by Jennie Jones
‘Really,’ she said. ‘I’d need to borrow a sewing machine but I could knock it up tomorrow.’
‘We can’t have two Santas,’ Ted said. ‘The kids won’t believe he’s real if there’s two of us.’
Kate agreed that Ted was the best choice for Santa, due to his belly but Mr Penman looked so drearily put out that Kate wanted to give him a runner-up medal. And anyway — what kid would believe either was the real Santa? ‘How about we do a Laurel and Hardy Christmas,’ she suggested, indicating Ted and Mr Penman. ‘You two would look great as Laurel and Hardy. We could make it a movie thing. Have the kids dress up as their favourite cartoon character.’
‘Laurel and Hardy?’ Mrs Tam said. ‘That’s a splendid idea, what do you think, Ted? Mr Penman?’
‘If there’s another costume to be made, I can make it myself,’ Mrs Tillman said, stepping closer to her husband.
‘But you’ll be busy making cartoon character costumes, Grace,’ Mrs Penman told her. ‘Because there’s nobody in town who can sew.’ She paused momentarily but the effect wasn’t lost on Kate. ‘Not like you can, Grace. And if we want out of this mess, we’d better be the ones to sort it.’
Kate managed to stop her eyebrows from shooting up.
Grace Tillman pulled herself upwards. ‘You’re so right, Mrs Penman, and in order to assist my townspeople, I’m happy to take on some costume sewing.’
A couple of the younger mothers clapped: Lily Johnson, who’d iced the croissants, with her two young kids standing next to her, and another woman with a baby in her arms and a toddler at her feet.
‘Which means we’ll kindly take you up on your offer, Kate,’ Grace said. ‘I can supply red cotton.’
‘I’ve got red velveteen,’ Mrs Penman said, a gentle hand on Grace’s arm. ‘So special. Plenty left to drape Ted.’
‘That’s very generous of you, Mrs Penman. Kate, dear…’
Dear? Holy snowflake.
‘I’m sure Mrs Penman will lend you her sewing machine.’
‘Delighted to.’
‘Right,’ Kate said. ‘That’s settled then. I’ll whip up the costume. Have you got Ted’s measurements?’
****
Kate shuddered as Jamie fixed the angel onto the top of the tree. Too many memories, and most of them on the ridiculous side.
‘Come on then, we need someone to test it.’
‘Test what?’ Kate asked as Mrs Tam pulled her closer to the tree and to Jamie.
‘The mistletoe.’
‘We’ll practise our Christmas Eve performances too,’ Ted said, all buffed up in a pair of red corduroy trousers and a white wig. ‘Mr Penman, would you accompany me on the recorder?’
‘As long as we only do one verse and the chorus,’ Mr Penman said, hobbling forwards, looking as though he was clenching his legs together…in case.
Ted cleared his throat, placed a hand on his chest and nodded at Mr Penman. ‘Good King Wenceslas,’ Ted began, trumpeting the words in a staccato manner, his chest heaving as he sang, ‘last looked out, on the feast of…’
Poor Mr Penman’s musical accompaniment almost got drowned out. Kate smiled, hoping her grin would be taken for enjoyment.
Two children joined in, playing recorders. Another stepped forwards, pushed by his mother, and started beating a drum in time to Ted’s bouncing rendition. Two young girls began playing the violin and one boy played an acoustic guitar, plugged in, Kate noticed, to the lead and socket board used for lighting the tree lights.
She shuddered as a memory walked down her spine. Not exactly her memory, but one that had seen her born. ‘Who did the electricity?’ she asked Jamie as he stepped to her side.
‘Mmm? Me,’ he said.
‘Thank God.’ She’d hate to think she was about to witness the destruction of a whole town due to dodgy lights.
‘Are you ready?’ Jamie asked.
‘What for?’
He smiled down at her, took her hand and pulled her gently to stand with him beneath the arched wooden gate to the pioneer cemetery. ‘The kiss,’ he said. He pointed up at the arch.
Kate looked up, saw a bunch of plastic mistletoe above them but before she had time to haul in a breath and get ready Jamie leaned down and kissed her mouth.
Holy bell-ringing Christmas. She grabbed his arms as illuminations ignited in her head and exploded. He pressed his mouth on hers as he put his hands onto her waist to hold her. ’Twas the brightest, most resounding halleluiah running through her body, making her glow like Rudolph. Jamie’s electricity strummed through her, his radiating strength curling the tip of her ponytail.
****
Jamie stared down at her as the townspeople applauded and cheered and Ted’s voice bellowed on about how brightly the moon shone and how cruel the frost was, to the accompaniment of the tinny-sounding band.
The first notion running through Jamie’s head should have been why he’d kissed her so hard in front of everyone, but it wasn’t. The kiss had been going to happen. He no longer cared about the where and the when. He’d wanted to do it all day anyway, watching her do her bit for the town. Wearing her flare-legged shorts and flat white pumps. Sitting on the steps, knees together, garlands of tinsel strewn around her as she laughed good-naturedly at Ted’s jokes and the gentle bickering going on around her. His bad humour had backfired on him. His intent to stay clear of the homey feelings she wrenched from him had undone all the lessons he’d taught himself overnight. Stay away from her. You’ll get hurt.
Now, thirty seconds after kissing her for the first time, questions were running amok in his head. Why had he bought Silver Bells House? Why here, Swallow’s Fall? Why had he succumbed to the emotional compulsion of a shooting star? What was wrong with him?
He took hold of Kate’s hand. She appeared to be teetering, eyes bright with shock. He’d told her he didn’t want to know about the silly things that happened to her, like breaking a nail or losing a shoe, but he did. He wanted to know every little thing that affected her. Or hurt her. Or gave her pleasure.
God damn it, he wanted to know about every moment in her life. And most of all, he wanted to taste more of her. He hadn’t opened her mouth with the kiss, not with everyone standing around watching them, but he’d wanted to. Desperately.
Kate ran the tip of her pink tongue over her lips as she stared up at him and Jamie wondered how much longer he could contain desperation. And if he couldn’t— how much hurt he’d be dealing with.
Chapter 9
‘Cabling was done,’ he’d said last night. ‘Got to fill one of the ditches,’ he’d said. ‘I’ll be up early and back late. Don’t wait up.’
Kate had missed him at breakfast this morning. The air in the house didn’t feel the same without his smile. Not that she’d had nothing to do. She’d cut out the velveteen for Ted’s Santa suit. She’d chalked, pinned and tacked. She’d sewn it together using Mrs Penman’s sewing machine and had got a buzz out of handling the 1940s dome-covered machine and its foot pedal.
The suit was finished; now she was working on the hat. She bent closer to the work, raised the needle from the velvet, lifted the presser foot and checked the feed-dog. The thread got tangled in the bobbin case every few minutes. She didn’t blame Jamie for staying away from her, and that’s what he was doing. His moods had been swinging like a pendulum for twenty-four hours now. First he’d been in a seemingly bad sulk. Then he’d become all relaxed and friendly at the Christmas decorating gig yesterday. Then he’d kissed her and gone all plumb moody again.
They’d hardly spoken on the way home. He’d made himself a beef and salad sandwich and gone to bed early. Kate had refused one, stuffed from all the delicious junk food she’d allowed herself to eat, and still ringing like a bell from his kiss. It had hardly been more than a mouth on a mouth, but it had lasted a good twenty seconds — that was a long kiss — and it wasn’t the feel of his strong lips on hers that had got her all shook up. It was the zing, ping, pow that had resounded inside her as though sh
e’d been turned into a mechanical doll on a music box by some sort of magic and Jamie had been the one to switch her on.
She jumped when he came in from the hall, and pricked her finger on the raised needle. Damn. She stood, sucking her fingertip. ‘You’re back,’ she said, not quite managing to bring on a smile.
‘Needed to pick something up. You hurt yourself?’
She held her index finger up. ‘Just a Sleeping Beauty moment with the sewing machine.’
He walked across, a frown on his face, deeper than the one that naturally sat between his eyebrows. He touched her hand, lifted it to inspect the needle prick.
‘Oh.’ She pulled her hand out of his. ‘Static shock.’ She laughed it off but the room swam as the current zapped up her body and into her head, fogging her vision for a moment.
He wiped his hand on his trousers. ‘Yeah. Must have been touching something conductive.’ He looked around the room as though searching for the electrons. Or maybe not willing to meet Kate’s eye.
He nodded. ‘Okay. Well, I’ll see you later.’
‘You off to Burra Burra Lane again?’
‘Yes.’ He picked up his keys, halted and turned a shoulder her way. ‘What are you doing this afternoon?’
Kate pointed to the work in front of her. ‘Finishing off the Santa suit.’ Which would be done in about ten minutes. Then what would she do?
He nodded. ‘I’ll run you into town tomorrow morning. You can drop it off.’
‘Thanks.’ Tomorrow. So he’d be gone all afternoon. ‘What shall I cook for dinner?’ she asked him, hoping he’d say he’d be home early and they’d maybe take a walk. Then perhaps he’d ask if she’d like to help him cook up a roast chicken or something. Then take a drive into town to see the fairylights at night.
‘Don’t worry about me. I’ll get something when I come in.’
Kate’s shoulders sank as he left the room. Perhaps the kiss had reminded him of the beautiful young woman in the photo. The one he kept hidden. The one he really wanted to kiss.
The front door closed and after a couple of minutes, she heard the ute fire up. Gone. He’d gone.
She looked up from the sewing and glanced around the empty room. Maybe that’s what she should be doing.
****
Kate folded the red denim shorts, aligning the waistband and the gusset. She rolled the linen trousers into a sausage shape and crimped the collar of her pyjama jacket until it sat neatly aligned with the crisply folded sleeves. She slipped the lot carefully into her suitcase. She’d dressed in a black and white herringbone patterned wrap-dress and her flat white pumps. She was almost sad to see the denim shorts go. In all likelihood she’d never wear them again. When would she find the time? She was better off in her work wear. Or was she?
She dated businessmen, when she dated at all. Men with drive and ambition. Had she already become the female equivalent? A scary thought. Although the herringbone-patterned dress felt flawless and smooth against her skin, wrapping around her body snuggly, was it simply covering the hurts and holding them in? Maybe an entire wardrobe overhaul was due. The last thing she wanted was to clock herself in the mirror of some elevator while riding to the executive penthouse and see a tight-arsed female diva with a hair-do so solid even sleep didn’t disturb the permanent wave.
Her seven days hadn’t been wasted though. Time to get a bit harsh with herself, that’s all. She was at a crossroads. She was stuck at traffic lights. Felt like she’d reached a place of no return. A place of no decision. Like…nowhere to go. ‘Got to head onwards, Katie,’ she said aloud. ‘Can’t let this get to you.’ It was, after all, just a kiss. And the woman in the photo frame was, after all… Who knew? Maybe someone so special that the memory of her and the shadow of her image would never leave Jamie free for any other woman. Not that Kate was putting herself out there as the owner of the Hers part of his bathroom vanity unit, but being kissed by Jamie, then ignored by him, had brought jealousy roaring back to her frontal lobe. Or whichever lobe part happened to hold the attraction-to-another bits.
She left her suitcase in the doorway to Jamie’s bedroom, with a note on the top saying she’d send for it and thanking him for everything he’d done but something had come up and she had to leave. So polite. Professional courtesy. Nothing like the words in her head which she wanted to sing out loud to the accompaniment of the Swallow’s Fall town band.
I’m sorry I’m not the woman in the photo.
I hope she comes back to you, wherever she went.
Because I think I like you. I think I like you more than I should.
She stepped back from the door, staring at her suitcase. She had the Santa suit and a pair of white ankle-strap stilettos in a plastic carrier bag tied to the handles of the carry-on. That’s all she’d manage to carry. Seven kilos would undoubtedly feel like forty by the time she’d trudged the two hours to town. There’d be a bus once she got there. There had to be a bus.
‘Going somewhere?’
Jamie’s voice punctured her ruminations like another needle prick. But sharper and deeper this time. She spun around on the landing, the carry-on knocking against her leg.
He stood by the front door, keys in his hand. She must have been wallowing in her self-pity so deeply that she hadn’t heard the door open let alone his ute pull up outside. Her breath wouldn’t come to speak though it was there swirling in her lungs. She threw a hand behind her, indicating the rest of her luggage which he probably couldn’t see, gathered her breath and let her worries out in a rush. ‘I can’t do Christmas, Jamie. It’s not my scene this year.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘What are you doing back so early?’ she asked.
He threw his keys onto the hall table and stepped to the bottom of the jarrah staircase. ‘I’ve been a bit off with you, Katie. I’d like to apologise. And explain.’
‘Oh, I didn’t notice. Don’t worry.’ She looked away. ‘I suppose I’ve been a bit irritable too, actually.’
‘Were you going to walk into town?’
She nodded. ‘I know how busy you are.’
‘You haven’t said why you’re going.’
No. And neither did she want to. She pulled an excuse from the recesses of her brain. Not the real reason, but a semi-truthful reason and one she’d been contemplating for the last few days. ‘It’s my birthday.’
Jamie’s gaze sharpened; he put a hand on the wrought iron railing. ‘Today?’
‘No,’ she shook her head. ‘Christmas.’
‘Your birthday is on Christmas day?’
She looked down at him. ‘Sucks. I was born under a Christmas tree.’ And she was wasting time by telling him this, but if she stopped talking now she might tell him the real reason she was leaving. And that she didn’t want to leave. ‘Dad was restringing the lights over the branches because they’d slipped off,’ she said, ‘and Mum was on a stepladder steadying the angel. Dad was never any good with anything electrical and hadn’t noticed the worn cord, so when he plugged them in the fairy lights blew and my mum got an electric shock. Just a little one, but it was enough to make me jump too, and whoosh. Out I came. Under the tree.’
He smiled quickly, but blinked it away. ‘Kate,’ he said softly.
‘It gets worse.’ She held her carry-on up so that he could see the large lettered name plate. K.A.S. She always included her middle initial, even though she was ashamed of it. It wasn’t as if anyone knew. ‘A,’ she said in a dead flat tone, ‘is for…wait for it: Angelica.’
‘Angel,’ he said. ‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘And,’ she hurried on, ‘I’m turning thirty.’ Something else she’d been contemplating. For over a week now. Since New York, when the scumbag had suckered her life plans.
Jamie took his hand off the wrought iron and stepped back. ‘Shit. That’s bad.’
She looked at him. ‘About being born under a Christmas tree due a fairy light malfunction?’
‘No. About being that old.’
>
She gasped. ‘You don’t mean that. Do you?’ Did he?
Jamie frowned. Was he pretending to think — or was he really evaluating her mighty age so negatively?
Oh stuff it. What was the point in trying to cover up the real problem? She let the carry-on fall from mid-air until it swung in her hand and knocked against her knee. ‘It was the kiss, Jamie. That’s why I’m leaving.’
****
Jamie nodded. ‘That’s why I came back,’ he said, doing his damnedest to hold onto the worry in his chest. She’d hit the nail on its head with the hammer of reality.
He waited while she dithered at the top of stairs, clutching the handles of her leather bag, bobbing her head sideways and biting her lip as though she were in decision mode.
‘The problem is,’ she said at last, studying something on the wall. ‘I liked kissing you.’
‘I know,’ he said. Time to put an end to the game-playing. ‘I liked kissing you too.’
She tilted her face and studied him. ‘You did?’
‘I stayed away because I liked it so much I thought I might not be able to stop myself from doing it again, whether you wanted me to or not.’
She took a breath, eyes widening.
He smiled up at her. ‘Want to do it again?’ Anticipation prickled the back of his neck.
She furrowed her managerial brow and lowered her dainty, executive chin. ‘Did my mouth feel really old?’
He smiled. She made him smile every time she spoke. ‘No,’ he said, ‘but I’d like to test it again because I’m pretty sure an electric shock went from your mouth to mine and that’s what interests me most.’ Alongside simply wanting to nibble her, from the mouth down.
She was so seriously disturbed by her Angel name, the decision she’d made to leave — behind his back, he noted, although he couldn’t blame her for that — and about what they were going to do next. ‘So how about we start with another kiss? Before you turn thirty and give up on yourself.’
‘Start?’ she asked, ignoring his jibe.
Jamie nodded, put a hand on the bannister rail and stepped up one step. ‘Stop flapping, Katie. We’re going to kiss again.’