Page 15 of The Twelve Dates of Christmas
She watched them amble along together, zigzagging in that way you do when you walk with your arms around each other after a couple of glasses of wine. The finest of snowflakes began to flurry down as if just for them, and they held their gloved hands out to catch them. Sarah rested her head on Matt’s shoulder and he kissed the top of her head, and Kate’s chest ached for a love like theirs.
THE THIRD DATE OF CHRISTMAS
•••••
Ice Skating and Perfect Misses
The next couple of days were a flurry of activity, and Kate was happy to be immersed in things that kept her mind from wandering to matters of the heart, though as a single woman in her thirties, she brought out the matchmaker in every coupled person she knew.
The morning after her date with Michael, Kate caught the early train to London, with her portfolio and an overnight bag. It was her office Christmas meal that evening and she was going to crash at her friend Josie’s place in the city.
When Kate arrived at her desk, having fought her way through the thronging Liberty hallways, she found a brown paper package waiting for her. She tore it open and pulled out the first of her spring samples.
It was a heavy jacquard material. Kate’s daffodils and hyacinths were woven into the fabric, giving it a raised texture that felt both luxurious and sturdy. The egg-yolk yellows and bright blues studded with peridot-green leaves sang spring, when all around the office shrieked deep midwinter.
Finding her designs printed on a fabric, out of which like-minded strangers would create clothes or soft furnishings, never ceased to thrill Kate; it was like being part of a special club.
A part of her felt it was too good to be true, as if at any moment her colleagues would discover she was a fraud; after all, what did she really do? Paint flowers and draw patterns; nature came up with the goods and she shamelessly plagiarized it with her brushes and pens.
“You coming out tonight, Kate?” asked Mel, breaking Kate’s reverie.
Mel was a genius with pattern and color; where Kate’s designs were dainty and ditzy, Mel’s were bold with a fluidity that danced out of the canvas.
“Yes,” said Kate. “I’ll be there.”
“So will Pete,” said Mel. She winked and her face cracked into a wide-toothed smile.
Kate slapped her forehead.
“I’d forgotten about Pete,” she said.
Kate had indulged in some festive snogging with Pete from accounting at last year’s Christmas do. Nothing had ever come of it, it was just one of thoseparty things, but she’d had a hard time living it down.
“He’s still single,” sang Mel.
Mel was neither the first nor the last person to mention Pete to Kate that day. And it was while hiding from Pete that evening that Kate found herself sat on the drafty back stairs of a karaoke club, talking to Laura on the phone.
“So he cried all the way through dinner?” Laura shrieked with laughter.
“All the way through,” said Kate.
“Dammit,” said Laura. “I had high hopes for him.”
“He was lovely,” said Kate. “But his heart was well and truly taken.”
“Was the dinner good at least?”
“I don’t know!” said Kate. “I couldn’t exactly chow down while Michael was in such a state; it seemed disrespectful of his angst. I was starving by the time I got home. I hoovered up half a loaf of cheese on toast in bed.”
“Romantic, though.” Laura sighed. “A man in touch with his emotions. Ben only cries at the football. Oh, and when Arnie dies inTerminator 2.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever induced a man to cry over the loss of me,” said Kate.
“How would you know?” said Laura. “You might have left a string of weeping men behind you.”
Kate shivered. The draft in the stairwell was becoming an icy breeze.
“I’ve got to go,” she said. “My body’s going stiff.”
