Page 40 of Christmas Ever After
‘Hey.’ He waits for me to meet his eyes and then holds his hand out, and when I slip mine into it, his fingers curl around mine and squeeze them emphatically. ‘You’re the most exceptional person I’ve ever met. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be injured so badly and to pull yourself back up and forge on with a totally different career. And I do know that you still struggle. Maybe you think I haven’t noticed the limp when you’ve been on your feet for too long, or the way you absent-mindedly rub your leg, so I know it still hurts from time to time, and now you’re dealing with this as well.’ He holds up his other hand, indicating my splint. ‘And I know you’re worried about recovery time, but the only thing that matters is if you’re happy with your life. Justyou. No one else. Are you happy?’
He lets go of my hand and goes back to putting tags on the branches, like he’s trying to ease the pressure of expecting an answer.
‘Yes.’ I look around the bustle of Christmas Ever After. The school choir singing from the cabin over by the tree. The sparkling tinsel and glittering lights from every shop. The feeling of community and being part of a team, even though I work alone. It’s the best place in the world to work.
‘I could have gone back to the ballet, but I didn’t want to. The company I worked for did offer me a part-time training role, but I was… kind of traumatised? The thought of going back there, watching others do what I could no longer do, and trying to instil the discipline that had taken over my life into younger girls… I couldn’t do it. I needed to do something different, and Christmas Ever After was the answer to my dreams. I love getting to do something creative for a living. I love everything about this place…’
‘…But you’ve let other people make you doubt yourself, and that’s seeped into everything you do.’ He finishes the sentence for me and I can’t dispute his answer. He’s put into words what I’ve never been able to verbalise before, and it makes me feel braver in opening up to him.
‘It’s not just that,’ I admit. ‘It’s the loneliness too. I hadn’t realised how lonely this job is until you sat at my lathe and filled the shop with Christmas music and Santa hats, and beautiful wooden snowmen, and nutcrackers that are a bit different, and made me realise how deep my rut is.’
It makes him smile and I can’t help watching the way his dark hair blows around in the breeze as he stops hanging tags and turns to look at my shop.
‘You ever thought about naming them?’
‘The nutcrackers?’ I say with a snort. ‘You think the answer to loneliness is naming nutcrackers and calling them my friends?’
He laughs. ‘Nah, not for you – for customers. You could humanise them.’
‘They’re wooden soldiers…’
‘Yeah, but they all have different personalities, different looks and interests. They’re like little wooden Christmas people.’
‘Little wooden Christmas people,’ I repeat to myself, wondering if he’s quite alright. I reach over and fit my hand against his forehead to check his temperature. ‘I think you’ve been working too hard.’
He reaches up and his fingers brush against my skin as he takes hold of my hand again and uses it to tug me back into the shop.
Inside, he lets go and walks over to one of the shelves and points out a nutcracker with furry snow boots on, holding a pair of skis. ‘That one, for example, likes going skiing and for long walks in the mountains. His name could be Aspen.’ He moves on and points out another nutcracker, this one holding a tray with two wooden cups of hot chocolate on it. ‘That one likes warm drinks. But who is the second mug for? Maybe he’s lonely and looking for a female nutcracker to share that tray of hot chocolate with? Or maybe he’s on his way to a first date with the nutcracker of his dreams and he’s nervous… He looks like a Henry, don’t you think?’
‘I’m not sure if you’re a genius orseriouslysleep-deprived…’ I can’t help grinning as he bounces between shelves, pointing out nutcrackers and their potential personalities. It’s something I have, admittedly, never thought of before, but is actually quite brilliant.
‘And this one with his sword, maybe he’s a knight, waiting for a princess to protect, and this one with his crown and sceptre… Did he once have a kingdom to rule and someone overthrew him, and now he waits and watches, yearning for the day he’ll be able to claw back his throne and return to his nutcracker queen, and… wait… speaking of princesses, queens, and nutcrackers waiting for dates, whereareall the female nutcrackers?’ Helooks around the shop again. ‘They’reallmen. Why are there no women?’
‘Because nutcrackers are traditionally male. The nutcracker prince from the original story was a handsome young man, turned into a nutcracker by a curse when he accidentally stepped on a mouse, and he needed true love to break the spell. Folklore dictates that nutcrackers are male. It’s never crossed my mind to make ones of a different gender.’
‘The one thing you’re good at is breaking tradition. There is way too much wooden testosterone in this shop. You need to get some female nutcrackers in here, fast.’
Wooden testosterone. When I woke up this morning, of all the ways I wondered how today might go, I never imagined that a conversation about wooden testosterone would come into it. But as I look around the shelves of wooden men staring back at me, I see he’s got a point. Why have I never made female nutcrackers? It wouldn’t be difficult – a little extra flourish on the chest area to represent boobs, a dress instead of a jacket, longer hair, gems for jewellery…
‘This is exactly the sort of thing social media would respond to,’ Raff encourages me. ‘You could make celebrity nutcrackers. Sets of Spice Girls nutcrackers, for example. People wouldlovethat.’
‘It’s not the nineties any more, unfortunately.’
‘I grew up with an older sister – I’m told the Spice Girls are forever, not just for the nineties. Go for whoever’s big now then. Sofia loves Taylor Swift and Beyoncé. Or Disney!’ He gets over-excited again. ‘You work on Ever After Street! Tie in with the theme! Disney princess nutcrackers. Rapunzel with her long blonde hair. Ariel with a mermaid’s tail instead of feet. Belle in a yellow ballgown and carrying a stack of books or a red rose or something. The possibilities are endless.’
‘You spend too much time watching movies with your seven-year-old niece,’ I say fondly, even though I’m laughing at his eagerness and I can feel myself fizzing with excitement too.
He stops and looks at me like he can feel my eyes on him and his cheeks go red. ‘Okay, forgive me for getting a bit carried away, but if you name each nutcracker, give them interests and life stories, and partners, customers will see them with personalities rather than just as Christmas decorations.’
‘I think the fumes from your ceramic kiln have scrambled your brain… in the best way possible,’ I say, because if there’s one thing Iloveabout Raff, it’s his boundless enthusiasm.
It motivates me too and gets me thinking. ‘If I name them, I could attach tags to all of them, couldn’t I?’
I’ve still got a few bow tags in my pocket and I hold one up, thinking over an idea I had a while ago, about encouraging customers to see nutcrackers as more than just Christmas decorations. I could never figure out a way to make it work, but Raff has made it seem feasible. ‘This photo idea doesn’t just have to be about a giveaway, does it? I could keep something similar going all the time. Every nutcracker could come with one of these…’ I spin the tag between my fingers and think up some potential wording to go on one and test it out to Raff. ‘Hi, my name is Colin and I enjoy drinking hot chocolate and roasting chestnuts on an open fire, but there’s nothing I love more than Christmas. I’m so happy you chose me to be part of your Christmas celebrations. If you want to share the nutcracker love, take a photo and tag me online at The Nutcracker Shop. I’d love my friends to see what I’m getting up to this year!’
He grins and turns over the nutcracker he’s still holding in his hands. ‘Sold. I’d buy him in a heartbeat and take photos of him in funny places. Travel with nutcrackers. Where has the nutcracker gone today? You could even do mini giveaways if people guess where they are. You know, give us a like anda follow online and correctly guess where he is. It could be somewhere local or photoshopped into the spikes on the Statue of Liberty’s crown or halfway up the Eiffel Tower…’
‘You really are a marketing genius. With scrambled brains from overworking, but still. Thanks, Raff.’ I smile at him, and the smile he gives me in return sends those butterflies somersaulting again. ‘Thank you for… unlocking whatever it was in me that needed unlocking. It’s been so long since I was excited about nutcrackers, and now I can’twaitto get this splint off so I can jump back into this shop headfirst, and…’ I stop myself as that familiar realisation dampens down my excitement. All of this might be for nothing. This time next month, I might not have a shop. And if I do… he won’t.
