Page 102 of Kiss Me at Christmas
Sid nodded, trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes, and shivered.
“If that’s all right,” said Billy.
“Of course it’s all right. Do you think I would have offered were it not?” She smiled. “You looked after me when I needed it. Now it’s my turn.”
“That’s very kind of you, Grace, so long as you’re sure. I don’t mind having them to stay with me tonight either,” said Harriet.
“Or they could stay at mine,” offered James. “I’ve got space.”
“No, that makes no sense,” she snapped. “I’ve got two spare bedrooms and Billy’s stayed before, he knows his way around the place, particularly the fridge. No, it’s the only sensible solution, the boys are coming home with me.”
The dawn chorus had already begun by the time James pulled up outside Harriet’s building, though the sun wouldn’t rise for another couple of hours yet.
“You could call in sick,” James suggested. “I’m sure Ali could hold the fort for one day. I’m certainly taking the morning off.”
She yawned and rubbed her eyes. She felt as though she could sleep for a week.
“No, I need to see Cornell. I’ve made a decision.”
“Oh?”
“I’m going to ask to take some leave.”
“That’s a bold move. I mean, I agree with it wholeheartedly, but are you sure? You are a person who likes to be in control.”
“But I’m not in control. I dropped the ball once with catastrophic results, and tonight history almost repeated itself.”
“Harriet, you have got to stop taking responsibility for other people’s actions—
“No.” She put a hand up to stop him. “I know that.Now, I know that. In my head I’ve always thought that if I take charge of it—doesn’t matter what ‘it’ is—at least Iknow it’ll get done. But all that ends up happening is that I’m doing so many things that I miss the very signs that I took charge to make sure didn’t get missed in the first place.”
“You’re being very hard on yourself.”
“No, I’m being kind to myself by accepting that I’m not She-Ra, and it’s taken me a while to get here. You were right, I did love teaching and I gave it up because I thought I could stop more kids from falling through the cracks if I was in pastoral care. But since being at the theater…I don’t know, I guess I feel like I’m making more of a difference, or at least a different difference? I think maybe I’m drunk with tiredness.” She rubbed her face and was pleased that James didn’t try to fill the silence. “If I can make Evaline see how vital a community space is to the people in this town, I know it could help so many people. It could giveallthe kids on the list, and even those not on the list, a safe place where they could meet other people and learn new skills and…” She threw her hands in the air. “I don’t even know. I literally don’t know. And I won’t know if I don’t give myself the chance to find out. All I do know is that by trying to straddle my job at the school and my role at the theater I’m doing them both a disservice. Ali’s always telling me about his PhD; well, I’m going to give him the chance to put his money where his mouth is.”
She looked at James, giving him the go-ahead to respond at last.
“I think taking some time off is a sound idea,” he said carefully. “And it sounds like you don’t have a plan at all.”
She laughed. “Absolutely none. Isn’t that brilliant? My only plan is to work out what the hell my plan is.”
Twenty-seven
Sebastian Cornell’s face was amixture of outrage and fear as he sat behind his vast desk on Tuesday morning, eyeing Harriet with what could only be described as contempt. For her part, she’d let herself sleep for an hour when she’d got home, and then set about making sure she’d dealt with everything in her inbox and drawn up a detailed plan of action to see Ali through the next week—not that he’d need it. At seven a.m., she’d called him and briefed him on the situation. When she momentarily lost her confidence in her plan-not-plan, Ali asked, “Have I ever told you about my PhD?”
She’d laughed. “You may have mentioned it two or three hundred times.”
“Then for the love of god, Harriet, I beg you to let me make use of it. I know what I’m doing. The whole team does. Give us our time to shine.”
By eight forty-five, she had briefed the rest of the team in her office and handed over what amounted to a “how-to” guide that they could refer to should they need it and assured them that she was available for answering questions at any time. At this, Susan had asked, “Doesn’t you being available to solve our problems twenty-four-seven defeat the purpose of you taking time off?”
Harriet scratched her head. “You make a good point. That is something for me to work on.”
And so, by nine fifteen, having just consumed her third coffee, she was sat opposite Cornell, feeling very much like she’d been up all night, which of course she had.
“How muchleave?” he asked. The disgust in his voice was so thick one would think she had asked him if she could do a wee in his wastepaper basket. “Effective from when?”
“Effective from now, up until the Christmas holidays begin. Term ends on Friday anyway, so technically I’m only asking for less than a week to begin with.”
