Love and Lies at the Village Christmas Shop

by Portia MacIntosh

  I just need to put this out of my head and be up bright and early tomorrow, ready for the Winter Wonderland Festival. Our stall is booked, so all we need to do is get there early and set up. Now, more than ever, I am determined to wipe the smug smirk off Sebastian Stone’s face.

  Chapter 23

  ‘I don’t want you to get mad,’ Gaz says cautiously, using his hands to keep distance between us, as we make our way through the unopened Winter Wonderland, to where our stall is based.

  It’s cold today – I know, it’s December, but it’s probably the coldest day we’ve had this winter so far, and I’m not in the mood for spending the day outside. I’m definitely not in the mood for any of Gaz’s shenanigans.

  ‘OK,’ I reply, pretty sure I’m going to get mad.

  ‘When I booked the stall, I booked an extra bit too.’

  ‘OK…’

  ‘So, the bloke I spoke to, he tells me no one wants to run the kissing booth this year. He says people think it’s too old-fashioned. They don’t want anything to do with it.’

  ‘That sounds right,’ I reply. Well, a kissing booth – as cute as it sounds – is basically when strangers pay to kiss you, right?

  ‘So, he said if we wanted to use it, we could for free. Isn’t that great?’

  Gaz smiles widely, like he’s bagged us an awesome freebie.

  ‘Gaz, he only did that because there’s still a few perverts out there, willing to pay a stranger for a kiss at a fairground – and no one else wants to play pervert wrangler, so he talked you into doing it. No, us into doing it.’

  ‘But it’s not even for charity,’ he says. ‘We can keep the money.’

  I sigh.

  ‘Trust me,’ he says. ‘It’s going to be great.’

  ‘We’re not using it.’ I laugh but, as we approach our stall, I can see not only that our sign is up, but that it advertises both the Christmas Every Day Christmas shop, and the Christmas kissing booth. Our fates are tied now, thanks to Gaz’s naivety and this bloody sign.

  ‘I don’t suppose we can take that down and just have no sign at all?’ I suggest.

  ‘No.’ Gaz laughs.

  ‘Cover it maybe?’

  ‘With what? We can’t cover our shop sign; people won’t know it’s us.’

  ‘I’m not sure I want people to know it’s us now,’ I confess with a sigh. ‘Well…OK, fine, but you’re running it, right? I don’t have to kiss any strangers.’

  ‘Sure, sure,’ he assures me. ‘I’ll do all the kissing. I was born to do this job.’

  He probably was.

  There’s a large open space, down by the seafront, where the town hosts a variety of festivals and conventions, but the Winter Wonderland Festival, which we host every year, is the biggest and it’s definitely the most popular, with people travelling from all over just to check it out.

  The Winter Wonderland Festival is a real mixture of all sorts of things. We’re here because there are always lots of stalls – the kinds of things you’d expect to see at a Christmas market – for almost every local business here in Marram Bay, as well as a variety of other shops that travel from all over, just to sell things at the festival.

  A personal highlight for me is all the amazing places to eat and drink. As well as local businesses – like my new favourite place, Yorkshi, and the team from Apple Blossom Deli – we also get traders from outside town, serving up festive favourites from all over Europe. Then there’s the street food vendors, the baristas and, right in the heart of the festival, they build a wooden lodge, where people can go get drinks from the bar.

  The festival also boasts a variety of games and rides, from the stunning, old-fashioned carousel to the Christmas tree maze. There’s something about mazes that truly fascinates me, but as this one changes each year, it’s impossible to learn the layout. I suppose this is a good thing, but it does frustrate me a little when I inevitably can’t find my way out – especially when there are kids doing it with their eyes closed. Luckily for me, Holly hates the idea, which means I get to take the kids in, which is the perfect excuse.

  We set up our stall with the items we brought from the shop, and Gaz preps his kissing booth, which I can’t help but roll my eyes at.

  ‘Is Charlie still coming to help out?’ I ask him.

  ‘She is,’ he replies. ‘She’ll be here in five.’

  ‘How about I go and get us some gingerbread lattes?’ I ask, nodding towards the cute little gingerbread house, that sells flavoured hot drinks and, of course, biscuits in various festive shapes. I can smell the gingerbread drifting across the cold fairground, and it smells glorious. It’s just what we need to warm ourselves up.

  By the time I’m back with the drinks, Charlie has arrived.

  ‘Here we go, team,’ I say, handing out drinks and gingerbread men. ‘The festival gates open in ten minutes. Any questions?’

  ‘Just one: how much do we need to make to ruin Seb’s life?’ Charlie asks.

  ‘A lot.’ I laugh.

  ‘Let’s do this,’ she says confidently, securing her faux fur pillbox hat, ready for action.

  Once the festival is open, people begin pouring in almost straight away. Men, women, children, pensioners – lots of people have even brought their dogs. Our stall gets a lot of attention, like I hoped it would, but I can’t help noticing that the kissing booth is fast becoming the star attraction.

  Gaz and Charlie have taken a side each, standing behind their own pieces of mistletoe, and they have attracted quite the crowd of curious people already.

  ‘Roll up, roll up,’ Gaz says. ‘Welcome to Marram Bay’s kissing booth – the perfect way to warm up on a cold December day like today. Here’s what you do. You join the queue of your choice, you hand over £2, you get a peck – no tongues, no saliva, no touching, no dirty talking.’

  The crowd laugh.

  Gaz proceeds to hand over £2 to Charlie, before demonstrating what an acceptable kiss is like. It’s nothing, really, just a fleeting peck. Everyone cheers, when they kiss.

  Soon enough, people begin forming lines in front of them both, happy to trade £2 for a quick peck. There’s such a diverse crowd of people here today. I’ve seen what I’d guess is a 16-year-old lad queue, for a peck on the cheek from Charlie, and the only thing more amazing than the fact that there are men queuing up to kiss Gaz is the fact that he is happily obliging. It’s all just a bit of fun, and everyone is having a wonderful time. Perhaps kissing booths aren’t as dated or as seedy as I first thought.

  ‘Ivy, come and have a go,’ Charlie insists. ‘It’s so much fun!’

  ‘Me? No, no, no,’ I say. ‘No one wants to kiss me.’

  ‘They will,’ she replies. ‘You look much prettier than usual.’

  I think that was a compliment, and I think it’s largely down to the fact that my hair still has gorgeous waves in it from last night (apparently sleeping on it only makes it look more like natural curls) and, encouraged by my sister’s efforts, I made a really good attempt at doing my make-up this morning. It’s not as good as when Holly does it for me, but at least I tried today.

  ‘What do you think?’ Charlie asks the man at the front of the queue. ‘You wanna kiss Ivy? She reckons no one would kiss her.’

  ‘I’ll kiss her,’ the twenty-something man replies keenly.

  I pull a surprised face. I didn’t think that anyone wanted to kiss me.

  I don’t know if it’s down to peer pressure, the fact that I am encouraged by a single man wanting to kiss me for money, or just good old festive spirit, but I edge towards the kissing booth, take the man’s £2, and plant a peck on him.

  ‘Whoo!’ Charlie cheers. ‘See, it’s fun.’

  ‘It is weirdly fun,’ I admit.

  ‘It’s liberating too,’ she insists. ‘It feels kind of feministy.’

  ‘Who’s next?’ I say, clapping my hands.

  ‘Hello, Ivy,’ the man says.

  I double-take, because at first it just seems like a stranger who knows m
y name, but then I realise it’s Pete the postman.

  ‘Pete,’ I say. ‘I didn’t recognise you out of your uniform – in your regular clothes, I mean. What are you doing here?’

  Pete holds out his hand to reveal two pound coins.

  ‘Oh, right,’ I say. Kissing strangers is one thing, but kissing the man who brings my post is another. ‘OK.’

  I lean forward and peck Pete on the cheek. He instantly places a hand over the spot I kissed and smiles.

  ‘I miss you of a morning,’ he says. ‘Now that you have the man opening up for you.’

  I laugh at his use of ‘the man’.

  ‘That’s Gaz,’ I tell him. ‘He’s great.’

  ‘He doesn’t brighten up my day like you did,’ he says.

  ‘Oh, stop,’ I say with a bat of my hand as Pete walks away.

  ‘Who’s next?’ I say cheerily, turning my attention back to the queue of people in front of me. My face falls as I realise Seb is the next person in line.

  ‘Slow business day?’ he jokes, nodding at the sign above us.

  I don’t laugh.

  ‘Just kidding,’ he says, handing me a £5 note.

  Today I am immune to Seb’s faux charm and his generosity. His dimples are no longer attractive to me; they are a sign of his smug self-assurance, and I’m sick of the sight of them.

  ‘Charlie,’ I call. ‘Isn’t this the end of my shift and the start of yours?’

  I watch as Seb’s face falls.

  ‘It is,’ she says, taking my place. ‘Hello, Seb.’

  ‘Er, hi,’ he says.

  ‘Wow, £5? Does that mean you want two and a half kisses, or change?’

  ‘Erm, just the one,’ he says, glancing over at me, and then back to Charlie.

  Charlie, ever the professional, gives Seb a peck, while I take up my position on the stall again.

  After an awkward kiss with Charlie, Seb shuffles over to the stall, making his way to the front of the crowd so he can talk to me.

  ‘What was all that about?’ he asks with an uncomfortable laugh.

  ‘Nothing,’ I reply. ‘Nothing at all.’

  A customer hands me the baubles she has chosen from the selection we have on display, so I ignore Seb while I carefully wrap them, take the money from the customer and hand over her purchase and her change.

  ‘You disappeared last night,’ he says once I’m done, starting to sense that something might be up. ‘I looked all over for you – I tried to call you a couple of times too, actually.’

  ‘Yeah, I’d had enough,’ I tell him, turning around to pretend I’m doing something with the cashbox.

  ‘Ivy?’ he says. ‘Ivy…what’s wrong?’

  ‘Seb, can you just go away, please?’ I say quietly, making sure that no customers hear me.

  ‘OK, something is definitely wrong,’ he says. ‘Please tell me what’s wrong.’

  ‘I heard you,’ I tell him. ‘I heard you bragging, about how you’ll have my shop knocked down in no time.’

  ‘Ivy, listen to me—’

  ‘I know what you’re going to say, “it’s just business”,’ I say. ‘So, let’s just skip that, and you can go, and I can enjoy my business while it’s still my business, OK?’

  It hurts me to be so cold with him, especially after we were getting on so well, but I very much doubt he even cares. This really is all just a business venture to him, and I’m just the annoying little nuisance that’s getting in the way.

  ‘Ivy, we need to talk,’ he says firmly.

  ‘Seb, I’m too busy,’ I tell him.

  ‘Too busy to talk about something that’s important?’ he asks.

  ‘It’s just business,’ I reply.

  Chapter 24

  Today was an amazing day…until it absolutely wasn’t.

  Our stall at the Winter Wonderland Festival was a roaring success, and despite Seb’s little interruption distracting me for a few minutes, I had an amazing time.

  Not only did I set a record for the most money I’ve ever made at one of these festivals, but I think I’ve kissed more people today than I have in my life to date. OK, fine, they were only pecks, but I’ll take what I can get these days. That said, I have to admit, my favourite kiss of all was the freebie I gave to the happy golden retriever who came bounding up to the booth, standing tall on two legs so that I could plant a kiss on his face. In return he gave me a lick – a possible violation of the kissing booth rules, but I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.

  I left Gaz and Charlie running the show this afternoon, after receiving a message from Mr Andrews, asking me to call him as soon as possible, so I hurried home to call him, unsure of the time difference between here and Australia. I was desperately hoping I wouldn’t wake him, because I need him in my good books.

  I’m pretty sure I had my breath held for the duration of the phone ringing, but when he finally answered, everything I had been dreading came true. It turns out Mr Andrews has found a house in Australia that he wants to buy, and he needs to act fast…which means he needs to sell the shop fast, which means he’s going to sell it to Seb, and even though I’ve saved up a little pile of money, it’s nowhere near enough to secure a mortgage.

  The first thing I did was what any sound-minded northerner would do – I went to put the kettle on, but while it was boiling I opened the fridge to get the milk out and noticed the bottle of Prosecco sitting in the door, which has been there for a few months now. I’m not usually much of a drinker, but today just felt like the right time. To toast my time here, to drown my sorrows – whatever. Around my third glass was when I had this great idea – that there might well still be a way to save the shop. I just need to appeal to the businessman in Seb, not the human, because Seb doesn’t think like a human; Seb thinks like a money-hungry, life-ruining machine.

  So I grabbed my coat, hopped in a taxi and headed over to Hope Island, to the Lighthouse B&B where Seb mentioned he’s been temporarily living. I’m currently waiting in reception for him to come down and see me, standing by the log fire, hugging myself with my arms, because there is one hell of a storm going on outside. As my taxi drove along the causeway, the car was being lashed with water. It was kind of scary, really.

  It’s getting late, it’s getting colder, and I’m getting to the end of my rope – where is Seb? I want to get this over with.

  ‘Ivy,’ he says, sounding a little surprised to see me. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I have a proposition for you,’ I say confidently.

  ‘OK,’ he replies with a smile. ‘I was just about to have dinner. Do you want to join me?’

  ‘No, thanks,’ I reply. ‘This won’t take long.’

  ‘OK, let’s sit in the bar then,’ he suggests.

  I take a seat at the table, opposite Seb, before removing a piece of paper from my pocket. On this piece of paper is a number. I slide it across the table to Seb, like I’ve seen in the movies.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘This is how much I’ve saved, for a deposit, to buy the shop,’ I tell him.

  ‘That is more than I expected you to have raised,’ he tells me.

  ‘Unfortunately, it’s not enough,’ I admit. ‘Banks don’t exactly want to lend money to single women with nothing going for them.

  Seb opens his mouth to speak, but I stop him.

  ‘Don’t,’ I say. ‘Just listen. I want you to take it.’

  ‘You want to give me this money?’

  ‘Yes,’ I reply. ‘Well, what else do you want in life, apart from money?’

  ‘Ivy…’

  ‘Listen,’ I say. ‘It comes with a catch. You take this money and you leave town. You can do what you’re planning somewhere else, and I can keep working hard, and start from scratch raising money for a deposit. If I pay you off, and Mr Andrews doesn’t have anyone else lined up, it will buy me some time. Things are going well, I just need more time.’

  Seb sighs. ‘Ivy, no,’ he says. ‘I’ve planned everything here. I want to mo
ve here.’

  ‘Please,’ I say. ‘This is my last option.’

  ‘Ivy, I’m sorry,’ he says, taking my hand. I snatch it back and storm out.

  Outside, I huddle under the Lighthouse canopy, taking shelter from the rain as I call for a taxi on my mobile.

  ‘Can I get a taxi from Hope Island Lighthouse, to the mainland, please,’ I say.

  ‘Now?’ the woman on the phone replies.

  ‘Yes please,’ I reply.

  ‘Sorry love,’ she says apologetically. ‘Causeway is closed.’

  Crap, I completely forgot to check. ‘Until when, please?’ I ask.

  ‘Coming up to 4 a.m., love, sorry,’ she says.

  ‘Thank you, never mind,’ I say softly, but I’m screwed, trapped here on the island until morning.

  I head back into the Lighthouse, to shield myself from the freezing cold wind and rain.

  ‘Do you have any rooms?’ I ask reluctantly.

  ‘Sorry, we don’t,’ the receptionist tells me.

  ‘Can you recommend anywhere that might?’ I ask.

  ‘I doubt you’ll find anywhere, I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I can call a few and check for you, but at this time of year everywhere is usually booked up.’

  ‘I see,’ I reply. ‘If you wouldn’t mind checking, thank you.’

  I hover for a second, while the receptionist calls other B&Bs, to see if they can fit me in.

  ‘Ivy?’ I hear Seb’s voice behind me. ‘You rushed off.’

  ‘I did,’ I reply. ‘Bizarrely, I didn’t want to be around you.’

  ‘No, sorry,’ the receptionist says. ‘Everywhere is full.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Seb asks.

  ‘The tide is in and I can’t get home,’ I admit. ‘And everywhere on the island is booked up.’

  ‘Stay in my room,’ he insists. ‘You can have my bed; I’ll sleep on the floor.’

  ‘No, thanks,’ I say quickly. ‘I’m sure I have other options.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Maybe I could hire a boat to take me – it’s only a mile – or…’

  ‘You could swim?’ he suggests sarcastically. ‘Ivy, there’s a wild storm out there. You can’t cross, not until it’s safe.’