Page 93 of Cooking Up a Christmas Storm
‘Hello, everyone,’ she tried again. ‘Hello.’
This time people towards the front paid attention and a ripple of shushes extended back through the small crowd.
‘Hello, everyone. Welcome to our Lowbridge village lights switch-on. Erm… thank you all for coming. I hope you will join us on our walk through the village to see the rest of the community’s decorations, and then we’ll be finishing up at Lowbridge Castle where the Reverend Jill is going to lead carols and I think there are mince pies and yule log and you’re welcome to stay and mingle and catch up.’ She glanced at Nina for confirmation that she’d remembered everything important and was met with a cheerful thumbs-up. ‘Great. OK then. All I need to do now is introduce our two very special guests to turn on our first set of lights. Please, everyone, put your hands together and whoop and cheer and generally go a bit crazy for Father Christmas and Jay from Redd Level!’
There was a second of quiet while people wondered, very obviously, whether Jodie was joking before the man in the big red suit was escorted onto the platform by a very cheerful, if slightly bemused-looking, Nineties pop icon. And then the cheers started. Jodie smiled.
Jay took up a position alongside her. ‘Hello again.’
‘Hi. Sorry about yesterday.’ It was a very brief acknowledgement of the mother of all awkward situations.
‘Most fun I’ve had since…’ He shook his head. ‘Actually my publicist doesn’t like me telling that story.’
‘OK. So, I guess now we switch the lights on.’ Jodie realised absolutely too late that she had no plan for this. The plan had been not to have a celeb switch-on. And now she had two celebs and nothing for them to do. The lights came on when Hugh pressed the switch on the extension lead behind the counter in the shop. She could hardly ask Jay from Redd Level to hop off the stage and rummage under the carrier bags and veg scales to turn the lights on.
Something was thrust in front of her. Jodie took a second to process what it was. And what it was was a shoe box covered in wrapping paper with half an Edam stuck on top of it. She looked down. Anna smiled brightly. ‘Big red button.’
‘Right. OK.’ Jodie took the box from Anna. ‘Is Hugh ready?’ she whispered.
‘Standing by.’
‘All right then. Shall we do a countdown? Ten, nine…’
The crowd joined in. ‘Eight, seven…’
‘Is that cheese?’ Santa whispered.
‘Six, five…’
‘Yep,’ Jodie confirmed.
Jay raised an eyebrow. ‘Do we get to keep the cheese?’
‘Four, three…’
‘Sure.’
Jay nodded his approval.
‘Fair enough,’ Father Christmas agreed.
‘Two, one.’
Two hands came down together onto the cheese button and a second later the lights on the tree flickered into life.
‘Aw,’ Jay grinned, ‘that’s really pretty.’
‘Yeah. It is,’ Jodie agreed. She stepped off the stage, looking for Pavel out in the crowd and seeing him surrounded by kids from the village who were taking turns to get lifted up onto his shoulders for a closer look at the angel sitting on the top of the tree.
A hand on her arm made her turn. Jill. Was she another person Jodie had screwed over in her wake?
‘Look. I’m sorry…’
Jill held up her hand. ‘Nothing to be sorry about. I wanted to reassure you. I’m sure, the way people talk around here, that you’re going to hear that me and Pav were some great romance, but we’re friends. Good friends. Romantically it’s just not there.’
‘That’s what he said.’
Jill nodded. ‘And he’s a terrible liar.’ Her voice dropped. ‘At least to other people. Anyway, I’m his friend. I’m not competition. You haven’t done me dirty or anything like that. Of course, cos he is my friend, if you hurt him I’ll have to…’
