“Fine,” Eleanor said quietly.
Cassie knew that Eleanor was finished on the subject and knew better than to continue pushing her. She’d made her point, she just hoped that Eleanor had listened.
* * * * *
Christmas day arrived and Eleanor woke early, the room seemed much brighter than it had the previous morning and for a moment Eleanor thought she’d slept in. But a check of her phone showed that it was only eight o’clock, the sun was just barely up. Thinking that the clouds from the previous day must have cleared, she was about to get out of bed to look out the window, when she heard the sound of footsteps running loudly down the hall outside her room.
The door was suddenly thrown open and Jonathan burst through exclaiming with all the excitement of a five-year-old, “IT SNOWED!!!!!!!!”
Grinning widely, Eleanor threw back the heavy duvet and ran to the window. Looking out she was blinded by the thick, fresh layer of white, sparkling below her as the first bit of sunlight bounced off of it.
Smiling at Eleanor, Jonathan said cheerfully, “Happy Christmas cousin.”
Reaching her arm around his waist, she gave him a light hug, “Happy Christmas cousin.”
Jonathan gave her a big hug and then turned to the door to leave, “Hurry up! There’s presents to open and food to eat. And in that order.” And in the blink of an eye he was gone.
Eleanor laughed and then turned to look out the window again at the real life winter wonderland the spread out below her. Snow as far as the eye could see, covering every inch of the farmland that surrounded Aunt Vickie’s house. It was like something out of an old-fashioned post card. Even the trees around the property were covered with inches of snow on each branch. It was a good thing it was Christmas Day and their only plans included staying at the house to celebrate. There was no way they were getting down the driveway today!
“It’s perfect,” Eleanor said to herself, smiling.
She heard Jonathan shouting gleefully downstairs and knew she’d only have another few minutes before he’d come back upstairs and drag her down to the tree. The two families had spent more than a few Christmases together, especially in the years after both Cassie and Victoria had been divorced, neither sister being able to bear the thought of spending Christmas alone. So Eleanor knew that Jonathan had the patience of a small child on Christmas morning, there was no sleeping in or lounging over breakfast before opening presents. She quickly threw on a thick, chunky cable knit cardigan, that came down to her knees, over her plaid flannel men’s style pajama set that she’d picked up a week before at Marks & Spencer. She slipped on her warm, fuzzy slippers from Primark and tossed her hair up into a quick top knot. A couple swipes of mascara on her lashes and she rushed out of her room and downstairs.
The snow outside wasn’t the only surprise that morning. When she came into the living room and saw the tree, she gasped. She should have known her aunt and her mom would go overboard, but it was still beyond her expectations. The night before, the tree already had a more than sufficient number of gifts underneath it. But now, the brightly wrapped presents spilled out in all directions from under the brightly lit and decorated tree. Her mother must have had Aunt Vickie do some of her shopping for her, there was no way even a fraction of these gifts had come from her mom’s suitcase. Jonathan sat in the middle of the pile, grinning from ear to ear.
“I think our mums might have outdone themselves this year,” he said excitedly.
“Umm, you think? This is insane! What on earth could be in all of those boxes!”
“Let’s get those two crazy mums of ours in here and we can start opening them and find out!”
“Calm yourself, at least for a few more minutes. I need coffee. And knowing our moms, that’s probably where they are. Now come and make yourself useful.”
Eleanor turned and headed off to the kitchen. Sure enough, Vickie and Cassie where there gathering snacks and coffee.
“Both of you,” Eleanor said bossily, “into the living room. Go make yourselves comfortable. Jonathan and I will finish getting the tray together. After seeing what you’ve been up to I have a feeling Santa’s elves need a break this morning.”
Not needing further encouragement, the women smiled and left for the living room, while Eleanor and a grumbling Jonathan bustled around the kitchen. Soon they headed back into the living room, Jonathan carrying a heavy tray with a big pot of coffee, cream, sugar, and mugs for them all, while Eleanor brought in a tray with cookies and thickly iced cinnamon rolls, a Christmas morning tradition.
Over the next couple hours, they enjoyed their coffee and treats, and opened all the gifts. For all his excitement, Jonathan was very good at pacing the gift opening process. He’d always liked to make it last as long as possible, so even with just the four of them, it never took less than two hours. They went one at a time and often took things out of their store packaging to inspect more closely before moving on to the next gift. He was thrilled with the new iPad his mom gave him, and insisted on turning it on and taking a couple pictures of them all with the iPad’s camera. When their moms opened his joint gift to the two of them, a day at one of London’s premier spas, he spent a full ten minutes telling them all about the various treatments that they could choose from. Eleanor had been so excited for that particular gift. Both their moms worked so hard, and while both of them had long since gotten their lives to a position where they could afford such a luxury, neither was good at taking the time for themselves to book an appointment.
Eleanor’s mom and aunt and cousin had outdone themselves indeed with their gifts to her. She was now well stocked with jumpers, scarves, a new coat (from Ted Baker at that, the bright cobalt blue one she’d been eyeing all autumn), a gorgeous new pair of black flat heeled boots, and a gorgeous black dress from Reiss that she knew would be perfect for New Year’s Eve. She’d also received a new iPad, complete with a Bluetooth keyboard that doubled as a cover, a notebook and pen with a touch screen stylus at the end, and an assortment of home accessories and jewelry. Her family really had gone overboard and it was a Christmas she’d never forget.
Once all the presents had been opened, and the carnage of all the wrapping had been cleaned up, they all curled up on chairs around the tree and chatted while eating more snacks and drinking more coffee. Later in the afternoon, Eleanor and Jonathan put on their jeans and wellies and heavy coats, and headed out into the snow. Vickie and Cassie took pictures from inside the warm house of the two acting like kids as they threw snowballs and built a snowman. After about an hour, Eleanor complained of being cold and they headed back in.
By the time she crawled into bed that night she was exhausted but deliriously happy. It had been a perfect day. Getting away from London for a while and spending Christmas with just the family was a gift in and of itself and she was glad to have a few more days at Aunt Vickie’s house before returning to London on the 30th. Just as she was falling asleep she heard her phone alert her to a new text message. When she opened the message, she couldn’t help but smile, Patrick had sent a picture of himself with a huge smile on his face and covered in Christmas wrapping and bows, with a caption that read:
My nieces and nephews decided I needed to be “decorated”. Hope your day was full of Christmas magic. Happy Christmas Elle xx
Eleanor quickly tapped out her reply:
Christmas was perfect. Can't wait to see you and catch up. Happy Christmas Patrick xx
She put her phone down and quickly fell fast asleep.
* * * * *
The next morning when she went downstairs to the kitchen, she found Jonathan alone sitting in the breakfast nook.
“Mum and Aunt Cassie went out for a walk, they said they’d probably be an hour or so. But considering mum was planning to walk by the Peterson’s house and say hi, they could be closer to three or four hours.”
“Sounds like fun,” Eleanor said with a smile.
“Not that I don’t love all of you women, but I for one am happy for some qui
et in this house for a few hours,” Jonathan said mischievously.
“Oh, knock it off. You’re loving spending the time with them as much as I am,” Eleanor reprimanded, laughing.
“You’re right. Of course. Come over here, I’ve made plenty of food and tea for both of us. I assumed you’d be awake about now. It’s been awhile since we’ve had a proper chat, we both were so busy in the lead up to Christmas.”
Knowing she still needed to talk to Jonathan about Mark, Eleanor hesitated for a second.
As if reading her mind, “Is there something I need to know about Mark?”
Eleanor’s eyes widened, “How did you know? Err...I mean, um, what makes you say that?”
“The look on your face just now, for one. For another, he’s been acting weird since the two of you met for coffee. I assumed something happened, but you haven’t said anything.” Jonathan looked hurt and confused. “You know there’s nothing you can’t tell me, right? Even about my friends. No one is more important to me than my family.”
Sitting down next to Jonathan, Eleanor suddenly felt exhausted, even though she’d only been awake for less than an hour. “Jon, Mark is like your family, you’ve known each other since school. He’s practically your brother, you’ve told me as much, several times.”
Taking her hand, “Yes. But I told him when he first wanted to ask you out, that if he did anything to hurt you, I wouldn’t accept that. I don’t know what happened, but I want to know. Mark is one of my oldest friends, but that also means that I know better than anyone how he can be. He’s been through a lot over the years. He’s been hurt, by more than a few people. Unfortunately, he uses that as an excuse for a number of bad behaviors. He’s not perfect, no one is. I’ve always felt he’s a basically decent person, and I saw him acting towards you in a different way than I’ve seen him act towards other women. But I knew you weren’t really ready for something serious and needed to take things slow. That’s not something Mark is very good at. Ever since your coffee date, or non-date, whatever you want to call it, he’s been acting very weird around me, like he’s expecting me to rip into him. I know he’s done something Ellie. You have to tell me.”
Eleanor took a deep breath and started telling Jonathan the whole story. How it started out fine and she thought they would be able to be just friends, and finishing with Mark kissing her and their fight outside the coffee shop. Eleanor could tell that Jonathan was struggling not to blow up in anger. He was clenching her hand a bit tightly, and his face was turning slightly red.
“It’s ok Jon, it really is. Like you said, he’s mostly a decent guy, we just got our signals crossed. He was trying to be romantic or whatever and it just backfired. I probably made a bigger deal out of it than I should, I just got spooked. And I was tired of feeling like I wasn’t being heard or understood. It just made me feel like I used to feel with Michael sometimes. And how I felt with my father. Like my opinion wasn’t important and I just needed to be brought around to a different way of thinking about things. This is my problem with Mark, it doesn’t have to be yours. I really don’t want this to mess things up with you two.”
“Well, I’m definitely going to have a talk with him about it. It’s not fair, to you or to me, how he’s treated you. God, Elle, after everything you went through in New York—“
Eleanor interrupted, “that’s a completely separate case. Everything with Mark was nothing like New York. And Mark doesn’t know about New York.”
“He doesn’t need to know about your past trauma to treat you right! Still Elle, I feel awful. If I’d known Mark would go that far I would have never encouraged him.”
“I know Jon. Look, I don’t want this to ruin your friendship with him. Personally, I can’t hang out with him anymore. It would be too awkward, for all of us. The best thing is for him to just forget me and move on. But he hasn’t done anything unforgivable Jon, there’s no reason the two of you can’t still be friends.”
“Maybe, but he still owes both of us an apology,” Jonathan replied frowning.
“I don’t want an apology, I really just want to forget it ever happened. I just want to move on.”
“Fine, but he owes an apology to me then, for treating you so poorly and taking advantage of my friendship to insinuate himself into your life.”
“Look, talk to him if you want. Make him apologize if you feel you need that from him. But don’t blow this up into something bigger than it is. It’s not like he took me to bed or got me pregnant or something. So don’t go getting all Victorian Era and demanding pistols at sunrise or some such nonsense.”
Jonathan laughed slightly, “I think dueling was illegal by the Victorian Era. But fine. I’m still going to talk to him though. It’s not right how he treated you. And I’m pretty sure he knows that, or he wouldn’t be walking on eggshells around me.”
“You do what you feel you need to do. Just keep things in perspective, ok? Now, are you going to eat the last piece of bacon, or can I?” Eleanor asked with a smile.
Laughing, “Go for it. I’ll make some more.”
After more bacon had been produced, along with more tea and toast and eggs, they continued sitting at the table, with the snow sparkling in the sunlight outside, talking about Christmas and their plans for the last few days in Bath. Later, their moms returned and the four of them played board games and watched movies the rest of the afternoon and evening.
The rest of the trip passed quickly, and soon they all headed back to London. Aunt Vickie and Cassie were going to spend time together in London before Cassie flew back to Phoenix on the 3rd, after New Year’s. Though Eleanor was reluctant to get back to London, she was grateful that her mom wasn’t leaving just yet and that she also still had another week and a half before school started again.
Chapter 16
New Year’s Eve arrived the day after they got back to London from Bath. Jon and Eleanor spent the morning having brunch with their moms at the hotel near their flat. Since the flat wasn’t big enough to accommodate two guests, their moms had decided to treat themselves to a stay at a boutique hotel just a couple blocks from the flat so Cassie and Eleanor could still spend plenty of time together. After brunch Eleanor and Jon returned to the flat to get ready for the party they were going to that night. Their moms were going to spend a quiet evening together at the hotel but Jon had gotten Eleanor and her school friends on the guest list for the big New Year’s Eve bash at the club where her birthday party had been held.
Eleanor took her time getting ready. Her long brown hair was curled to perfection and pulled loosely up and away from her face. The crystal hair pins sparkled in the light. Her makeup was flawless, her skin glowed and her blue eyes popped thanks to the dark blue and black eye shadow she had meticulously applied, along with a set of lush false lashes. She knew Jack would be proud of her handy work. As it got close to time to leave she changed into her dress.
It was the black dress from Reiss that she’d received for Christmas from her mom and Aunt Vickie. It was stunning and quite daring compared to Eleanor’s usual style. In front, the neckline was a modest round neck, cut just below the collar bone. It had 3/4 length sleeves and was fitted down to just below the waist and then flared out into a full skirt that was knee length in front and nearly floor length in the back. It was made out of a luxurious satin so the skirt had some weight and volume as it floated around her legs.
The back of the dress was the real focus of the dress. It closed at the top but opened into a large cutout that went more than halfway down Eleanor’s back. Dangling from the clasp were three strands of crystals that fell down her back to the bottom of the cutout. She could feel the strands sway across her back as she moved. She added a large cocktail ring to her right hand and a pair of stud earrings to complete the look. She grabbed her clutch and slipped into the same pair of shoes from her birthday party and Jonathan helped her into her new cobalt coat to keep her warm. Giggling like teenagers they dashed down to their waiting cab and were then whisked acros
s town to the club.
As they approached Eleanor began to feel a bit nervous, as she always did before large social events, but she knew that this would be like her birthday party. Jonathan had reserved a space in the club just for their group. They got to their table and saw that most of the group was already there. Eleanor quickly spotted Mark among the group and she veered off to the other side where she saw Jack and the girls from school. She was determined to have a good time but she kept noticing Mark staring at her. She and the girls were sitting on the sofa, with Jack on a chair opposite and they all filled each other in on how everyone’s Christmas went and what gifts they’d given and received. Everyone wanted to know how Eleanor’s mom was enjoying the visit and Jack kept insisting he be able to meet her.
Eleanor soon fell into easy conversation with her friends and was able to pay less attention to Mark. The atmosphere in the club was exciting as midnight drew closer. However, half way through the evening Eleanor noticed that Mark was getting increasingly drunk. Jonathan was doing a good job of running interference but it was starting to grate on Eleanor’s nerves feeling like she couldn’t hang out with the whole group, even though Malcom, Ioan, Zaf, and Henry had all come over to chat with her at least twice that evening.
Finally, with less than an hour until midnight, Mark came over to Eleanor in a moment where he was able to catch her alone.
“I hear you had a good Christmas,” he said, with a definite edge to his voice.
Not looking at him, “Yes, we had a lovely Christmas, thank you.”
“I don’t know why you had to tell Jonathan. I thought you said you wouldn’t.”
A Brave Start Page 24