try and find out their phone number-’

  ‘Dead end. Trust me’ Sam broke in.

  ‘OK. I suppose then I’d head to the internet, weasel them out that way.’

  ‘But I don’t have a last name.’

  ‘What’s the first name?’

  ‘Tilda.’

  Imogen goggled at Sam. ‘Her name is Tilda?! For god’s sakes, Sam! It’s a semi-unusual name. You could probably find her in about five minutes on Facebook.’

  ‘But I’m not on it. I de-activated a while back.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘I don’t know. When did Katie Holmes marry Tom Cruise? I think it was around then.’

  ‘Jesus wept. How can you be this techno-illiterate?’

  ‘Years of arduous practise. I don’t like social networking. It’s all the terrible grammar and the bragging. Drives me nuts.’

  ‘Well, from the sounds of it, you’re going to need the internet’s help so you’d better make friends with it again. Now, come over here and let’s find this woman.’

  Sam stood and went around to Imogen’s desk. Imogen was making it all sound so easy but she tried not to get her hopes up. She’d already had enough disappointment over this.

  But Imogen was bang on. She put the name and the city in and that took the number to a searchable amount. After a couple of minutes of scrolling through pictures, there she was. The messy blonde hair, the mischievous smile and the sparkly blue eyes. Tilda Banks.

  ‘Imogen. You’re a genius.’

  Imogen looked at her with the devil in her eyes. ‘It’s a private account, not visible to the general public. You have to have an account to look at it. You know what you have to do now, don’t you?’

  Sam looked at Imogen in horror. ‘No. God, no. Please tell me there’s some other way?’

  ‘Sorry, my darling. I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do to save you from your fate. You’re going to have to re-activate your Facebook account.’

  Nine

  Tilda and Chris were in line in the second hand electronics chain, Good As New Tech, waiting to speak to someone. The shop was standing room only. With just a few days till Christmas, the place was heaving with people who had come to buy cut rate gifts.

  ‘Dad, I don’t think this is going to work.’

  Chris sighed and turned in the small space they had in the long queue. ‘What do I always tell you?’

  Tilda shrugged. ‘Lots of things. Can you narrow it down a bit?’

  ‘If you don’t ask…’ he trailed off, hoping she’d pick up the sentence, which she dutifully did. ‘If you don’t ask, you don’t get’ Tilda chanted. ‘Alright, I guess it can’t hurt. But it’s nuts in here. I doubt anyone’s gonna want to take the time to help me meet some girl…’

  ‘Tilda’ Chris laughed. ‘Don’t be daft. We’re not going to put it like that.’

  ‘Oh. What are we going to say?’

  Just then, Tilda and Chris found themselves at the front of the queue. Whatever Chris had up his sleeve, Tilda would have to follow his lead.

  ‘Oh’ Chris cried out as he leant on the counter ‘Thank god, a human!’ The tattooed young woman behind the counter, whose name tag read Cleo, looked slightly surprised to be addressed as such. But Chris wasn’t done.

  ‘I’ve been on the phone to your company all day and I can’t seem to get anywhere. I’m here to appeal to you, face to face, in the hopes that you’ll break out of your corporate identity and see a plea for help. One human to another.’

  ‘Okkaaay…’ Cleo said, obviously wondering where this was going. ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘My daughter, she bought a phone from here. And then some bastard stole it.’

  Tilda felt this was probably her moment to give Cleo a smile, introducing herself as the daughter in question.

  ‘Yeah, alright, but how can we-’ Cleo began.

  ‘The thing is, the phone was bought from here and she put in a…’ he turned to Tilda ‘Is it a burner sim?’ Tilda nodded. ‘So it’s not registered to anyone. And we never got a chance to note the number. Because then her waters broke.’

  Cleo gave a little gasp. As did Tilda. She reminded herself that none of this should be a surprise to her, as the person whose waters had apparently spilled. She quickly slapped a poker face on.

  ‘So, of course, we used the phone to take photos and videos of little Sophie’s first moments. We actually got a snap of her coming out’ Chris went on.

  Cleo glanced at Tilda with a questioning look and Tilda could tell what she was thinking. ‘Don’t worry’ she assured the girl. ‘We got a nurse to take that one.’

  Cleo nodded, relieved.

  Chris continued his tale. ‘So, just as we were leaving the hospital, some utter bastard slipped the phone out of her bag, which was hanging on a wheelchair by the way, and now all those photos and videos of the baby’s first moments in the world are gone unless we can track the phone down. And we have no idea how to do it!’

  ‘And it didn’t upload to the cloud?’ Cleo asked reasonably.

  Chris was thrown. ‘The what?’

  ‘Nope’ Tilda replied, stepping in. ‘Barely had the thing out of the box, wasn’t set up for it’. Luckily, even though her dad might not have seen that question coming, it had crossed her mind as he wove his tale.

  Cleo thought for a moment and Tilda was pleased to see that she actually seemed invested.

  ‘Look, give me your receipt and let me see if I can find the record of it.’

  Tilda pulled the receipt out of her wallet. Chris had made sure she found it before they’d ventured out and even though Tilda had fought him, she was glad she had acquiesced. He obviously had some idea about how this was going to go down, Tilda had to admit.

  Cleo took the receipt and checked the details, tapping her screen. ‘OK, I’ve got the record of the phone. And there is one thing you could try. If the person who owned the phone before you had it registered, you can still track it from their account. As long as they haven’t de-activated.’

  ‘We can? That’s amazing.’

  ‘But the thing is’ Cleo added, ‘it’s illegal for me to give you that person’s details.’

  Chris looked to Tilda apologetically but she shook head to let him know it was OK. They’d tried.

  But Cleo leaned over the counter and gestured for Chris and Tilda to meet her, which they did, curious. Amid the
din, there was no way anyone could overhear them.

  ‘But if I just left the details of the phone up on my screen, which included a name and address of its previous owner, and then I turned to get something from behind the counter, and I happened to nudge my screen around as I did it… well, I can’t be expected to know if you looked. It’s rammed in here!’