Page 10 of It Happened on Christmas Eve
The woman considers this for a second before shrugging at the truth in my statement and stomping away.
Once she and her entourage have disappeared around the corner I stand in front of Adam and put my hands on my hips.
‘You can charm everyone else, I get it. It’s your thing, your schtick. Everyone just loooooves it. Adam the handsome charmer. But, my friend, you don’t charm me, so don’t even try. That tree is nothing like me, and to say something as cheesy as ‘it is prickly and attractive just like you’ is not only embarrassing for me, but embarrassing for you too, especially since we don’t know each other now and probably won’t ever know each other ever again. I’m well and truly off men for the foreseeable future so don’t try that shit again and I’ll take you wherever you need to go. No complaints. Okay?’
Adam’s mouth opens and closes a few times. He stutters the beginning of a few sentences which peter out as his brain can’t catch up with his mouth. I don’t think anyone has ever told him off before.
‘Okay,’ he says eventually, a small smile lifting the corner of his mouth. He looks down at the tree and pats it twice. ‘We’ll just call her Elaine or something.’
‘Okay.’ I nod my head firmly and we continue on down the snowy street.
Chapter Six
Christmas Eve 4:50 p.m.
For noodles’ sake. I should never have told Adam off for flirting with me. I reckon I could have escaped him quickly, gone to Tesco to grab my booze and none Christmassy food for the week and scooted off back to my safe haven. But I must have pissed him off because now he has decided that he simply must have decorations for his tree because – and I quote – ‘a tree without decorations is like Christmas pudding without brandy, completely unreasonable and and an insult to the festive season.’ So now we are in the little Notting Hill Gift Boutique choosing baubles. And the little Notting Hill Gift Boutique is indeed little. The owner – a kindly looking elderly cockney looks horrified as the pair of us squeeze ourselves in, crutches, Christmas tree and all. It is incredibly difficult to negotiate the wheelchair between the ornaments, plants, candles and junk and not knock any of it over.
‘We’re not really wheelchair friendly,’ the woman says with a shrug.
‘Maybe you should make a few changes?’ I suggest. ‘People in wheelchairs buy gifts too, you know.’ I point to the massive row of porcelain cats in the middle of the shop. ‘How many of these do you sell?’ I ask.
The woman shrugs. ‘About one a week at Christmas and about one a month the rest of the year. They’re not our best sellers.’
‘That’s because they are very creepy. If you just displayed one of them and kept the rest in the back then there’d be enough room for a wheelchair user to move around more comfortably.’
‘It’s a beautiful shop,’ Adam says leaning his Christmas tree and tinsel wrapped crutches against a bare bit of wall by the door and giving the assistant his big smile. The woman immediately smiles back and even gives a little giggle. I look at her name tag. Denise. Denise is old enough to be his granny, yet is reacting to him in the exact same way as the girl serving us the perfume. I don’t get it!
‘That’s a very good idea about moving the cats,’ Denise gushes, still looking at Adam, as if he made the suggestion.
‘It really is,’ Adam shrugs modestly, also as if he made the suggestion.
‘I will move them as soon as you’ve finished shopping in here.’ Her eyes flick up to me and then immediately back to Adam as if she simply can’t bear to look away from him.
Adam claps his hands. ‘Right, Phoebe! Help me choose some baubles!’
This is my actual nightmare. Choosing plastic balls for a plant that, little by little, dies in your home. What is even the point? Christmas is ridiculous!
The shop assistant points us in the direction of the Christmas decorations, and a little selection of coloured glass baubles. Even I have to admit that the way they shine under the display lighting is really quite enchanting.
‘What’s your favourite colour, Phoebe?’ Adam asks. ‘Mine is red.’
‘My favourite colour? What are we? Ten?’
‘Mine is duck egg blue,’ coos Denise who has swiftly and silently traversed the shop to be standing next to Adam, looking down at him with the kind of twinkle in her eye that should frankly be kept private.
‘Go on, love. Tell him. Your favourite colour.’ She slightly nudges me with her shoulder as if I’m acting like a spoilsport, which, to be fair has kind of been my default state for a while.
‘Fine.’ I roll my eyes. ‘My favourite colour is green. Like a jade green. A witchy green. Like that bauble there.’
‘Witchy green. Sounds about right,’ Adam mutters. I ignore him because he’s not wrong and also he is not flirting and as long as he’s not flirting he can say whatever he likes.
‘Jade green. Very nice.’ Denise nods with approval.
‘That decides it then. I will take three red baubles, three duck egg blue baubles and three witchy green baubles.’
I glance at the price tag. These baubles are ten pounds each! Adam is going to spend almost a hundred quid on baubles? That would get me two weeks worth of food shopping! His books can’t be doing too badly if he can afford that. Or maybe it’s Mummy’s money he’s using – wouldn’t surprise me. He definitely has more than a touch of spoiled brat about him, what with the entitled behaviour and the threatening to tell over me if I was mean to him.
‘Will you choose a star, Phoebe?’ he asks me, with a kind smile that makes me feel slightly guilty for thinking bad thoughts about him. Maybe he just saves his money up like an adult? I should really try harder not to jump to conclusions so readily.
