Page 11 of The Twelve Dates of Christmas
Petula waved from the back of the café. Three tables were covered in polka-dot oilcloth covers and spread all over with bits of paper, craft knives, and all the glittery detritus left from Petula’s handmade-card-making class.
Petula’s cottage was far too small to fit her craft sessions in and so Matt let her use the café. It suited them both; Petula got the space she needed and Matt made money on all the coffees and cakes her class purchased while they crafted.
From now until Christmas the group would be making all manner of cards, decorative parcel labels, and place settings. Petula was one of the founding members of the Blexford Knitting Sex Kittens; her specialty was Christmas jumpers and Kate was her muse, a role that Kate, as a Christmas jumper enthusiast, was happy to fill. Petula was a multiskilled Sex Kitten; she could embroider and crochet and had been making her own greeting cards long before it was considered trendy. She also worked part time in the Pear Tree.
“Hello, darling!” said Petula. “I was hoping to see you. I was wondering if you’d help me with one of my Christmas craft sessions. I think your design expertise would be a real boon.”
“I’d love to,” said Kate. “When were you thinking?”
“I’ve got a class next Tuesday afternoon,” said Petula. “I want to do natural Christmas cards and table settings using fresh and dried foliage.”
“Great,” said Kate. “Count me in.”
“Oh, super,” said Petula. “Oh, and Kate darling, I heard you got stood up by your first date. Don’t let that put you off. Onward and upward!”
Petula smiled and went back to clearing up from her class.
Matt came out from the kitchen. He smiled when he saw Kate and smiled wider when he saw the boxes full of mince pies.
“Hello, you,” said Matt. “Are those for me or are you just really hungry?”
Kate screwed her face up at him.
“As it happens, Iamhungry,” said Kate. “But I will remedy this by cooking a meal with my hot dinner date.”
“Does he know you’re really bossy in the kitchen?” asked Matt.
“I’m not bossy, I am assertive,” said Kate. “And besides, I’m only like that with you because you’re so slack.”
“I preferrelaxed,” said Matt.
“Slack,” said Kate.
“My God!” said Petula from the other end of the café. “You two have been bickering like this since you could talk.”
One of the die-hards stifled a guffaw from behind his newspaper.
Simultaneously Matt and Kate pointed to each other and said:
“She started it!” “He started it!”
Matt beamed and pulled a large plate with Christmas trees paintedall around the edge from a stack above the sink. Kate helped him pile the pies onto the plate, and Matt covered them with the dome of a bell jar, ready for the next day.
Matt sang while they worked, “On the second date of Shagmas my true love gave to me, a bad case of VD.”
Kate thumped him.
“I’ll bet you spent all day thinking that up, didn’t you,” she said.
Matt grinned. “Notallday.”
“I’m impressed that you think I’ll take twelve lovers between now and Christmas.”
“Well, you don’t have to sleep withallof them.”
“I don’thaveto sleep withanyof them,” said Kate. “But I might want to.”
“Kate,” said Matt. “Some of the men who sign up for these kinds of things aren’t very nice.”
