Page 4 of Just Say Christmas
“If it’s the Southern Hemisphere, though,” Isaiah said, “the Magellanic clouds have to be there, or it’s wrong.”
Kane would have given him a sardonic look, but he had paint in his eye.
Nyree chose that moment to pop into the room. She was wearing stretchy black shorts and a faded Blues T-shirt that had to be Marko’s, from the size of it. She also had paint on her cheek and on her thigh, but then, she usually did. “How’re you going?” she asked Kane. “Tom came by to help as well. Lovely of him, though I think he could’ve had an ulterior motive. Ella’s coming up this evening for my weekend, along with Marko’s sister Caro. My timing could’ve been better for all of this. I was meant to finish up with everything two weeks ago, but oh, well, it didn’t happen, so here we are.”
Here they were indeed. Nyree, as usual, was juggling about three jobs, including being a painter of the fine-art kind, not the house kind, with her first show coming up in February. She was also a server and barista, a volunteer photographer at the animal shelter, and a bride. Four jobs at least. Kane happened to know that Marko had received an extra hundred fifty thousand dollars a month ago, his reward for helping the All Blacks bring home the Webb Ellis trophy once again at a Rugby World Cup. He knew because he’d earned that same bonus himself. Nyree, though, still worked like the next painting might be her very last chance to hold a brush, and like the rent was due. Cheerfully, which was probably even more maddening to Marko.
She went on, as if to prove his point, “I just had a brilliant idea. I should skip all that beauty-and-fun stuff this weekend and paint instead. If I don’t finish this, I won’t be ready for the wedding, and Marko’d probably have something to say about that.”
“Well, as it’s his wedding, too,” Kane said, “I expect he would. I also expect that he wants you to do the beauty stuff and possibly even relax a bit instead of working until the wee hours of next Sunday morning, when you drive up to the venue, breaking the speed limit all the way, throw on your dress, and dash down the aisle without your zip done up. Assuming he gets a vote.”
“I’ve got Tom doing Casey’s room with me,” she went on as if she hadn’t heard, “but he could help you instead. I think you need it more, because you’re a mess.I’mnot the one with paint in my hair. You also have it in the corner of your eye.”
Kane said, “Thanks. I’d barely noticed.” He’d taken off his specs, because they’d quickly become impossibly paint-spattered. Now, he lowered his brush and, out of that same corner of his rapidly blinking eye, saw a drop of paint elongate on the ceiling, then tremble for a second. He could have got out of the way. He resigned himself to the inevitable instead. No point in dodging now. It fell on his head, just like all the others.
He didn’t get to say more, because Casey Fletcher, the daughter of the house that Kane had been dragooned into helping to redecorate, spoke up now. Casey was seven years old, even more determined-looking than Isaiah—it must be a family trait, because heaven knew her dad had it in spades—and sitting cross-legged on the tarp beside her cousin. Both of them were considerably less speckled than Kane. They’d changed out of their school uniforms, but he’d still been careful to keep them out of harm’s way. Where was the gratitude? Now, Casey asked Nyree, “When do I get to see my room? Is it almost done?”
“Not even close,” Nyree said. “It’s got to be special, so I need to take the time to do it right, and your dad wants it to be a surprise. I’m afraid you’ll have to sleep on the couch, or maybe on one of Isaiah’s bunk beds, once this paint’s dry, for a wee while before you find out. I have this hen weekend to do in the middle of it. It’ll be hard to wait, but it’s always hard to wait for Christmas presents, eh.”
“Does it get to be enchanted, though?” Casey asked. “Did my dad say to make it enchanted? Do you know how? I have a princess bed. My dad put a sheet over it so it wouldn’t get painted, so you can’t see, but it’s igg-zackly like Cinderella’s coach, except with butterflies. I have a castle rug, too. If my whole room was enchanted, I could pretend Iwasa princess. It could be like I was magic.”
“Your dad told me about it,” Nyree said. “No worries. It’s going to be so enchanted, it’ll take you into a whole new world every night, and you’ll have wondrous dreams. You’ll see.”
“It can’t really be enchanted,” Isaiah said. “Magic’s not real. It’s just science that people didn’t know about yet.”
“Iknow,”Casey said. “Youtoldme. It’spretend.”
“But you can imagine realthings instead,” Isaiah said. “That’s better. Like going to Mars, or exploring the Marianas Trench. That’s more interesting, because it could actually happen.”
“Too deep,” Kane said. “The pressure would squash you, surely.”
“Except three people already did it,in special submarines,”Isaiah said, “which means more people will be able to do it in the future, the same as Mars. If you learned enough about it, you could help make it happen. You can’t make enchantment happen no matter how hard you try, because it isn’t real.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Nyree said. “Sometimes you can. If you’re in love, for instance.”
Isaiah said, “Eww,” and Kane laughed. He’d gone back to painting, because Nyree had made a hurry-up motion at him. That could have been annoying, but as it happened, he wanted to hurry up. He had his reasons. It was Friday afternoon, and there was somebody he didn’t want to see. It wasn’t the house’s owner, even though Rhys Fletcher, Casey’s father and Isaiah’s uncle—soon to be his stepfather, which had been a bit startling—wasthe coach of the Blues, and Kane played for the Crusaders. It wasn’t Kane’s own soon-to-be brother-in-law, either. Marko might play for the Blues, too, but however it looked from the stands, once you got done smashing each other on the field, the hostilities ended.
Anyway, there were worse people to have as a brother-in-law, even though Kane wouldn’t always have thought so. Much too tough a fella for Nyree, he’d have said—and would have put himself on the line, if that was what it took, to keep it from happening—but the shy, plump, bespectacled, Maori girl of fourteen whose mum had married his dad had turned out to have warrior blood of her own. Nyree didn’t need his protection anymore, and Marko Sendoa, enforcer and hard man, had finally met his match.
The last time Kane had seen Marko, they’d been on the back of a truck, doing a parade through downtown Christchurch after the Rugby World Cup. Marko hadn’t done much smiling, or much talking, either, but Kane had been raised by an uncommunicative man who didn’t smile, so he wasn’t fussed. Marko had your back on the rugby field when it counted, and he’d be piling into the breakdown every time to lend a hand, as careless of his own skin as you were of yours. If he was fishing with you, or golfing, he wanted you to get on with it, but he didn’t tell you how to do it. Did Kane feel brotherly enough towards him to get paint in his eye for him, though? It was a question.
“Why isn’t Marko doing this?” he asked Nyree.
“He suggested it, no worries. Are you joking? The most alpha man in the world? Of course he suggested it. But he’d get narky when I told him he was doing it wrong, and he’s meant to want to marry me, so I said no. You wouldn’t call him visually artistic, and you’ve got to keep the magic alive. Also, he’s off getting the final fitting for his wedding suit, and here you were, and Tom, too. Better, eh.”
“I notice you don’t mind tellingmeI’m doing it wrong,” Kane said. “Never mind, I’m just the brother. Couldn’t Marko have worn the suit he already had?” Like all the All Blacks, Marko had his suits tailor-made for his outsized, hard-to-fit frame. In black. Went with everything and cost you nothing. There you were.
“No,” Nyree said. “Because, first, wearing your suit that the All Blacks gave you doesn’t exactly say, ‘I’m burning to make this a special occasion, seeing as I’m getting married and all,’ and, second, because navy blue is more formal than black.”
“Who says?” Kane asked. “That makes no sense. Not practical, either. When’s he going to need that again? You can’t even wear a blue suit to a funeral.”
“Thank you, Dougie Downer. You’re helpful.Idon’t make these rules. Heaps of things I didn’t know about getting married, as it turns out. Good job I only have to do it once. And I like to think he’s out buying me a present of my own. Christmas, the groom’s gift to the bride, something like that. At least I hope that was why he was so eager to get out the door. Either that, or he’s making a run for it. You need to blend more, by the way. Get the white worked in there.”
She left before he could point out that he was the one doing the favor here.
“It’s not really the right place for the Magellanic clouds, either,” Isaiah put in. “It’s close, though, I guess.”
“If they’re clouds,” Kane said, “they move. Maybe there was wind.”
