Page 114 of Kiss Me at Christmas
Harriet pulled back the curtain to find Ava and Josef, one holding a plate of little pastry parcels giving off a deliciously spicy aroma, and the other with a stack of napkins.
“Hello.” Ava smiled. “We wondered if Ms. Winter would like to try a samosa?”
“Come on through, you can ask her yourself.” Harriet beckoned them in, hoping Evaline would be civil.
“Ms. Winter, it’s lovely to meet you,” said Josef. He gestured to Ava, who held out the plate of samosas. “A few of us like to get baking in the kitchen, especially when it’s so busy.”
“It feels good to have people to cook for,” Ava added in halting English.
Evaline eyed the morsels and then chose the fattest triangle on the plate. Ava beamed, and Josef handed Evaline a napkin.
“Our elves are just waiting for the knafeh to finish baking.” Josef grinned.
“And Grace and Sid are making ‘melting moments’ if Sid can stop eating the biscuit dough.” Ava chuckled.
“Good luck with that,” said Harriet.
“I understand you do this often?” Evaline asked, taking a bite of samosa. Her eyes glinted and she sighed with pleasure.
“When we can,” Ava replied.
“Last week, Ricco made us his grandma’s famous cannoli and Odette taught us how to make vegetable curry patties,” said Josef.
“Oh my god, they were so good!” said Harriet.
“We’ve started a recipe board,” said Josef. “People write the things they’d like to make, and the ingredients needed, and everyone chips in with cash or donates ingredients. Spread between us, it costs less than a takeaway coffee each per week.”
“We are very grateful to you.” Ava smiled at Harriet and Evaline.
“Indeed, we are,” said Josef. “Right, we’d best be off, we need to feed the workers before they begin to revolt.”
Ava and Josef excused themselves, and Austin swiped two more samosas off the plate as he held the curtain aside for them to leave.
“You seem to have incited quite a cooperative, Ms. Smith,” Evaline said, dabbing at the corners of her mouth with the napkin. She had evidently enjoyed her samosa.
“Not really. I simply offered them a space in which to meet. They’ve done the rest.”
“Hmmm. Austin!” She snapped her fingers and her chauffeur jumped to attention, swallowing the last mouthful of samosa he’d been savoring and crossing immediately to Evaline, where he stood motionless, arm out so that she could pull herself up using him as a human handrail. “No Mr. Knight today, I see.”
“He had some personal business to attend to.”
“Did he?” Gripping tightly onto Austin, she took shuffling steps out of the royal box, with Harriet following behind. It was hard to tell while she was holding court—her snippy remarks and supercilious air made her a formidable force—but watching her now, Harriet could see how her fur coat hung from her thin shoulders, her spine bent and crooked as a windblown tree, and her legs were spindly twigs with her tights wrinkled at her ankles. Evaline Winter was not a well woman.
The stage was cleared of debris, and the water had been pumped out of the orchestra pit. It was unfortunate that the nice new varnish on the fresh floorboards of the stage had turned a ghostly gray, but the carpenters had assured them that as it dried out properly the patina would fade. The main thing was that they had a working stage again, almost. The new curtains had soaked up a good deal of the floodwater and now Harriet joined her fellow cleaner-uppers in twisting the huge drapes as tightly as they would go to squeeze out the excess water. As Ken had quite rightly said, “The dehumidifiers will do their job, but they’re not miracle workers.” And so here they were, essentially milking three massive sets of stage curtains into rows and rows of buckets. Her hands were cold to the point of pain, every fingertip pale and pruned; she wished she’d taken Mateo’s offer of rubber gloves.
Gideon—in yellow mackintosh and galoshes—had taken on the role of cheerleader and morale booster, which also meant he didn’t have to get his hands dirty.
“That’s it, you’ve got this, guys! I think that one can stand another twist. Harry, that’s the way. Isabel, darling, don’t pat at it, get your arms around it and squeeze!”
“I’m gonna twist and squeezehimif he keeps this up,” Billy growled.
“I’ll hold him still,” said Grace; her expression suggested she was only half joking.
Sid and some of the other children were running back and forth from the toilet block emptying the buckets and delivering them back to catch more water. Harriet twirled one of the cross-stage curtains with Mallory, twisting the fabric round and round and trying to ignore the freezing dribbles that ran up her forearms to her elbows, soaking into the pulled-up sleeves of both her cardigans. Her back was to the auditorium when she heard Carly call out, “Oi, James! Nice of you to show, finally!”
Harriet froze momentarily, then continued to twist the curtain, refusing to turn around. Mallory glanced at her but she pretended not to notice. Anger and embarrassment were doing the tango in her stomach, and now inexplicably she felt tears pricking at her eyes.Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.
“You’ve missed all the fun!” Gideon called, which earned him some groans.
