Page 20 of The Twelve Dates of Christmas
“Oh my God!” said Laura.
Kate could hear the thud of her feet as she descended the stairs with Charley still yelling in her arms.
“I’ve got to go,” Laura shouted. “Tell me all about it tomorrow. Love you.”
The phone went dead and Kate made herself a coffee and set back to work.
It was true that she couldn’t ice skate. At all. Of the many things she was good at, balance was not one of them; roller skates, ice skates, skateboards, even hopping caused her problems, although sinceleaving primary school hopping as a requirement to life skills had admittedly waned.
•••••
Kate swigged her fresh coffee and looked over today’s sketches. She had gotten a lot more done than she’d expected. She was tempted to add a little more detail; her fingers itched to deepen the shade along the edge of the celeriac, but she resisted. If she picked up her paintbrush now, she’d be lost for another hour.
Her phone pinged as she made her way up the stairs to have a shower. Her dad had sent her a photograph of a vegetable soup he’d made. She’d never imagined he’d become so good at being by himself, or so adept in the kitchen. How different things were now.
Four years,she thought as she lathered shampoo into her hair. In the last four years Laura had had two children and Kate had made senior designer. She had also rekindled a friendship she had thought was lost forever.
Kate had only been back in Blexford three months when one of the Knitting Sex Kittens was diagnosed with breast cancer—thankfully she recovered, but it rocked the Kittens. The Knitting Sex Kittens were a formidable group of women, all over age sixty and all single, by either design, divorce, or death.
They were on every committee in the village; in fact, they had started every committee in the village. When they weren’t knitting, they were organizing, and when they weren’t organizing, they were planning. There wasnothingthese women did not know about Blexford’s goings-on.Nothing!They were like sleeper cells for MI6, planted surreptitiously all over the village, gathering intel from behind patchwork quilts and chunky-knit cardigans.
When Bella was diagnosed, the Kittens became a tour de force intheir bid to raise money for cancer research charities. It was how they coped with the prospect of losing one of their own and how they kept Bella positive during her treatment.
There were six charity events arranged for six consecutive Saturdays. Kate declined their invitation to be Miss September in the Blexford naked calendar and also to model their knitted lingerie line for the catwalk show, but she did agree to bake for the bake sale.
Her caramel brownies became the talk of the marquee. Kate and Matt had still only shared the most meager niceties, when Matt, having no idea that Kate had made the brownies, declared that hemusthave them in the Pear Tree.
Kate had guffawed loudly when she’d heard.
“As if I’d sell my brownies to him,” she said to Laura.
“It might be a good ice breaker,” said Laura.
“I’ve done all right with the iceberg between us thus far,” said Kate.
“But don’t you think it would be nice to make your peace with him?” asked Laura. “It must be stressful having to worry about bumping into him every time you leave the house.”
Kate frowned at her friend in the way she did when Laura was talking sense and Kate didn’t want to hear it.
“At least think about it,” said Laura. “We’re grown-ups now, real ones. Give him a chance. I can vouch for him, he’s been a good friend to me. And it would be nice if we could all be mates again, like the old days.”
Kate had promised to consider it. Laura was a good judge of character and if she’d forgiven Matt his misdemeanors, then perhaps he really had grown up. And in a village as small as Blexford, sooner or later the impasse between them would have to be addressed.
As it turned out, it was sooner. As part of Mac’s rehabilitation after his breakdown, Matt would call for him on Wednesday mornings—Katestayed out in the kitchen—and take him for a coffee at the Pear Tree and a wander around the village.
On this particular morning, Mac had forgotten his key and Kate was forced to answer the door when they returned. To her annoyance, Matt seemed reluctant to leave the doorstep after he had safely deposited Mac into the house. Kate was too polite to close the door in his face, even though she enacted the scenario out in her mind and derived great pleasure from it.
Matt shifted his weight awkwardly from foot to foot as though he needed the toilet really badly. He smiled sheepishly at her and ran his hand through his hair so many times it stood on end ridiculously; he reminded Kate of a Muppet.
“Listen, Kate,” he said finally. “We’ve been skirting around each other for weeks. But here’s the deal. I was a shit back then.”
Kate took a step back. She stood tall and jutted her chin out in defiance.
“Yes,” she said. “You were.”
“I handled things really badly and I’m sorry,” Matt continued.
“You didn’t handle things at all,” said Kate.
