Page 47 of Christmas Is All Around
Charlotte suddenly wished it were socially acceptable to drink this early.
“Good morning!” said a cheerful woman who looked to be in her early sixties. She seemed positively delighted to spot Graham and Charlotte, and was seated directly next to the one remaining empty table. Charlotte and Graham exchanged the world-weary looks of soldiers about to go into battle, and made their way across the room to their seats.
“Hello,” Charlotte said politely as she settled herself at the table.
“Sleep well last night?” asked the improbably cheerful woman; she was wearing alotof plaid, Charlotte realized now. A plaid shawl over a plaid floor-length dress, with the ribbons of a plaid bonnet tied securely beneath her chin. And none of it was thesameplaid, despite all being in Christmassy colors—no doubt if she showed up in Scotland in this ensemble, she’d spark some sort of interclan warfare. She was clutching a cup of coffee eagerly, though Charlotte personally didn’t think this woman needed any supplementary caffeine.
“We did,” Graham said, in response to the woman’s question. He smiled politely at her, and, predictably, Charlotte could see the woman melting at the sight. She couldn’t be too judgmental about this, since it seemed that she, too, had a weakness for his smiles.
“Until the wake-up call, at least,” Charlotte muttered under her breath. “Sounded strangely like carol singing.” She frowned, as if deeply puzzled.
“Oh, goodness, that was us!” the woman said, cackling. “Did you hear that?” she asked, turning to her breakfast companions, who nodded eagerly. “I’m Nadine,” she added, turning back to Charlotte and Graham. “And we’re the Jingle Janglers.”
“The what now?” Charlotte asked, pretty sure that she didn’t actually want the amount of information that Nadine was going to provide, but curious nonetheless.
“The Jingle Janglers!” Nadine repeated brightly. “We travel around England providing carols in the most heartwarming settings.”
“Wales, too, this year!” put in one of Nadine’s tablemates. “Our first year branching out that far! Perhaps one day we’ll make it to Scotland!”
“Go on! And the moon, too?” Nadine said, chortling, as the three immediately surrounding tables laughed heartily, as though this were a hilarious joke.
“English distance-based humor,” Graham said in an undertone to Charlotte. “Doesn’t tend to land with Americans.”
“I think I am in hell,” Charlotte muttered back to him, and he pressed his lips together, clearly trying not to smile.
“We’re all amateurs, you see,” Nadine said, leaning toward Graham and Charlotte confidingly. “We do it simply for the love of the carol.”
“How noble,” Graham said, nodding seriously. Charlotte cast him a narrow glance.
Nadine, meanwhile, was now frowning slightly at Charlotte in anintent way that made Charlotte vaguely nervous. She’d been on the receiving end of a frown like this before, and it usually meant…
“Tallulah!” Nadine snapped her fingers; Charlotte resisted the impulse to fling herself under the table. “Oh, good heavens! You look like Tallulah fromChristmas, Truly!”
Graham—bless him—was a quick thinker. “Ha! What’s that—the third time this week?” He elbowed Charlotte jovially, and she gave him a sharp look; he smiled at her in a sort of bossy way that managed to convey generalplease play along so I can salvage this situation, you idiotvibes, and she managed a belated chortle.
“Ha! Ha! Yes! Wow. What are the odds?”
The look Graham was giving her implied that he thought the filmmakers ofChristmas, Trulymust have been absolute lunatics to cast her, and she felt like reminding him that back then, no one had required her to improvise.
Graham gave an easy chuckle, and turned to Nadine, shaking his head ruefully. “It’s so odd—she’s been getting it constantly, lately. It’s funnier because my Lucy has never evenseenthe film. Have you, Lucy?”
Charlotte, now Lucy, shook her head gravely. “I was raised by Jehovah’s Witnesses. Never allowed to celebrate the holidays.”
Graham seemed to be suppressing an eye roll with some effort. “Yes, well, she’s escaped now,clearly,” he added pointedly, “but her Christmas film education is a bit lacking.”
“Oh, goodness!” Nadine clapped a hand to her mouth. “I could have sworn—but heavens, you simplymustwatch it. It’s brilliant! It’s about these two extended families—one in England, one in America, because there were two sisters, and one was sent to Canada during the war, while her older sister stayed in England to work with the Wrens—”
“I’ll be sure to watch it, thank you,” Charlotte said, before Nadine could recount the entire plot ofChristmas, Truly.
“—and there’s a series of interconnected romances with both the Americans and the Brits,” Nadine continued, undeterred, “and it all ties together in the end, of course, and they wear the loveliest jumpers!” She nodded significantly.
“I do love a good sweater,” Charlotte offered, a bit weakly.
“Just as well you’re not Tallulah, I suppose,” Nadine said, shaking her head. “Do you know, I saw the mosthorriblestory in theDaily Mail”—Charlotte didn’t know much about the British press, but she already knew that nothing good had ever followed that opening to a sentence—“about how the actress who plays Tallulah is aWiccanwho hates Christmas so much that she derailed an entire sequel film!” She looked scandalized.
“Shocking,” Graham agreed with a somber shake of the head.
At that moment, a lifeline in the form of the inn owner appeared. “Morning, loves,” she said to Graham and Charlotte. “Tea or coffee? And do you know what you’d like for breakfast?”
