Page 43 of Christmas Is All Around
Charlotte: How did I know that would be your first question
Padma: Andrew wants to know if the power has gone out
Charlotte:….. no?
Padma: Apparently he thinks that a power outage could cause the room to get cold enough that you and Graham have to cuddle for warmth
Charlotte: Have you been having him read your romance novels
Padma: Yeppppp
Padma: Please send me hourly updates, my life is very boring!!
Charlotte started to type,That’s what you get for moving to the suburbs, then deleted it.
Charlotte: I’ll do my best
That sounded friendly! That sounded normal! That didn’t sound bitter, or lonely, or like she resented her best friend for living her life and doing something perfectly normal like marrying a nice guy and buying a house and doing adult things, even if those adult things took place an hour away in New Jersey instead of a block away in Brooklyn.
She set her phone aside, and her stomach growled; she was suddenly acutely aware of the fact that “lunch” had consisted of an appleand a handful of almonds that she’d scrounged from the kitchen at Ava’s. Fortunately, it was only another five minutes before she heard footsteps in the hallway, then a key in the lock.
“I think I could eat an entire cow,” she informed Graham as soon as he entered the room.
“If we head back to that pasture where we were waylaid by sheep, we might be able to find you a particularly fresh one,” he said, and she had to bite the inside of her cheek not to laugh.
Downstairs, the pub offered everything a cranky, hungry traveler could hope for: a roaring fire, cozy booths, a menu full of potatoes and cheese, and a wide selection of local beers. After they’d claimed a table and perused the menu, Graham ordered for them at the bar, accepting the credit card that Charlotte thrust in his face with possibly unnecessary aggression.
“I wasn’t going to refuse, for Christ’s sake,” he said mildly, plucking the card from her fingers before she could accidentally maim him with it.
“You never know, with men,” she said darkly, watching with satisfaction as he trotted off to procure them sustenance. He returned with a beer for him and a cider for her, and they sipped contentedly in silence for a minute, surveying their surroundings. There was a Christmas tree in one corner, strung with lights and tinsel, and bunting in red and green was hanging cheerfully above the bar. There were stockings above the fireplace, classic Christmas songs playing in the background, and paper snowflakes hung above every table. All of this should have made Charlotte extremely grumpy, but sitting there, after a day derailed by livestock, drinking her cider and awaiting the arrival of potato products, she mainly felt… cozy.
Was this why people liked Christmas?
She snuck a glance at Graham, and saw that he was leaning back in his seat, his index finger tracing an idle circle around the rim of hispint glass as his eyes scanned the room. He’d rolled back the sleeves of his green cable-knit sweater, and the same battered watch that she’d noted on previous occasions gleamed at his wrist. He wasn’t glancing at it, though—she hadn’t realized how often she’d noticed him doing this, on many of the afternoons they’d spent together, until he’d stopped. Despite the fact that they found themselves unexpectedly, if not quitestranded, then at the very least detained, in a small village with a single room to share, he looked remarkably relaxed, missing the invisible weight that he so often seemed to be carrying.
On the table, his phone buzzed, as if summoned by her thoughts; he glanced down at the screen, frowned, and flipped it over without unlocking it.
“Everything okay?” she asked, keeping her tone deliberately casual, taking another sip of her cider.
He looked across the table at her, his frown easing. “Fine. My mum’s worried about ticket sales for our New Year’s Eve masquerade at Eden Priory—I’ll ring her tomorrow.”
Charlotte raised an eyebrow. “A masquerade,” she repeated. “That sounds elaborate.”
Graham shrugged. “It’s tradition. My grandparents started hosting one in the fifties, and we’ve been doing it ever since—it was initially for all of their posh friends, but eventually we opened it up to the public, started selling tickets. It’s a nice way to cap off the season.”
“Is it profitable?” she asked curiously; at some point, over the past few weeks, she realized that she’d gotten invested in the future of Eden Priory.
“Decently,” he said, taking a sip of his beer. “I’ve been wondering if we should do more events at the house, ticketed things—not something as lavish as this, but more… workshops and the like. We’ve an ornament workshop that we run each year, but I think we should do more in that vein, maybe some arts and crafts classes—make thehouse somewhere people go for something more than simply tours of a historic property.”
“What about the film screening?” Charlotte asked, remembering Eloise’s mention of theChristmas, Trulyscreening they were hosting on Christmas Eve.
“That, sure,” he said, suppressing a grimace, and Charlotte grinned at him.
“Oh my god, you can’t evenpretendto think it’s a good idea,” she said, trying not to laugh.
“Idothink it’s a good idea; it’s why I agreed to it,” he objected. “I just don’tlikeit.”
“Because it’s notartisticenough,” she said, in a god-awful attempt at some cross between an English accent and a Katharine Hepburn impression.
