Christmas Eve #2
Jerome refilled Kestrel’s tea. “I can’t imagine why Mrs. Wattlesbrook had you come on Christmas Eve.”
“Better than sitting at home alone, and that would have been better than most Christmases I’ve had.”
She had meant it to be flippant and self-deprecating, but Andrews’s sympathetic look and worried Oh? confirmed that she had sounded pathetic. A first meeting was not the time to toss the conversation bomb of her weird and traumatic childhood.
She flashed them a cheery smile. “But look at me now! I’m in England with excruciatingly handsome gents, eating cookies and being all cozy. What could be better?”
Jerome gazed into the distance. “You have not lived till you have watched the Christmas-morning sun lift from the sea, while brunching on papaya, bush tea, and johnnycakes.”
Andrews extended a hand and squeezed Jerome’s sympathetically. “Next year, love.”
“The Caribbean?” Kestrel guessed.
Jerome nodded sadly. “I was born in Tortola, in the British Virgin Islands, and every Christmas we return to visit family. For me, the winter holidays smell of pineapple, jasmine, and brine. It’s quality.
But this year, Charming wanted to run a session during the twelve days of Christmas, and how could I say no to such a novel experience? Alas!” His shoulders drooped.
“Jerome is plagued by a clinically severe case of FOMO,” explained Andrews.
“If I’m here, then I’m missing a perfectly divine Tortola Christmas, but if I’m there, then no roasted chestnuts or figgy pudding!” Jerome gestured at the ceiling in frustration. “No matter what I choose, I suffer with homesickness.”
Homesickness. What a lovely concept. To feel sick with longing for a place where one belonged.
Kestrel had no home to miss, but once upon a time, she’d had a person, and they’d belonged to each other.
Hank had been her kindred spirit, her soulmate, and every other gloriously optimistic cliché.
Two Christmases ago, her perfect hope for a real family with Hank had shattered.
Before the memories could overwhelm her, she swallowed them like stones and washed it all down with a gulp of tea.
“Where do you come from, love?” Andrews asked as he poured her more.
“All over,” said Kestrel. “Most recently I moved to Idaho to take care of my grandma. She died a year ago, and now I’m ready to figure out what’s next.”
The whole truth was a lot messier than Kestrel wanted to slosh all over this cozy kitchen.
The past autumn, Kestrel’s life had imploded.
She’d had to sell Grandma’s house to pay the outstanding medical bills.
Her friend group in Boise broke apart as individuals took jobs in other states.
Kestrel was fired from her EMT position for “not filling out the correct paperwork,” which to Kestrel sounded exactly like “not driving hot nails through own toes.” And her current barista job didn’t earn enough to both pay rent and afford a car.
For months, she’d been feeling that tick-tick-tick inside her, counting down to . . . something. Like Mary Poppins, she was watching for the wind to change so she would go on her way again. Whatever way that might be.
“I’m sorry about your grandmother,” Jerome said, handing her another cookie.
Kestrel’s only halfway decent Christmases had all been with Grandma.
Despite the fact they had never really clicked, they’d still shared holiday traditions—popcorn strings on the dusty plastic tree, movie marathons, wrapped books on Christmas morning to read quietly for the rest of the day.
Last Christmas, Grandma had been in hospice care.
Spending this Christmas in Idaho without her had felt terrifyingly wrong.
“Never mind,” said Kestrel. “It’s Christmas Eve! We should focus on bright and beautiful things.”
The kitchen door opened and was filled with a dazzling, large-framed woman dressed in a pink robe and bunny slippers, her mass of blond hair twisted up and held in place with hair sticks.
For a split second, Kestrel’s jet-lagged brain thought this woman was lost in the wrong holiday and cosplaying the Easter Bunny.
“Right on cue!” said Andrews. “Here comes Charming, representing all things bright and beautiful.”
“Is it a slumber party?” Charming asked in an American Southern accent. “I love me a slumber party.”
“Join us, my treasure,” said Andrews. “I saved you a biscuit.”
Charming took a chair beside Andrews and let him feed her a cookie. There was a sibling-like familiarity in the action, though apart from the blond hair they didn’t look related, and Charming was his senior by at least two decades.
Charming leaned closer to Andrews and whispered anxiously, “Y’all weren’t going to leave me out of the slumber party, were you?”
“Of course not, Charming,” said Andrews. “There was no slumber party, though what a brilliant idea. No, we were just welcoming the new maid to our crew.”
Jerome introduced Charming as one of the bosses, and she extended her hand to Kestrel, smiling with huge, glossy, plumped-up lips.
“How do you do? I’m Miss Elizabeth Charming.” She turned to Andrews. “I mean, that’s not lying, right? I basically am Miss Elizabeth Charming, even when I’m not in costume? Just like how you always go by Andrews?”
“Absolutely, my love.”
“I started as a guest, you see,” said Charming, “and then I bought fifty-one percent of this outfit so they couldn’t kick me out. Also, FYI, I’m twenty-eight years old.”
“Okay,” said Kestrel. Charming was fifty at bare minimum, but hey, maybe she was so rich she could declare her age at will.
“Nice to have another American,” said Charming. “Though when guests are around, I’m British, pip-pip, right-o!”
“How long were you a guest?” asked Kestrel.
“Well, after my first session, I just stayed on,” Charming said, stirring sugar into her tea, “except during the holidays. They used to close down, and I had nowhere else to go.”
“You could go anywhere in the world, darling,” said Andrews. “You’re richer than Father Christmas. But you wanted to be here.”
“That’s true as tits.”
Kestrel caught at something unsaid, a tension under Charming’s words. Was this where she truly wanted to be? Kestrel could imagine a person being so afraid of making choices that she just stayed where she could be someone else entirely.
“I hope we get a real snowfall,” Charming was saying. “I love a white Christmas.”
“It’s a career riskier than horse racing, predicting winter weather in England,” said Andrews.
“If I could make a Christmas wish, it would be for your snow,” said Kestrel.