It Started With A Christmas Tree - A Lizzie Fuller Christmas Novella (2 page)

“No it’s not. It’ll fit,” I smiled
optimistically.

“Lizzie, I’m six foot three and that’s
almost half my height again. You’ll never fit it through the door. Sorry, but
you’ll have to pick another one.”

I sighed and followed Jerry a bit further
down the row. Finally we stopped next to one only just taller than Riley and
seemed to have a nice fat belly.

Riley walked around and inspected it. He
nodded his head. “It’s a nice tree. It’s not too tall and has full branches. Perfect,”
he smiled.

“I love it!” I said, excitedly. I looked
at Jerry.

“Now we do deliver if you need us too,” he
explained.

“No that’s fine, thanks. I’ll load it on
to the back of my truck,” said Riley.

“Okay then. Just drive it up this path and
I’ll give you a hand.”

“I can pay for it while Riley’s doing that
it, if you like,” I said, looking at Jerry and wanting something else to do
other than standing there staring at each other. Since Riley had walked away,
the air seemed filled with an awkward silence. Jerry didn’t seem to mind too
much though. He seemed lost in the world of my cleavage. “Jerry! Do you want me
to pay for it?” I asked again, irritated. He reluctantly lifted his eyes to
look at me.

“That one is $65, thanks.”

I opened my wallet and pulled out my
credit card. “You do take Visa don’t you?”

“Sure do. Just give me a minute and I’ll
get the machine,” replied Jerry, turning away from me and walking off.

“You know what?” said a gravelly voice
from behind me. “I’ve got a better tree for you than this one.” I turned to see
an elderly gentleman with really friendly eyes and a crinkly smile. His uniform
was different to Jerry’s but his name badge told me his name was Earl. I like
him already.

“Oh, thank you but this one is lovely,” I
smiled.

“Nope. You seem like a lovely young lady
and you deserve a lovely tree.”

“Well, thank you, but really…this one is
fine,” I insisted.

“It’s just up the back here. I promise you,
you won’t be disappointed.” Earl seemed pretty intent on getting me a better
tree and as I watched him limp away, I just felt plain rude.

“Well, are you coming?” he yelled,
sticking his head back through a gap in the pines.

“Oh sorry.” I quickly moved to follow him
and after a few minutes of walking between rows and rows of pines, I felt a bit
panicky. From where we were now, I couldn’t even hear the people who’d been
milling around, chatting amongst each other. I knew Riley had no chance of
finding me.

I really hoped Earl hadn’t decided to murder
me back here. For all I knew, he could do this all the time, luring stupid
women into a more private area and then doing god knows what to them.

Okay, after my run in with bald-headed
sedan man earlier this year, my imagination tended to get a bit carried away on
the fear front. I reached into my bag and pulled out my phone, cradling it like
a lifeline and wondering how the hell I got myself into these situations.

Lost in my memories, I almost ran into the
back of Earl as he abruptly came to a stop.

“Now this here looks like it belongs to
you,” he said. I took a step backwards and looked at the tree he was staring at,
and admitted it was perfect. It looked like it belonged in the pages of Home
Beautiful.

“That really
is
a lovely tree.” I smiled. “But why is it all the way back here. There’s
not even another tree around us.” We appeared to have stopped behind a farm
building large enough to hold several tractors.

“This is where we keep the special trees,”
smiled Earl, his false teeth shiny in the afternoon sun. “The public don’t generally
come back here, but you seem special and a special person should have a special
tree,” he said, once again giving me a kind smile.

“Oh well, thank you,” I replied. “I’ll
call Riley and tell him to bring the truck up here then shall I?”

“No need. I’ve got a trailer I can take it
back on.” With this, Earl limped away towards the front of the shed.

I looked at my phone, ready to dial Riley
and tell him what was happening, when I noticed I had no signal up here. I
sighed, thinking how annoyed he was going to be by the time we got back.

Oh well, I’ll just have to ‘pay for that
one’ later this afternoon. Hearing the sound of a motor, I turned and saw Earl
zooming towards me on what looked like a miniature tractor complete with
trailer. For a man of his age, he moved with ease as he pulled the tractor to a
stop and rolled the tree over and on to the trailer.

“Hop on,” he smiled, indicating to the
tractor seat, as he climbed back into it. Now, I’m no expert on farm machinery,
but I know enough to know that it only had one seat. Earl patted his knee. “Come
on. I haven’t got all day and you’ll need to be getting this into water as
quickly as possible.”

“Umm...you know what? I think I can find
my way back so how about I meet you there?” I said, hoping he would drive off
and leave me to find my own way back.

“You’ll never find your way. Come on, I
don’t bite.”

I inwardly groaned and climbed up onto the
tractor, trying to find a place to sit that wasn’t Earl’s lap. I didn’t have
much luck. I finally perched my butt on the very end of his knee and held onto
the metal. I thought of the Christmas tree I had at home and how much it looked
like the better option right about now.

I will admit that, even though Earl’s
driving was pretty slow, the tractor got us back to Riley a lot faster than my
feet would have and that in itself was a blessing.

Hopping down from Earl’s knee, I smiled as
Riley’s truck drove came into view.

I turned, ready thank Earl for his help,
but he was gone.

Chapter Two

By the time we’d finished
getting the tree inside, Riley sat back and flicked the television on. I stood
back and looked at the tree, and I will say, it was a beautiful tree. The
branches were thick and full, and smelt of Christmas. In my lounge it stood
about seven feet tall so, by the time the angel was on top, it would be a
perfect height.

“Aren’t you going to help?” I asked Riley.

“Sure. Just sing out when you need me,” he
smiled.

Humph.

I filled the base with water and pulled
over my decorations. Now first thing to go on the tree, as we all know, is the
lights.

Opening the box, I lifted the string of
fairy lights— two hundred and forty of them to be precise, all on one
continuous cord. Now, I should confess I’m not very good with cords. I always
manage to get them into a big, knotted mess. In fact, Riley has almost banned
me from putting the vacuum cleaner away for this very reason. But he seemed
preoccupied with the telecast of a local cricket game, so I soldiered on alone.
It didn’t take me long before I ended up tangled in amongst the lights,
frustrated because they kept catching on each other. Seriously, next year, I’m
going with a plastic tree with in built lights. Bugger this new tradition we’d
started.

I looked at Riley sitting on the couch,
beer in hand. I think it was time to tell him I needed him. Thankfully, he
didn’t tease me too much and he did manage to unravel me from my binds. And
then, with the promise of later payment, he even helped me to get them around
the tree. Don’t ask me how he managed to get all twenty-four metres in place
without once getting into a knot. It must be a man thing.

I opened my box of glass baubles,
unwrapped them from the protective paper and found them the perfect spot.

Walking to the other side of the tree, I
stopped when I saw a shimmer coming from inside the branches. I can only think
I hadn’t noticed earlier because I was so annoyed with the lights. I carefully
moved them aside to get a closer look—real trees were a lot more prickly
than fake ones—put in my hand and pulled out an ornament. It was round, about
the size of a tennis ball and made of glass with lots of random etchings. It
was actually quite beautiful. I held it up and noticed the colours dance around
the room as it refracted the light.

“Wow,” I whispered.

“What’s that?” asked Riley as the colour
danced across the television screen, distracting him.

“I found it in the tree,” I replied,
looking from the decoration in my hand to the tree and wondering how it got
there. “Do you think they maybe decorated it on the farm?”

I watched as Riley’s eyebrows moved closer
to his hairline. “Maybe. I’ve never heard of that before, but who knows. I
guess anything’s possible.”

“Maybe it’s a gift. You know, buy a tree and
get a decoration.”

Riley nodded. “Sounds reasonable.”

“Well, it’ll make a good addition to my
collection,” I smiled, hanging the glass ball on one of the outer branches.

Riley stood and walked closer to me. Looking
into my box of decorations, he said, “I don’t like to be the bearer of bad news
but there is no way you have enough decorations to cover this tree.”

He was right. My previous tree was only a
metre tall and my collection of glass ornaments and tinsel were plenty to fill
it, but this tree was quite a bit larger.

“Yeah. I know. I’m going to have to go
into town and get some new ones,” I mused. My musings however, were interrupted
by my phone ringing.

I picked it up and looked at the caller
display. Swiping it to answer, I said, “Hey Molly.”

Molly is my older sister. She’s a bit
taller than me, a bit smarter than me and has a hell of a lot more cleavage
than me.

“Lizzie, what are you up to?” she asked,
getting straight to the point.

“Decorating my new Christmas tree. Why?”

“Do you want to come into the city with me
tomorrow? I’ve got to do some Christmas shopping and thought it would be fun if
we went together.”

“Oh, that would be awesome. I have to buy
some new decorations anyway, so we could make a day of it. I haven’t even started
looking for presents yet.” I smiled, excitedly. Shopping with Molly could, at
times, be quite stressful, but Christmas shopping with her was always fun.

“Great. I’ll pick you up just before eight.”
With that, she hung up.

*****

I knew, shopping with Molly, I
would have to dress slightly better than normal, and I would also have to be
prepared to walk a lot. Riley was still officially living at his house and I
was still officially living at mine but we slept in whoever’s house was convenient
at the time. The down side to this was that half my wardrobe was at his place. Not
a problem I hear you say. Yes well, I’m not like a lot of other women. My
wardrobe is actually quite limited, unless of course I’m looking for jeans and
t-shirts—in which case I have lots of choices. Looking through my newly
built wardrobe though, I did manage to find a dress. It was blue, had a fitted
bodice with a nice scooped neckline, a flowy skirt, sat about two inches above
my knee and was a throw out of Molly’s. Apparently blue isn’t the
in
colour this year, who knew?

I did compromise and wear my flat sandals.
I knew
 
I’d be lucky if Molly
allowed me a ten-minute lunch break.

Hearing the toot of her car horn, I ran
down the stairs, gave Riley a kiss and made my way to Molly’s car. I’m a little
bit jealous of Molly’s new car. It’s a black, sparkling Lexus SUV. Well, it’s
not actually new. It’s just new to her, but it is immaculate. It seemed that
photography was doing well for her.

“Hi Moll,” I said, opening the door and
sliding onto her perfect leather seats.

“Hi, Lizzie. You look nice,” she smiled.

“Thanks. It’s one of your cast offs.”

“Yeah, I know. I was very upset when I
found out blue was last year’s colour.”

“What does it matter anyway? You could still
have worn it.”

She answered me with a glare and shook her
head, disgusted that I just didn’t get it.

“I have to call into Mum’s first,” she
said, reversing out of my drive and heading in the direction of Mum’s.

“Oh really. How come?”

“I have to pick something up.”

I shrugged. “Okay. Do you know what you’re
buying them for Christmas yet?” I asked, referring to my parents.

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about us all
putting money together and sending them away for the weekend.”

“That sounds really nice. Mum would love
that. But what about Grandma?”

Grandma had moved in with mum and dad
about a year ago after she set her oven on fire. True, it was her pension money
that went up in flames as the only thing her oven ever got used for was a safe.
Apparently robbers only check under mattresses. Mum didn’t trust her to be
alone after that, worried that next time she may lose more than some cash.

“Well, surely one of us could have her for
a weekend couldn’t we? I mean I get pretty busy over Christmas but you and
Danny could work it out.” Danny was our younger brother and thankfully he was
in a steady relationship with a man named Drew. Drew was what kept Danny
grounded.